Oct
1
Much happening on the internets:
- ReportingOn. Ryan Sholin’s “backchannel for your beat” has launched as an open beta. If you’re a reporter, this site could — should — become one of your best friends. This is service to journalism worthy of a medal.
- GIMP 2.6 released, one step closer to taking on Photoshop. The best news in the coverage of the new version of the open-source photo editor may be this: “A more extensive redesign [of the interface] is in the works.” Great, because I like GIMP but it makes my eyes hurt.
- Strib publisher urges staff not to be distracted by restructuring issues. Hard not to pay attention when the company misses a $9-million debt payment.
- Reading, ‘riting… and revenue? Online publishing changes the ‘three Rs’ for college students. Some tales of college students who are using the net to make money. Ties in nicely with the repeated calls for j-students to get entrepreneurial.
- Charticle Fever. Great new buzzword for an old idea: text, images and graphics to tell stories quickly. Approaching flavour-of-the-month status but, like everything else in journalism, they work best where they work best, not where they are mandated.
- Is neighborhood news a sustainable business? Cory Bergman follows up his post on MyBallard.com, the neighbourhood-based website, with some more thoughts on the financial viability. The evidence is growing that such “place blogs” are — potentially — a money-making, or at least sustainable, part of the mediascape.
- Retraining for multimedia. Some reporting on how NPR is reinventing itself as a multimedia news organization. Are there any unblurred lines left?
- It’s not the stupid economy, newspapers. Alan Mutter takes issue with Dean Singleton’s contention that 60 per cent of current newspaper woes are economy-based and that those losses will be wiped out as the economy strengthens. I think the Canadian newspaper numbers I reported on a day or two ago, which show newspapers both losing market share and growing at a rate that’s almost a third less than overall advertising spending between 2001 and 2006, leans me toward Alan’s argument.
- Is The “Free” Ride Over? European Circulation of Freebies Declines. This doesn’t make sense: “surprising, perhaps, since 23 free newspapers stopped publishing last year and 12 more have stopped this year.” Why is it surprising that when 35 newspapers stop publishing, overall circulation goes down?
- Give us some credit. How the newspaper industry is about to be disembowelled by the banking crisis. This week’s must-read on the newspaper business. Or perhaps, this one: Lauren Rich Fine: Hard To Find The Silver Lining; Possibilities Include Bankruptcies, Funding Woes. They give rise to this random thought: maybe what newspapers need is a big shake-out.
