Guide to citizen journalism

http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php

Future of news threatened by move away from traditional sources

Required reading.  Lifted from Wired piece Bruce spotted referencing …

What’s the future of the news business? This report to Carnegie Corporation of New York offers some provocative ideas.

"…the Internet is already clearly ahead of other media among the young. According to the Magid survey, young news consumers say that the Internet, by a 41-to-15 percent margin over second ranked local TV, is “the most useful way to learn.” And 49 percent say the Internet provides news “only when I want it” (a critical factor to this age group) versus 15 percent for second-ranked local TV. This audience, the future news consumers and leaders of a complex, modern society, are abandoning the news as we’ve known it, and it’s increasingly clear that a great number of them will never return to daily newspapers and the national broadcast news programs".

The New Old Journalism

Wired News: The New Old Journalism

"People haven’t been abandoning newspapers (and magazines). They have been abandoning the print medium."

Synapse: The future of news

Conversations about the future of newspapers recall the story of John Jacob Astor at the bar of the Titanic: "I know I asked for ice but this is ridiculous"; Astor quipped when informed the ship had struck an iceberg. Ten years ago the captains of news saw the emergence of the consumer Internet as a way to defend and extend markets, reduce costs and drive profits through synergies with digital media. "I know I asked for ice".

OLD QUESTION: What is the future of newspapers?

REALLY ASKING: Will editors and reporters have jobs in five years?

SHOULD ASK: How is a connected society informed? What’s paper got to do with it? What future are newspapers and TV networks creating? What story do they represent?

Murdoch on Future of Newspapers

Article from The Guardian on the recent speech by Rupert Murdoch on the future of newspaper publishing.  Full transcript of speech is also published.

Does RSS drive traffic ?

Article from OJR on RSS …

Industry decision makers still have concerns about public acceptance of a technology with no standardization or brand identity. They also worry about losing ad visibility on their own index pages.

Copyright and licensing for digital preservation

Excellent report looking at how libraries can use material deposited by publishers.

Libraries cannot preserve digital material they do not own. Adrienne Muir describes a new project to identify copyright and licensing issues that currently hinder digital preservation and looks at whether new legislation will help.

Vin Crosbie: Analysis on “Project for Excellence in Journalism” report

“News executives perhaps should be less worried about one medium cannibalizing another,” the PEJ study said, “and more worried about making the news more engaging, relevant and interesting generally, and making their advertising and sponsorship strategies more valuable to the people paying for their products.”

The study data indicated that nearly three-quarters of users (72 percent) said that they spent the same amount of time reading print newspapers now as they did before they began reading news online, and that a similar pattern holds true among readers of printed news magazines.

The Convergence of Online and Offline Editorial

Another good article the Onine Journalism Review on “Moving Online into the Newsroom“.

To the leaders of these organizations, the writing is on the wall: Print circulation is down, online use is up. Newspaper readers are going online for their news, and often they’re going to portals like Yahoo — not to their local paper — for updates.

Rusty Coats, director of new media at MORI Research, hits the nail on the head with:

Papers everywhere have been grappling for years with the fact that — for an ever-growing part of the population — digital media just works better than analog media, Coats said.”Readership studies show “it’s not startribune.com that’s replacing the Star Tribune. It is online as a medium that is replacing print as a medium for some people,” he said.

Self-Help for Publishers – 10 Steps to Online Revenue

Published a month ago in the Online Journalism Review a good item covering the transition of the Albuquerque Journals from free to fee – including a 10 step programme for getting it right. Interesting dialogue on whether it’s easier for publishers who provide local news in remote areas.