JourBiz

Arthur Sulzberger on the Pay Wall

2010-03-20T14:15:00.002-06:00

Art Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, told SABEW conference-goers in Phoenix that The Times Select paywall made $10 million in its first year, and he considers it successful. But with digital advertising booming, Sulzberger said they needed to accomodate access to a new crop advertisers.

Sulzberger said the Times' new metered model, where those who use the most, pay the most, will roll out in 2011. "The reason we like the metered model is that it will keep us in the search ecosystem.

By using this blended model, our loyal readers will pay, and we will still have search. We can not lock in any single answer," he said.

He understand that's everyone's watching this metered model. "Our success as company will be judged on how well we do this… that’s why we’re rolling it out in 2011, we need to get it right. Legacy circulation system must integrate with the website."

On Google: "Railing against Google is like railing against oxygen."

On Competition against the WSJ and Rupert Murdoch: The challenge that we face is to challenge our brand promise into the digital era. The challenge that the Wall Street Journal is to change their brand promise while moving into the digital era. This is no small feat.....We're not going to change (in response to Murdoch's broadening of the scope of news at the WSJ) ...we are going to stay with what we're doing."

On the young adult market: We need to understand how information flow is changing, and we need to understand how Facebook is integrating.

On Mexican businessman Carlos Slim: He is influencing our strategy, NOT AT ALL. He's a great investor, he got a good deal.

Amit Singhal on China and mobile search

2010-03-20T09:38:00.004-06:00

Amit Singhal, Google fellow, speaking at the SABEW annual conference in Phoenix

He talks about China: "Governments should want information to be free."
How how search change on a mobile device: "We are already thinking about it. If you search for anything on a mobile device, we change our package. Our buttons are bigger, and we give you a map. Interfaces are different...the kind of information people seek on mobile phone is different.... it's far more local oriented."

On keeping secret Google's search and page rank algorithm: "If there is a leak, there are massive attacks on Google."

On paying for content contrary to an open web: "Economics will take over. If people want that content, they will pay for it... It's not contrary to an open web. If users want it, they will pay for it."

On McContent, should Google distinguish between rehashed content and original content: "Can Google algorithms find the difference. There are already things in our algorithm that try to find original content, but algorithms still don't understand language. We are very aware... we try very hard to make sure that such type of content doesn't litter the algorithm results. We do distinguish (in favor of original content). All good providers have high page rank."

SEC's Khuzami live at SABEW in Phoenix

2010-03-19T18:39:00.001-06:00

Robert Khuzami, the SEC's director of enforcement, says that his agency is the cop on the beat for the financial service industry. See the video below...

He said that under his tenure, specialization is what makes the difference. Today's sophisticated fraud is complex, and so specialized investigators are "smart in the areas in which they operate."
And he says he does look at business news for tips for areas to investigate. He says tips just don't do it... but specialized investigators can figure out which rock to turn over.
The SEC enforcement will divide into five areas, to be launched in mid April:

Asset management, including investment companies and hedge funds
Market abuse, including insider trading and other market manipulation, including frontrunning and shortselling. Especially focused on technology.
Structured and new products, including derivatives like CDOs. He's very suspicious of new products.
Foreign corrupt practices, particularly bribery.
Municipal issues, particularly pay to play, and public pension accounting. It's thinly regulated area, and stretched local finances could lead to fraudulent practice.

The SEC is also working with more "cooperative" agreements to flip insiders to inform on their shady employers. He also has changed SEC's management, flattening the administration and making management less top heavy. He's also improved work flow and a new Chief Operating Officer is streamlining process, including creating a centralized office to handle the more than 700,000 tips the SEC gets every year. They are also looking a metrics to look at the use of resources within the agency. Khuzami is also pleased with the quality of new employees in the SEC who have a great deal of expertise.

He says it's also about the cases. "I have a great deal of optimism about the future of the division. The numbers are up across the board." He cited his enforcement action particularly against mortgage lenders like Countrywide for deceptive practices, and New Century for overstating financial statements. Also he cited charges again a hedge fund managers and an investment banker for manipulating prices in the credit default swap market. He's also charged hedge fund managers for pushy shoddy projects, and accounting firm Ernst and Young for fraudulently restating Bally's earnings. He brought several Sarbannes-Oxley violations violations, as well as insider trading violations, including the Galleon Group case, where hedge fund investors lost billions.

Sports CEOs talk about 3-D broadcasts

2010-03-19T17:51:00.002-06:00

More live coverage from the SABEW conference in Phoenix....

We're long past HD, and Phoenix areas sports execs Derrick Hall of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Doug Moss of the Phoenix Coyotes talk about 3-D broadcasts of sporting events and what it means for their industry.

2nd session on covering the economy

2010-03-19T16:03:00.000-06:00

2nd session, sponsored by NEFE

Getting it wrong – what journalists are missing in coverage of the stimulus and recovery

Panelists talk about journalists and covering the crisis.

Stephen Happel, economist ASU: Biggest scumballs of the earth are in the financial sector It’s not a failure of capitalism but a failure of regulation -- that’s how you can make the invisible hand work….

Kathy Kristof, personal finance columnist: It’s 1982 all over again. The complexity of explaining this as a derivative bores readers. It’s very complex and hard to understand. We need to make these lenders explain the risk models.

John Wasik, personal finance author: It’s more than 1982, it’s 1982 and 1930 combined. There’s $60 trillion in derivatives out there, an amazing amount….. It’s a market that’s not properly regulated.

Ali Malekzadeh: There are blackboxes in our economy that no one writes about. Universities are one of them. Hospitals, health care, insurance companies also – unless you develop yi9ur sources in those companies, who can’t chip away at that.

Government debt:

Ali Malekzadeh: The economy is about $1 trillion smaller than it used to be…that’s what you need to be writing about. Many people wanted a smaller government, but be careful what you wish for…. The state budgets will be smaller. Imagine that will mean.

Kathy Kristof: This level of government debt is not sustainable…. If you think consumer debt caused a crash, wait until you see government debt crash. We’ll have a much bigger problem 10 eyars from now. We’re on the track of becoming Greece. I worry about the next recession.

John Wasik: You’re going to see money cuts in every single state.

What journalism is doing:

Ali Malekzadeh: Talk about the people behind the numbers. Giving a picture of 375,000 laid off; can we give a picture of 3 of them?

Stephen Happel, economist ASU: The financial press really got what drove this crisis, (which is the lack of) financial regulation and greed.

LIVE from SABEW in Phoenix

2010-03-19T14:33:00.002-06:00

Kenneth Feinberg says “revenge” motive would cut pay czar’s credibility

This coming week as Wall Street enters proxy season, compensation czar Ken Feinberg will issue his rulings for this year’s compensation packages for companies who received tax bailouts.

In his address to SABEW members Friday at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism, Feinberg talked about how he arrives at his decisions for executive pay, as well as the growing anger among Americans toward what is seen as excessive compensation for those who work for troubled firms.

Feinberg, the Treasury Department’s special master stressed the limits of his job. First, he says he now only supervises the pay of the five companies who have not yet repaid their taxpayer bailout funds: AIG, General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial.

He stressed the three main functions of his limited role:

• Control compensation of only the top 25 officials in those five companies.
• Create a compensation structure for employees 26-100.
• In a discretionary function, see to have returned excessive compensation paid to employees before the bailout.

Feinberg acknowledged the growing populist sentiment and outrage in compensation among taxpaying Americans who earned significantly less than those executives high-flying salaries. “The American people own these companies, they are creditors of these companies,” Feinberg said.

In calculating compensation, Feinberg considers the company’s competitive needs, and need for stability in corporate leadership. In addition Feinberg reviews corporate and independent data before setting compensation. Sometimes when companies suggest unreasonable compensation for executives, he reminds them of the American taxpayer anger. “I tell them, ‘there will be pickets at that person’s house,’ and for the most part, we’ve worked it out.”

Feinberg hopes his efforts, albeit in confined to five companies, offer some leverage into influencing the pay for other American companies. “In one sense we are having an impact on Goldman, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley to voluntarily” limit themselves, he said. “It’s a small early sign we’ll have a voluntary impact” on what some Wall Street execs will get in their paychecks.

As for the pay structures to be announced next week, Feinberg hinted that executives shouldn’t receive any more than $500,000 or less in base taxed salary. Feinberg also places limitations on stock grants, requiring that such compensation vest immediately and is not redeemable for two to four years.

Besides limits on salary, Feinberg said the compensation problem at American companies should be address through government regulation and stronger corporate governance. He asked, “Do we have the right people” who are on corporate compensation committees and board, people who are independent and strong enough to “push back” on pay issues.

Though Feinberg has the power to wrest money back from executives who might have been overpaid while their companies were sailing into trouble, he feels that pay that was legally given to executives should not be called back. But, Feinberg explains, past excessive pay could be a consideration for the pay he sets going forward.

Feinberg says the idea that “we’re out to get that person” would cut the credibility of his work as special pay master.

It's official -- the web is the place for breaking news

2010-02-03T17:19:00.003-06:00

The latest newspaper research from my colleague, Dr. Clyde Bentley:

The news of the moment, the mommy market and the best buys in print -- there really is something out there for us besides Dr. Jobs asking you to take a tablet and the Gray Lady asking you to pay for online access. The new year has unleashed a rash of important newspaper numbers:

Immediate gratification -- Print newspapers probably stopped being the first place people turn to for breaking news back when radio came on the scene, but the Web has sealed the deal. The third annual News Users Survey by the Outsell research firm shows a dramatic increase in the number of people who turn to the Internet for "news right now." Today 57% of news users turn first to the Web and a third prefer using an aggregator like Google or Yahoo. As a result, the report said, newspaper usage continues to slip.

Declining readership is bad news, but no one should be surprise that newspapers are not cherished for immediacy. Unfortunately, the study says little about the online or mobile sites that converged newspaper organizations offer. Nearly 75% of the respondents said they would go to a free site if newspapers started charging for access, but that assumes that the same content will be available free elsewhere. That in turn assumes another organization has the same news-gathering ability. And that feeds into Outsell's findings on what content people want. Respondents go to major Web sites for national topics, but expect local print, broadcast and Web outlets to provide their local news and information.
The stats support the notion that readers see local information as compelling content and that it must be unique to have monetary value. The paid-wall argument rests not so much on the results of surveys like this as on a marketing analysis of what content niche a newspaper can "own."

Mother may I? -- It's easy to be sidetracked by the headlines about survey results. Take the recent reports about All About Mom, a national poll of mothers by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association. The most reported number was 60.3% -- the percentage of moms with children at home who use Facebook. The first times newspapers came up in the report was with a measly 6.1%.

Don't panic yet. That little number proportion of moms who read newspapers at the same time they talk on the cell phone. That can be seen as the amount of focused concentration the respondents give newspapers when compared to their multi-tasking with other media. For instance, one in five mothers said they chat on the cell phone while browsing the Web. Newspapers, in fact, more than held their own in the survey. BIGresearch said 78% of mothers polled read a local daily newspaper at least occasionally and 40% read it regularly. Community weeklies scored 62% for occasional reading and 26% for regular reading. All that added up to a weekly reach of newspapers to 54% of moms.

Why should you care? Check the buying decision stats collected by the National Association for Moms in Business: Moms are responsible for 83% of all consumer purchases in the U.S. The $1.6 trillion they spend each year is equal to the total purchasing power of the UK. If you are not reaching mothers with your content, your advertisers are not reaching their customers.

The full report and its statistical tables are worth downloading if for no other reason than to see what time of day moms read the paper (only 16% in the morning) and the long list of leisure activities (read "story ideas") that moms enjoy.

Bargain, not basement -- Although ad revenue from newspapers has slipped, the effectiveness of the medium is holding in some demographics. A new Adweek Poll/Harris survey placed newspapers at the top of the list of media for "advertising most likely to help find bargains." But there was a catch: Papers took the overall lead by rating very highly with consumers 45 and older. Boomers read papers even if their kids don't.

In the January poll of 2,136 people, 23% turned to newspapers for bargains, compared to 18% to online sites, 12% to mail, 11% to TV and 2% to radio. Then there was "none of the above;" 34% said the type of ad makes no difference.

I found it interesting that newspaper ads easily beat television ads in every age and gender bracket. Online advertisement beat everything for 18-44 year-olds and for college graduates, but I wish that Harris and kin would give us numbers for more than just generic "online ads." Of more concern to me is online advertisement in support of editorial content, as on a news site. I continue to wonder whether the minimal revenue newspapers get from their Web editions is a reflection of the ability of the ad format to make cash registers ring.

Daily? -- Adweek Media/Harris also gave newspapers a mixed bag of results in its December reading survey. "Almost every day" reading of what is supposed to be a daily paper is down to 43% overall and to 23% for the 18-34-year-old group. The aggregate percentage was pumped up by the 55+ group, which reads daily 64% of the time.

That said, all statistics are not the same. Online readership and television viewership are often measured by a monthly average. The newspaper apples to those "monthly cumulative" apples compare quite well: 81% of the respondents said they read a paper at least once a month and 72% said they read at least once a week. Even that younger cohort reads a paper 71% monthly and 59% weekly.

The same poll said 70% of adults won't pay a dime for online newspaper content. I'm less inclined, however, to give that question much credence this early. I can't remember ever expressing eagerness to start paying for something I now get free. But I usually ante up when given a bill for something I enjoy.

Only freebies -- Those great apps for smartphones may get the buzz, but they don't always get the cash. Asknet's survey found that 45% of smartphone users have never purchased an app. The vast majority of the rest said they had spent less than $50 on apps. The poll, taken simultaneously of smartphone owners in Boston and San Francisco, also showed the continuing market strength of RIM's Blackberry. In Boston, 53% had Blackberries, 37% had iPhones and 10% had other brands. In San Francisco, that miscellaneous mixture was 41%, but the Blackberry hit 34% and the iPhone tallied 25%.

Both sets of statistics bear pondering by news execs. Income from paid news apps may be limited and it seems obvious that iPhone apps won't cover the whole market.

Suburban power -- Two research reports conducted here by the Reynolds Journalism Institute for Suburban Newspapers of America are now available for free download. The SNA Suburban Market Survey of 2,615 adults is bound to raise the eyebrows of newspaper critics. Suburban newspapers dramatically trounce all other media as the preferred source of community news, local youth sports, local business news, local shopping and local entertainment news in their markets. Asked where they would turn for community news, for instance, 66% of respondents named suburban papers, compared to 22% for the Internet, 20% for metros, 18% for TV and 9% for radio. The study also indicates that free weeklies are better read in the suburbs than metro dailies, 59% to 57%.

Using the same sample, the Community Web Sites Study showed huge growth on the use of the Web to access local news in a week -- up from 49% in 2006 to 66% in late 2009. Not surprisingly, suburbanites like local news and log on to Facebook. But of special interest to me was their use of mobile phones. Six out of 10 smartphone owners accesses news and weather on their handset. But don't be blinded by the glitz of the mobile Web, as 59% also said mobile text alerts will be useful to them.

Speaking of mobile -- My fellowship project at the Reynolds Journalism Institute is to help newspapers cope with the growing tidal wave of mobile media. To that end, I've started a special blog and created an e-mail discussion list - mobilenews@po.missouri.edu - on which I invite your participation. I'll post regular updates on mobile developments that should impact the news biz and then moderate the discussion.

Two aspects of this project may be of special interest to you. First, I will attend the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona Feb. 15. Consider me your reporter. I will blog back information as fast as I can, but I will also try to bird-dog your questions if you will pass them along.

Closer to home, we at the Reynolds Journalism Institute want to host an initial gathering of "mobile editors" or similar newsroom creatures, tentatively April 19. There is no industry group for mobile editors yet and we know many of you would like to exchange ideas. Send me an email if you are interested so I can get it on the rapidly-filling RJI event calendar.

Steve Outing's last column for E&P

2009-12-31T11:55:00.003-06:00

Steve Outing penned his last column for the venerable Editor & Publisher, which ceased publication today. It's a great look at what might have been. Fittingly, the column has always been titled, "Stop the Presses."

Steve Outing: Goodbye, for Now? But Looking Forward Back in 1995, Editor & Publisher invited me to start writing a freelance column for its brand-new Web site, initially called MediaInfo.com. Nearly 15 years later, this will likely be my last column for E&P -- and I'd like to project on what digital possibilities could have been for newspapers, and how it's not too late for them to put things right.

By Steve Outing
NEW YORK (December 29, 2009) -- Back in 1995, Editor & Publisher invited me to start writing a freelance column for its brand-new Web site, initially called MediaInfo.com. An ex-newspaper journalist, I had become an early "expert" on the intersection of online services and the World Wide Web with the newspaper industry, and I began covering interactive media for the bible of the newspaper industry. Nearly 15 years later, this is (most likely) my last column, if E&P -- the magazine and the Web site -- disappears from view. Back when I started, I couldn't possibly have guessed that: 1. I'd continue to write this column for that long. 2. The newspaper industry would fail to benefit from the Internet, and bequeath opportunities to eager entrepreneurs who did capitalize, big time, at the expense of newspapers. A confession As much as I have loved newspapers, since the Web came along in late 1993, it hasn't been the paper, per se, that I loved -- but rather the type of journalism that newspaper companies were able to produce. While far from perfect, newspapers were able to afford the big editorial staffs, which other media forms could not, to cover their communities well and (often) uncover mistakes, corruption and wrongdoing by government and business. In fact, in the mid-1990s I really expected that by 2009 there to be a lot less “paper” moving around. I hoped that would be the case, actually, since the trees felled and all the trucks spewing pollution throughout the process of getting newspapers onto millions of home driveways each day has long struck me as environmentally damaging and ultimately unsustainable. Back then, had you asked me to project 15 years ahead, I would have suggested that newspaper print editions would get overtaken in usage by online and digital replacements, and that primarily the older generations would still be reading on paper. Actually, that's why I chose the name of this column, "Stop The Presses!", back in 1995. It felt right, both hearkening to the past and foretelling the future. My E&P editors in 1995 were savvy enough to get the joke, and overlook the possibility that some E&P readers might take offense at what my column's name implied. Back to the present, I've decided to end this column with two lists: 1. How things should have gone for the newspaper industry. 2. Since they didn't go that way, what to expect next. The 20/20 hindsight fantasy scenario If Quentin Tarantino can produce a fantasy revisionist-history blockbuster like "Inglourious Basterds," about a band of Jews killing Adolph Hitler and the Nazi leadership, then I can script how the newspaper industry's previous 15 years should have played out. 1. In 1994-95, newspaper executives recognize that the Web is something with the potential to rock their world, and increase R&D budgets significantly in order to plan for and begin building new businesses based on fast-developing new technology. Knight Ridder (now defunct) does not shut down its pioneering Information Design Laboratory (1992-95) in Boulder, Colorado, and transitions into a corporation that goes on to build successful Internet businesses that complement its core newspaper publishing business. 2. Learning from media history (e.g., TV started out as radio with a video image of the announcer speaking into a microphone), newspaper leaders decide not to repeat it this time around. They direct new-media R&D staff to design new online services that create original content and new utilities -- things that are not possible in print but are online. Print journalism is still leveraged online, of course, but it does not dominate the new-media team's thinking or mission. 3. Fat and happy with enviable profit margins, newspaper companies' leaders take note of the wave of Internet start-up companies in the late 1990s. Business development executives with technology experience are brought in from outside the newspaper industry to identify the most promising trends and start-up companies, and begin making acquisitions and/or significant investments, in a big way. Newspapers may be fiscally fat and happy, but their leaders want more, see opportunity, and they have the money to invest in complementary Internet businesses. 4. Some of these investments and acquisitions take off, and newspaper companies have on their hands complementary businesses that will grow to dominate their sectors. Newspaper executives take a mostly hands-off approach, leaving evolution of the acquisitions to technologists who have their eyes on media's future. 5. Even though these new digital acquisitions seemingly (through late-1990s news-leader eyes) have little to do with the uber-profitable business of publishing newspapers, the acquisitions are marketed (at little or no cost) aggressively in the newspapers. Newspaper executives, educated and persuaded by the technologists they've brought on board, foresee the day when their new acquisitions will out-earn print revenues. 6. Newspaper executives and editors early on grasp the essential difference between print publishing and the Internet: one-to-many only, vs. one-to-one (plus one-to-many). This epiphany, experienced early on, permits industry investments and acquisitions into new businesses that leverage the ability for people to communicate with each other online; newspaper companies end up being part of what eventually becomes the social networking industry. Journalists are educated on interaction with the audience as a result of their employers entering this new space, and that begins the cultural transition of the newsroom toward an interactive relationship with readers rather than the lecture model. 7. As the Internet bust of 2000 hits, newspaper executives begin to doubt their strategy, but their portfolio includes some Internet companies that ride out the temporary slump. As the Internet bounces back, newspapers recognize the wave heading back up and resume their digital-expansion strategies. 8. In the mid-2000s, the era of cheap money, newspaper executives see the tremendous growth of the best Internet companies and resist inclinations to consolidate and acquire other newspaper companies. Instead, they up the game of complementary acquisitions and investments in the digital and burgeoning mobile spaces. 9. As reader and advertiser behavior changes, newspaper companies accept the fact that their newspaper operations will produce less profit and soon will need to either cut staff or subsidize newsrooms from more profitable new businesses. Because of their foresight, they are able to maintain high editorial quality while making the transition to a digital-centric model for their core news business. 10. The late-2000s recession is ridden out by newspaper companies because they have diversified and grabbed the digital opportunities as they arose early on. There's still room to invest and focus on the next big media opportunity: mobile content and services. Ahh, that sounds so simple. If only someone had created a time machine in the mid-1990s, then comic-strip artists and late-night comics wouldn't be making fun of newspapers as today's buggy-whip makers. What's next Since the newspaper industry in general took the wrong path, let's get back to reality. Here's what we're likely to see in the next few years as a result of how newspaper leaders chose to respond to disruptive technology. 1. Small-town independent newspapers don't grow much, but they are able to continue with healthy print circulation for several more years. But eventually, they start hurting more, like their metro cousins, as local advertisers shift more and more money to cheaper, more effective digital advertising opportunities. 2. Urban metro papers continue to shrink. More papers stop publishing in print on some days of the week; others go to Sunday-only for print and online/mobile for the rest of week; and a few go entirely digital. Unfortunately, we see some more newspapers die. 3. The wave of small news start-ups -- non-profits, hyper-local for- and non-profits, placebloggers who've figured out how to make a living, combo professional- and citizen-reporting digital news services, university-affiliated news entities, etc. -- that we see emerging today grows rapidly. Journalists laid off or bought out by newspapers start many of these services, aided by new companies that help them on the advertising, business and technology sides (e.g., GrowthSpur ), and new local digital ad networks serving all local media, new and old. 4. Some of these small entities partner with local newspapers, gaining for themselves revenue to support their mission, while giving the newspapers quality content much cheaper than the papers could produce it themselves. This is especially the case with costly and time-intensive investigative journalism, where local non-profit public-interest news sites (a la VoiceofSanDiego ) partially support themselves with money from "old media." 5. News aggregators (Google News, et al) and personal digital agents (e.g., Circulate, but more likely to come from the likes of Google or Facebook) become the norm for consumers getting their customized news streams on their computers, mobile phones, e-readers, and other devices. As a result, newspaper Web sites become less important. Newspaper publishers and editors learn, in order to survive, how to get their content into all the appropriate streams. And they develop ways to monetize content as it flees the home pond (Web site) for the many new streams (aggregators, agents, social news streams, etc.). Those that don't, die. 6. The saber-rattling over pay walls at newspaper Web sites will die down as Google, which many newspaper executives seem to perceive as the No. 1 cause of their woes, accommodates their concerns and introduces more technology that helps news producers turn digital dimes into quarters (or more). Paid content by newspapers is supported by new systems, but it's a small amount of the content they produce. 7. Newspaper companies that do survive and prosper do so by devoting significant resources (at executive and technical levels) to mobile as the next platform of opportunity. They don't repeat the mistakes of a decade earlier made with the Web, but instead raise mobile to a top priority. 8. Newspapers that do well adapt quickly to the instant nature of crowd-sourced news (e.g., aggregating and filtering eyewitness reports from Twitter), rather than fight it. 9. Some newspaper companies survive the journey across the chasm between the old print-centric model and a new digital model. These are most likely the companies whose board of directors install new leadership not chained to the success of past business models. Among the survivors, we're more likely to see repeats of National Public Radio's digital transition, where a new CEO (Vivian Schiller) was hired because of her digital experience, mindset and vision, even though she had less of that for radio. 10. I continue to write about the future of news on my personal blog, but don't emphasize newspapers so much. Bye, for now I'm looking forward to re-reading this column in about five years, to see if I'm on target or missed widely. Meanwhile, you'll find me focusing on a new project, the Digital Media Test Kitchen at the University of Colorado at Boulder, hosted by the School of Journalism & Mass Communication. Watch my blog and you'll soon see that launched. To everyone who's read this column over the years, whether routinely or occasionally, thank you for taking some of your valuable time to listen to my ideas, and respond and interact with me. To everyone I've talked with or interviewed over the years, thank you for educating me on innovation in news and sharing your knowledge and vision. --30--

Clyde Bentley's latest research

2009-12-21T22:42:00.004-06:00

My Missouri journalism colleague, Clyde Bentley, offers his latest newsletter on news media research, a holiday edition:

'Tis the season to be sage-like, even if you can't be jolly. As 2009 closes and 2010 awakens, researchers both looked back at what we did and made educated guesses at would we might see.

Gosh, I thought so - The U.S. Census Bureau counted its numbers and came to the conclusion that newspaper revenue went down -- in 2008. The mid-December federal report only tracks economic statistics for the previous year. And that's bad enough -- the industry's revenues dropped 8.3% to $43.9 billion. A year ago the "bad" news as a 2.7% decline, which most publishers would welcome today.

There is alway more to Census Bureau reports than the headlines, however. For instance, the second biggest drop from the publishing sector was in greeting cards (7%). That probably is less a sign that Hallmark has lost its humor than another indicator of the Internet's impact. Speaking of which, Web search portals were up 18.9%, which was actually bad news for an industry that jumped 38.1% in 2006 and 25.1% in 2007. It may also be some consolation that the search portals generated about $29 billion less than newspapers did in 2008. Likewise, ad revenue for online publishers was only $4.6 billion. That was a 22.5 increase, but not like the 44% jump in 2006 nor the 27.9% increase in 2007.

We're all thumbs -- The Census Bureau also released its latest Statistical Abstract of the United States, packed as usual with trivia such as the number of students who carry guns to school (6% in 2007) and the health of the restaurant business ($453 billion and rising). My eye, however, was caught by the report that mobile phone texting more than doubled in 2008, the last year for which statistics were available. Simple text-messages (not Web browsing or e-mail) went from 48 billion in 2007 to 110 billion in 2008. That confirms the survey I am just now analyzing that shows text messaging increases as you adopt a more sophisticated phone. I had predicted the opposite. I'm paying a lot more attention to the value of text message alerts these days.

Oldies but goodies -- Two news activities made the Top 10 Internet activities among the 65+ crowd in 2008, according to Nielsen. Don't scoff -- 13% of the entire population is at least 65 years old and the number of seniors using the Web rose 55% over the past five years.

The top activity for seniors was e-mail, followed by maps, weather, their bills and all those photos of grandkids. But reading the general news online was No. 6 and reading business or financial news was No. 10. Like surprises? Facebook was the third most popular Internet destination for seniors, only topped by Google Search and Windows Media Player. More? Seniors are within 1/10 of a point from teens in the proportion of people who visit blogs and social networking sites.

The November Nielsen report should be a wake-up call to online editors and others who look at the Web and only think "young." Here's a huge, affluent and well-read market that is eager for useful information, loves to connect with others and puts news above YouTube. Gray hair sounds better than red ink.

Facebook or nothing -- As popular as it seems to be with senior citizens, the social network born in a Harvard dorm hit an important tipping point in 2009 with its original target audience. Anderson Analytics said Facebook is now not only the most popular social network service among the college-aged, but may be the only one that counts. Students polled in the 2009-2010 GenX2Z American College Student Survey overwhelmingly rated Facebook as "cool" (82% of males and 90% of females) and everything else as "lame." The lamest of the lame (31%) was mighty MySpace.

But the curious flip side to the Facebook finding was that 18-25 year olds are using all blogs and discussion boards less. Blog activity was down 5% among college students and use of discussion boards was down 8%.

For now, the findings bode poorly for publishers hoping to establish local social networking sites. But, as the researchers noted, rapid technology changes make accurate predictions impossible. I think it might be worth looking east, however, to the mobile social networking sites booming in Europe. Networks such as Loopt, Aka Aki, MobiLuck and Peperonity allow you to read the profiles of others within a few yards (make that meters) of you. If that's not a cyber party, what is? (Check this video to see what I mean).

Smart phone war? -- Enough of what was, what can we expect in 2010? How about a heated battle between the companies that want to put our news on their little hand-held computers? In 2009, Apple's iPhone stole the show, even though RIM had a lot more Blackberries out there. Google's Android is in the limelight for 2010. When comScore asked smartphone shoppers which type of phone they might buy in the next three months, 20% said iPhones but 17% chose the newcomer. It helps that Android is available on a variety of phones from all the major cell phone service providers, while the iPhone is both Apple and AT&T exclusive. ComScore's research also showed that Android owners use their phones almost identically to iPhone owners, except the Apple crowd fires off more e-mail.

The Great Nielsoni -- The top crystal ball award for December has to go to Nielsen, which released a big packet of Future Trends in Media. The summary is that 2010 will be a consumer's market for digital media on three screens - TV, PC and mobile. Nielsen said to watch for the number of TVs to exceed the number of people in the U.S. while close to half of all video is watched on a computer screen. On the mobile front, 3G networks will grow and 4G (about as fast as broadband) will make a noticeable introduction.

Five key trends -- The Nielsen seers said to watch for five trends that will have major impact on the media business over the next three to five years. All TV content will be available on any type of screen. The "net neutrality" court battle over whether Internet service providers can control what flows through their digital pipes could dramatically change the online world. With the next wave of more powerful phones, the researchers said, it will be common for people to not only receive information wherever they happen to be, but to share it with others. In the same vein, tiered pricing may make those who download data-intensive content pay more than simple e-mailers. Interactive TV could take even more time out of the American day than the addictive tube does now. Finally, the hardware will dazzle -- combining gaming, TV, computer and who knows what else into a device that looks something like a TV.

It really is their world -- In 2010 and beyond, Nielsen said, the Web will be driven by the audience rather than the content providers. Advertisers will be metrics-crazy and marketers will combine all sorts of media to reach a fickle audience. Research will be king -- the more you know about the audience, the better chance you have of keeping a piece of the pie.

The privacy eye -- That last trend -- getting the goods on the audience -- is bound to keep both researchers and reporters busy in the foreseeable future. How deep should a company dig into a customer's life, even if they asked for the "service?" Do journalists dig into the same data? And who keeps track of what the government is doing with the numbers? It's going to be an interesting 2010.

Ready for the mobile world? That's OK, few of us are. That's why I'm trying to assemble a list of mobile editors at newspapers. We are trying to put together a spring brainstorming gathering at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. If you know an editor charged with delivering the news via cell, e-mail me at bentleycl@missouri.edu.

Veteran journalists to head Fiscal Times

2009-12-18T14:13:00.004-06:00

Veteran biz journalists will head up the new digital publication The Fiscal Times, which will have offices in NYC and DC. Its mighty new slogan is "The Source for all things fiscal."

It will cover the increasingly busy intersection of economic issues and public policy, and will used content sharing and independently produced articles and opinion pieces. Content will include profiles on key government players to in-depth looks at federal spending programs. Its first content-sharing agreement is with The Washington Post, and other deals to be announced.

Blackstone chairman, Peter Peterson, is initially funding the venture. The veteran journos on board are editor in chief, Jackie Leo, formerly of Reader's Digest; and longtime Washington Post editor/reporter Eric Pianin, who'll be Washington editor.

Its journalists will work from offices in New York and at the National Press Building in D.C. Here's the full list of business journalists:

Editor-in-Chief Jackie Leo, former editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest and Editorial Director of Consumer Reports
Washington Editor Eric Pianin, a former editor and budget reporter at the Washington Post
Ann Reilly Dowd, former Washington Bureau chief for Fortune and Money magazines
David Ewing Duncan, a journalist, television producer and author who has written widely on health care and science
Merrill Goozner, a health care blogger and former Asia correspondent and chief financial writer for the Chicago Tribune
Katherine Reynolds Lewis, former Bloomberg News and Newhouse News Service financial reporter
Dan Morgan, former Washington Post investigative and congressional reporter and author
Elaine Povich, a former congressional and budget reporter for the Chicago Tribune and Newsday

The Fiscal Times Advisory Board
An Advisory Committee consisting of leading professional journalists and public policy experts will monitor the operations of The Fiscal Times and periodically meet with editors and executives to assess performance and progress in meeting its goals and standards.
Robert D. Reischauer, President of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office
Jodie T. Allen, senior editor of the Pew Research Center, former managing editor and political columnist for U.S. News & World Report, and editor of the Washington Post Sunday "Outlook" section
Drew Altman, President and CEO of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and former commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Human Services.
Jim Brady, President, Digital Strategy, Allbritton Communications and former Executive Editor of washingtonpost.com
G. William Hoagland, CIGNA Corporation's Public Policy Group director and former policy and budget adviser to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and staff director of the Senate Budget Committee

Editor & Publisher -- could it be saved by a blog?

2009-12-10T17:21:00.004-06:00

After Editor & Publisher, announced today that they are ceasing publication, and journalists everywhere filled the Twitter airwaves with comments.
Some saw the demise of the 125-year-old magazine, which has served as the chronicle and Bible of the newspaper industry. Some Tweeters lamented the demise as the end of the era, others thought that it should live on in web form. Others wondered what would happen to their directories, which gave market information and contacts at daily and weekly news publications around the country.
The staffers were told they would stay on until the end of the month, then given severance. All elements of E&P are ceasing publication.
The Twitter response is encouraging to some.
Staffer Joe Strupp says he may start a blog to fill the gap, as he feels the industry is really losing something if they lose E&P. Despite circulation declines, daily newspapers are still a $38 billion industry in the U.S.
Here's the story:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=100405
In full disclosure, my husband is a former editor of E&P when it was owned by the Brown family -- which then sold to VNU. That company was bought up by private equity firms, and renamed as Nielsen. It's Nielsen that's closing the doors.
The Nielsen Co. announced Thursday it was closing Editor and Publisher, a magazine which has chronicled the news industry for over a century, and selling several other brands to a newly formed company.
Kirkus Reviews, a book review publication founded in 1933, is also being shuttered.
Nielsen said eight brands, including the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, were being sold to e5 Global Media LLC, a new company formed by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners. Other brands included in the sale by Nielsen Business Media are Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, The Clio Awards, Back Stage and Film Journal International.

Learning more about Islamic Finance

2009-12-04T10:27:00.002-06:00

With concerns unfolding about the stability of Dubai World and it's sovereign backing, many reporters have questions about financing in this part of the world.

The U.S. Treasury Department has a downloadable publication that explains Islamic Finance components and here's the link: https://treas.gov/offices/international.../08042006_OccasionalPaper4.pdf

Islamic finance is based on principles of Islamic law, or shariah. The market for Islamic finance has grown 10% - 15% annually in recent years. Islamic finance historically has been concentrated in oil-rich Arab and Southeast Asian countries, but has expanded globally to non-Muslim countries.

What makes Islamic finance different?

Ban on interest (riba): In conventional finance, a distinction is made between acceptable interest and excessive interest. Under Islamic law, any level of interest is considered usurious and is prohibited. So how do lenders profit from financial transactions under Islamic law? For instance, in a real estate, it could takes the form of leasing, as opposed to loans. Instead of borrowing money, the bank obtains the property and leases it to the shariah-compliant investor, who pays rent, not interest.

Ban on uncertainty: Uncertainty in contractual terms and conditions is not allowed, unless all of terms and conditions of the risk are understood by all parties to a financial transaction.

Risk-sharing and profit-sharing: Parties involved in a financial transaction must share both associated risks and profits. Profits or returns from assets are permitted so long as the business risks are shared by borrower and lender.

Ethical investments: Investment in industries prohibited by the Qur’an, such as alcohol, pornography, gambling, and pork- based products, are discouraged.

Asset-backing: Each financial transaction must be tied to a “tangible, identifiable underlying asset.” Money is not considered an asset class because it is not tangible and thus, may not earn a return.

What did we know; when did we know it?

2009-12-03T12:47:00.005-06:00

Mortgage crisis, bank failures, Bernie Madoff ripping off investors.

Why wasn't the business press there to save us from disasters?

That, of course, was a major discussion panel at the 2009 SABEW Spring Conference in Denver. Did the business press foresee the depth of this recession and provide adequate warnings?

In research, we're taking that idea a bit further, and Missouri master's student Boris Korby is looking into the matter for his master's project. He'll be researching the content of warning stories that appeared prior to the recession, comparing what business-focused media reported versus what more "Main Street" media reported.

He's also looking at how broadcast media fared in accurate forecasting of the 2008 recession versus more print-focused platforms. I'll report back on his progress, but would appreciate your insights here.

(photo/illustration by Eric Pier)

Business Journalism at a Holiday Discount

2009-12-03T08:46:00.004-06:00

I got an interesting email the other day from SkyRadio, the company that produces the business talk radio channel that's one of the 12 or so channels you can plug into on the armrest of your favorite airline. We've all probably listened in to this news while winging over the ocean on a long flight.

Well, SkyRadio wanted to interview me as an "innovator" as part of an upcoming series they were airing in March and April on Delta and USAIR. I get interview requests at least once a month, so it wasn't surprising, but the catch was the interview, conducted by esteemed journalists, would cost me $2995. Was I interested? And slots were going fast, as that $2995 pricetag was a special holiday rate!

If you go to SkyRadio's website, skyradionet.net, you can find lots of interviews with real newsmakers like former President Carter, T.Boone Pickens, and the CEO of Intel. You can also click to find undated interviews with people who apparently paid for the privilege of being side by side with interviews that weren't paid. Some of these paid plugs are apparently pretty old, as the interview subjects have now changed jobs, their companies have been sold, or their web contact information outdated. One so-called expert in Customer Relationship Management left that position in 2004, and her web address is for sale.

While we all know that there are broadcasters who demand a production fee for some interviews, SkyRadioNet does take this to a new low of selectivity. My solicitation message had apparently been sent to so many others that my email server had marked it as suspected spam. That special holiday rate, it seems, was just another "Cyber Monday" bargain in my inbox, but this time it was ethics on sale.

So the next time you plug in to listen to "Business News" on an airplane, it's clearly paid PR.

Business Publication Readership is UP!

2009-11-19T10:57:00.003-06:00

Adweek reports on new research that shows more people are reading business publications. the Mediamark Research & Intelligence.
The Wall Street Journal saw its audience grow 11.6%, to 3.4 million; Forbes' grew 11.5%, to more than 6 million; Fortune's rose by 9%, to 4.1 million; and The Economist's audience grew 6%, to 2.8 million.
People may be cutting back on the number of magazines they buy, but they're still interested in the world of business, says Roberta Garfinkle, director of print strategy at TargetCast. Yet those audience gains are hardly reflected in magazines' advertising results. "Some advertisers are losing sight of the fact that the audiences in some instances are growing," she said.

Mint on the death of newspapers

2009-09-30T08:49:00.002-06:00

The website Mint.com has taken aim at changes in the newspaper industry. Here is it's great graphic on what's happened in the newspapers in the last few years.
It shows some really interesting data, including the fact that only the Wall Street Journal has gained circulation in the last year.
In preparing this graphic, Mint used stock price data from Bloomberg.

Budget help from Mint.com

Clyde Bentley's latest research

2009-09-09T08:10:00.002-06:00

Research for the Newsroom
A wrap-up of research of interest to journalists
Clyde Bentley Ph.D.
Missouri School of Journalism

Sept. 9, 2009

I love how research reveals nagging facts that you just can't get rid of. I'm the same way -- I disappeared for an August vacation, but I'm back with another edition of research tidbits news folks can use.

Paid vs. free -- While there is still evidence of a future for print newspapers, most of the current focus is on Web editions. The NAA touted a Nielsen study showing 70 million unique users visited newspaper sites in June. But the discussion in both the newsrooms and the glass offices is on paid vs. free content. The Newport (RI) Daily News saw print circulation gains after putting up the paid firewall online.

A report available only to Newspaper Association of America members shows that Web site traffic drops when papers institute a paid content system, but at least a portion of that audience returns in a few months. The NAA report details the recent experiences of the Daily Journal in Kankakee, IL, the Daily Gazette in Schenectady, NY, and the Mercury in Manhattan, KS. and also drew on a March report about other papers. All three offered readers a few lines from local stories for free, but required a paid login for the full story. All saw unique visits cut to half after raising the pay wall, but then creep back to near normal -- in six months for Schenectady. The Mercury stats were blurred by the population cycles of a college town. Report author Beth Lawton offered four tips from the experience of the papers:
Don't make the switch a surprise -- promote the change heavily.
Make the switch easy by simplifying the registration process and offering prompt help.
Automatically sign up current print subscribers so their access to the online site is effortless.
Promote the free content still available on the site. Most papers still offer blogs, online exclusives and photo/video galleries for free and some open their obituaries to free access.
Between the lines, however, stories of paid-content success show one consistent trend: Unique and compelling content. Local papers that are the primary journal of their town's life can sell the stories than no one else reports.

Who Tweets? -- Is Twitter for the young or the young at heart? Depends on whose report you read. Back in June, Sysomos released a study questioning the real popularity of the mini-blogging system. The report said less than 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of the activity, that there are more women than men on the system and that fewer than 7% of users have 100 or more followers. The report also said Twitter users are young -- 67% between 15 and 24 and that a quarter of all tweets are generated by commercial robots.

Sysomos analyzed more than 11.5 million Twitter accounts, including the index of user profiles and status updates.

The New York Times jumped on the age stats with a major story saying teens don't drive Twitter. The Times gave Twitter fans a kick in the shins by citing comScore data showing that just 11% of the miniblog's users were in the 12-17 age groups. It's those 35-plus tweet authors driving the phenomenon, The Times reported.
While comScore found that less than 20% of tweeters are under 17, trend analysis showed growth in that group is zooming up while use by the 35-plus segment is declining. Lipsman said the blush may have fade for Flickr business users who were early adopters. Now the culture of celebrity reigns.

The lesson is to look at more than raw numbers for growth. Good researchers parse the data many ways to get at the truth.

Mobile, really? -- Perhaps a more challenging Twitter issue for newspapers is whether the network can serve as a mobile phone system for issuing news alerts. It is also a more difficult statistic to dig out.

Earlier this year, Nielsen said Twitter had 735,500 unique visitors in January through mobile phone Web browsers During the last quarter of 2008, it had another 270,700 text message users a month. But the same report said Twitter had 7 million visitors from all sources in February. At a glance it appears that less than 15% of Twitter users tweet via cell phone. But none of those months match and there is no indication whether this is just for Twitter.com or includes all of the third-party apps.

The actual breakdown of computer and mobile Twitter users is probably buried somewhere in the massive data file that produce that comprehensive Sysomos report. I've asked the company for help digging it out. If the Nielsen statistics are even marginally accurate, newspapers that are counting on Twitter as an easy strategy for providing mobile news will need to rethink their plans. It would appear that Twitter is just another means of reaching readers tied to their laptops.

Climbing the ladder -- Another research organization released a more detailed look at social networking in the United States. Forrester Research first put Americans on the rungs of a hypothetical ladder that climbed from the online invisible to those friends of everyone. Forrester labeled people who don't use social networks at all "Inactives." Above them are "Spectators" who lurk on networks, read blogs and forums but never write. Joiners, on the next rung, at least post a profile on networks even if they don't say much. Collectors are satisfied with pulling sites into RSS feeds, voting in Web polls and tagging friends in photos. Critics are the folks with opinions on everything. They rate products online, comment on blogs and contribute to wikis. And finally at the top are the Creators. These are the folks who actually publish a blog or Web site and like to upload their own photos, videos and text.

Forrester's national survey found that nearly three quarters of Americans of all ages have climbed to at least that second rung. Nearly a quarter of us are Creators, out there publishing on the Web. Forrester concluded that nearly everyone under 35 is involved in some sort of online social network.

The fact that 24% of American adults do a version of our work in the name of fun is something journalists should keep in mind. But we should also note that those two most active groups are growing very slowly while the Joiner and Spectator activity, in Forrester's terms, "exploded."

Most people don't want to write with the intensity of a journalist. But they do like to browse the Web for information and to link themselves with networks that serve them well. Sounds like opportunity to me.

Super hyper -- An incredible research project is awaiting some eager grad student in Seattle. In the wake of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's print demise, Fisher Communications has launched 43 hyper-local neighborhood Web sites. Fisher owns both KOMO TV and KOMO AM and the broadcast newsrooms anchor the neighborhood effort.Will Seattleites put down their Starbucks to click on the Fischer sites? The jury is out, as Seattle already has a host of alternative media and a remaining daily newspaper that has edged back into the black and is gaining circulation. Fischer bets that the hyper-local strategy is a winner -- and is already planning a similar launch in Portland this fall.

Video on the go -- The tiny screen is becoming a very big draw for video fans in the U.S. A new Nielsen report shows that use of mobile phones to view video grew 70% in the second quarter of 2009. At the same time, online video jumped 46% to just under half the 141 minutes of TV the average American watches. The figures get a bit fuzzy when you consider that more than half of Americans with Internet access surf with their computers at the same time they are watching TV.

A second study by Knowledge Networks showed that 66% of people who have access to broadband in their home also have a mobile video device such as a cell phone, video iPod or laptop. Laptops still dominate, but use of iPods soared from 5% in 2006 to 23% in 2009. However, only 15% said they actually use their iPod to watch video. Video-enabled cell phones were owned by 10% of the respondents.

Videos are generally viewed at home with laptops, but only a third of iPod users and cell phone users are tied to home. For journalists, that may indicate a need to differentiate content and format for news aimed at viewers on the go and news to be consumed in the comfort of home.

Should newspapers be publicly financed?

2009-08-30T15:34:00.002-06:00

U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers
Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:05pm EDT

By Thomas Ferraro, Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.

Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible.

Because newspaper profits have been falling in recent years, "no substantial loss of federal revenue" was expected under the legislation, Cardin's office said in a statement.

Cardin's office said his bill was aimed at preserving local and community newspapers, not conglomerates which may also own radio and TV stations. His bill would also let a non-profit buy newspapers owned by a conglomerate.

"We are losing our newspaper industry," Cardin said. "The economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy.

Newspaper subscriptions and advertising have shrunk dramatically in the past few years as Americans have turned more and more to the Internet or television for information.

In recent months, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle have ceased daily publication or announced that they may have to stop publishing.

In December the Tribune Company, which owns a number of newspapers including The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times filed for bankruptcy protection.

Two newspaper chains, Gannett Co Inc and Advance Publications, on Monday announced employee furloughs. It will be the second furlough this year at Gannett.

(Additional reporting by Chuck Abbott)

(Editing by David Storey)

© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.

Newspaper Ads

2009-08-30T15:11:00.002-06:00

Americans rely on newspaper advertising as essential shopping tool; When consumers read newspaper ads, they take action

From the Newspaper Association of America

Arlington , Va. – Newspaper advertising remains the leading advertising medium cited by consumers in planning, shopping and making purchasing decisions, according to early data from a MORI Research survey of more than 3,000 adults. The findings, announced today by the Newspaper Association of America, provide conclusive evidence of the ongoing value newspaper ads deliver for marketers trying to reach consumers who are ready to shop and spend.

“Newspaper advertising remains the most powerful tool for advertisers who want to motivate consumers to take action,” said NAA President and CEO John Sturm. “While new technologies have their place in any total marketing program, initial findings from this important research demonstrate the enduring power of today’s newspaper ads. We’re looking forward to offering more comprehensive data on consumer motivation and the influence of newspaper advertising after a full analysis is completed in early fall.”

This study, part of a series entitled “American Consumer Insights,” examined the impact newspaper advertising has on consumer shopping and spending patterns. Early results indicate:

* Nearly six in 10 adults (59 percent) identify newspapers as the medium they use to help plan shopping or make purchase decisions
* 82 percent of those surveyed said they “took action” as a result of newspaper advertising, including:
o Clipping a coupon (61 percent)
o Buying something (50 percent)
o Visiting Web sites to learn more (33 percent)
o Trying something for the first time (27 percent)
* 73 percent of adults regularly or occasionally read newspaper inserts
* 82 percent have been spurred to action by a newspaper insert in the past month.

Preliminary data also reveals that other media trailed well behind newspapers as the primary medium for checking advertising. The closest competitor – the Internet – trailed newspapers by 20 percentage points (41 percent vs. 21 percent). Direct mail only mustered a 14 percent response in the survey, and television was cited by only eight percent of respondents. The numbers for other media trail off from that point (totals are displayed in the chart at the end of this release).

New NAA Ad Touts Newspapers’ Influence on Consumer Behavior

Putting its initial findings about the profound impact of newspaper advertising into practice, NAA separately released a new advertisement that describes engaged newspaper readers as “Action Figures.” The ads, produced by Allied Advertising, are available to NAA member newspapers and use early results of the research to highlight the ways newspaper advertising drives consumers to action.

“This ad stems from the fact that readers are not simply exposed to newspaper advertising – these ads resonate and consumers use them to take action,” said Randy Bennett, NAA’s senior vice president of business development. “There is a connection readers feel with newspaper advertising that no other medium can match.”

Primary Medium for Checking Advertising 2009
Newspapers 41%
Internet 21%
Ads received in the mail (Direct mail) 14%
Television 8%
Catalogs 6%
Magazines 3%
Radio 2%
None of these 5%

MORI Research conducted this phone and Internet survey of more than 3,000 adults for the Newspaper Association of America. MORI Research is a division of Frank N. Magid Associates, a leading research-based consulting firm serving an international clientele from offices in Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, and Marion, IA. Engagements range from tactical and operational issues to strategic direction and are informed by the perspective gained from broad and deep experience over the past 50 years in all sectors of the media, communications and entertainment industries.

NAA is a nonprofit organization representing newspaper industry and more than 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. NAA members include daily newspapers, as well as non-dailies, other print publications and on-line products. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the Association focuses on the major issues that affect today’s newspaper industry: public policy/legal matters, advertising revenue growth and audience development across the medium’s broad portfolio of products and digital platforms.

Changes at Scripps Howard

2009-08-26T15:03:00.002-06:00

Scripps Howard was a company that bet on afternoon papers. Many were in Joint Operating Agreements, and some, like the Cincinnati Post and Evansville Press, have closed.

Here's an interesting article on reshuffling for better economics within the company.

E.W. Scripps reorganizes newspaper management in effort to boost local news, ad sales

On Tuesday August 25, 2009, 7:55 pm EDT
CINCINNATI (AP) -- E.W. Scripps Co. is reshuffling the management overseeing its 13 daily newspapers in an effort to produce more unique stories on each community and boost the company's slumping ad sales.

Like many other publishers, Cincinnati-based Scripps has struggled to keep up advertising sales as readers rapidly shift online and the recession hurts advertising both on and off the Web. In the first half of the year, ad sales at Scripps' newspapers dropped 29 percent to $165 million. The severe slump contributed to Scripps' decision to close the print edition of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver six months ago.

Scripps also owns 10 local TV stations, including nine affiliated with ABC or NBC, besides daily newspapers such as the News Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn., and the Ventura County Star in Southern California.

To streamline its newspaper management, Scripps said Tuesday that it has created an operating committee that includes two national posts to steer sales and content. There are also four other posts responsible for operations, finance, information technology and human resources.

Bruce Hartmann, the vice president and publisher of the News Sentinel, will become vice president of Scripps' print and interactive sales, starting Sept. 1. Rusty Coats, now the vice president of interactive operations for the company's newspaper unit, will become vice president of content and marketing on Sept. 1.

Frank Wolfe, Scripps' director of operations, will take on the role of vice president of operations for the newspaper unit. He will be responsible for production and circulation operations across the country.

Jim York, who is the head of information technology for the newspaper unit, will become vice president of IT.

Robin Davis, who is vice president of finance and administration, will remain in that post. Mary Minser, vice president of human resources for the newspaper unit, will retain her current role, as well.

Scripps also said Tuesday that it is sorting its newspapers into two categories.

The newspapers in Scripps' six biggest markets -- Memphis and Knoxville, Tenn.; Naples and Treasure Coast, Fla.; Ventura, Calif., and Corpus Christi, Texas -- will be treated as regional media organizations. The publishers of these papers will be on Scripps operating committee and report to senior vice president of newspapers Mark G. Contreras, while advertising and circulation sales directors will report to Hartmann.

Newspapers in Scripps' other markets, which include Evansville, Ind., and Redding, Calif., will be termed "mid-sized" media organizations. Their publishers will be in charge of local ad sales and report to Hartmann.

Shares of Scripps closed earlier up 34 cents, or 4.7 percent, at $7.63.

The Missouri Centennial

2008-09-22T21:44:00.002-06:00

By far the biggest buzz at at the University of Missouri School of Journalism's centennial were DayLife, the aggregator, and SpinSpotter, the new software that highlights words in news stories that hold the potential of spin.

Otherwise worthy was Scripps Howard Networks new real estate site. In short, Missouri highlighted some interesting new ideas.

The passion and the promise

2008-05-03T15:47:00.002-06:00

Some random thoughts on non-profit media:

No matter how you frame it, it's tough to monetize journalism for a mass audience. People will pay for information about their passions - like California wine, Japanese anime, or tennis. Or pay for what information will promise an enhancement in their life, such as investor news, travel guides or sports websites.

Clearly, we need to push for public literacy, an educated public that appreciates a free and vigorous press. But we need to work on the media's side of the equation, and that is linking the a free press to free enterprise.

Ted Glasser says there's a difference between serving a market and serving a community. Most for-profit newspaesrs serve a market, which likely does not include the entire community.

2008-05-03T13:04:00.003-06:00

New Money, New Media, New Hope?

More from the NewsTools2008 session in Sunnyvale, CA. where journalists from the Bay Area and beyond are mulling this question: What kind of journalism does our democracy demand?

The journalism business model has not been reader-focused, instead it’s been one where journalism organization sells the loyalty of its local readers to businesses who want to sell goods, services, or even points of view to them.

So, if journalism is important to democratic institutions, then why not have the public fund the collection and analysis of information? Is there a model, used by National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting.

David Talbot started Salon in 1995, hooking up with progressive Silicon Valley investors to produce forward-thinking journalism. He’s now at the San Francisco Free Press, a nonprofit online journalism model. He feels that “wiki” journalism isn’t viable because you do need to pay people a living wage at some point.

And of course, talking about living wages, leads us to think of how journalists are categorized as professionals. Should journalists be credentialed in order to receive public funds?

There’s a lot of conversation about giving citizens want they SAY they want and what they REALLY BUY. It’s the journalism conundrum. When they answer a survey, or talk to a journalists, are they saying what they SHOULD say, rather than what they want. If you follow the money, then the top selling newspaper is USAToday, and top circulation magazines include Better Homes & Gardens and National Geographic.

Can journalists really become entrepreneurial without looking like sell-outs? It’s poison for journalists who uphold independence, fairness and objectivity, to then have to jump over the money wall to get paid for what they do. We don’t want to pander to writing for hire, yet smaller organizations must do that to stay alive and to fund the journalism that has no “advertising niche.”

And how about grants, specifically foundations that want journalists to do certain types of coverage, include seemingly general topics like poverty or education? Ten years ago, some in mainstream media didn’t want to accept funds from the Pew Center to fund civic journalism. Now there’s a lot of conversation about mainstream media accepting funds. Now, it’s true that radio and TV have long been audience-funded media. So, are there new rules about who we, as journalism organizations, accept money from now? Or is this just another ethical slippery slope? First, we accept one grant, then it’s easier to accept a more restricted grant.

In my class at the University of Missouri, we talk a lot about public funding, even tax support for media. How can we get government funding without the taint or reality of government control? Are there models for this? How can the models evolve?

Teaching Students the Journalism Biz

2008-05-03T11:04:00.004-06:00

How to help students create the journalism of the future.

Dinosaurs are teaching the next generation of journalists. How do we adapt what we know to help facilitate the next generation of journalism, and best train the next generation of journalists. We need to understand that stories are being told in a different way now ---abandon the linear storytelling form in favor of a non-linear approach, which means each element must tell a mini-story. Learn to use the tools yourself to increase your credibility with students, and to better help them achieve a better outcome.

What are the skills/values that should be passed on:

• Encourage curiosity
• Encourage skepticism
• Push them to put down their computers and cell phones to get up close and personal with sources
• Develop critical thinking skills – by teaching them to deconstruct and debate
• Teach them about truth, accuracy and fairness.
• Emphasize the importance of diversity of viewpoint in their stories
• Tell them to make up nothing
• Embrace multi-tasking and use their computer skills to teach computer assisted reporting
• And discuss how to use these tools to tell stories
• Talk about the impact of journalism and help them see the impact of their stories to develop passion.
• Talk about the role of journalism in a democratic society and explain how they will fulfill this role, and the watchdog role, in the future --- alongside citizen journalists and bloggers.

Particpants:

Mike Williams
Nancy Benson
Vikki Porter
Ed Cray
Michelle Fizhugh-Craig
Larry Pryor
Mary Fallon
Marty Steffens

2008-05-01T14:22:00.002-06:00

What is ……
breakthrough journalism?

Linda Fantin Brant Houston Sharon Waxman Chris Barr Teresa Puente Vera Chan Dennis Burgierman Stephen Silha Olga Loma Marty Steffens

Exploring Public Insight Reporting, which brings citizens into the newsgathering process tapping their expertise, comments and insights to find better stories. How do you harness the intelligence of your audience to do better journalism?

How do we define breakthrough journalism? How do we use technology to enrich and enhance journalism?

Some thoughts:

• It’s creating new knowledge. The context helps us shape our understanding and THAT’s how it turns into knowledge. Why is it meaningful?

• How is connecting the dots (or an Aha! Moments) – the New York Times story on Pentagon Pundits is an good example of an Aha! Moments, in legacy media.
• Lesson moment: Giving us the back story…

• Unique methods of reaching the audience.

• Jules Verne more than a century ago felt there was a way for citizens to ask questions directly of newsmakers, taking off the journalist filter. One might ask, doesn’t the internet do this now? In a way, yes, and we’re seeing legacy media do this, with response to stories. Do these responses to stories lead us to a new paradigm for a stronger conversation?

• On these responses, we want to ask bloggers and responders: How do you know that? What is your credibility?

Questions to ponder:
Has journalism really changed? Or has just the packaging changed? What are we breaking through?
Is conversation really journalism?
Is crowd-sourcing and other methods being pushed by declining newsrooms?
How do we get democracy to serve journalism? How do we make citizens part of the news process where we just aren’t asking for opinions?

How do we preserve the sense-making role of journalism? How do we have a constantly updated nutgraf?

How do we ensure great stories get wide distribution? A new way to disseminate information to allow for impact and prioritization of news would be breakthrough journalism.

If the Center for Public Integrity produces great journalism, but no one hears it, is it great journalism? There is INTEREST vs. RELEVANCE, and CURIOSITY vs ESSENTIALITY

We used to call things that were relevant, NEWS YOU CAN USE.

How can you take the “Britney Spears” user – and use that audience to do more useful journalism? That would be breakthrough.

There are part of communities that no journalism serves – those communities aren’t served because of lack of advertising support. There was no connection of relevance.
If we build bridge, we can reach these island communities.

In the age of the Internet, there’s no excuse for fragmentation.

We need to create a business model for community based news organizations. Create a space where citizens can create their own news. There are not enough reporters to follow every tip. (One example of who’s doing this is Northwest Voice (the Bakersfield Californian at Bakersfield.com)

The New York Times is perceived as monolithic, it represents the elite and liberal. WE DECIDE, we might ask you, but we decide. This type of arrogance leads us down paths where some stories unfairly dominate, such as Jeremiah Wright, Monica Lewinsky, etc.

We can put information out there, but is it our job to make people act on it? We’re trying to move from a priesthood to a partnership. WE TRY TO CONNECT THE DOTS, SEE THE TRENDS.
How do we go from being priesthood model. How do we have a checklist? Make a built-in accountability for citizens to act on things of public interest? Can you create a tool for that?

Meaningful tools: Hand people voice recorders/video recorders. Match journalists with citizens. Are there media who give citizens a partial byline?

The good thing about sources is that you know their biases and background. Journalists do have value as experts in spotting expertise and bias. Columbia College (Chicago) students are partnering with community members to find stories. FINDING real stories has been lost.

Talking heads doesn’t give you meaningful journalism. That’s a great idea, but what do you mean by that? Would that be creating an unmanageable time suck for journalists? How can we make sure comments from knowledgeable people?

Struggling with niche vs. mass audience? Are things relevant on a personal level? Meida is still sitting the agenda by ASKING the questions? What isn’t breakthrough journalism is REACTIONARY journalism. In the blogosphere, you’re just reacting. It’s NOT helping me have a more meaningful lives?

Chicken and egg: Did we lose audiences because we lost relevance? Or did the lost audiences cut our staffs and we became less relevant? Or did the audience just go elsewhere, like to our website?

How can we find stories instead of sources?

By finding the Be-spot: The intersection of Knowledge, Relevance and Audience

2007-08-21T14:33:00.000-06:00

This morning I stepped onto the podium to help ring the Opening Bell for the New York Stock Exchange. I'm here with 38 other educators learning how the market is changing, and moving more into an automated exchange.

About 9:15 we were summoned to go down to the bell podium overlooking the main floor of the exchange. John Thain, CEO of the exchange, accompanied our group. We looked out over the floor with our eyes on the digitial clock right in front of use. Traders gathered to watch, as our group representative, Chris, a teacher from Brighton, Mich. pressed the green bell button precisely at 9:29:50. A focus of concentration, he pressed the button for 10 seconds, and when the bell stopped it's clang, trading began.

The sound is deafening, let me tell you. And we all hoped for an up market, though the futures market, which had opened earlier, was down. Not a good bellwether.

See us: http://www.nyse.com/events/1187606558606.html

At the end of "our" day, the NYSE did close down (the NASDAQ closed up) but more than 3 billion shares were traded, contintuing to buck the usual trend of slow trading days in August.

Check back for more information, live from the NYSE.

--Marty Steffens

Transparency is the new trend

2007-05-01T12:16:00.001-06:00

The website, trendwatchng.com, today talks about the newest trend, which is that today’s consumers demand as much transparency as possible. In the news business, how can we make our news more transparent?
Should we have an editor’s note or behind the scenes note with every story, much as magazines do? Should we do video cam broadcasts of story meetings? Should we list a “bibliography” of resources that we use for every story? I know we usually cite the sources of direct quotes, but should we run the sources for all information used in the story. We are transparent when we run reader comments, but should we not allow screen names, and only real names on reader comments?
Should we also do more bio information on our story tags. Such as Jane Roe covers real estate for the Daily News, and has written 281 stories on new home sales in her five years on the beat?
Food for thought. I’d love to hear your comments about increasing transparency in reporting and business reporting.

--Marty Steffens

Thoughts on David Halberstam

2007-04-24T10:19:00.000-06:00

We mourn today the passing of David Halberstam, a writer who elevated meticulous reporting to inspirational heights.

I had the chance to meet David on Saturday, in Berkeley, where he was the keynote speaker at a conference I was attending on “Where History and Journalism Meet.” Earlier that day, I also had a chance to brush past Kevin Jones, the graduate student who was driving David to Menlo Park on Monday when another car broadsided his, instantly killing David.

At his lecture Saturday night, Halberstam shared with us that he’d just finished marking up the final galleys on his latest book, The Coldest Winter, his long-awaited book on the Korean War. The book was long in gestation. In fact, his newest publisher, Scribner, had first announced a 2002 publication date. Halberstam felt this latest book was his best — better than the 21 he’d written before — and better than his highly acclaimed first book, The Best and The Brightest.

He talked at length about how the two books were connected, and interlacing two of his graceful long fingers to demonstrate, he commented that The Longest Winter’s last chapter neatly dovetails with the first of The Best and The Brightest.

The nearly full house at Arthur Andersen Auditorium heard Halberstam offer advice to young journalist, which I quickly scribbled down to use in my “closing ceremony” speech on the last day of class for my capstone seniors.

He said his secret of success was to always work on your weaknesses. A stronger writer, he said he lacked the reporting skills of others (like Bill Kovach and John Siegenthaler) that he saw around him at the Nashville Tennessean. So he worked to overcome his shyness in making cold calls, learning the “legwork” of journalism. Most basketball players, he said, work on the best parts of their game during the off season. But he said that Michael Jordan, the subject of Halberstam’s 2000 book, Playing for Keeps, spent his summers working on weak points, which made Jordan transcend the game.

He also told students to write with authority, and to focus on the “why” as well as why things “do not happen.” He said the most important interview question was the last: “Who else should I see?”

In his years as a journalist, he feels newspapers have become daily magazines, with an ever-increasing need for analysis. He lauded the “pro-bono” spirit of today’s bright young journalists, who forgo higher paying careers to serve their faith in democracy. But he felt the monetary sacrifice was worth it, as journalists are given the spiritual gift to go to work to “learn every day, questioning every thing.”

But he was also saddened by the power that journalism has lost. Halberstam felt media today is weaker than when he was a NYTimes reporter more than 30 years ago. Mostly, he said, because of the loss of readership in the age of new media disruption. But also, after 9/11, media has lost its punch in a struggle not to appear patriotic. The fall of grace by once-esteemed reporter Judith Miller is “the worst wound in the life of the New York Times,” a wound far worse than the Jayson Blair scandal, he says.

As I left the lecture Saturday night, he put out his hand and introduced himself. I told him I taught at Missouri, and he responded, “Fine school.” I shared a quick story about a couple of our mutual acquaintances, and told him I’d use his words for my students.

And so I will share those word with my class, a last legacy of a great man who died too soon. Was he among the last of The Greatest Generation of Journalists? I hope not.

Marty Steffens

Writing on the birth of Venture Capital

2007-04-21T13:25:00.000-06:00

Berkeley, April 21—I’m here today on the campus of the University of California to attend a workshop on how journalists can write history.

One speaker is Spencer Ante of BusinessWeek, who’s writing a biography of Georges Doriot and the birth of the venture capital industry. Doriot is considered to be the father of the U.S. entrepreneurial economy, working mostly in the pivotal post-war era.

Born in France, Doriot came to the U.S. to get an MBA and extended his stay, working for an investment bank and teaching at Harvard Business School. A popular course was one on starting a business.
Over a 40-year teaching career, he would influence thousands of top students, including the founder of FedEx, Fred Smith.
His book will be published later this year by the Harvard Business School Press.

His tips for retelling major business events? Find photos, find correspondence, and don’t overlook libraries like presidential libraries and the Library of Congress that store original documents.
Also, go for tours of the homes in where they lived.

“Go to the places – absorb the light and ambience,” he says. He also got great help and wonderful stories from Doriot family.

What else did he find? That Doriot was an inventor himself, conducing experiments at home as a young student. He appreciated the imagination of others, and sought to fund them.
--Marty Steffens

Update on data from the BEA

2007-03-13T17:08:00.000-06:00

This just in from our friends in Washington. It seems that the Bureau of Economic Analysis www.bea.gov will be launching the GDP by state and Metro Statistical Area in early June. The data will allow biz journalists to closely monitor the economic output of their city or state, thanks to this compilation of IRS, Census and state data.

Speaking of Census, the data wonks there keep pouring stats into their relatively new Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics database. Recent additions are Alaska, Georgia, Mississippi and Utah. To access this mappable and searchable database, go to http://lehd.dsd.census.gov/led/

--Marty Steffens

"Human" side of reporting

2007-03-10T11:37:00.000-06:00

Sometimes business reporters on deadline are snared in the phone tree of major businesses or organizations.

A website may help. It's called, Get Human, www.gethuman.com/us and while it's designed for consumer to get through to a live human being to demand better service, it's useful for the media as well. It lists actual phone numbers for companies in the US, plus instructions on how to fool the phone tree into giving you a live human to direct your call. There are also versions for the UK and Canada.

BTW, the site was founded and is copyrighted by Paul English, a Boston area consumer advocate and tech whiz who started it out of frustration.

--Marty Steffens

Getting the message about business reporting

2007-03-05T14:24:00.000-06:00

TALLAHASSEE, FL -- Here at the HBCU 2007 Newspaper and Conference Fair, the word is getting out about the good jobs in business reporting.

With an uncertain job market ahead, students were listening when SABEW came calling to talk about business journalism as a profession. And next year, in Baltimore, there will be a half-day workshop at the 10th annual HBCU Newspaper conference.

I did a workshop on what types of campus stories that students could do that are business related. One ideas was writing about the big business of campus fund-raising, and how campus treat this new generation of donors.

After the conference, I got an email from Darryl B. Manning, staff writer for the Lincoln University Clarion, one of the participants in my business writing workshop in Florida. He's doing a story on big donors to Lincoln, an historically black college in Jefferson City, Mo.

Business journalism needs more minority voices. If we don't increase the diversity in business reporting, then we won't make business reporting interested to a wider community. As it is, business is a white guys club, and diversity in business and in the business journalism profession will only make us stronger.

We'll write more on our diversity outreach efforts in the future.

--Marty Steffens

Business, the converged media

2007-02-28T15:07:00.000-06:00

It seems that the ultimate downside of getting rid of stock agate is that it has downgraded business sections. I just heard from biz ed Karen Miller that the Reading (PA) Eagle has moved its business section inside the paper most days. Yes, behind Sports once again.

And of course, now business staffs are disappearing into the metro fold, as has happened at the Indianapolis Star and Honolulu Advertisers. Of course, this might also infuse more economics into metro coverage, but my concern is that real coverage of business will be lost in favor of a beefed up metro team.

Another trend is for business editors to move into the digital ranks. Russ Stanton of the LATimes moved from business editor post to the new job of Innovation Editor, responsible for a digital thinking at the Times. And I just heard that Jeff Platsky, longtime award-winning biz editor in Binghamton, is moving to a new Digital Editor position at PressConnects, the paper's digital arm. It's possible his old business staff will be absorbed into metro as yet another Gannett paper reshapes itself.

Why does it seem that business editors make the digital turn faster than others in the newsroom? First, the demand for timely business news has always met that biz editors got the need for speed in an online environment. Business news has a lot of models for converged publications such as Bloomberg, Reuters, BusinessWeek and Marketwatch. Even luddite newspapers put stock quotes on telephone service or on the web before they moved other news to it.

Stay tuned, the changes in business sections -- moving inside or going away -- will be the talk of 2007.

--Marty Steffens

Business news, once again, is change agent

2007-02-15T12:36:00.001-06:00

We've often said that business news is helping to drive the move to converged news models. Bloomberg, Reuters, Marketwatch, BusinessWeek, MSN Money and others have run multimedia operations for years.

Now business news is once again a catalyst for change in how we look at counting the number of visitors to websites. Finance users, like those who use Yahoo! Finance, view pages over long periods of time -- if an investor is using it to track a moving stock, the page might be up during the entire trading day -- yet be counted only as one page view. Talk about "sticky!"

The financial web client is a high-value target for advertisers, and new measurements must come into play to monetize business news web sites. Do check out a great piece on this issue by AP Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun. Here's the link:

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/254637,CST-FIN-webads13.article

--Marty Steffens

Business news, once again is change agent

2007-02-15T12:36:00.000-06:00

New twist on Googling yourself...

2007-02-08T08:10:00.000-06:00

Okay, we admit it. We've all "Googled" ourselves.

Many of us have typed our names into multiple search engines to discover just what personal asteroids are orbiting in cyberspace. It usually yields a surprise -- like the photo I found of my lecture in Taichung, Taiwan, on enviro-business journalism.

Today, while researching a fellow journalist who's going to be a guest speaker in my business journalism class, I typed his name into Scholar.Google. Up popped pages of scholarly work where the academic author had cited news stories that he had written. This journalist, a magazine author, was cited in dozens of journals and conference papers, on topics ranging from Artificial Intelligence to Economic Reform.

So I Scholar-Googled myself and found where I'd been thanked or cited in some books, as well. Some I knew about, others were a big surprise.

So, fellow journalists, if you want to see when and where your journalistic work has been cited, just call up www.scholar.google.com and search away.

--Marty Steffens

Carl Schramm on business journalism

2007-02-07T08:45:00.000-06:00

The president of the Kauffman Foundation, the Kansas City-based "think-farm" that promotes and funds research into entrepreneurism, stopped by the University of Missouri campus Tuesday to talk to econ students and faculty.

Carl Schramm has a new book, "The Entrepreneurial Imperative: How America's Economic Miracle Will Reshape the World" (Collins, 2006). It's a sweeping look at a post-Keynesian world, and how entrepreneurism drives a new economic model. Schramm has strong views on immigrations -- for the most part, it should be unfettered. But he goes a step further and advocates that any non-citizen who earns a PhD in a U.S. university should immediately be offered citizenship. He believes that U.S.-educated foreign nationals, especially if they experience entrepreneurism while on campus, will spread this form of individual freedom when they return to their home country.

Later, in a one-on-one, we talked about the role of business journalists. Schramm feels that journalists don't really understand statistics, or economic fundamentals. He's often chagrined (my word) by misleading and mischaracterized statistics in the press. He also believes that reporting on underlying economic issues is shallow.

My recommendation? At 187 pages, Schramm's book is worth putting on the bedstand for a quick read, especially if you are a fan of Tom Friedman's, "The World is Flat."

--Marty Steffens

The blending of business and lifestyle news

2007-02-06T10:01:00.001-06:00

The line continues to blur between business and lifestyle pubs.

The latest copy of KCB -- short for Kansas City Business -- just landed on my desk. The glossy mag covers CEOs, workplace issues and economic development in a narrative or issues format. It debuted in July, and the February issue is devoted to "Green" issues in the region -- including how area ag companies are racing to harvest more corn for the ethanol boom.

We're hearing that KCB's parent company, Anthem Publishing, has more such publications in the works. Stay tuned for which cities and where!

Of course, blending lifestyle and business isn't exactly new. What's new is how far it extends into smaller cities. South Florida has a few notablel life/style business titles.

The 800-pound gorilla of business journalism, the Wall Street Journal, continues to move in this direction. The addition of color in 2002, accelerated the move. Personal Journal is now the best-read section with columns on wine, fashion and travel, as well as movie reviews. The lifestyle emphasis really takes over in the Saturday edition, which debuted in 2005.
What's driving this? The standard business advertiser, publicly traded companies, banks and financial instutitions, get skittish if the market turns bearish. By appealing to retail, travel and entertainment ads, these pubs broaden their ad base.

And of course, biz pubs have demos that make one drool. In 2005, the Journal's reader had an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, and an average age of 55. And of course, they are influential managers.

Anyway, now that mainstream newspapers have dropped most of the stock and mutual fund listings that defined their sections, look for them too, to blend biz and lifestyle.

-- Marty Steffens