Sometimes I feel that in search of eyeballs for these web sites, people don’t care about what they leave in their wake.

Newspapers and TV/radio reporting have always had issues related to deadline pressure. I recall in 1984 when our second floor wooden deck decided to become detached from our Carlisle PA home … while we were having a housewarming. More than a dozen guests (most of whom we did not know) — along with me — tumbled to the ground. Ambulances (yes, multiple) showed up; my memory is that there was one broken bone (minor). But the press (Harrisburg PA) also showed up and butchered the story. Plus, the TV station showed images of kids laughing and playing in our backyard, making them (and us) look callous. (It was the pre-scheduled party-after-the-housewarming: we were going to cancel but our friends insisted on coming and helping us clean up the mess.) It was a wake-up call to this (much younger!) then-PR person.

So I have no illusions that “public interest” drives each-and-every media story or that it has ever done so. But the attitude that the business press and some portions of the tech press have had toward Apple over the years seems almost personal in its unveiled animosity.

Richmond implies that the media treatment is somehow new. I don’t think so. One of the first websites I built in the mid-90s was a “fact check” site about Macintosh computers. (That site also got me an invitation to compete for a slot in the about-to-be-launched site, TheMiningCo, that would become About.com.) He writes:

In all the articles I read about Antennagate, the consistently missing piece was a real world quote from an actual iPhone 4 buyer who returned the device due to signal issues (Jobs revealed the returns number: a paltry 1.7%, less than a third of those who returned the iPhone 3GS). Absent this real-world sanity check, I had pretty much decided a while back that Antennagate was more about the media making a mountain out of a molehill to attract readers than anything else.

[...]

[W]ith respect to Antennagate, Jobs put his finger right on the problem of how today’s media, too focused on one-upmanship and not enough on facts and restraint, works. Antennagate is a textbook example of why online news readers who are trying to be smarter about how they run their businesses need to read judiciously and cautiously. Sorting the real from the imagined when you’re being bombarded by headlines on a daily basis is admittedly no easy task, but as Antennagate shows us, it’s more important than ever.

With Antennagate, the Internet’s echo-chamber was in full gear. Stories with no new facts ricocheted through blogs, Twitter, RSS feeds and even mainstream media each day. For sure Apple bobbled the ball along the way, further feeding the frenzy. Antennagate seemed to reach a crescendo of ridiculousness when Consumer Reports posted about why it couldn’t recommend the iPhone 4. Instead of simply saying that by adding a bumper (something the vast majority of iPhone users seem to do anyway) the problem would be solved, Consumer Reports suggested using duct tape, a ludicrous hack that of course then became a touchstone of Antennagate.

And I agree with him that the Consumer Reports article struck me as odd, outside of what I think of as their almost encyclopedic neutrality. What’s even more odd is that CR has not, to my knowledge, conducted similar tests of other smartphones. Will they? I doubt it — and the fact that I do doubt it makes me sad. Such is the state of trust in today’s over-saturated media landscape.

What do you think? Is this a trend (evolution of reporting) or something triggered by the instant-gratification of the Internet? Regardless, what are the implications for news organizations?

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Tracy and her husband Patrick are the publishers of the West Seattle Blog, one of the hyperlocal weblogs that have proved it is possible to make a living from community journalism in a neighborhood or small town. She has been identified as one of the communicators who is finding ways of making sense of news as a business by people like the Poynter Institute — she is part of their Sense-Making Project — and the News Innovation program at CUNY.The economic crisis and the change in the way we share information have accelerated a situation that most of the media has refused to accept: the end of big editorial structures and advertising as a huge source of revenue for journalism.

While most of the industry is waiting for a revolutionary shift to a completely new business model for what we call journalism — or maybe we should just call it “telling stories that matter” — people like Tracy Record are succeeding in being revolutionary by using common sense and a small structure to apply their “old journalism” knowledge to the new online world.

In this video interview, Tracy explains the journey that took the West Seattle Blog from a hobby to a full-time job that provides the sole source of income for her family. She also talks about the roots of the Legacy Media crisis, why online ventures are still not profitable for big journalism outlets, and the key to her success.

Finally, a tip from Tracy to those who may be thinking of creating a media site for their neighborhood or small town: “Know how your neighborhood works, and make sure that your audience is really underserved.”

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Over the past 13 years, Eat the State! (ETS) has provided Western Washington with left-leaning political commentary as a free bimonthly print journal. However, the weak economy has forced the paper to rethink its business model, and many other small publications are in the same boat.

Last month, after having difficulty meeting a $6,000 fundraising goal, ETS recognized that its current publication model is not sustainable. In the future, ETS will only print endorsement issues around elections. The paper’s last regular print edition will be released April 1.

The switch to digital comes with some trepidation. Supporters who paid to keep the paper in print might feel betrayed if the print edition disappears. More fundamentally, ETS worries that losing the print version may limit who will be exposed to its viewpoints:

On the Web, people tend to read what they’re already familiar with. Over the years, thousands of people have discovered their first free copy of Eat the State! by chance in a coffee shop, movie theater, or library… Also, there are still plenty of people who don’t have reliable Internet access or otherwise choose not to rely on the Web for all their news and commentary. Many people just prefer reading newsprint.

Michael Andersen, a journalist and founder of the upcoming transit/bike publication Portland Afoot, agrees that something is lost when publications go digital: “There’s a stronger brand experience when you’re holding something in your hands,” he said. “The bond is much stronger with an object.” Plus, print is a push technology: “If you hand it to somebody, they’re going to look at it at least briefly. That’s something almost no digital product can offer.” Portland Afoot will be a 4-page monthly publication accompanied by a wiki-based Web site.

In addition, many advertising dollars are still tied to print. According to Mark Glaser of PBS MediaShift, even as print publications like ETS move online, “…there are also online publications that are starting to do print versions too because they can make more money with print ads. For now, many local advertisers still like to see their ads in print vs. online.”

From print to digital

Switching from “print first, Web second” to primarily digital is more complicated than just just moving all the content online. ETS needs to “start over in terms of our publishing conception,” said co-founder Lance Scott. “We need to think from an online standpoint.”

For instance, ETS will need to figure out a new publication schedule. Not limited by the constraints of print, ETS can publish immediately, when content is most relevant; but it may also want to spread stories out to give readers an incentive to return to the site.

PC Mag is an example of a successful print-to-digital transition. While hardly a “little guy” like ETS, the magazine also appeals to a niche audience. Said editor-in-chief Lance Ulyanoff of the switch:

The actual transition to all-digital was a years-long process. In fact, we probably began changing our publishing model as early as 2005 when all of our reviews were delivered online first. Over time, all of our content switched to online first, features and solutions were last. As we did that, we also slowly shifted more and more of the staff to online or print and online combined roles. By 2008, we had just a small group of people solely devoted to print. When we ceased print publication in early 2009, our staff had already transitioned. As a result, our process barely changed and we laid off only one employee.

“My advice to ease the transition is to stay in touch with the readers and make sure you are serving their needs and reaching them,” Glaser added. “If they are all online, then going online-only can work. If many of them prefer print, then that’s probably what you’ll need to provide them.”

Portland Afoot founder Michael Andersen thinks it’s important for publications to know the advantages and disadvantages of online versus print. Newspapers and magazines frequently publish the same content in both media without recognizing the value in distinct content tailored for each medium. And print could learn a thing or two from the Web. Attention spans are shorter, and readers are less eager to consume lengthy features than they used to.

The future of print

It’s unlikely that all papers will be Web-only in the near future – at least the Web as we know it today. “I’m not sure that all publications will eventually be online-only; it really depends on the audience of the publication and location of it,” Glaser said. “Tech trade magazines seem to have mainly migrated online, but print newspapers are booming in smaller towns and in India.”

The long-term future may be a hybrid of tactile and digital, depending on the adoption of the tablet. As Wired’s Chris Anderson told David K. Israel of Mental Floss in a Feb. 3 phone interview, “the tablet offers an opportunity to achieve [the benefits of print] and even greater impacts because it has all the kind of visual splendor of the printed page plus the interactive elements, with much more efficient economics, of digital distribution.”

Michael Andersen agrees that inexpensive tablets will be widely adopted in 10 years, yet holds out for print. “Companies that have already sunk a lot of investment in, say, printing presses will still find it useful to use them. But I doubt there’ll be many people like me, investing in new print-driven enterprises.”

image by Matt Callow

Helen Pitlick has been a student in the MCDM program since spring 2009. She works with social media as an intern at Foodista.com, and in her spare time she reviews craft beer

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The Politico newsroom inside News Channel 8

Every time that I step into a newsroom, I remember what it was like to live off of that electricity in the air when I was at NBC News.  It was the human buzz of stressful inquiry as events incessantly unfolded before our journalistic eyes.

We’ve come to believe that this buzz is much diminished in the waning days of traditional journalism.  But I’m seeing some signs of life as I travel around the northeast this month.

Local TV (Americans’ number source for news) has long been criticized for considering their web presence as an afterthought.  At Washington D.C.’s Newschannel 8, they’re launching a new website in June that will merge their cable news channel with their local station.  And rather than having TV feed the web, the station manager, Bill Lord, told me that the web will feed TV.  It will be text plus video plus citizen journalism all in one place,” he said.  They’ll also be hiring 100 local bloggers.  “We’re flipping the model.”

Lord has a head start in enlightened thinking about journalism’s new business models.  The successful political news blog Politico operates out of his newsroom.  Three years into it existence, the site (owned by the same family that operates Lord’s station) is making money.

Ironically, a good portion of that profit comes from the daily print edition of Politico.  The newspaper is delivered to 25,000 subscribers in the Beltway area.  Print ads still command higher prices than their online counterparts, especially when they’re the centerfold spread for the Boeing aerial fueling tanker.  I can’t imagine we’d ever see an ad like that in a Seattle newspaper (where the tanker will be made).  But Washington DC has the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress and the President as potential Politico readers — in other words, powerful influencers that allow media outlets to demand an advertising premium.

“People want to hold it in their hands,” Lord told me.

So Lesson #1?  Digital can fuel analog (and vice-versa) where news has value, and where advertisers see a plausible ROI (and analog still brings in big bucks).  Heck, in the nation’s capital, news is a always-in-demand renewable resource, kind of like solar energy, which will never go away.

That value proposition leads to Lesson #2: you can put up a pay wall around your online information, but only if you can afford to do so.  A recent Pew Foundation study on the State of the News Media discovered that just 7% of Americans are willing to pay for news content

Bob Merry pioneered sustainable online strategies for specialty newsletters, such as his Congressional Quarterly.  He was recently named publisher of Stratfor, a source of independently-reported global intelligence news, which charges $349 a year for its online subscription.  When I asked him what he thought about Pew’s 7% figure, he said, “That’s good for us!”

That’s because Austin-based Stratfor is a lean-and-mean operation: no printing presses, no satellite control room, with a good number of corporate and governmental subscribers who see value in the organization’s research.  Seven percent may not be enough to sustain a general interest news outlet like the New York Times (which is about to erect a pay wall), but it seems to be more than enough for a niche product like Stratfor.

Meanwhile, back at News Channel 8, Bill Lord admits that everything he’s doing these days is an experiment, as they try to settle on a sustainable business model.  But they’re feeling a whole lot more hopeful now than a year ago when advertising revenues were plummeting across the board.  And Bill says he actually likes the quiet hum of the blogging side of the newsroom, compared to the traditional buzz of TV news.

Originally posted to Storyteller Uprising

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I’ve been wrong. At least in the short run.

Not wrong about the difference in distribution costs. That’s a no-brainer.

But I was wrong to expect an immediate drop in monthly (or annual) subscription fees. I was unconsciously holding constant the advertising revenue side of the equation. Let me explain.

Let’s imagine a (very simplified) budget for a newspaper that looks like this (roughly based on data from Media Economics):

• Revenue: 70%, advertising; 30%, subscriptions
• Costs: 40%, printing/distribution; 20%, overhead (administration, advertising, circulation); 30%, taxes, profit, interest; 10%, editorial

In this model, if subscription income went to zero and advertising income stayed constant, theoretically the shift from print to all-digital would result in savings that should mean the organization could break even. But in the interim — or maybe for the foreseeable future — there will be demand for a printed product. So we have to add costs — the web server, bandwidth, employees to manage the web. The ideal model might look like this:

• Costs: 45%, printing/distribution/web; 17%, overhead (administration, advertising, circulation); 30%, taxes, profit, interest; 8%, editorial

But we know that operating margins are down. So a more realistic model might be:

• Costs: 50%, printing/distribution/web; 20%, overhead (administration, advertising, circulation); 20%, taxes, profit, interest; 10%, editorial

We also know that advertising revenue is down-down-down. So today that revenue model might look like this:

• Revenue: 40%, print advertising; 15%, online advertising; 45%, subscriptions

In other words, subscription income becomes more important as advertising revenue falls.

I’m pretty sure that the demand for core newspaper subscribers is inelastic: that means that a 1% increase in subscription prices will yield less than a 1% decline in subscribers*, but it will yield a decline. Each time there is a drop in print subscribers, the per unit cost of an individual newspaper rises, as the product is characterized by high fixed costs: the cost to create the content is the same for 100 as it is for 1 million copies. This model reflects what economists call public goods; it is a characteristic of any information good, from software to TV shows, from music to movies.

That’s why I think that traditional magazines or newspapers delivered via the iPad or Kindle must be more “costly” than they would be if they existed solely in a digital form. So don’t be surprised to see a digital subscription equal the print one. I don’t like it — especially since I hold a bias that a handful of executives drive up overhead costs and that the relatively modern goal of 20+% ROI is not only unsustainable, it’s unreasonable.

I am not saying that I believe the iPad and Kindle will “save” newspapers. I think a break up of the news media monopoly in the U.S. would be a good thing. I’m saying that I think I understand why subscription fees are going to be relatively high in the short-run. Remember, every time print subscriber numbers fall, the per unit price of the printed paper goes up for everyone else.

This back-of-the-envelope analysis also helps explain why small(ish) companies are able to launch successful online-only news products: limited overhead, limited distribution costs, and access to advertisers that were priced out of the daily newspaper market. Finally, this analysis could also be used to support various (generally unpopular) proposals that Congress throw a bone to the newspaper industry.

Somebody please show me that I’m wrong.

*It also means that a 1% drop in subscription rates will yield less than 1% increase in number of subscribers. See this paper from 1976 (pdf).

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Engadget columnist Michael Gartenberg expressed his discontent with the comments that followed his recent iPad editorial in a Tweet: “Amused. Bash me on @Engadget column. Suggest my parents were not married prior to birth, suggest I be fruitful & multiply. enclose your CV.”

With traditional news outlets declining and enthusiast blogs like Engadget on the rise, the implications of closing comments reflect how the stampede of online discourse can sometimes be too much for even mature, full-time blogs to endure. According to Alexa, Engadget today ranks 195 in the nation and 384 in the world for Internet traffic. It recently launched mobile applications for iPhone and Blackberry. It produces its own weekly podcasts and monthly TV shows (Edited per Zack’s comment). This is a full-time media company in all respects and an influential one at that – The AFP wrote a story on Engadget’s comment disabling.

Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky explains why things got out of hand in a Tweet: “I don’t think it’s about the class of the readership, it’s about scale.”

Scale is certainly an issue, but it shouldn’t excuse community behavior. Especially for a technology site like Engadget, you’d think that its die-hard community would be populated by primarily educated (either by trade or academically) and at least civil readers. Surely most are, but what caused Engadget to call “time-out” demonstrates how online media-enabled free speech can unveil the worst in us.

Defamatory or threatening reader feedback is nothing new. Print media has dealt with it from the beginning (and the feedback inspired new publications with alternative views), but there was some effort required to write the letter and put it in the mail. Editors had choices about what they wanted to publish. On the contrary, online media provides a fantastic opportunity for people to share their thoughts and opinion with little barrier – Just ID yourself with a pseudonym, write your thoughts and they will be published immediately. Instead of rising to the occasion of opportunity, participants in a massive community like Engadget have failed over and over: Engadget also shut off comments in 2005; competitor Gizmodo warned its readers against poor commenting practices in October 2009. (Thanks to Gizmodo’s Wilson Rothman for clarifying that they have never turned off comments.) Surely some of this is due to spammers, but some of it is also due to the immature. Both threaten productive, democratic discourse.

I don’t blame Engadget for taking drastic actions. I don’t know if it was the only way to settle the circus, but it seems to be effective so far. The unfortunate lesson here is that the good comes with the bad. Yes, we have more opportunity than ever to express our opinions in online media, but not all of us exercise the best judgment or honor the opportunities that are afforded to us.

Sure, we’re talking about a tech blog today, but as we progress toward more transparent, democratic discussions online for other topics – politics, education, healthcare – we have to consider if it’s worth a scenario where the comments can’t just be turned off.

Paolo Mottola is a UWMCDM student and digital comms extraordinaire at PR firm Weber Shandwick. He can be found @paolojr and at his personal blog, Word Is Born.

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Update: The New York Times announced on January 20 that they will indeed begin to meter content, starting in 2011. Read the Times’ statement here.

Bloggers’ reactions? Mashable predicts that the number of sites linking to the Times will decrease, negatively impacting traffic, while most readers will move on to another news source after they reach their limit. TechCrunch breaks down the numbers and comes to a skeptical, yet optimistic, conclusion. PaidContent.org, an information company owned by Guardian Media Group, justifies the decision.

*****

The New York Times may be close to charging for online content.

According to New York Magazine, the venerable “Gray Lady” is seriously considering a metered system that will allow consumers to read all of the paper’s content — up to a point. Once that limit is reached, the reader must pay for articles. This allows new visitors to explore the site while charging the heaviest users. Seems fair enough, right? The question is whether the Times’ audience will agree to pay or go elsewhere for their news.

This is not the Times’ first effort to charge for content. In 2007, after a two-year foray into TimesSelect, a subscription service, Times management decided to offer its online content for free because they believed that the site’s massive readership — 20 million unique visitors – would bring in considerable revenue once online advertising techniques improved. Times executives hoped their strong online efforts would lead them to stand while other newspapers crumbled.

However, the paper’s advertising revenue has fallen with the economy, and the Times seems to be optimistic that its past will not determine its future. Jason Preston of Eat Sleep Publish supports the proposed metered system: “The market has changed significantly since (what was it, 2007?) and they’re planning to try something totally different … so what they learned is: don’t do Times Select.”

Preston continues,

“I think the NYT is in a perfect position to introduce a metered model, and I think that if that’s how they proceed that they’ll be moving in the right direction. I suspect that their overall traffic will continue to grow, not shrink, as more people take up the NYT as a casual (and free) habit, and ad revenue will grow, as the NYT gains the opportunity to argue to its advertisers that users are paying to view their content.”

The proposed metering may mean big changes for people who rely on The New York Times. UW International Studies professor Tony Lucero requires students in his “Making of the 21st Century” course to read the Times every day. He said this will be a requirement regardless of the cost to access Times content, but he acknowledged that the Times is not the only option for reliable news.

“[The New York Times] is a good source for international news, and it is an influential paper, one that shapes and reflects some of the major political discussions of the day … At the same time, the NYT often drives me crazy (the Haiti earthquake on front page, of course, but Conan O’Brien?) I also want students to read critically — think about how stories are reported and what kinds of ideological issues and choices can be seen both in the news reporting and the editorial pages. This could be done with other publications, sure … That said, in the future I will probably consider other sources.”

Subscription models typically work when a media brand offers content people can access nowhere else — such as small-town news — or produces content of extraordinary quality. People might pay for excellent foreign affairs coverage, but will they pay for the latest news about Conan? The New York Times may be overestimating what people are willing to spend money on — and competing news outlets with free services may benefit.

The proposed metering raises additional questions. Journalist and blogger Jeff Jarvis tweeted a question posed by one of his followers: “I wonder if excellent NYT iPhone app will continue being free, bundled with subs, or metered?” Jarvis himself expressed dissatisfaction in a blog post by asking, “So why charge your best customers? Why single them out? Why risk driving them away?” Jarvis agrees with Clay Shirky that micropayments such as these are not the answer to saving journalism.

The metering would not go into effect for several months, though a decision is expected any day now.

What do you think? Would you pay to read The New York Times online?

image by wallyg via Creative Commons

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