The problem with Tim Porter's blog is that he doesn't write often enough. That's probably because he's been busy finishing up his book, "News, Improved: How America's Newsrooms Are Learning to Change," written with Michele McLellan. I preordered my copy today (it's published April 1) and took note of his return to the keyboard with "The Real Heroes of Newspapers," in which he takes a shot at a couple of high-profile quitters.
Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its report, "The State of the News Media 2007," and I'd really like to read it before commenting on it. Unfortunately I didn't make it past the first page of the 38-page executive summary before stumbling over this sentence:
For some, the new brand is what Wall Street calls “hyper localism” (consider the end of foreign bureaus at the Boston Globe or the narrowing of the coverage area at the Atlanta Journal Constitution).
The last year has been a PR debacle for the newspaper industry, but some positive stories are trickling out. Last month Lisa Snedeker at Media Life wrote "Fact is, your average paper is just fine", pointing to the strengths of small-market newspapers.
It's been something like six months since the launch of the Times Reader, which I dissed as Microsoft's deja-vision of the future. Now Hearst, which owns the troubled Seattle Post-Intelligencer, has lined up with the dark side, announcing its own downloadable reader. Similar announcements have come from Forbes and London's Daily Mail.
A few weeks ago the word was that the Los Angeles Times' "Manhattan project" (renamed "Spring Street") report had disappeared into the bureaucracy, never to be seen again. But it resurfaced today full of fury in a major shakeup outlined by Staci Kramer at paidContent.org. This is a big deal, and is especially remarkable considering the conditions under which it's happening. Ordinarily, when a company is on the auction block, paralysis ensues -- not radical change.
A belief that "it's all Wall Street's fault" continues to persist in some newspaper circles. It's not.
Writing for the Winter issue of Nieman Reports, economist Robert Picard says:
Howard Weaver points to a Washpost piece on newspapers and video, and suggests a "good enough" approach:
"... we don't need to be creating 60 Minutes quality television to get in the game. In fact, you might well argue that the opposite is true. I'd love to see us using cinéma vérité video to add value to all kinds of reporting. In Fresno, they've had good success using little digital video cameras that sell for less than $200."
