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Online Journalism Review (10 unread)

May 22, 2012
19:10
Want to cover local? Then you'd better BE local!
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: Allow me to suggest one more mistake that the newspaper industry made that we shouldn't allow the slip down the memory hole. It was a practice that I am sure struck many newsroom managers as a smart one... at the time. But it ultimately helped sever ties between publications and their communities, leading to less informed, less engaging coverage that left readers - and advertisers - with fewer reasons to support their local paper. What was this practice? It was conducting national job searches to fill local reporting positions. When I began my journalism career, J-school advisers told us to expect to start out at a smaller paper in a national chain, then try to work our way up to larger newsrooms, bigger cities, and more desirable places to live. You had to "pay your dues" in some small town before you could move up to a major metro. The model was that of an assembly line, where you started by proving yourself on low-risk tasks that weren't particularly critical to the overall operation, before moving up to higher-speed, higher-pressure jobs with national visibility. (By broadening the candidate pool for every local reporting job, this helped chains keep labor costs down, too.) But while the smallest papers in a chain might be next to invisible to the suits in corporate HR, they were real, and important, to the people living in the communities they served. Most of those readers weren't trying to "move up" to some bigger city. They were home, and happy there. The old newsroom hiring model saw the nation's communities as interchangeable rungs on a corporate ladder. But, despite the billion-dollar efforts of companies such as Walmart, Target, McDonald's, and Applebee's, people in those cities and towns continue to resist their commoditization. Sure, they shop at Walmart and eat at Applebee's, but only because they're cheaper than alternatives. (Which often were run out of business by big-chain outlets operating at a loss until they killed off that competition.) Cookie-cutter newspapers could hold onto their local customers only so long as they offered the cheapest way to get information, too. When online competitors such as Craigslist and Yahoo! News gave readers a cheaper alternative for classified ads and national news headlines, they bailed. And understandably so. It's hard to appeal to readers' sense of loyalty to local voices when those voices are recent college grads who've only lived in the community for a couple years and who flee the state whenever they get three or more consecutive days off. Those new hires didn't grow up in the community. They barely know anyone outside the newsroom and the official sources they encounter on their beats. And frankly, they don't care, either. They're looking to "move up," and get out of town. If you're a local, you might as well get your local news from a discussion board. At least the people posting there actually know the town, send their kids to school there, and are planning to stick around a while.
May 16, 2012
0:13
How to use your interviewing skills to trend on Twitter
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: Journalists can be their own worst enemies when they try to interact with their audience online. If you think that the online medium somehow fundamentally changes the way that people interact, and that you need to adopt a new set of principles for interviewing and interacting with people online, you're just setting yourself up for failure. It's like watching an actor psyche himself out before going on stage, or a golfer giving herself a harsh set of the yips when approaching the green. Journalists I've met and worked with too often talk themselves out of their natural state and familiar skills when they start thinking about online interactivity. And those fears of failure quickly become self-fulfilling. Here's a success story story for you to consider, instead. Not to get all hokey on you, but I do believe that if you're thinking about success when you interact with your readers, you're putting yourself in a better place than if you go into conversations with negative thoughts. The key take-away from this success story is that it happened by using good, old-fashioned, print-era, j-school techniques for doing interviews. No special "online" skills required.
May 08, 2012
23:09
Sometimes you have to cut back to move forward
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: If you think that innovation is just about creating new products and services, you're missing what might be the most important step in leading a publication forward. A publication makes its greatest progress not when it introduces new products and services but when it shows the discipline to leave tired or failing efforts behind. You must fight the inertia that's holding you back. This month I began shutting down what where once the most popular services on my family's violin website. While these were the first services we offered on the site, and the ones that defined us to our early audience, they'd become a major time drain for me, and were failing to leverage any significant income for the site. Making the decision to close these services not only created an opportunity for me to devote more time to the stuff that is working on the site, it also forced me to confront the reasons why these services weren't thriving anymore. An innovator who's also designing and launching, but never taking a look back at her work - axe in hand - never learns any valuable lessons from the audience and customers she's trying to serve.
May 01, 2012
20:53
10 things to remember about your readers, when they start to tick you off
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: Great reader comments, tips and blogs can help elevate a news website into a true community, one where people come together to learn from each other, enjoy each others' company and maybe even help address some of the "real-world" problems that any community faces. Of course, on the flip side, trolls and know-it-alls can make reading the comments on a website a visit to virtual hell. So when some of your readers begin to tick you off - either for what they do, or what they don't - here are 10 things to remember... after you've taken a deep breath. You can't force readers to care No matter how much work you put into a piece, no matter how much news you thought you broke in it, no matter well you think told the story, you simply cannot force readers to care. The best you can do is to think about your readers' needs and interests and then craft an engaging narrative or presentation that rewards whomever pays attention. But even then, some readers are just going to say "meh" and click over to the dancing cat videos. Even if you produce a dancing cat video, somebody's still going to say "meh" and click to someone else's dancing cat video. Don't let it upset you. See what's keeping people from participating While you shouldn't get upset by a lack of engagement, don't dismiss it, either. Always be curious about your site, and how people are - or are not - interacting with it. Create a new dummy account every few weeks, just to make sure your registration process is working the way you want. Ask friends to create accounts and jump in now and then, to get fresh perspectives on how newcomers react to your online community. Is there a tech problem that's keeping people from registering, commenting, blogging, or submitting or embedding photos or video? Are new users getting private message spam from lurkers on the site? Are new users having a hard time tracking the conversations they want to follow? Find the barriers that your site's putting up, and work to take them down. Engage on social media - don't promote Twitter and Facebook are great media for pushing new stories to your followers. But if that's all you are using those services for, you're likely leaving your readers cold. So don't get upset when your story links fail to elicit a slew of RTs and Shares. Try some new ways to engage your followers, instead. Post "wild art" photos. Ask questions about favorite places to eat, visit, etc. RT and Share the competition, too. Show your readers that you're not some uptight, Fortune 500 media conglomerate, but an accessible neighbor they can talk with.
April 24, 2012
23:22
You'll get what you expect from your online community
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: What do you think about your audience? I'm not asking to recite any market research or website usage metrics you've collected about your readers. Give me your gut, emotional reaction to that question, instead. Let's tweak the phrasing of my question. How do you feel about your readers? Are you proud of them? Do they make you angry? Do they surprise and amuse you? Do they get on your nerves and annoy you? Do wonder if they're even paying attention to anything you do? I'm going to take an educated guess here and assume that many of you would respond, "a little of all the above." I've certainly felt each of those reactions in dealing with the readers on my sites, not to mention on the newspaper websites where I've been entrusted to deal with reader-submitted comments and other content. But I'd ask you to stick with the question and settle on just one reaction. What's the primary thought, emotion, or reaction that you feel about your readers and their participation with your website? Why am I asking you for this? Because, as a leader of your news publication's online community, the attitude you bring to that community goes a long way in determining both the tone and the essential functionality of that community.
April 17, 2012
23:10
With lower costs, independent eBook publishers hold the advantage
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: Have you been following the Amazon eBook "price fixing" case? Yes or no, don't let this story discourage you from eBook publishing. If anything, this case should be encouraging independent news publishers to jump into the eBook market. Why? As Talking Points Memo explained, this case boils down to an alleged attempt by big book publishers to collude to get an "agency" deal where they would get to set the price of the books they published and were sold on Amazon. The TPM summary didn't mention it, but that agency pricing model is the pricing deal that you get with Amazon as an independent eBook publisher. Why is that a price fixing offense for them and not for you? In short, because they allegedly colluded to get particular prices under that deal, according to the TPM summary. Econ 101 lesson here: If you can enter a market where existing players are colluding to hold up prices, you have a huge business opportunity if you can undercut them on price. Typically, when big businesses try to collude on price, it's because they have high barriers to entry in that business that keep potential competitors (i.e. disruptors) on the sidelines. And that certainly was the case in the book publishing industry just 10 years ago. Today, however, the barriers to entry to book publishing are about the same as the barriers to entry to website publishing were 15 years ago - pretty much zilch. You need some tech know-how, but it's nothing more than a sharp learner can teach herself or himself within a few weeks.
April 10, 2012
17:24
It's okay to be partisan, and a few new principles of journalism ethics
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: President Obama earlier this month refreshed attention to the way that some journalists twist the news by creating false equivalencies in their stories, in an effort to appear "fair" and "objective" as reporters. "There's oftentimes the impulse to suggest that, if the two parties are disagreeing, they're equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle," Obama told the Associated Press. The attack picked up momentum when an AP reporter did just that in his coverage of the speech, falsely accusing the president of moving to the left on health care as Republicans moved to the right. Talking Points Memo and The Atlantic both called the AP on it, though the AP story has now been changed - without acknowledgement - to remove the paragraph in question. The reticence to take sides in reporting news runs strongly throughout journalism. But when that reticence mutates into a need to change the facts to fit a preferred, nonpartisan, view of the news (called by Jay Rosen "the view from nowhere"), reporters have, in fact, succumbed to bias. I blame "the view from nowhere" as much as anything else for the collapse of the news business. People who want truth from their news are journalism's strongest potential customers, but we drive them away when we favor a nonpartisan ideal over the reality of what's happening in public policy. So let's set aside this reticence to take sides in favor of some new principles of journalism ethics:
April 03, 2012
21:14
Government reporters ought to explain their opinions, not hide them
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: Last week, a bunch of journalists in Wisconsin got in trouble with their papers for signing the petition to recall the state's governor, Scott Walker. And the news industry blew yet another chance to build some rewarding connections with their readers. Instead, publishers reacted as if news industry employees participating in a political movement was some evil affront to the Sanctity of Journalism. Green Bay Press-Gazette publisher Kevin Corrado wrote "we now are in the process of taking disciplinary measures and reviewing supplemental ethics training for all news employees." (BTW, hat tip to Jim Romenesko, for noticing that Corrado's statement matched those from several other Wisconsin publishers. Perhaps they all came from the same corporate PR advisor?) None of the employees at Corrado's paper covered politics, or edited anyone who did. But even if they did cover Walker, I think those employees should have been allowed to sign the petition if they desired, under one condition. That they write about it. It's past time for news publishers to let go of the fear that if any of their employees do anything political, even on their own time, that action might make readers think badly about the publication. At this point, having readers think anything about a newspaper would mark a step forward.
March 27, 2012
19:24
Is your start-up news website legal?
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: That might seem like an absurd question, especially for readers in the United States, where the First Amendment protects the freedom of the press. How can a news website be illegal? Well, while the First Amendment protects freedom of the press, plenty of other federal, state and local legislation regulates the conduct of business. And the First Amendment doesn't give news publishers a free pass to ignore that. So you'd better be paying taxes on your business income. And abiding by legal hiring and employment practices if you're bringing on help. "No sweat," I can hear some of you saying to yourselves. "I pay my state and federal income taxes and work by myself at home. I don't need to worry about employment law or all that other stuff." Ah, you work at home, you say? Then you might not be running a legal business after all. Have you checked your local zoning code to see what it says about running a business out of your home? You might surprised by what you learn. Even if all you do in running your business is to type on your home computer, the fact that you're earning income that's not coming from an employer is enough in some jurisdictions to cover you under local home-business zoning and tax rules. Every few years, the City of Pasadena (California) sends me a letter asking me to pay up for a city business license and tax. The same letter goes to everyone with a Pasadena mailing address who reported Schedule C income on his or her federal tax return who hasn't obtained a license yet. (Schedule C is the form through which you report all 1099 or miscellaneous income. It's the form that home business owners who do not incorporate use to report their business income.) Pasadena's hardly alone. New York City, for example, levies a unincorporated business tax that hits many freelance writers and website publishers. The City of Los Angeles also hits freelancers and writers (among others) with a city business tax, but exempts the first $100,000 in income. Fail to pay these local taxes and license fees, and you're running an illegal business.
March 20, 2012
15:32
Turn news industry disruptions to your advantage
» ‎ Online Journalism Review

By Robert Niles: The 2012 State of the News Media report by Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism is out, and it includes some eye-opening numbers on who's making money from news these days. Here's a hint. It's not newspaper companies. From the report: In the last year a small number of technology giants began rapidly moving to consolidate their power by becoming makers of everything in our digital lives. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and a few others are maneuvering to make the hardware people use, the operating systems that run those devices, the browsers on which people navigate, the e-mail services on which they communicate, the social networks on which they share and the web platforms on which they shop and play. And all of this will provide these companies with detailed personal data about each consumer. Already in 2011, five technology companies [Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and AOL] accounted for 68% of all online ad revenue, and that list does not include Amazon and Apple, which get most of their dollars from transactions, downloads and devices. By 2015, Facebook is expected to account for one out of every five digital display ads sold. A year ago, we wrote here: The news industry, late to adapt and culturally more tied to content creation than engineering, finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business. In 2012, that phenomenon has grown. "Our analysis suggests that news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people's lives," PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel said in a press release. "But it remains unclear who will benefit economically from this growing appetite for news." Well, a first read of the Pew report suggests that it's Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and AOL who are benefitting economically from the public's appetite for news online. :^) But let's not forget that quite a bit of that 68% market share that Pew reports for these five businesses is passing through to uncounted numbers of affiliates and partners, too. For example, a large chunk of Google's market-leading advertising income flows to its AdSense partners. (Full disclosure: I'm one of them.) In my reading of the Pew report, I found an implicit concern that more and more online ad revenue was flowing to these tech company intermediaries, rather than directly to news companies as they presumably had done in the past. But I don't have a problem with that. Why? I don't believe in equating newspaper, broadcast and cable companies with the "news" industry. I've never believed that newspaper companies are the originators of journalism. To me, the true originators of journalism are reporters and sources. Newspapers were yesterday's middlemen, bringing together reporters, an audience, and the advertisers who were willing to pay to reach the audience that journalists' reports would attract. Sure, newspaper companies played a vital role, but calling them the originators of content is akin to giving credit to an talent agent for an actor's performance. Today, tech companies have disrupted these arrangements. As a journalist, I can use Google's Blogger to create my own publication and Google's AdSense will pay me for the advertising revenue that my work attracts. And let's not forget those downloads from Amazon and Apple, either, which provide an even more direct route for today's writers to earn income from an audience. I don't need a job with a newspaper a make living as a journalist now. Tech companies have become the new middlemen, through which sources and writers can reach an audience and customers, instead of having to rely on newspaper and broadcast companies to make that match, as they did so often in the past.

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Online Journalism Review (10 unread)