May
28
Some more stuff from the browser.
- Times will reduce staff, freeze pay. What’s interesting isn’t so much that the St. Pete Times is cutting staff (isn’t everybody?), it’s the comments on the article, which are almost uniformly negative. I think newspaper execs should give them a read.
- On Bomb-Throwing. Derek Willis has a very good post about the role and effectiveness of disruptors in the newsroom, basing his points on the recent move of Rob Curley and much of his online team from the Washington Post to Las Vegas Sun.
- Rebirth: How Innovative Publishers are Reinventing the Business. Paul Gillin wraps up some of the moves being made by publishers to try and serve the market. What stood out in the first two examples was staffing numbers: two magazines being put out by a staff of 19 and new citizen-j filled weeklies being published without adding any staff at all.
- Best Practices: How Online Video Improves Journalism. Al Tompkins of Poynter interviews Travis Fox of the Washington Post. Go read.
- ICM interview: Pat Thornton, the Journalism Iconoclast. Speaking of good interviews…
- Saving newspapers. A nice bit of writing from John McQuaid, not so much above the specifics of change but about approach and attitude.
- Why Print, and Why Now? Dan Pacheco, one of the Knight News Challenge grant winners, explains eloquently and persuasively why his project centres on print. Lots in there.
- News media need to give users serendipity and value added. Not the price of a gallon of gas. Ben Compaine calls his piece a rant, but it seems to me that it’s a pretty sound piece of advice: tell readers what they don’t know, not what they do.
- 2008 TOTAL: 3,157+. Erica Smith mashes-up Google maps and newspaper layoffs.
