September 2009
16 posts
Non-profit news ventures go big time →
First of two partsThe founder of the Chi-Town Daily News, a pioneering grassroots journalism project, happened to phone last week shortly before word got out that a wealthy businessman had donated $5…
Size matters in non-profit news →
Second of two parts. The first part is here. The five-member staff of the Chi-Town Daily News was laid off after Labor Day when its founder could not raise the $300,000 necessary to fund the balance…
S.F. gets biggest-ever local news non-profit →
A $5 million grant from a single philanthropist will fund the launch in the San Francisco area of the most ambitious project yet to build a non-profit news organization to fill the growing vacuum…
Only 5% in UK would pay for web news →
U.S. publishers planning to erect pay walls may want to take note of a new poll that found only 5% of newspaper site readers in the United Kingdom would be willing to pay for interactive content.In a…
‘It will take unions to save newspapers’ →
A number of readers disagreed sharply with my suggestion that newspaper unions may be losing their relevance. One of them was Andy Zipser, the editor of The Guild Reporter, the official publication…
Are newspaper unions becoming irrelevant? →
Union members at the Sun-Times Media Group never have been more powerful than they are today, but the power they wield is a weapon of mass self-destruction.The unions can continue voting – as they…
The paper that ‘invented’ foreign news →
In a captivating and inspiring new book, John Maxwell Hamilton, a former foreign correspondent who now is dean of the Manship School of Mass Communications at Louisiana State University, gives a…
Inflated traffic stats cloud pay-wall plans →
Newspapers trying to assess the financial impact of potential paid-content schemes are starting with a wildly inflated sense of the size of their online audience that could come back to bite them in…
Ideal pay-wall fee may be less than you think →
If the willingness of consumers to pay for online news turns on how much it will cost, a bit of early research suggests the ideal price may be less than some pay-wall proponents might hope.In work…
Only 51% of pubs think pay walls will fly →
A bare 51% of the newspaper publishers in the United States believe they can charge successfully for access to their interactive content, according to a survey released today. The other 49% of…
ViewPass update →
After the New York Times last week dubbed the ViewPass project “dormant,” a number of people have asked what happened to my proposal for an industry-owned solution to do a better job of monetizing…
AP didn’t have to run dying Marine’s photo →
While I defend the right of the Associated Press to distribute the controversial picture of a mortally wounded Marine in Afghanistan, I can’t support its decision to do so.The controversy came to…
Sun-Times can be saved, says CEO →
The money-losing Sun-Times Media Group can be turned into a modestly profitable business by the end of 2011, says the chief executive who took the company into bankruptcy court and plans to stick…
Can latest savior save the Sun-Times? →
More cuts, more drama and more trauma almost certainly lie ahead for the Sun-Times Media Group now that a civic-minded businessman has stepped forward to buy a company that probably could not…
Yelp: Don’t leave home without it →
I just got back from my first fully Yelp-enabled vacation and it was the best ever. As the late, great Karl Malden said in his American Express pitch: Don’t leave home without it.Although tens of…
Zell straps on his dancing shoes again →
Sam Zell may (or may not) be headed for the exit as head of the Tribune Co., where he personally lost $325 million as the result of his recklessly financed acquisition of the company. But it looks…