Journalism out of touch

Reuters headlines the story: "More Americans turning to Web for news" to report that.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.

IT WAS AN ONLINE POLL, STUPID!

McClatchy Q4 $1.8 Billion Loss

McClatchy is reporting a Q4 $1.4 Billion Loss. What a surprise. It's an "impairment charge" on the value of their newspapers. Specifically, in the value of those papers acquired from Knight Ridder. McClatchy has written off half the value of the $4.4 billion blockbuster purchase of Knight Ridder in the summer of 2006.

McClatchy stock has lost more than half its value since the Knight Ridder deal.

The sale of Knight Ridder was always an odd deal.

Newsday cuts jobs (again)

Newsday will be cutting about 120 jobs that includes 25 in the newsroom - on top of 13 vacant positions that have not been filled - pressroom reduction of 24 union positions and 5 drivers in the transportation bargaining unit.

Dennis Grabhorn, president Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Conference/International Brotherhood of Teamsters, didn't agree with the cuts or the newspaper's lack of growth.

"I just don't understand how a newspaper being the only daily newspaper on an island with more than 3 million people can have a circulation of less than 400,000 readers," Grabhorn later added. "I find that hard to accept. I don't understand why Newsday cannot sell on this island and that just tells me that Newsday is not putting effort into growing circulation."

It's because those drivers quit backing up to dumpsters to deliver papers, Dennis. We can't be certain that Newsday even has 400,000 readers. With newspapers allowed to claim subscription credit for deeply-discounted papers or giveaways to hotels and coffee shops, it's hard to say how many people pay to read Newsday. Or even browse the paper, let alone let it into their homes.

There's a reason for that, too. The newspaper slavishly follows the union take on politics, in their coverage and in their editorials, which hardly makes them unique reading. The circulation fraud stories, however, were fascinating.

Newsday Circulation Fraud Pt IV
Circulation Fraud
Newsday Continues to Slide
Newsday Publisher arrested for child porn
Newsday Fraud Arrests
Newsday Circulation woes tip of iceberg
Newspaper circulation scandals continue
Newsday Pt 5
Newsday circulation scandal escalating
The numbers game
Newspaper circulation scandal grows
Just another partisan crowd of journalists)
Circulation figures, excuse me, fraud

Can you spell hubris?

Interesting article at E&P on the speech by Tom Curley, CEO of the Associated Press. As usual, E&P doesn't provide a link to his speech. They excerpt from it. These are some points he made and how they saw his message.

- Young people the world over are hungry for news. They just don’t prefer our traditional platforms and packaging.

- The first thing that has to go is the attitude. Our institutional arrogance has done more to harm us than any portal ... [That's exactly how E&P staff edited the sentence.]

- Our focus must be on becoming the very best at filling people’s 24-hour news needs. That’s a huge shift from the we-know-best, gatekeeper thinking.

Those are the points that caught my eye because they are related to that ominous note about control.

We have the power to control how our content flows on the Web. We must use that power if we’re to continue to be financially secure and independent enough to speak truth to power.

(I wasn't the only one to make note of it either. Rich Ord has an article in Webpronews.com that you don't want to miss.)

For me, however, the first thing that struck is that there's a commonality in these and it is continued hubris. The AP doesn't want people linking to their stories and they think that as robbing content. Is information copyrightable? I don't think so. Readers don't think so. It's the same old arrogance and desire to be gatekeepers. It isn't about income. If the newspaper industry and the AP wanted more income they would have dropped the attitude and long-established, no longer even deniable, bias a long time ago. A viewpoint sells. That's why blogs are beating their pants off. That's why readers will no longer pay for newspaper content.

His speech is online.

The points from it, I would have made are the

"We who rule content must start making decisions, the ones that deliver journalism for another generation of readers and viewers." And, "Enforcement, too, must be a part. What we do comes at great cost and sacrifice, even death. We believe content should have wide distribution. We intend to be compensated for it."

Rule content? What happened to dropping the hubris and the gatekeeper thinking?

"The brains are the people who can add real value whether through perspective, deeper reporting or great writing. In short, we need talent, a lot of it and some of it very different."

Odd, most online readers feel that it is the one thing missing from traditional newspapers. - independence of thought and viewpoint. Newspapers don't hire reporters for their critical thinking skills or their enthusiasm for learning. They hire them because those are the qualities they lack. It makes for the conformity dictated by editors who hire, who decide what to write, when to write and, lastly, what gets published and even the headline that banners the story.

When was the last time you knew the name of an AP reporter and followed his or her writing because it was good or because you admired their writing? They're faceless scribes reworking the stories from member papers. When you work for small men, you have to be smaller.

Clinging to the old model, Curley had this to say about editors.

Great editors connect with readers and viewers. They build -- or to use the vernacular -- aggregate audiences, big or niche, with value, social currency and, ultimately, impact on the political process or social norms.

When was the last time you even knew the name of a single editor? There are no great editors in American newspapers. The current ones who have controlled content have driven papers into near-bankruptcy because readers don't want to share attitudes. They want to make up their own minds. They want reporters to be able to do the same in order to provide facts and information they can use. In electing their politicans, in funding their schools, in determining their quality of life.

People have turned away from the newspaper industry primarily because that is an industry that wants to impact social norms. Worse,they want to dictate social norms.

That's a far cry from providing content. It's control.

And make no mistake, it's not limited to controlling content.

Lest you think we’re going off the deep end and giving it all away for free, we’re coupling those initiatives with strong new efforts to protect news web sites from unauthorized scraping through tighter site protocols and content tagging. We also hope to strike some attractive new distribution deals with valuable advertising support.

And,

Two tenets guide us: the need to adapt our old systems and practices, especially our mindsets, in order to compete, and the need to get control over our content, so that we can take a seat at the table to set the terms for the new distribution that the search engines and Web 2.0 channels offer.

To do so, the silly man thinks the AP controls the Internet.

You can bet that if they saw a Google, a Yahoo or a Facebook, they would have figured out what to do about them. You can bet that if they found a newshound like our friend Madi Reddy in India, collecting news and tidbits to share with friends, they would have found a way to feed his obsession.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The hubris of thinking that information is a commodity to be controlled by a monopoly would be laughable if it wasn't so destructive to a democracy.

For those of us who genuinely love newspapers and the opportunity that a newspaper has to encourage reading and learning, excite wonder at exploration and the quiet thrill of the discovery of knowledge, aren't surprised at this speech. The faceless, little man who gave it epitomizes the industry thats a business, not an art. The sooner they go bankrupt, the better.

Newspaper circulation declines

Steep circulation declines continue in the newspaper industry.

At Editor & Publisher (the Dutch-owned publication that follows the newspaper industry) - where editor Greg Mitchell perpetually proves that your brain stops growing from the acid in the 60's and where Vietnam flashbacks can occur daily and in response to every topic, at least for anti-war activists - are releasing the bad news a day ahead of the official figures.

E&P has learned that several major papers have suffered declines in daily circ of over 7%, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Miami Herald and The Dallas Morning News.

Asked for comment, publishers of these papers blamed the decreases partly on the cut back in other-paid circulation * -- which includes Newspaper in Education, hotel, and third-party copies.

And papers have been chopping distribution areas--it's too expensive to serve outlying communities, at least in print. **

Of course, some of the decline is occurring because fewer people are reading the print version. Single-copy sales, which is a barometer of paid circulation, have tumbled in recent years. This reporting period, the category is expected to decrease around 5%.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution's circulation fell about 9% for both daily and Sunday.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Ft. Lauderdale was down almost 9% daily and about 6% on Sunday.

The Dallas Morning News will report on Monday that daily circ fell 7.7% while Sunday slid 7.6%
.
The San Diego Union-Tribune declined about 8.5% while Sunday was down about 7.9%.

Combined circulation for The Miami Herald and Nuevo Herald declined daily and Sunday about 8.4% and 12.3%, respectively.

Gains or slight increases (1%) from the St. Petersburg Times, the San Jose Mercury News, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, the Orlando Sentinel, the Houston Chronicle, and The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky.

The new figures will include online viewership for which readers pay, more or less, what most newspapers are worth - absolutely nothing. That this should shame the industry, and doesn't, is really part of the problem.

Except for the San Diego Union-Tribune that is a fine newspaper with responsible adults at the helm, the rest of the declines are predictable in an age of choice that includes something other than abortion.

** Other paid circulation = deeply discounted, practically give-away papers. You know, airport and hotel papers that litter your hotel doorway and seating at departure gates. Newspapers that were previously counted as circulation until they got caught at it.

** Translation: Our paper isn't worth the newspaper print it's printed on.

Reason #4851 - to Cancel your Newspaper Subscription

One of the really nice things about cancelling your newspaper subscription is that the in-your-face PETA stories - aren't.
It's funny how when you aren't bombarded with their self-seeking publicity stunts, you can find a lot to laugh about.

I just never knew they had captive animals in entertainment specialists.

Lies and Liars

The defense attorney warned jurors that they were being asked to rein in the 1st Amendment freedoms "that founding fathers granted to newspapers and the to the press."

"The 1st Amendment of our Constitution guarantees our right to criticize politicians, especially elected politicians,"Rosenfeld told the jury. "We must be able to tee off against the government in the press. That's what freedom of the press is all about."

The jurors, unlike the attorney, understood all right that freedom of speech is for every individual, not reserved for newspapers and the press. They also understood defamation when they saw it.

They found the Kane County Chronicle and reporter Bill Page guilty of defamation, finding that two columns were false and published with actual malice. The jury awarded Chief Justice Robert Thomas $7 million.

I guess in teeing off against politicians, they'll just have to tell the truth. Or, as Thomas' attorney said. "Lies and liars are not protected under the First Amendment."

Comeuppance

Woman pleads guilty to assaulting city manager and director of human resources. But when it came to assaulting a reporter, she was acquitted.   No doubt because at one time every one of 'em wanted to slap a reporter alongside the head.

Associated Idiots

File this under: Associated [with terrorists] Press trash.

AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll is calling on news organizations to protest the continued imprisonment of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein. He has been in custody for 6 1/2 months.

Among the images that likely drew U.S. military interest in Hussein was a 2004 photo he shot of masked insurgents firing on U.S. forces, which was among those that won AP a Pulitzer Prize in 2005.

In an interview with NPR, Kathleen Carroll, she discussed the circumstances of his arrest.

MARK JURKOWITZ: Let's talk about the specifics of this case. What happened? Where was he when he was detained? Can you give me the circumstances of that day?

KATHLEEN CARROLL: Sure. The most detail we have about that comes from the U.S. military, which says that he was in a building with two other people when he was arrested in the morning.

MARK JURKOWITZ: Two other people that the military have characterized as enemy combatants or insurgents. Is that correct?

KATHLEEN CARROLL: That's what they told us, yes. We have been in touch with them, but he says that, you know, he was doing his job as a journalist, which involves talking to all kinds of people, and making himself available to talk with them so that he can make pictures of them without endangering himself.

MARK JURKOWITZ: Are you aware to any extent what his relationship with members of the insurgency might be? Do you know, frankly, whether he has just sources within the insurgency or would have any special knowledge about what's going on there?

KATHLEEN CARROLL: I would say two things about that, Mark. One, we are not particularly interested in trying to suss- out the details and evidence and try Bilal, you know, on your program or any other way in the media.

As for his close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnapping, smuggling, improvised explosive attacks and other attacks on coalition forces, Carroll had this to say.

Bilal grew up in Fallujah. I don't know about you, but not all the people that I grew up with turned out exactly well. You know, some of them ended up doing things that our mothers might not like. I don't know whether that's the case with Bilal, because we've never had any names associated with this.

What she doesn't say is that Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged"\ leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, something NPR kinda left out when they were discussing the e-mail from the military. Nor does she mention that bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where he was arrested and how he tested positive for traces of explosive.

European Briefs - all the news I can stand to read from there

EU CONSTITUTION   The EU "constitution" got a setback yesterday when the German Federal Constitutional Court refused to rule on whether the draft conformed with German's constitution.  With no referendum mechanism in Germany, the German parliament voted for it in 2005.  However, it hasn't been signed and any ruling will be delayed until 2009.  Merkel had plans to promote the "constitution" - really a treaty to cede complete national sovereignty to a bureaucracy no one can challenge.

DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS    In the meantime, the EU has responded to the challenge of the demographic crisis Europe is facing by - you guessed it - holding a conference.  It, of course, keeps the politicos occupied.

LEFTIST WRITER INTERVIEWED  John le Carré is the pen name of David Cornwell.   Interviewed by Radio Netherlands.  Scroll to key quotes at bottom.  Dutch Radio is famous for their interviews, including one with Noam Chomsky.   Just once it would be nice if they interviewed someone who didn't hate the U.S.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION  Of 125 Chinese students admitted to Belgium on student visas, only 20 of them showed up at the University of Liège.   No explanation of what the DDAD filtering process is.  Not even Goggle had a clue.

Media Honesty Part I

American Press Institute has a scheme to save newspapers called NEWSPAPER NEXT: The Transformation Project. Along with Global partners AP, BBC, Reuters and Qualcomm, they, so they say, are "committed to a better-informed society." So, how come if they wanted us to be so much better-informed does their bio of a API discussion leader Shelby Coffey II fail to mention what is he is most famous for?

While editor of the Los Angeles Times Coffey issed a PC-empassioned directive to the newsroom that henceforth some 150 words were not to be used. Even the hypersensives in our society might have found the list far reaching. Don't take my word for it. Stanley Meisler, the cheerleading biogragrapher of Kofi Annan wrote:

A few years ago, the Los Angeles Times released a long list of diversity guidelines admonishing reporters not to use expressions that various peoples might find offensive. The condemned expressions included Dutch treat, welsh on a bet, and paddy wagon. News of the rules spread quickly throughout the country, and Times editor Shelby Coffey III, who released the guidelines to his staff with some fanfare, soon became a laughing stock of American journalism.

Meisler wasn't the only one who thought so. Unfortunately the best skewering of Coffeey's diversity directory was by Christopher Hitchens and isn't online. But it was puncturing as only Hitchens can be.

Not, of course, that that fiasco dimmed Coffey's career. But you would think integrity would demand a reality check. Apparently not, as Coffey took up writing about leadership. His prime prime examples of brilliance being Arthur Sulzberger, Ted Turner, and NBC News president Neal Shapiro. Last I looked, the New York Times sold less papers in their home town than the New York Post, Ted Turner had to be bailed out by Time-Warner, and NBC is nearly bankrupt.

Coffey is now a senior fellow of the Freedom Forum, "a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech, and free spirit for all people." Too bad they aren't committed to honesty.

The End of 'Times'? Let's bloody well hope so

Eric Alterman, notorious Leftie, writing in The Nation, the ultra-left publication, on The End of Times?.  There's gloom in them thar newsrooms and in media conferences.  Except when the journos are reminded that they are Guardians of Democracy and an "intermediary and an interpreter between society and knowledge," as a Carnegie presenter in an "inspiring" lecture at the conference reminded them.  

I don't call that inspired.  I call it meglomania.   And then there are the excuses for the gloom.  It's the filthy profit margins demanded by Wall Street expectations that are costing jobs.   Not, of course, because those "consumers", ah, citizens, who resent the media assumption that they need an intermediary to knowledge just don't buy crap like The Nation (if you want to make a donation...) and the idiot savants like Eric Alterman.    Alterman works for MSNBC, the network that is hemorrhaging money like, as Dan Rather would say, a stuck pig on a buzz saw blade.  

Could it be that MSNBC is such a failure because of writers and thinkers like Alterman?  He seriously believes that every blog, every quasi-news outlet, every "fake" news site is parasitical on information gathered by newspapers and newsweeklies.  

Excuse me, but such outlets are the techno equivalent of the Letters to the Editor that used to -- used to -- provide the kind of feedback to newspapers and media outlets that made damn sure clueless meglomaniacs like Alterman never got beyond delivering the mail in the newsroom.  To better writers.  To people who could think.  To people who lived their lives outside of a Washington, D.C. cocktail party or a New York celeb event.

MSNBC is a colossal failure partly due to their reliance on the Eric Altermans and the Keith Obermann's who haven't a clue.  You can damn well believe that Alterman would want anyone, especially leftwing universities, buy out newspapers.  Lack of accountability is a trademark of both.  

Jack Shafer (see below) might have been responding to Alterman directly.

Fifth Columnists is a good choice of words.  Dailypundit on the New York Times apology.  He doesn't mince words.   (As Instapundit would say, HEH)