Category Archives: future

SteveOuting.com: Farewell, Editor & Publisher (We all knew this day would come)

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Steve Outing: "A profound moment of disappointment — when I think my mind finally lost the last tiny shread of hope for the newspaper industry — was this summer, when during a reinveinting-news conference I had a few minutes for a private conversation with the CEO of one of the largest U.S. newspaper companies. He told me that his firm’s intention of putting up pay-walls at most of its newspaper websites was meant primarily as a strategy to drive more print revenues. He said he didn’t expect to earn much from the web side with the pay-wall strategy."

Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable

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"Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead."

Editor & Publisher: Newspapers in Northeast Pursue a Content-Sharing ‘Consortium’

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"Top executives and editors from several major dailies in the Northeast, dissatisfied with The Associated Press, met recently to discuss the formation of a content-sharing agreement that in several cases would serve in place of their AP agreements, E&P has learned from top executives at three of the papers."

WSJ.com: Some Newspapers Shed Unprofitable Readers

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"But the reality is in some ways less bleak than the latest [circulation] numbers indicate: Some newspapers have raised newsstand prices, curtailed discounted copies and halted delivery to the least profitable customers. Also, while print circulation has been declining for years as readers continue their mass migration to the Web, many publishers point out they are reaching more readers than before through print and online."

Folio: New York Times Publisher on Whether There Will Be a Print Edition in 10 Years: ‘We Can’t Care’

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Arthur Sulzberger Jr: "Embracing the hyperlink ethos of the Web to a degree not seen before, news organizations are becoming more comfortable linking to competitors acting in effect like aggregators. Fundamentally we are addressing a common desire for comprehensiveness. The desire of people to find the news and information that they want from their most trusted sources. The era of the walled garden is over."

Reflections of a Newsosaur: Fat newspaper profits are history

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"To date, most publishers have elected to buttress their profitability as much as possible by attacking the two most elastic expense categories: staffing and paper consumption. But this short-sighted effort may be compromising the quality of the core product to such a degree that it actually may speed the decline of the industry as publishers attempt to transition to a new, more sustainable business model – assuming one is out there."

Observer: Are papers in freefall? Not if they innovate

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Peter Preston: "Sometimes, amid encircling gloom, it's wise to set benchmarks longer than a week last Friday. Always, there are choices to be made - or not made. And usually (perhaps, maybe) innovation is its own reward. A Times drop of under 20,000 in five years isn't systemic collapse. A Guardian surge online that brings in more than 23 million unique users a month on top of a million-plus print readers isn't carnage."

FT.com: Why journalism wins my vote

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FT editor Lionel Barber on the state of newspapers in the US: "[I]t seems undeniable that 2008 – and the coverage of the presidential election – will be seen as a tipping point in American journalism. The imperial status of the mainstream media – the television networks, big metropolitan dailies and lofty commentators – has been shaken. The lay-offs of hundreds of US newspaper journalists are a symptom of a wider malaise. We are witnessing a shift in the balance of power towards new media, with wholesale repercussions for the practice of journalism."

García Media: Elite newspapers, free newspapers: the future lies somewhere here

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Mario Garcia: "We have often mentioned in this blog that we believe the printed newspaper of the future will be published less often than daily ... We have also heralded the rapid growth of free newspapers worldwide ... Of course, a strong online edition is a vital requirement. The newspaper of the future—elite or free—is simply a companion to a robust and newsy online edition."

Sueddeutsche.de: ”Presse ist Vergangenheit”

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Herr Jarvis auf deutsch! "Eines ist sicher: Zeitungsredakteure sollten sich einen festen Termin setzen, an dem sie ihre Druckerpressen anhalten werden müssen, und zwar weit früher als sie es eigentlich für möglich halten. Das ist die einzige Art und Weise, mit der Medienhäuser perspektivisch ihre Angebote planen und produzieren werden, und der einzige Weg, mit dem sie ihre Belegschaften, Nutzer und Werbekunden in Richtung Zukunft führen werden."