US Newspaper Layoffs

The Pulitzer Prize extended to Online News Entries

2008-12-10T02:34:00.000-08:00

The Pulitzer Prizes have finally embraced online newspapers. After having ignored the rise of the World Wide Web for the past decade, the Pulitzer Board has finally announced, on Monday, that it will accept entries from online dailies and weeklies.

Considering that the print media business is not what it used to be, with giant publications like the Tribune Co. going out of business, and the Gannett laying off more that 600 employees, this announcement seems only too fitting. It is to be noted that the rise of online news has, in fact, contributed considerably to the fall of print newspaper giants.

The Pulitzer Board has announced that it will accept entries of online newspapers in all 14 of its categories. Consistent with its earlier criteria, it will not accept entries from printed magazines and broadcast media and their respective Web sites. Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzers said, “The new rules enlarge the Pulitzer tent to recognize more fully the role of the Web, while underscoring the enduring value of words and of serious reporting”.

The Pulitzers is now also open for other online content like interactive graphics and video, in nearly all categories. The board has also announced that the definition for its prize on Local Reporting of Breaking News is to be refined, with “special emphasis” given to “the speed and accuracy of the initial coverage”. The Board hopes that this will prompt an increase in more entries in the online categories.

Perhaps, in years to come, the online category will turn out to be the only category at the Pulitzers if the news media analysts and experts are to be believed, but that’s another story.

SixApart’s Journalist Bailout Program

2008-11-28T03:13:00.000-08:00

SixApart, maker of Movable Type and TypePad, has offered a Journalist Bailout Program. Its vice president, Anil Dash, posted a rather tongue-in-cheek item called “The TypePad Journalist Bailout Program” on their TypePad site. The post addressed all “recently-laid-off or fearful-of-layoffs journalists”, offering them a free TypePad Pro blog, ad revenue, promotion and assistance. Although it started out as a spur of the moment thought aimed at a few acquaintances, the web picked it up full swing and the post ended up receiving numerous responses from desperate journalists.

The scheme claims to work to the advantage of both SixApart and the journalists, with the company sharing some of the revenue, and beefing up Typepad’s credentials, while holding out a limb to struggling journalists. It advocates the need for journalists to take a step out by themselves and get paid the real worth of the news that they write, to “take control of their own presence online”, in the words of Dash himself.

This program has received its fair share of skepticism, and approval. Priya Ganapathy of Wired, was reported to have dismissed it as a publicity stunt to promote SixApart’s products and advertising program. Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads, said that even good journalists may not be able to adapt well to blogging, as it requires “more than just good writing and reporting skills. In-depth knowledge of networking and promotion of content is required, “something about which many journalists are clueless”. He also said that the blogosphere is much more competitive than the print media, as a blogger has to do much of his own marketing. The success of his blog depends on how much of his individuality and insight he can infuse into his posts, which is absolutely unadvisable for a reporter. Although, some other journalists were all appreciation for the program.

When confronted with these skeptic remarks, Dash asserted that the company made no promises. He said that the program was not one meant to provide all the answers for laid-off journalists, rather it is just one of the options they could consider if ever they found themselves out of a job.

Of course, the features of the program themselves might have all the answers to the skepticism for some:

-The blogger gets a free TypePad Pro blog account, full-fledged service, plus professional support.

-The blogger is enrolled in the SixApart Media advertising program and receives the revenue.

-SixApart will promote the new site on Blogs.com, enabling peers in the Journalists Bailout Program to cross-promote and share traffic for independent sites.

-The blogger will get introduced to the VIP program that helps drive traffic to the site, connect with his LinkedIn profile, manage comments from his iPhone, and promote posts to his Facebook friends.

-Finally, what the company calls a ‘zinger’, is its claim that a Google search for the blogger’s name will bring up the blog rather than bylines from his former employer’s web site.

So, it is for the journalist to decide, really, whether this program works for him, and if SixApart is going to hold good on the promotional it is making on a product it has only just began selling.

Jonathan Kay on Who Will Survive the Decline of Print Media

2008-11-13T01:30:00.000-08:00

Full Comment, a National Post blog, carried an interesting post by Jonathan Kay, Comment Pages Editor at the National Post, on how to save the print media and the reasons for its slow death.

Kay reasons that the newspaper industry has been slowly depleting even before the layoff crisis. Firstly, he says the electronic media has encroached the space that print media enjoyed. Most 20-somethings of today get their news from their computer screen or their cell-phones.

Secondly, he attributes the decline of the print media to the death of spare time. The modern human being has open-ended job responsibilities. Their work takes up most part of their day and when they get home, family and chores become priority. People who want to read but seldom find time to read. The only place they are relaxed enough to pick up a paper is their car – which is not the ideal place to be reading a newspaper. This is why, Kay says, the radio just might outlive the print media.

Thirdly, he says, the breakdown of the community is partially responsible for the decline of the print media. A reader’s interest in the news is directly related to his or her emotional involvement with the neighbors, the society, the country, and the world at large. This concern and involvement is missing in the modern day society.

Print media, if it is to survive, claims Kay, should belong in one of the following three categories:

Business-oriented media that cater to older, more affluent readers who consider the long-form news consumption as a work activity. Newspapers that fit this mould are The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and the Financial Post. The print publication can only run a finite amount of stories and this gives an advantage to the market because they are interested in knowing what everyone else in the industry is reading.
Premium publications that cater to the ideologically involved and intellectually upscale. This market has a sense of community rooted in political attitudes, foreign-policy interests, cultural beliefs, charitable causes and consumer interests, not their geography. Atlantic Monthly seems to be doing things in this line since 1998.
The hyperlocal news. People love to read local news. Local events, accidents, weather, the local hockey team, traffic and roads condition and large pictures. The best part of this industry is that newspapers do not have to compete with wire services.

For the complete article, go to:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/11/06/jonathan-kay-how-to-save-the-print-media.aspx

Obama’s Victory a Plus for Newspaper Sales

2008-11-07T00:21:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama has made a smile spread across every newspaper publisher’s face in the last couple of days. Major metro dailies are pleased as plum as the sale of newspapers has shot up following Obama’s election victory, when he became the 44^th President and the first ever Afro-American to hold that office. Dailies have been rushing to meet the demands of their readers for keepsake Obama covers.

This seems to be a ray of hope for the newspaper industry after months of layoffs, circulation declines and advertising decreases. Media Life newspaper’s Louisa Ada Seltzer has come up with the following findings.

The Chicago Tribune, in Obama’s home town, says it has increased its press run by several thousand and expected to sell 200,000 newsstand copies. The Chicago Sun-Times has spiked its press run by 50 percent. The LA Times sold 100,000 more copies than its usual Wednesday sales, and the Dallas Morning News increased its press run by 500,000.USA Today printed 380,000 extra copies, all of which sold out. Both The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News printed extra 30,000 copies.

Newspapers hope to make the most of the Obama effect for a few more days. While The Washington Post has printed an additional 250,000 of their commemorative issue, The New York Times planned to produce extra copies as well.

All in all, Obama’s election victory seems to have brought a breath of fresh air into almost every aspect of the American society. Only time will tell if he will live up to the hopes and dreams of his fellow Americans.

These are two posts from the Obama blog that show the top US newspapers featuring the president on their front pages:

Today's Front Pages

Front Pages, continued

Update on Newspaper layoffs and a Map

2008-10-30T02:56:00.000-07:00

The last couple of months have been rough for the print media in the United States. Newspapers have been distributing pink slips left and right, and the industry is witness to a hitherto unmatched attrition that is putting newspapers out on their last limb.

Erica Smith of the Graphic Designer blog has created a map that shows a rather depressing picture of the state of things.

The Boston Herald and Tribune Co.’s Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant plan to decrease the number of staff. The Herald plans a layoff of between 130 to 160, and of outsource printing to Chicopee and Norwood. The Baltimore Sun intends to cut around 100 jobs, around half of them from the newsroom. The Courant plans to cut its weekday pages from 273 to 206, and cut employees from 232 to 275.

The Press Gazette, an online newspaper, featured an online article entitled ‘Sky Falls in’ for US Media which talks about the layoffs at length. According to the article:

Time Inc., which publishes Time, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated, is cutting down on 600 jobs and re-organizing its staff.

Gannett is laying off 10% of its workforce. That translates to 3,000 people.

The Star Ledger, the country’s 15^th largest paper, is reducing its staff by 40%.

It is common knowledge by now, that the Christian Science Monitor has almost ceased its print and plans to concentrate on its website.

The article quotes the New York Times as saying, “Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is, how many people will be left to cover it.”

Though layoffs are not planned for the immdediate future at Times Inc., extensive re-organization of the company into three separate divisions: news, entertainment and lifestyles, is being done in the hope that it will cut down on overlapping costs.

All this downsizing is sure to have adverse effects on the profit of every newspaper. There is also wide-strewn consternation that great brand-names in journalism will vanish in the near future.

Sources:

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42336&c=1

http://graphicdesignr.net/papercuts/

http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2008/06/us_more_newspaper_job_lay_offs.php

Track back:

http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/map-newspaper-layoffs

http://www.wewereprint.com/2008/07/14/paper-cuts-newspaper-buyouts-and-layoffs/

http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2008/06/mapping_newspap.html

http://www.editorsweblog.org/analysis/2008/04/part_two_heartbreak_of_us_layoffs_told_t.php