And perhaps we should start discussing more positive terms for the state of our industry! (I'm not a fan of the word "save".)
Here goes:
Newspapers… and After?
January 2007
Especially at the local and state levels, where the fundamental fights for control of a nation less red and blue than complexly purple play out, daily newspapers remain essential arbiters of what passes for news and what Americans think about it. For all the talk about television's dominant role in campaigns (less and less because of its importance as a source of news for most Americans, more and more because of campaign commercials) and all the new attention to the Internet, newspapers for the most part continue to establish the parameters of what gets covered and how.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070129/nichols
Greedy Vultures
December 2006
Jeff vonKaenel
A decade ago, I predicted newspapers would today be operating in a vastly changed environment--readership would continue to slide, display advertisements would decline and, most importantly, classified advertising would dry up. All that meant that daily newspapers would have had to creatively adapt to a changing environment and hunker down for the long term by accepting significantly lowered profit margins. Those predictions are holding, but newspapers have not adapted as I had hoped.
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A254407
On Calling Bullshit
Dec. 13, 2006
Dan Froomkin
Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do. What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/blog/?p=53
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: The Media is in Need of Some Mending
Dec. 11, 2006
Peter R. Kann
Thomas Jefferson, a better president than we've had in a very long time, penned a line back in 1787: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116579769032446051.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
The Atlantic
December 2006
Michael Hirschorn
If the twenty-first-century news business has a Zapruder film, it’s an eight-minute Flash-based movie called EPIC 2014. For reasons that will soon become obvious, it has not received a lot of attention in the mainstream media (MSM in “Web-ese”), but has propagated quietly among news geeks since it was released online in late 2004…. In other words, turning your users into contributors increases their engagement with your site—each click is, after all, also an “ad impression”—while simultaneously generating more content that you in turn can sell to advertisers.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200612/hirschorn-newspapers
On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change
December 2006
Geneva Overholser
A principal reason for the media’s failure to live up to its obligation to place the public good on a par with Wall Street’s demands is the changing nature of media ownership in recent decades. Most media now are owned by large, publicly traded corporations.
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/Overholser/20061011_JournStudy.pdf
NewspapeRx
Nov. 18, 2006
Mark Potts
Somebody asked me that question recently, and it made me pull together some of the thoughts I've had recently about the problems that newspapers are having and what they might do to pull out of their current spiral. This is hardly a complete list, but here's a 10-point prescription for ailing newspapers….
http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2006/11/newspaperx.html
Editor & Publisher: Shoptalk
Nov. 17, 2006
Jay Harn
A Reply: Going Free and Tabloid Is Not Nearly Enough A daily newspaper has an obligation to its readers to keep them informed, but we need to continually remind ourselves why our readers subscribe to our newspapers in the first place -- local news, local names, local events, local sports, local features, local photos, and local opinion.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003409458
To Reverse Circ Plunge: Give Readers What They Want
Nov. 16, 2006
Mark Moore
And the free, daily tabloids seem to making inroads with readers. So what are they doing that other newspapers aren't? They're giving readers what they want. So what do other newspapers have to do to counter the readership tide? Give readers what they want.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003408911
San Francisco Chronicle (Op-Ed)
Nov. 12, 2006
Peter Scheer
What to do? Here's my proposal: Newspapers and wire services need to figure out a way, without running afoul of antitrust laws, to agree to embargo their news content from the free Internet for a brief period -- say, 24 hours -- after it is made available to paying customers. The point is not to remove content from the Internet, but to delay its free release in that venue.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/11/12/EDGRMLJIGK1.DTL
Big Picture Guys: Critics of Newspaper Next don’t get it
October 2006
Alan Jacobson
This is no time for narcissism. Newspapers are in a death spiral. We've got to stop pushing our pictures and stories and start doing what needs to be done to save newspapers. Which brings me to API's “Newspaper Next: The Transformation Project,” a report produced by some guys (and gals) who see the big picture.
http://www.brasstacksdesign.com/newspaper_next.htm
NewspaperNext: The Transformation Project
Sept. 29, 2006
American Press Institute
The innovators creating these solutions are seeing dizzying growth rates.
Why can’t newspaper companies do the same? Newspaper Next’s conclusion: They can – but not without dramatic changes in the way they think, the strategies they adopt and the innovation processes they use.
http://www.newspapernext.org/
BuzzMachine.com
Jan. 18, 2006
Jeff Jarvis
Newspapers waste too much money on ego, habit, and commodity news the public already knows. In an era of shrinking circulation, classified, and retail ad revenue — and in the face of shrinking audience and increasing competition — papers have to find new efficiencies and cut these expenses to concentrate instead on their real value (which, I’ll argue, is local reporting).
http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/01/18/new-news-deconstructing-the-newspaper