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The title of the Drudge Report frontpage is now "Drudge Report 2009®."
Anyway, Drudge has directed me to the Denver Post, where I've learned that at least 30 newspapers are looking to sell.Across the United States, more than 30 daily newspapers are for sale, and buyers are scarce.
From Los Angeles to New York, leading newspapers have slashed newsrooms with buyout offers, and when those failed to reach budget-cutting goals, with layoffs.
The newspaper industry has been caught in a tailspin for three years, a trend variously blamed on plummeting ad revenues, declining readership, growing competition from the Internet and a deepening national recession.
So it appears as though some cities will simply be without a daily newspaper as soon as next year. Bad news, certainly, but the newspaper industry is not alone. Economic times are rough all around, and the rapid cultural shift in technology use has left many industries playing catch-up. Journalists will benefit from their predisposition to being aware of the latest news and trends and innovation will hopefully follow.
A smaller journalism industry is a bad thing for democracy. If online journalism isn't the profession's salvation, a government-funded media akin to the BBC may not be an impossibility in the U.S.
According to Wikipedia, The Huffington Post is based out of New York. Why, then, does it have a dedicated page for Chicago news? Being from Chicago, I'd assumed that I had at some point told the site where I was from and it then was targeting me with local stuff. This appears to not be the case - does anyone know if that Chicago page was around before Obama's primary win? - though I think it's a good idea. Considering their fairly dynamic layout and how often they create new Big News pages, I would assume it's relatively painless to create a page that would display all the news that is marked as concerning a certain region.
I don't benefit a ton from the Chicago page - it's mostly national news, anyway, what with President-elect Obama making the city Washington West - but if the site could detect your IP address and automatically deliver you a page with all the stories tagged with the nearest major city, I would think a lot of people would find that helpful.
In yet another example of how The Huffington Post has outpaced The Drudge Report in its implementation of new Web technology, I just now noticed that The Post offers their very own version of the Firefox browser. While Drudge's site still has its quaint appeal, The Post can now pipe their content directly to users even if they're on an entirely different site. It's not much more than a reskin of the traditional Firefox browser with the addition of a news ticker and section shortcuts, but every little bit helps when trying to keep users coming back.
Web 2.0 features are springing up everywhere - even the minimalist Google has now added some wiki functionality to its search results pages. Drudge, it appears, doesn't care to keep up - perhaps his niche is just being someone to take your tips or leaks to.
Though not explicitly awarded for online coverage, the New Orleans Times-Picayune received a Pulitzer in 2006 for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Of course, following the storm, the paper was only publishing online for days at a time, so the Pulitzer was in many ways a legitimization of the practice. The Times-Picayune site NOLA.com also became a hub for displaced residents looking to connect with loved ones or discuss the disaster. The citizen journalism that sprung up there, while maybe unique only for the scale of its subject, was also heralded for its value.
The effectiveness with which the paper covered the natural disaster on the Internet is just one example of how online journalism can respond to similar catastrophes with unparalleled success. Blogs break news all the time, but never are they more ahead of the curve (nor is Twitter) than when a natural disaster strikes. Following a recent minor earthquake in California, people had texted messages about feeling the tremors while they were still occurring. That speed simply can't be matched by other delivery methods, and in such a situation just a few minutes of advance notice can be profoundly valuable to citizens.
To continue painting a bleak picture of the future of online journalism, people on the Internet won't differentiate between sources when they go to share a story - with perhaps the exception of taking card to avoid Fox News whenever possible. These users will distribute the link for CBS 6 in Appleton just as soon as they will one from CNN.com since the hard facts of the story are probably the same anyway. Chances are, only one publication's take on any given news event is going to achieve popularity on Digg.
There are two ways to avoid this near-inevitability: Either be the New York Times and have the image of being the national paper of record, or foster a community that appeals to these users. Of course, I've already ranted about the problems in attempting to attract a loyal community to a news site. So since any given article, in many cases, exists in a vacuum, how can media companies more effectively brand? Does loyalty online only apply to communities like forums and social bookmarking sites? Is attracting a devoted Web audience the only way for journalism sites to increase their consistent return traffic?
So ad revenue on the Internet is, as far as I can tell, so rare it's nearly mythical in nature. Therefore, while newspapers and media companies look to move online and primarily publish there, the issue of profitability still looms large. One major reason sites won't get the traffic and therefore the money they desire is because there is little brand loyalty on the Internet - not when it comes to your standard hard news, at least. Sure, casual Webgoers are probably more apt to type in the URL of their hometown paper, but the money-making demographic has no such inclination. That demographic - which I lovingly refer to as "people on the Internet (as opposed to people who just use the Internet) - comprises the users who perpetuate and propel the entity that is the World Wide Web. This group is key because, while it isn't large, it is vocal and active, and it prioritizes receiving and sharing information quickly and is, as a result, taste-making and agenda-setting in the community at large.
Unfortunately for companies looking to profit off this group, it also consists of the individuals that pirate movies and music, lobby for net neutrality and believe information should be free. Like me, they probably have Adblock installed and thus won't even be aware when an ad is served up.
To build off my last post, Internet users segmenting themselves based on partisan affiliation or the like is simply symptomatic of the Internet's construction. Groupthink is king, as evidenced by every forum and discussion board in existence. Socially unacceptable behavior finds safe haven in the darkest corners of the Web, breeding even more deviancy (and probably persecution complexes). As the old adage goes, the Internet makes you stupid. For online journalism outlets, unless you've miraculously cultivated a community that attracts people interested in objective, complete reporting and civil debate, your audience will slowly but surely skew toward one segment of society. The question is, is that okay?
So long as a newspaper's content remains unaffected, does it matter that a site's visitors are somewhat homogeneous? This has already been an issue in journalism, as newspaper usually service a distinct geographic area, but is it counterintuitive to similarly limit your audience online?
Growing in popularity online are social bookmarking and news aggregating sites. Nearly every notable news site now has buttons on every page to "Digg This!" or "Share This on Facebook" or something similar. While a handful of these sites are purely social endeavors, businesses like Digg and Reddit purport to have some sort of journalistic benefit. No, they aren't generating original content, but they are disseminating information to the masses. More importantly, they illustrate a significant problem with online journalism: the overwhelming amount of choice facing the user. This becomes a problem when users begin to exclusively visit sites that attract an audience they identify with, which they are liable to do considering the polarized and vitriolic political environment we've enjoyed the last few years.
Soon, John Q. Internet forgoes visiting MSNBC.com because he'd rather visit Digg and only see stories that interest and agree with him. Forget objectivity and transparency, people would rather read a story biased in their favor and discuss it with like-minded people than engage in yet another fruitless Internet argument. While we've previously survived eras of American journalism during which publications were blatantly partisan, the Internet ironically enables people to be simultaneously less informed and more certain of their beliefs than ever before.
One of The Huffington Post's staffers apparently got caught in a bit of a sour mood today, as they've abandoned any sort of semblance of impartiality or journalistic etiquette in this post. Whether the subject is silly or not, The Post's implied if not stated bias has never been as evident in a non-opinion piece. In addition to the following gem of an opening paragraph, the author later critiques an excerpted quote with some profane language.Yesterday, we mentioned how insane lawsuits about Barack Obama's natural live birth were creeping like cracked-out, pissed-off kudzu through our court system. One of them is headed to the Supreme Court today. We used words like "clown car," and "macadamia nuts" to discuss the matter, because we wanted to conjure up the appropriate metaphor to describe the ongoing craziness. But hey! We wouldn't want any of our readers to think that Serious Newsmen weren't taking this matter Deadly Seriously.
Comparatively, "clown car" and "macadamia nuts" were tame. While these articles are obviously written in a personal matter, there isn't any mugshot or bio that usually indicates that the page is a blog post.
There's a social network for every form of media. Musicians and listeners can swap favorite songs and socialize on Last.fm, Pandora, thesixtyone and many others - even MySpace is trying to recast itself as both a social networking site and an online music outlet. Film aficionados can rant about flicks on Flixster or Criticker, bookworms can wax poetic on literature on GoodReads or ANobii, and photogs can browse and publish on Flickr or Fotolog. Oh, there's more.
Newspapers and similar media outlets obviously want to foster a network of community of their own - they attract loyal users and can help generate content. The appeal of these other networks is that they are one-stop shops, though, so one for papers would probably need to deliver content from a wealth of publications. Part of the appeal of such social networks is brand identification and the concept that people express themselves by publishing their consumer loyalties. Flixster visitors segment and differentiate themselves by which movies they identify with the most. The closest thing the news media has might be on Facebook, where users can become a "fan" of any given brand, including ones like the New York Times. Obviously this wouldn't be feasible on a site produced by a single paper.
Is there a market for such a network? Profitability would be - big surprise! - an issue, but if nothing else it could stimulate readership a tad and it could certainly assist in strengthening the bonds between a paper and its readers.
My new favorite Twitterer (Tweeter?) is none other than Big Aristotle himself, Shaquille O'Neal. The famed NBA center has taken to updating his followers regularly with nuggets of wisdom, insights on league life and information on his latest charitable pursuits. While the cynics among us would frame this as a public relations move, the charismatic star of Kazaam is rarely lacking in publicity. More likely, Shaq just enjoys the interaction and sharing his favorite original quotes.
Like Shaq, the endlessly talkative Kanye West also has a Twitter account. While his is updated less often, the use of the social network by such well-known celebrities must be indicative of something, right? Before long, the site, which in my experience is mostly heralded by social media experts and media practitioners, might be frequented by more diverse users.
Yesterday, Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York, published his first piece on the online Web magazine Slate. While The Huffington Post has a number of celebrity bloggers and there are all sorts of pundits that offer their opinions on the Web sites of their employers, Slate's choice to provide Spitzer with a soapbox is significantly more interesting. His mini-biography on the page is amusingly succinct: "Eliot Spitzer is the former governor of the state of New York."
Slate, naturally, has a comments forum. While a few of the threads that have popped up have been supportive of Spitzer, Slate or the piece's message, another segment is, as one poster puts it, "grossly disappointed" in the Web mag. In the American political tradition, of course, a person's personal life is often just as important as his political views, so it's no surprise that Spitzer has caused a slight controversy. Slate obviously benefits from the partnership, as not only do they have more content and another political heavyweight on the payroll, they also likely received a bump in traffic as a result of the controversy. Spitzer, though, certainly could've faded into obscurity had he so chosen, or he could have published his thoughts anonymously if he'd really wanted to get his message out there, so his participation is probably equal parts punditry and political rehab.
Web magazine Salon has taken an interesting approach to turning a profit in the online world. Not, apparently, content with serving up ads, the publication offers users a chance to pay a monthly fee and "support independent journalism." It's somewhat evocative of the pledge drives PBS and NPR run, and the site is still up so it apparently has worked to some extent. Like the tote bags you might get for sending PBS money, Salon also offers bonuses for people that join Salon Premium. For one, subscribers can participate in the official Salon forum and they also get to browse the site sans ads. Other bonuses include discounts to online retailers and the like, and the pricier memberships include "free" books and DVDs.
Of course, as I've written previously, I already browse Salon without ads. What, then, is my motivation? I'm certainly a supporter of independent journalism, but aren't there enough bloggers out there doing independent Web reporting without me paying them a monthly fee? The argument is likely that Salon's salaried staff makes them more credible than your run-of-the-mill blogger, but people are used to things on the Internet being free. It will be interesting to see how far this business model takes them.
Somewhere along the way, CNN.com seems to have become the de facto quickstop for news. Why this is the case is beyond me, but - through the strength of their branding or something else - I've observed my peers visiting their site more often than not when looking for updates on breaking news. It might simply be the fact that CNN.com is about the shortest URL you can type. Regardless, those users are fortunate that CNN has done a solid job of developing a clear, streamlined frontpage. When one visits the site, it's apparent what stories are important - though the Other Links table on the right is about three links too long - and the short page means it's never a hassle to do a methodical scan down the site every so often.
CNN may not be able to present as much content to visitors as sites with busier frontpages can, but because their site can be processed fairly quickly they likely benefit from being the go-to site for fast news updates.
The New York Times is basically required reading, but I've long had issues with their Web site. The presentation isn't outrageously ineffective, but I really find it challenging to find something I'm compelled to click on in the giant table of links that makes up the lower half of their frontpage. Even the stories they've pulled and featured above the fold, so to speak, require me to read a whole summary before I really know if the article interests me or not. Often I'll scan down the page and my eyes will glaze over at the sight of all those Long Unnecessarrily Capitalized Headlines That Occasionally Don't Even Indicate What The Story Is About.
As a result, I'll visit the site and will check out the lead story and probably look at the stories they have pictures for and then I'll struggle to maintain interest. The popular links section helps, but there's got to be a better way.
At the end of every Sun-Times column, there is a section for related blog posts. While I appreciate the effort to alert me to other stories I may find interesting, their system for doing so is not that helpful. For one, often you can tell from the headline alone that the related blog is really just the exact same story located elsewhere and, as I've said before, there's enough white noise on the Internet that I'm not going to willingly subject myself to some anonymous blogger's opining.
The other issue that arises is when the headline indicates absolutely nothing about the supposedly related blog post. I've yet to see a blog of questionable legitimacy be linked, but that might just be because I've been skipping over all the headlines that don't immediately inform me as to what the post is about. That's one more good argument for writing pertinent headlines.
Below is the audio slideshow I created for my online journalism class. The photographs are mine and the narration is taken from interviews I conducted. The backing music is from previous live recordings made of both bands.
A higher quality version of the video is available by clicking the title of this post.
The musical topic most interesting to Lutheran composer John Ylvisaker is the reuse of traditional tunes. He notes that there is a strong tradition for tune-borrowing in Lutheranism, as Martin Luther was “real good at it.”
Ylvisaker, a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church, Waverly, Iowa, leads workshops and has written articles on the practice of borrowing melodies from bygone cultures and compositions. Despite that, it came as a surprise when, 15 years after writing “I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry,” Ylvisaker learned he may have unknowingly borrowed the tune.
Read the full story at TheLutheran.orgA subscription to The Lutheran
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