Category Archives: Ditigal Puplishing

Newsosaur : Back to Basics

Posted on by

Source: editorandpublisher.com

by: Alan D. Mutter

Newspapers are so bad at digital publishing that they should just give up and focus on print.

That’s the bracing thesis of a recently published mini-book from journalism professor H. Iris Chyi of the University of Texas, who likens what she calls the “inferior quality” of online newspaper offerings to the ramen noodles gobbled by many a starving student. Her publication is titled “Trial and Error: U.S. Newspapers’ Digital Struggles Toward Inferiority” and can be found at tinyurl.com/pphdxp5.

Observing that newspapers have been experimenting with “new media” for the better part of two decades, Chyi marshals a raft of research to conclude “the performance of their digital products has fallen short of expectations.”

She urges publishers to “acknowledge that digital is not (their) forte” and abandon the “digital first, print last” strategy that has been widely adopted in the business.

“That is not to say that you don’t need to offer any digital product,” she adds, but “one may conclude that it is easier for newspapers to preserve the print edition than to sell digital products.”

Newspapers certainly have fallen short of expectations in the digital realm. Although interactive newspaper ad revenues have roughly tripled since $1.3 billion in 2003, the over-all digital advertising market has soared by more than sixfold since then.

But doubling down on print hardly seems to be a foresighted strategy when readers and advertisers increasingly are flocking to the digital media. We’ll get back to this in a moment. First, here’s Chyi’s take on where the industry went wrong:

“In retrospect, most U.S. newspapers outsourced their homework to business consultants such as Clayton M. Christensen, whose disruptive technology thesis served as the theoretical foundation behind the newspaper industry’s technology-driven approach. The problem is that most assumptions on the all-digital future have no empirical support. As a result, during nearly 20 years of trial and error, bad decisions were made, unwise strategies adopted, audiences misunderstood and product quality deteriorated.”

Pointing to research showing that people who like to read newspaper-y kinds of articles will pay substantial sums to spend quality time with print, Chyi argues that the digital version of the typical newspaper is “outperformed by its print counterpart in terms of usage, preference and paying intent.”

And she is right. Any publisher will tell you that print is more profitable that pixels.

The problem with ditching digital is that the number of readers and advertisers who value print has been steadily shrinking—and likely will continue to do so, owing to these seemingly irreversible market phenomena:

Tumbling print circulation. The print circulation of the nation’s newspapers has dropped by nearly half in the last 10 years, according to my analysis (tinyurl.com/ln642b7). While changes in the way publishers report their circulation have made year-to-year comparisons difficult, most anecdotal evidence suggests that print circulation is continuing to erode.

Dramatically aging readership. To pick one newspaper, the New York Times recently reported that the median age of its readers is 60 vs. 37 for the U.S. population, making its audience 1.6 times older than the population as a whole. The average life expectancy of a 60-year-old man is 21 years, while 70- and 80-year-old gents statistically have respective life spans of 14 and eight years. Even though some readers will live longer than the predicted average, the superannuated readership of newspapers suggests that significant numbers of loyal readers will begin dying off in the next 10 to 15 years. (Women statistically get an extra couple of years, but not enough to reverse the trend). Most publishers will tell you that the median readership of their newspapers is as senior as that of the Times.

Steadily contracting ad sales. Fully two-thirds of the print advertising at the nation’s newspapers has dried up since hitting a record high of $47.4 billion in 2005. Most of the publicly held publishers reported sales declines in the first half of this year, suggesting that revenues are on track to slide for the tenth straight year in 2015.

Declining economies of scale. Unlike websites that can serve one page or 100,000 pages at little incremental cost once they go live, print publishers must sustain substantial manufacturing and distribution investments in order to print a single paper. If circulation falls another 50 percent or print advertising slides another 67 percent in the next 10 years, will there be sufficient print subscribers and advertisers keep the business viable? This is the existential question facing the industry.

As poorly as the industry adapted to the digital age, it’s hard to imagine how newspaper companies can survive over the long term if they put their primary focus on print.


Alan D. Mutter is a former newspaper editor and Silicon Valley CEO who advises media companies on technology. He blogs at Reflections of Newsosaur (newsosaur.blogspot.com).

– See more at: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/TopStories/Columns/Newsosaur—Back-to-Basics#sthash.Qqs6RahE.dpuf

Digital Publishing: Your Story’s Life Span

Posted on by

Source:editorandpublisher.com

by: Rob Tornoe

In the days before the Internet, news stories didn’t have much more shelf life than the newspaper they were printed in. Other than microfilm, your mother’s scrapbook or the occasional restaurant wall, most content in the paper died as the pages hit the trash can, replaced by the offerings printed in the next day’s edition.

Today, we have the Internet to archive, reserve and promote our content 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It seems we’re only a Facebook share or a Google search away from finding an endless stream of new readers to consume our content. So assuming your story isn’t overtaken by current events, how long is it actually remaining relevant in the etherworld of the Web.

In 2013, the app Pocket found that it wasn’t all that uncommon for an article to enjoy a life span of 37 days. But in the two years since that study, the constant publishing and pushing of content seems to have only gotten more prolific, and 37 days seems way too long a timeframe for readers to still be engaged with your content. So how long do articles really remain relevant online? The team over at Parse.ly, which supplies an analytics platform to top media companies such as The Atlantic and Reuters, was curious as well. So they embarked on a study focusing on page views, visitors, engaged time and social sharing metrics from a couple of hundred premium media publishers. So how long does a story “last” online? The short answer is about two days. The long answer is it’s complicated. “Writers can assume that after the first day, traffic to their story is going to drop,” said Andrew Montalenti, co-founder and chief technology officer at Parse.ly. “But in some cases, editors have opportunities to continue to drive traffic to posts they would otherwise abandon.” Examining the top 5,000 posts from each of Parse.ly’s publishers over a two month period, the team calculated the median life span of articles was 2.6 days. To put it another way, half of the articles that were studied reached 90 percent of its page views in less than 2.6 days, while the other half lasted longer than 2.6 days. Obviously, there will always be outliers. Take “In The Crosshairs,” Nicholas Schmidel’s 13,000-word investigation into the murder of famed ex-Navy SEAL Chris Kyle for The New Yorker. The piece was published in 2013, but started to gain traction a year later thanks to two factors: being featured in Google’s In-Depth Articles feature (where it was the top result for several keywords) and the theatrical release of “American Sniper,” which created newfound interest (and search queries) about Kyle and his life. Based on Parse.ly data from their Google traffic surge, The New Yorker re-featured Schmidel’s story on their homepage, where it was shared more than 5,000 times on Facebook and more than 900 times on Twitter. “All of this new activity happened without writing a single new word of content,” said Montalenti. “It was simply recognizing an opportunity emerging out of the archive and acting on it.”   Extending the life of your story It’s both obvious and true—social media can help extend the life of your story. Parse.ly found stories that do well on social media extend their life to a third day, but not all social media is created equal. Facebook is the key to longevity—stories that did well there enjoyed a median life span of 3.2 days, compared to the quick attention spans on Twitter. In fact, in a study of 12 major news organization researchers from the University of Arizona found that news article life spans on Twitter dissipate fairly quickly, lasting between 10-72 hours. “Forty Portraits in Forty Years,” a New York Times photo essay featuring photographs showcasing the aging of a group of four sisters, was originally published in October 2014. A couple months later, editors wanted to bring the essay back, so they made the decision to purchase Facebook traffic against keywords that would likely garner the interest of Times’ subscribers. Months later, the essay was once again a traffic hit, thanks to keywords chosen by media start-up Keywee, which analyzed the story and determined related keywords like “empowering women” and the movie “Boyhood” would have the more success on Facebook than more obvious choices. “It’s a little like a Facebook hack,” Mat Yurow, the director of audience development at the Times, told Digiday.  “But I think it’s a smart marketing play. It’s unlocking those audiences nobody else is thinking about.” Purchasing Facebook traffic isn’t the only way of extending your reach on the social network. Something as simple as a headline tweak can have huge ramifications in terms of traffic. Over at The Atlantic, editors going over story analytics noticed that political stories using the word “Republican” in the headline far outperformed similar stories that used the term “GOP.” Once they began only using “Republican” in the headlines, stories had better click-through rates, search traffic and increased relevance, leading to a complete change in their editorial guidelines. “My suspicion is ‘GOP’ is more of a provincial term used by beltway insiders, whereas ‘Republican’ is something even non-political readers understand and look for,” said Montalenti. Another way to increase the relevance of a story is to piggy back off a success. Take Ars Technica, where a story about the embattled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter getting creamed in a test dogfight with an 1990s-era F-16D went viral. As editors saw the post continuing to draw in significant traffic over several days, they set about writing breakout stories, including reaching out to the F-35 team to tell their side of the story. Editors added timely links to the new stories onto the still-popular original, which enabled Ars Technica to seed traffic through the site and generate more search traffic to the overall package. Through it all, analytics are the key to figuring out how to maximize the lifespan and popularity of a writer’s story. While newspapers have a reputation of dragging their feet out of fear of being forced to write lighter, “clickier” stories, Montalenti sees things changing in the newsrooms Parse.ly partners with. “Maybe a couple of years ago, pushback to this type of data was much more frequent,” he said. “Now, it seems reporters, as well as editors, are actually driven to the data a lot more by curiosity, which can only help benefit their newsrooms and storytelling.”   Rob Tornoe is a cartoonist and columnist for Editor and Publisher. Reach him at robtornoe@gmail.com.

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN: DIGITAL MEDIA WORKERS EYE ORGANIZING

Posted on by
Source: newsguild.org
Bernie Lunzer, President
March 4, 2015
The NewsGuild-CWA

IN January, the Washington Post reported on the city’s latest “scandal.”

Evidently, a union organizing drive was underway in a digital-news shop. The “threat” was so real that a right-wing anti-taxer vowed to help fight off the terrible union.

That audacious union was ours.

What the Post didn’t know is that we routinely get phone calls from digital-media employees curious about organizing. Some of those calls turn into full-fledged drives. Others don’t. Or they aren’t public yet as pro-union employees work behind the scenes building support

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that workers like the idea of democracy in the workplace. Despite all the ill-informed badmouthing of unions, surveys show that most workers would join a union given the opportunity. Grievously, the damage that corporations, anti-union politicians and the courts have done to labor law over the years limits those opportunities.

When employees at digital publications call us, they are as likely to talk about working conditions as wages. This is especially true as workers get into their late 20’s and early 30’s—when they’ve decided they want a life as well as a job.

We help these workers any way we can. If they decide to organize, they are in control of the process. They decide what’s important and what a fair contract would look like.

It should go without saying that it’s invaluable to have a signed document that states what the rules are, as well as minimum standards for wages and benefits. You’ll never find an executive who hasn’t negotiated a contract—typically a highly favorable one with a fat exit package even if he or she is fired.

In the turbulent industry that is media today, these conversations are more important than ever. While some employers are smart enough to pay for quality journalism, others see a sea of laid-off writers and editors and scheme to get as much work out of them as possible at the lowest cost. Some are so arrogant and brazen that they use the “cachet” of a byline to barter for work with no pay.

But even the worst of those employers aren’t the parasites that are Google, Facebook and other content aggregators that effectively steal revenue from news organizations.

Whether your organization is all-digital or still has a print component, Google and its ilk are taking advantage. Google would have you believe that its own genius is responsible for its wealth—nearly $5 billion in profit in the last quarter of 2014, up 30 percent from the same quarter in 2013. In fact, those billions are siphoned from your labor and others’ investment.

Fresh, quality, credible information is a precious resource. It gets more valuable every day, as once-proud and respected news organizations slash jobs and wages. As new employers attempt to fill the gaping hole in the quality and quantity of bona fide journalism, it is vital that workers have a voice.

I noted that some people feel threatened by unions and purposely distort what we do, throwing around phrases like “union bosses” and “union thugs.” They want workers to see unions as outsiders who would exploit them. We know that nothing could be further from the truth.

But they spread those lies because workplace democracy is the last thing they want. They demand no limits on their power and greed. They see unions as a threat because history proves how effective we are at improving workers’ lives. They know that unions did, in fact, create America’s now-disappearing middle class.

Unions aren’t the enemy of management. We can and do work with employers to build better products and stronger companies. In our field, no one cares more about the product—journalism—than journalists themselves. When we can negotiate fair wages, benefits and working conditions, quality journalism thrives.

The loudmouth union-haters on certain TV networks and radio shows, have done a huge disservice to the many Americans who are told nothing about the democratic nature of unions and how we function.

There’s nothing “shocking” about journalists or any other workers trying to form a union. They are ordinary people who want some control over their work lives. You may be one of those people. Give us a call. You’ll be in good company.

Godfrey on Postmedia’s executive shakeup

Posted on by

Source: marketingmag.ca

Will ‘digital first’ lead to a digital burst?

The following appears in the Dec. 12 issue of Marketing

In his bio on the Postmedia Network website, one of the responsibilities for executive vice-president of digital media Malcolm Kirk included chairing a special committee undertaking Postmedia Network’s “transformation plan.”

Kirk and two fellow Postmedia executives, chief information officer Ed Brouwer and senior vice-president, digital content strategy and managing director of Canada.com Scott Anderson, themselves became part of that transformation last month, dismissed in a management shakeup that came with the standard descriptor in such matters: “organizational changes.”

Read entire story here

Newspaper Digital Revs Won’t Offset Print Decline

Posted on by

Source: mediapost.com

For at least a decade, newspaper publishers have been looking to the huge potential growth offered by digital advertising revenues — but now, 10 years on, digital revenues still make up a relatively small part of the business. Worse, slow growth in digital advertising means it’s unable to offset the precipitous, ongoing decline in print revenues…….Read entire story here

The glitch in Postmedia’s digital switch

Posted on by

Source: theglobeandmail
read entire story here

Paul Godfrey escorted directors of Postmedia Network Canada Corp. (PNC.A-T10.00—-%) on a tour of the Calgary Herald earlier this year to showcase the struggling newspaper company’s digital future.

The Postmedia chief executive officer presented a remodelled newsroom where teams juggled written and visual content for the Herald’s websites, social media platforms such as Twitter and its 128-year old newspaper. The Herald has been so much “quicker off the mark” with digital initiatives, Mr. Godfrey said, that it is now one of the company’s most profitable divisions, and a beacon for change at Canada’s largest newspaper publisher.

read entire story here

 

The next generation of news consumers relies on social media, TV, Web for information

Posted on by

The Knight Foundation’s latest survey of high schoolers found that 92% of students say it’s important to stay informed about the news (the same percentage says it’s important to vote). The research shows a shift in how teens get their news. In a typical day, they report doing the following to get news:

  • Watch TV for news 1-3+ times: 77%
  • Read an article online 1-3+ times: 54%
  • Watch video news online 1-3+ times: 48%
  • Read an article in print 1-3+ times: 42%

Read entire story here:  poynter.org

 

 

A newspaper company that prints all the right numbers

Posted on by

Source: theglobeandmail.com

Investors seeking growth have eschewed, quite rightly, the beleaguered newspaper publishing industry, as its members have recently been offering declining top lines. Value-oriented investors with an eye for meaty profit margins and chunky cash flow, however, have kept newspaper stocks in their sights……. read entire story

 

 

 

 

Postmedia feels impact of ‘slow and sporadic’ economic recovery, posts Q3 loss

Posted on by

Source: winnipegfreepress.com

TORONTO – Postmedia Network Canada Corp. lost $3.9 million in its third quarter as the newspaper and digital publisher pulled in less print advertising revenues and had higher expenses.

The owner of the National Post newspaper and other major media properties said the loss amounted to 10 cents per share on $259 million in revenue, mainly from advertising, for the three months ended May 31.

The company said Tuesday that consumer confidence was shaky during the quarter and advertisers responded by holding back.

“I think that we’ve had a couple of quite good months and then you have one bad month. We don’t seem to have any real trend taking place,” Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey said on a conference call, describing the situation as “choppy.”

Godfrey said national advertising was up, but retail classified ads were down, as retailers dealt with consumers worried a recession could return, and the HST in British Columbia deterred shoppers from making big-ticket purchases.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty out there which I think is creating people to sit on their hands for a while,” he said.

He said Postmedia (TSX:PNC.A), is seeing some signs of improvement in the early weeks of the fourth quarter, but revenue visibility “remains poor.”

Godfrey’s comments echo those made by rival Torstar Corp. (TSX:TS.B). The publisher of the Toronto Star also reported lower print advertising revenues during its first quarter in May, saying it is hard to predict the print advertising environment and the pace of economic recovery.

Year-earlier figures for Postmedia aren’t directly comparable because the newspapers were still part of Canwest, which was undergoing a court-supervised restructuring that saw its television assets go to Shaw Communications (TSX:SJR.B) and its newspaper division going to creditors that helped form Postmedia.

In the third quarter of its 2010 financial year, the Canwest papers recorded a profit of $40.6 million with $270 million of revenue. In the first nine months of its 2010 financial year, the company reported a $94.9-million profit and $811 million in revenues.

For the first nine months of its 2011 financial year, which ended May 31, Postmedia lost $10.6 million or 26 cents per share on $788 million in revenue.

Postmedia, which began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange last month, recorded an $11-million loss on debt prepayment, versus zero in the same quarter last year.

Godfrey said the company’s team is focused on new approaches for delivering content, and providing solutions for advertisers and marketers, repaying debt and accelerating revenue generating opportunities.

The company owns 11 English-language daily newspapers including the National Post, Vancouver Sun and Ottawa Citizen as well as the Canada.com website, online versions of its daily papers and deal-a-day website SwarmJam.com.