Back to the Future?

The Editors Only blog has a big piece today about the future of E&P partly based on email interview with yours truly and new owner Duncan McIntosh. I find some parts a bit misleading, but you will surely get a kick out of it, especially when McIntosh says that what's needed now, going forward, are more pages about printing presses! But read and decide yourself! It's all here. -- Greg Mitchell

Thursday Links

Paid Content, indeed: NYT shouldn't wait until 2011 to start metering.

Small daily covers local man who killed infant son, and himself -- and suicide note and pictures ended up on Facebook.

Monster acquires HotJobs from Yahoo.

You betcha: New York Observer to help launch weekly for Las Vegas.

News Corp. digital guys stresses "dual" sources of revenue stream.

Widely-publicized and numerous stories about injured Iraq vet and his dog come into question.

If you missed Jon Stewart w/ Bill O'Reilly, it's all here (and Part II tonite).

I'm Still Selling 'E&P'

Oh, the indignity! It's bad enough that the new owner of E&P decided not to retain me when the magazine started up again last month -- with most of the "E" taken out of the E&P -- but the publication is still using me to sell subscription renewals.
I was alerted to this by a current subscriber, who forwarded an email he had just received, along with the note that he would NOT be renewing. Here's the pitch from the email:

Your subscription to Editor & Publisher is about to expire. In order to extend your service, we need only a few moments of your time. To verify that we have your correct information, please click below. You will be prompted to your personal renewal page where you can manage your account and ensure continuous service to Editor & Publisher in print and online.

It's signed, "Greg Mitchell, Editor."

Now, I could object on several grounds, but added to that, what about making me look bad as a writer? Consider the closing line: "We look forward to continuing your service to Editor & Publisher." Now that's really going too far. -- Greg Mitchell

Obama and the Press

Peter Baker of NYT posted tonight an appraisal of how Obama is using the new media, which lessens influence of the old. He takes questions from bloggers, via YouTube and even from Republicans but has not had a full-scale press conference with WH reporters for seven months--a recent record.

After a year in office, Mr. Obama has managed to do what every modern president may have wanted to do but never did: effectively shut out the reporters who work just a few feet from the Oval Office. He has not had a full-scale White House news conference in seven months, the longest such stretch by any president in a decade. And he has made a practice of not taking reporters’ questions at day-to-day events, as other presidents did.

None of that means that Mr. Obama has shielded himself from public scrutiny. But he has fundamentally altered the way a president deals with the news media. Instead of open-ended sessions with multiple reporters, he prefers one-on-one interviews, particularly with television anchors. He gives far more interviews than his two most recent predecessors did, reflecting the conclusion that the format is a more effective means for getting his message through.

Our Weekly Thank You

Thanks again for reading, supporting, tweeting, hailing and/or linking to this upstart blog. Page views just keep growing, even though we are doing this very part-time, and Exile continues to swamp the numbers for E&P's one remaining blog (which continues to draw very little daily traffic). To those who have asked how E&P's main site is doing: Traffic is less than one-half what it was last fall, it's falling day-by-day, and, amazingly, this week it's barely ahead of what it was one month ago after the magazine had shut down completely. As for us, many new opportunities are arising, we don't know how much longer we will do this, but please, keep on coming!

Jenny Taken For Ride

NYT just posted first review of memoir by Gov. Mark Sanford's wife, Jenny, which had been embargoed. Janet Maslin writes:

That Ms. Sanford and her support squad could laugh together (and make “hiking the Appalachian Trail” jokes, referring to the most famous whopper associated with the governor’s furtive trip to Argentina) says a lot about her ability to weather a crisis. Governor Sanford’s first move after the news conference says a lot about his. As “Staying True” reports, he was on the phone to his wife as soon as the cameras were off, and he had quite a question for her: “How’d I do?”

In the weird bubble inhabited by infantilized politicians — a place that is becoming more and more familiar as their partners’ and co-conspirators’ memoirs come down the pike — this was not even an unreasonable question. Mark Sanford had relied on his wife of 20 years for professional and moral support, even if his reasons for recruiting her services were not always the most noble. “But you’re free,” he once pointed out, explaining why she should run his first Congressional campaign. He wasn’t referring to her uncluttered schedule.

Click Through, Indeed

Ad Age reports: 1 in 4 click away from videos if ads load first.

'Parade' Marches On, Without Editor

Janice Kaplan exits the magazine suddenly, pushed or jumped?

A 'Soloist' No Longer

At E&P, I assigned early on a piece about Steve Lopez, the L.A. Times columnist who was writing about a gifted, homeless classical musician he had found on the local Skid Row. He turned it into a book, The Soloist, which became a 2009 movie starring Jamie Foxx as the musician, Nathaniel Ayers, and Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez. I posted numerous Web stories and blog items about all of that, plus the movie trailer and so on.

Today, Lopez writes that "Mr. Ayers" as he calls him has gone into the studio to cut his first CD, with the help of two players from the L.A. Philharmonic -- and Flea, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There's even a video. Lopez writes:

I picked him up on skid row and packed his bass, cello, violin, guitar, trumpet and flute into my car. He left his viola, French horn, keyboards and trombone in his room, perhaps saving them for his second CD.

On the way to Silver Lake, Mr. Ayers was nervous but game. He wanted to know how the day would play out, and I reminded him there was no strategy other than for him to jam on as many instruments as he cared to play. Steven Argila, a pianist and owner of the studio, had met Mr. Ayers before and was ready to go with the flow, and the same was true of Stephen Krause, the recording engineer.

Bass player Flea and drummer Scott Gold, my mate at The Times, beat us to the studio. I think it's fair to say Mr. Ayers had never met anyone named Flea at Juilliard, but musicians are musicians, and they were all playing together before long.

Matthew Broderick Pilots a Newspaper

As our own Joe Strupp notes today at his personal blog, Matthew Broderick is set to star in a TV pilot set in a newspaper office out in the Hamptons, Newsday reports. Broderick and wife Sarah Jessica Parker have a home nearby. Excerpt:

NBC has ordered "Beach Lane," a pilot starring Matthew Broderick, which is significant news in itself because Mr. Broadway (Bloom, of "The Producers," of course, and so much more) has avoided TV for most of his career.

But this one will be produced by another legend, Lorne Michaels, who lured Broderick, however briefly, to "30 Rock" a couple seasons ago.

Marci Klein, who runs Michaels' production company, could not be reached Tuesday. But the Hollywood Reporter noted that on "Beach Lane," Broderick would play a "celebrity author" who is retained by a millionaire to run a struggling Hamptons newspaper.

Independent Thinking

If you have ever thought of starting an indy news site--or joining one--here's a revealing post at NiemanLab on how the folks behind The Washington Independent raised $11.5 million.

Hitting Packer's Tweet Spot

NYT biz/tech writer Nick Bilton hits writer George Packer for his recent anti-Twitter piece in the New Yorker, noting, among others things, it was a case of don't knock if you ain't tried it. Excerpt:

Most importantly, Twitter is transforming the nature of news, the industry from which Mr. Packer reaps his paycheck. The news media are going through their most robust transformation since the dawn of the printing press, in large part due to the Internet and services like Twitter. After this metamorphosis takes place, everyone will benefit from the information moving swiftly around the globe.

You can see that change beginning to take place. During the protests in Iran last year, when ordinary Iranians shared information through Twitter about the government atrocities taking place. That supplemented the reporting by professional journalists, who faced restrictions on their movements and coverage. More recently, after the earthquake in Haiti, Twitter helped spread information about donation efforts, connected people to their loved ones, and of course, spread news from inside the country — news that reprinted in this publication.

Finally, there’s the filtering, entertainment and serendipitous value of these services, as I outlined in a previous post.

Wednesday Linkage

WSJ online free today, thanks to sponsorship by Acura.

Rupert Murdoch hails profits (and now helped by Avatar) but declares that content truly is king.

Ken Doctor with interesting new book on news outlet challenges titled "Newsonomics."

Are FT advertisers being charged for impressions even when users run into paywall?

Web Counting: The Good, The Bad and the Huh?

The Newspaper Association of America produced a new report on latest numbers on traffic at newspaper sites. It mixes the good -- one in three supposedly go to these sites -- with the bad -- traffic appears to be slowing or declining. But this is based all on Nielsen Online numbers, and when I was editor at E&P -- which was owned by The Nielsen Co. before heading out to sea-- I always insisted on generous take-with-grain-of-salt warnings with our monthly reports on these numbers. Other number crunchers vary, and also are not necessarily correct, but it's impossible to get a firm grip on all this. The Nielsen numbers are further hard to judge since they've lately increased the size of their panels (after much criticism) so comparisons to last year's numbers are shaky. UPDATE: Commenter to this post hits E&P's take on NAA report. -- Greg Mitchell

Ready, Aim, Charge!

Richard Perez-Pena just out at NYT site with new take on news outlets "ready" to charge for online access. It focuses on the Steve Brill/Gordon Crovitz consortium, and visits a couple of small papers ready to take the plunge, including one in Lancaster, Pa. and the Web site Global Post out of Boston. Excerpt:

Specifically, head to the offices of The Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era , one of the first handful of news outlets to acknowledge in interviews that it intends, in the next few months, to start using a software system developed by the entrepreneurs Steven Brill, L. Gordon Crovitz and their partners, which they are calling Press+. Others interested include The Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina and Global Post, an Internet site based in Boston.

A very small number of news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and Newsday, already charge online readers, each with a system developed largely in-house, and The New York Times announced recently that it planned to do the same. But with advertising plummeting, many other publishers eager for a new source of revenue are considering making the switch, despite the risk of losing audience and advertising.

Last year, Mr. Brill and company seized on that interest, founding their operation, Journalism Online, with the aim of developing a highly flexible system that would become the industry standard, and keeping 20 percent of their client’s online revenue as their fee

.

Winter Wonderland

AP announces its coverage plans for Olympics, including daily Web cast, much more.

Super, Man

What, dat? NYT sports reporters offer their views on who will win Super Bowl in new video.

Second Thoughts

Reuters distributed a story yesterday on worrisome new "back door taxes" under Obama. Naturally it showed up at the top of the Drudge Report. Now Reuters has pulled the story, promising something different later in the week.

Tuesday Morning Links

Allen Mutter wisely throws some cold water on hoo-ha over Gannett announcing profits yesterday -- it's mainly due to cost-cutting and there's little left to cut. May be "leaner" but not "stronger."

NY Daily News gets first look at book by Gov. Mark Sanford's estranged wife.

Print classified down 70% in 10 years. Ouch.

Wash Post gives op-ed space to suspended NBA star Gilbert "Guns In The" Arena.

Toyota runs full-page newspapers ads on current recall for 2nd straight day.

Fun fact: This week is allegedly the 113th anniversary of the term "yellow journalism" first used in print.

Colbert, Harold Ford and a Certain 'Young Lady'

Stephen last week mocked the former Tennessee congressman for considering run for Senate in NY -- and allegedly changing positions -- so last night brought him on to give him a chance to respond. Colbert actually grilled him again and Ford may have made things worse by calling the incumbent, Kristin Gillibrand, a "young lady" -- she is 44 and he is 40.
Harold Ford Jr.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Elevator Mystic

A group of journalists got stuck in an elevator at the NYT building tonight. TV pro Ann Curry tweeted while inside and hailed her colleagues, such as NYT's Jennifer Preston -- and now video has been posted.

Monday Night at the Movies

NYT film critic A.O. Scott presents his weekly video on a classic film--this time it's the ultra-timely Groundhog Day. Go here for it and see clip from film below.

Magnum Opus

Big news on the incredible news photo archives of Magnum to be finally open to the public and scholars, moving from NYC to the U of Texas in Austin. That's the famous Robert Capa shot at left.

Krugman Slams Obama's Budget

Most people know Paul Krugman from his NYT column but he gets most of his daily licks at his blog at the Times site. Lately he's been slamming Obama almost every day. Late this afternoon he slammed the president's new "depressing" budget, which projects high unemployment pretty much from here on out. He claims he is not Obama bashing but concludes: "What we’re witnessing is an awesome national failure."

Pulitzer for Under-Reported Stories

Great ongoing"contest" announced by Pulitzer Center, "Private Report," for journalists and "aspiring journalists" -- produce three-minute clip for YouTube on unknown story.

With two rounds over three months, short documentary assignments will be judged on the quality of the stories reported and the production value of the videos. An expert panel led by the Pulitzer Center will choose ten finalists from the first round to receive technology prizes from Sony and Intel. The ten finalists will compete to receive one of five $10,000 grants to work with the Pulitzer Center on an under-reported international story.

Round 1 launches today

The assignment:

Document a single day in the life of a compelling person the world should meet and showcase how that person is making a positive impact in his or her community.

AP Signs Yahoo Deal

Just now from AP: "The Associated Press has signed a licensing deal with Yahoo Inc. that gives the news cooperative a steady stream of revenue at a time less money is flowing in from newspapers and broadcasters.

"The announcement by both companies Monday didn't disclose the financial terms of the agreement. The AP says it is still negotiating to renew its online licensing agreements with two other companies with far deeper pockets, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Google stopped posting fresh AP content on its Web site in late December."

Read One for the Gipper

That fine recent book about Ronald Reagan, Tear Down This Myth, by one of our favorite reporters/bloggers Will Bunch of the Philly Daily News is out in paperback this week. From the starred Booklist review: "The truculent jingoist of the myth was concocted after Alzheimer’s silenced the man and the would-be juggernaut launched by the GOP’s 1994 election triumph crashed and burned before a Democratic president who shrank government and the deficit, balanced the budget, and even racked up surpluses. Bunch names the leading, venal mythmakers and shames the myth exploiters, too. Anyone interested in America’s immediate future should read this book."

Not Salinger, But Still a Scoop

Cleveland's Plain Dealer gets what it calls the first interview in 20 years with Bill Watterson, creator of the Calvin and Hobbes comic that he gave up in 1995 and hasn't spoken about since. Excerpt:

Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist — how I miss the groupies, drugs and trashed hotel rooms!

But since my “rock star” days, the public attention has faded a lot. In Pop Culture Time, the 1990s were eons ago. There are occasional flare-ups of weirdness, but mostly I just go about my quiet life and do my best to ignore the rest. I’m proud of the strip, enormously grateful for its success, and truly flattered that people still read it, but I wrote “Calvin and Hobbes” in my 30s, and I’m many miles from there.

Monday Linkage

Lengthy AP report on James O'Keefe and "journalism" buddies in New Orleans in the days before the bust in Sen. Landrieu's office.

Three sites-- NYT, Austin daily, Huff Post-- bringing "paid tweets" online.

Arkansas daily presents detailed "day in the life" of the paper from morning to night.

NYT on blog offers debate/competing voices on CBS running the Tim Tebow "advocacy" ad during Super Bowl.

Papa's Got a Brand New Pad: Stephen Colbert whips out iPad at Grammys, taunts Jay Z.

Gannett Reports Profit for 4Q

Gannett Co. turned a profit in the fourth quarter 2009, aided by a drop in one-time costs and a smaller ad decline (but a decline nonetheless) -- and cutbacks. The earnings report, released today, showed Gannett has been able to slash expenses enough to stay profitable despite steady revenue declines.

Gannett earned $133.6 million, or 56 cents per share, compared with a loss of $4.7 billion, or $20.65 per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue dropped 14 percent to $1.49 billion. Ad sales for Gannett's publishing division, which includes USA Today and more than 80 other newspapers, dropped 17.9 percent. The decline was 28 percent decline in the 3Q.