Posts tagged newspapers

A year ago today I walked out of the News & Record for the last time as editor. Twenty-seven years there, 13 of them as editor. It was a good run. But I wish I had been smarter. After a year as a civilian newspaper reader, I realize how often I worked on the wrong things.

John L. Robinson in Journalism, One Year Later. He reflects very honestly on what he could have done differently at the newspaper. 

The highlights: 

1. On Content

We spent time and precious resources on stories that didn’t matter much to most readers. We should have been writing stories that compelled people to read them. We didn’t do enough investigative pieces. We didn’t do enough good reads. We didn’t do enough of what readers valued.

2. On Digital Innovation:

We didn’t build an inviting, informative, smart community, which is dumb of us because newsrooms are places where smart, creative, fun people work.

3. On Listening:

Had we met with members of the community — readers and non-readers – to listen, learn and improve every other month, perhaps we wouldn’t be in as much trouble as we are.

A Small Group of Syrians

FJP: Syrian photographer Jaber Al Azmeh’s latest work takes the government’s newspaper to share the revolution’s thoughts. It’s quite astounding. 

The project’s description, as found on Azmeh’s Facebook page:

A small group of Free Syrians offer their words…. This project takes on one of the Syrian Government’s most prominent symbols – The Ba’ath Newspaper – as part and parcel of the Baath Security State – and here turns it upside down to be a surface of new thoughts written by the Syrian people thus overturning the daily chronicle of government lies. We emphasize also that the comments are directed not particularly to the Ba’ath but rather to ‘The Regime’ itself. Each participant was invited to use the news paper or write some words to symbolize his or her thoughts within the general idea of the revolution. Those are Syrians; Here are their words. This project began from the earliest months of the revolution. It was a time when the camera was, and continues to be, one of the revolution’s most important weapons. It was also important to work in simple and easily accessible ways while remaining discreet and not attracting too much attention. Participating in this project gave birth to new friendships, as has the revolution itself, in bringing together diverse Syrian individuals and their talks of revolution and freedom with all the complex emotional mix they entail – ecstasy, sadness and determination – they proudly express their allegiance to the one homeland, Syria.

(H/T to kawrage for the original Tumblr post)

nadiamuhanna.wordpress.com

Color Would Be Helpful Via Flowing Data.

Color Would Be Helpful

Via Flowing Data.

A Politico headline: “GOP soul-searching: ‘Too old, too white, too male?’”

Around noon Wednesday, I started hearing a voice inside my election-addled head: Where else had I seen numbers like these? Where had I heard that Politico description? Who else was getting a really good market share of a smaller and smaller slice of the population?

Ah, yes: the newspaper industry.
Ken Doctor, Nieman Lab. The newsonomics of the newspaper industry as the Republican Party.
When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Get Weirder My local watering hole usually has newspapers on the bar counter. Makes for easy reading over a beer. A few weeks ago I came across this full-page ad in the New York Post. It’s for a “documentary” called “Dreams From My Real Father” and takes birtherism to even weirder, alternative heights. As Talking Points Memo explains, “Instead of focusing on claims about the president’s Hawaiian birth certificate, the film is narrated by an Obama impersonator and claims the president is a closeted communist, bent on instilling a ‘classic Stalinist-Marxist agenda upon America at home and abroad.’ A disclaimer for the film notes that many of the scenes are ‘re-creations of probable events, using reasoned logic, speculation, and approximated conversations.’” It does so by claiming that Obama’s real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a former journalist, and civil rights and labor activist. Evidently, he got Obama’s mom pregnant, which was scandalous, so the family invented a Kenyon father instead which was somehow less scandalous. If you’ve worked in print you know that the ad department looks for advertisers who reflect well on — and reinforce — the brand. Have a luxury magazine, your sales team is looking for luxury brands. Have a sports magazine, your sales team looks for advertisers that reiterate that lifestyle. If you’re the New York Post? Well, form follows function. And if you’re from Alabama, your GOP party chair is a nut job. As The Mobile Press Register recently reported, Bill Armistead was speaking to a Republican Women’s group and had this to say: “We have to win this election. This is about our country. Our country will not be the same,” Armistead said. “I’m convinced, if Obama wins, our children and grandchildren will not live under the same conditions that we’ve lived in these wonderful years. Obama has a different ideology than we do.” Armistead suggested that audience members see the movie ‘2016: Obama’s America,’ a documentary by conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza that is critical of the president. “If you haven’t seen it, you should,” he said. “But I’m going to tell you about another movie. The name of it is ‘Dreams From My Real Father.’ That is absolutely frightening. I’ve seen it. I verified that it is factual, all of it. People can determine.” People can determine, indeed. — Michael Image: Full page ad in the New York Post for Dreams from My Real Father.

When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Get Weirder

My local watering hole usually has newspapers on the bar counter. Makes for easy reading over a beer.

A few weeks ago I came across this full-page ad in the New York Post. It’s for a “documentary” called “Dreams From My Real Father” and takes birtherism to even weirder, alternative heights.

As Talking Points Memo explains, “Instead of focusing on claims about the president’s Hawaiian birth certificate, the film is narrated by an Obama impersonator and claims the president is a closeted communist, bent on instilling a ‘classic Stalinist-Marxist agenda upon America at home and abroad.’ A disclaimer for the film notes that many of the scenes are ‘re-creations of probable events, using reasoned logic, speculation, and approximated conversations.’”

It does so by claiming that Obama’s real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a former journalist, and civil rights and labor activist. Evidently, he got Obama’s mom pregnant, which was scandalous, so the family invented a Kenyon father instead which was somehow less scandalous.

If you’ve worked in print you know that the ad department looks for advertisers who reflect well on — and reinforce — the brand. Have a luxury magazine, your sales team is looking for luxury brands. Have a sports magazine, your sales team looks for advertisers that reiterate that lifestyle.

If you’re the New York Post? Well, form follows function.

And if you’re from Alabama, your GOP party chair is a nut job.

As The Mobile Press Register recently reported, Bill Armistead was speaking to a Republican Women’s group and had this to say:

“We have to win this election. This is about our country. Our country will not be the same,” Armistead said. “I’m convinced, if Obama wins, our children and grandchildren will not live under the same conditions that we’ve lived in these wonderful years. Obama has a different ideology than we do.”

Armistead suggested that audience members see the movie ‘2016: Obama’s America,’ a documentary by conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza that is critical of the president.

“If you haven’t seen it, you should,” he said. “But I’m going to tell you about another movie. The name of it is ‘Dreams From My Real Father.’ That is absolutely frightening. I’ve seen it. I verified that it is factual, all of it. People can determine.”

People can determine, indeed. — Michael

Image: Full page ad in the New York Post for Dreams from My Real Father.

: A foray into augmented reality

timesdigitalexperiments:

When people mention augmented reality most of us probably think of scenes from films such as Terminator, Minority Report and perhaps more recently Iron Man. These are all films that are set in the future and suggest how we might one day interact with the world around us.

Today we’re looking at…

Woah.

Generations that deem the act of reading on print essential are disappearing, and while the new ones regard online reading as a natural thing, they will never know that sensual world where communication requires more senses than just the sight.

What really matters now is whether the reader is wise enough to carefully pick his readings and turn them into his own intellectual benefit. If newspapers continue avoiding rescuing journalism with the available digital tools, no miracle will save them from obsolesce and disappearance. On the contrary, if both digital and print realms open a new broader dialogue and are able to find formulas that allow them to coexist, the reader will be the utmost beneficiary.
Graphic designer María Mercedes Salgado, in an interview to Mexican newspaper El Universal, a few days before the World Summit on Newspaper Design takes place in Mexico City.  (via fjp-latinamerica)
This is What an Advertising Revenue Free Fall Looks Like Via Mark J. Perry: The decline in print newspaper advertising to a 62-year low is amazing by itself, but the sharp decline in recent years is pretty stunning. This year’s ad revenues of $19 billion will be less than half of the $46 billion spent just five years ago in 2007, and a little more than one-third of the $56.5 billion spent in 2004. Here’s another perspective: It took 50 years to go from about $20 billion in annual newspaper print ad revenue in 1950 (adjusted for inflation) to $63.5 billion in 2000, and then only 12 years to go from $63.5 billion back to less than $20 billion in 2012. Even when online advertising is added to the print ads (see red line in chart), the combined total spending for print and online advertising this year will still only be about $22.4 billion, less than the $22.47 billion spent on print advertising in 1953. I think “ooph” is the ongoing sound I hear an industry make. — Michael Image: Newspaper Advertising Revenue Adjusted for Inflation, 1950 - 2012. Via Carpe Diem.

This is What an Advertising Revenue Free Fall Looks Like

Via Mark J. Perry:

The decline in print newspaper advertising to a 62-year low is amazing by itself, but the sharp decline in recent years is pretty stunning. This year’s ad revenues of $19 billion will be less than half of the $46 billion spent just five years ago in 2007, and a little more than one-third of the $56.5 billion spent in 2004.

Here’s another perspective: It took 50 years to go from about $20 billion in annual newspaper print ad revenue in 1950 (adjusted for inflation) to $63.5 billion in 2000, and then only 12 years to go from $63.5 billion back to less than $20 billion in 2012.

Even when online advertising is added to the print ads (see red line in chart), the combined total spending for print and online advertising this year will still only be about $22.4 billion, less than the $22.47 billion spent on print advertising in 1953.

I think “ooph” is the ongoing sound I hear an industry make. — Michael

Image: Newspaper Advertising Revenue Adjusted for Inflation, 1950 - 2012. Via Carpe Diem.

Making a Smart Newspaper Researchers at the University of Central Lancashire have created a prototype of the world’s first newspaper that plays audio. Called Interactive Newsprint, the prototype is set to improve over the next few months as they test it on readers. Here’s UCLan: The platform is capable of capacitive touch interactions, which means that by touching various parts of the page, readers can activate content ranging from audio reports, web polls or advertising – all contained within the paper itself. But the developments in printed electronics do not stop there. Digital devices and microphones, buttons, sliders, colour changing fibres, LED text displays and mobile communication can all be used in an interactive newspaper. Existing forms of local journalism and content are being used as part of the project to develop a range of interactive paper documents.  They’re also working directly with the community, involving readers in the development of their prototypes. Paul Egglestone, the project lead at UCLan, had this to say: Through these workshops we are looking at how communities would develop this technology rather than how boffins in a laboratory would develop it. That’s such a strong element of what we’re doing.  Being able to place the paper in the middle of the internet opens up a whole new ball park in the ways we can both tell stories, but also how we can collect data. Who’s holding the paper, who’s touching it, how are they interacting is part and parcel of the kind of stuff this project will explore. H/T: journalism.co.uk

Making a Smart Newspaper

Researchers at the University of Central Lancashire have created a prototype of the world’s first newspaper that plays audio. Called Interactive Newsprint, the prototype is set to improve over the next few months as they test it on readers.

Here’s UCLan:

The platform is capable of capacitive touch interactions, which means that by touching various parts of the page, readers can activate content ranging from audio reports, web polls or advertising – all contained within the paper itself.

But the developments in printed electronics do not stop there. Digital devices and microphones, buttons, sliders, colour changing fibres, LED text displays and mobile communication can all be used in an interactive newspaper. Existing forms of local journalism and content are being used as part of the project to develop a range of interactive paper documents. 

They’re also working directly with the community, involving readers in the development of their prototypes. Paul Egglestone, the project lead at UCLan, had this to say:

Through these workshops we are looking at how communities would develop this technology rather than how boffins in a laboratory would develop it. That’s such a strong element of what we’re doing.  Being able to place the paper in the middle of the internet opens up a whole new ball park in the ways we can both tell stories, but also how we can collect data. Who’s holding the paper, who’s touching it, how are they interacting is part and parcel of the kind of stuff this project will explore.

H/T: journalism.co.uk

fjp-latinamerica: La Nación gives Tableau a try Argentinian newspaper La Nación has been experimenting with the Seattle-based Tableau software and the result is impeccable: a good-looking, interactive data-built map with a list of local transparency laws or applicable regulations.  Internal insight, via Nación DATA blog: This collaborative project consists of an interactive map about transparency and public information in Argentina. The final version includes different provisions, ordinances, laws and resolutions on transparency sorted by political jurisdiction. It took many months to be finally finished. We have no doubt that this map will be useful not only for those who advocate a more transparent government, but also for journalists, code developers, and activists of all sorts. Image: Partial screenshot of the Nación DATA blog, via LaNación.com FJP Fun Fact: Pat Hanrahan, one of Tableau’s founders, was also a founding employee at Pixar. 

fjp-latinamerica:

La Nación gives Tableau a try

Argentinian newspaper La Nación has been experimenting with the Seattle-based Tableau software and the result is impeccable: a good-looking, interactive data-built map with a list of local transparency laws or applicable regulations. 

Internal insight, via Nación DATA blog:

This collaborative project consists of an interactive map about transparency and public information in Argentina. The final version includes different provisions, ordinances, laws and resolutions on transparency sorted by political jurisdiction.

It took many months to be finally finished. We have no doubt that this map will be useful not only for those who advocate a more transparent government, but also for journalists, code developers, and activists of all sorts.

Image: Partial screenshot of the Nación DATA blog, via LaNación.com

FJP Fun Fact: Pat Hanrahan, one of Tableau’s founders, was also a founding employee at Pixar. 

‘USA Today,’ Yesterday and Tomorrow

Bob Garfield, co-host of National Public Radio’s On the Media, has fun(ny) stories about the founding of USA Today which is celebrating its 30th birthday. At the time, Garfield was the paper’s advertising and marketing columnist.

Below, he writes that the same paper that was made possible because of technology will probably also meet its demise because of technology.

Republished with Bob’s permission. The original is at MediaPost. — Peter

Have I mentioned that I am old?

Never mind the grandchildren and reading glasses. I have polyps that are legal drinking age. So, yeah, I’ve been around.

For instance, this week USA Today celebrates its 30th anniversary, and I was there on Day One. I was the advertising and marketing columnist and in the debut edition had 700 words on the official sponsorships being sold for the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, at that point scheduled for two years hence. In those days official brandedness, like Kirsten Dunst and the Commodore 64, was still in its infancy. So the lead joke speculating about the Official Pasta of the 1984 Summer Olympics was still sort of funny.

As opposed to prescient.

This was all before personal computing of any significance, and well before the Internet, but what made USA Today possible was technology — the now quaint technology of transmitting pages via satellite to a network of Gannett printing sites around the country. That, anyway, was one thing that made USA Today possible. The other thing was the vision of founder Al Neuharth, the egomaniacal genius whose ability to squeeze personal perks from the Gannett cash cow was exceeded only by his ability to squeeze operating synergies from the same Guernsey.

Only Neuharth could have pulled it off, because nobody else in his position had the necessary combination of assets: 1) the coast-to-coast printing infrastructure, 2) a board stacked with pals willing to lose a half billion bucks before making dollar one, and 3) the middlebrow sensibilities required to hit the sweet spot.

From the beginning, “The Nation’s Newspaper” was derided for the brevity of its stories, its un-gray-ladylike splashes of color and its embarrassing episodes of jingoism. Yet it quickly took hold with readers. They liked the four-color weather map. They liked the sports page. They liked the itsy bitsy little front-page stories, soon to be known as McNuggets, and the many factoid-filled charts.

They might also have liked its easy-to-read compactness, weighed down as it surely wasn’t by much bulky and annoying advertising. The big agencies in those days were extremely hesitant to buy USA Today pages for their clients, not even the spirits, cars and travel clients who — by all logic — would have been ideal. The mystery of why this should be so was solved for me one morning as I headed from Washington to New York on the Eastern Shuttle. Seated next to me was the principal of a New York agency with a very large liquor account. I asked him why the distiller wasn’t in USA Today.

“Oh, you know,“ he said. “I prefer the Times.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, it’s more in depth. And I find the color in USA Today distracting.”

“You find it distracting. You personally don’t care for it.”

“Right,” he replied, utterly oblivious to the implications. “I prefer the Times.”

I had no further questions. I just stared at him, blinking like Barney Rubble, realizing that my livelihood was in the hands of a Madison Avenue fully capable of making foolish choices for unsupportable reasons. Luckily, I wound up making a living off of that structural stupidity for the next three decades, but at that moment my sphincter surely tightened.

It tightened still further about a month later, when, while flipping through the next day’s dummy, I saw that there was a full-page Campbell’s Soup ad running opposite my column. That was awkward, because my column happened to lambaste the new Campbell’s campaign for misrepresenting nutritional data. I suggested to the editors they might want to shuffle the ad pages a bit.

They had a better idea. They spiked my column.

When they lied to me about why (“We’re just not set up to do ad criticism”), I somehow believed them. The Wall Street Journal didn’t, however. They wrote a piece that made fools of the lot of us. Only later did I discover that the whole ugly episode took place at a moment when Neuharth and the board were on the verge of pulling the plug on the whole paper.

But they didn’t. They hung in there, got their half billion back and a few billions more. Neuharth had not only a big head, but a hard one. This was immortalized when he installed a 25:1 bronze version of it in the lobby of USA Today headquarters. Within a few years, the paper became so flush that Neuharth was able to globetrot with a handful of editorial personnel to interview world leaders. It was called JetCapade, and he was derided for that, too — on the grounds of squandering millions so that he could meet foreign heads of state. That was a calumny and a lie. JetCapade squandered millions so that foreign heads of state could meet Al.

But God bless the man. His outsize ambition gave the world a successful paper that grew into a pretty good paper. Now, sadly, it is in the same desperate straits threatening all dailies. Circulation is down. Advertising has plummeted. The future is at best uncertain — all owing, ironically enough, to technology, the very thing that brought USA Today to life.

There will be no 60th anniversary. There may well be no 40th.  So while I have the opportunity, permit me to thank Al Neuharth and his brainchild for the opportunity it gave me. Now I am old. Then I was 27 — a featured national journalist, a mere five years into my career. Or, as I like to think about it:

The First Official Advertising and Marketing Columnist of the Nation’s Newspaper.

mediapost.com

lookatluca: Happy Birthday, USA Today. The newspaper critics once described as “television you can wrap fish in” is turning 30-years-old. Read “A Newspaper That Influenced Us All” in Garcia Media, a fascinating look back at what this project meant to the industry and its design community. FJP Fun Fact:  USA Today did try to launch a television program. Called, originally enough, USA Today: The Television Show, it launched in 1988 and was cancelled a year and a half later due to poor ratings.  FJP Quibble: USA Today launched on September 15th, 1982, so happy pre-birthday.

lookatluca:

Happy Birthday, USA Today. The newspaper critics once described as “television you can wrap fish in” is turning 30-years-old. Read “A Newspaper That Influenced Us All” in Garcia Media, a fascinating look back at what this project meant to the industry and its design community.

FJP Fun Fact:  USA Today did try to launch a television program. Called, originally enough, USA Today: The Television Show, it launched in 1988 and was cancelled a year and a half later due to poor ratings. 

FJP Quibble: USA Today launched on September 15th, 1982, so happy pre-birthday.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em? The Fort Worth Start-Telegram is selling subscriptions via Groupon. In a slight ironic twist, the newspaper recently ran an AP news story about investors’ lack of confidence in Groupon’s overall sustainability. 

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em?

The Fort Worth Start-Telegram is selling subscriptions via Groupon.

In a slight ironic twist, the newspaper recently ran an AP news story about investors’ lack of confidence in Groupon’s overall sustainability. 

I am grateful to your employee for so beautifully demonstrating in a single sentence so many of the reasons why The New York Times is a perennially bad newspaper.

Gore Vidal, in a letter to the editor that The New York Times wouldn’t publish. So he sent it to The New York Review of Books, since, as Vidal explains, “the outburst was occasioned by a piece first published in this paper.”

RIP Gore Vidal. Our favorite quotes here.