May 2009 Archives

Twitter has updated its Tweets, making the online discussions more difficult to engage in, Andy Carvin reported for NPR's All Tech Considered blog.

The new Tweet design makes it impossible for users to interact in a conversation that involve members whose tweets they do not subscribe to. This change marks a shift from the original format, which allowed open access to online discourse between known and unknown users. Twitter's Biz Stone addressed the change in format on the company's blog, writing that the recent update "removes this undesirable and confusing option" of "receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don't follow."

The Journal Register Co. has appealed to U.S. bankruptcy court for permission to cut ties with unions representing 220 of its employees, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The publisher seeks to eliminate various pension obligations and impose a 15 percent salary decrease on employees belonging to the unions in question. Papers filed by the company with the bankruptcy court state the moves are necessary to reach a projected $2.6 million in savings through labour cutbacks. Employees at the company's Detroit papers may also have certain policies, such as overtime pay, called into question.

Craigslist's "erotic services" sections will be eliminated and replaced with a new "adult" page. The posts there will be reviewed by company employees before publication, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Current erotic ads will be phased out of the site as they expire over the next seven days, which will put an end to what Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan calls "an Internet brothel" and "an illegal and dangerous place."

Mediabistro is introducing BayNewser.com, a new media blog that will cover California's Bay Area, Editor & Publisher reported.

Senior Vice President and Founder of Mediabistro Laurel Touby called the Silicon Valley and surrounding areas a "natural next step" for the company saying the Bay Area is "where the media of the future will be invented, and we'll be there to cover that reinvention and the conversation around it."

While the UK Evening Standard celebrated its new design by giving away 650,000 free papers, the free daily thelondonpaper relaunched its Web site, Brand Republic reported.

The updated site is more interactive, giving users options to leave comments or reviews. The site also includes a connection to Facebook, which streams users' inputs to the site through a Facebook newsfeed.  Changes were made after "extensive consumer research," and will also benefit advertisers, said Stefano Hatfield, editor of thelondonpaper.

The Sunday Herald is reporting a 15.7 percent decline in sales from April of last year, AllMediaScotland reported. The paper had a circulation of 40,124 in April, compared to 47,610 for the same time last year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulation data.

The Daily Star, Guardian and Sunday Times saw slight rises, reporting increases of 1.4 percent, 0.4 percent and 4.46 percent, respectively.

Social networking site Facebook is planning to implement an experimental micropayment system on its site in the coming weeks, paidContent reported.

Reports say the payments would be required to use Facebook applications, and the payees' information would be stored on the site for further use once they are entered. Facebook has yet to confirm or give details on the micropayment plan.

The Washington Post Co. is discussing possible collaboration with Google, the Post's media writer, Howard Kurtz, reported Monday.

In an article on the Post's Web site, Kurtz wrote that "Post Co. chief executive Donald Graham and Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and their lieutenants have been holding talks about collaboration. This could range from creating new Web pages to technological tools for journalists or readers. Hanging over the talks is the reality that the search giant, while funneling vital traffic to news sites, vacuums up their content without paying a dime."

The Fort Collins Coloradoan will now be printed at the Denver Post plant, the Denver Business Journal reported. A contract between the Coloradoan and the Denver Newspaper Agency allows the paper to use the Post's printing site, permitting the paper to close its own plant and eliminate 42 positions.

Editions of the Coloradoan will be driven to Fort Collins after being printed in Denver; the additional travel time is not expected to have an affect on home delivery times. Gannett Co., which owns the Coloradoan, also plans to print copies of its other title, USA Today, at the Denver plant.

London's Evening Standard will commemorate its new design by giving away 650,000 papers today, Press Gazette reported. The paper's makeover addressed both content and design, with a new masthead appearing on the front page, new writers on staff and a new editor, Geordie Greig, overseeing the paper.

The new Standard has also added a "trends" section which will be included in Monday editions. Greig said the paper plans to be "more upbeat, more representative and more positive."

The Standard is simultaneously launching its mobile Web site and a redesign of its main Web site, which will now integrate blogs, Twitter feeds and an expanded entertainment section.

The Journalism and Research Initiative (JATRI), which is included in the $18 million allotted by the U.S. government for the Promoting Governance, Accountability, Transparency and Integrity project, will "develop and promote investigative journalism at the city's Brac University," The Daily Star reported Friday.

At the launch celebration for the centre, Information Minister Abul Kaleem Azad spoke of the declining integrity amongst media professionals and organisations saying, "it has become a regular phenomenon that whenever a man manages to have some money, he or she wants to own a media house, either it be newspaper or television channel or radio station."

The Onion, the beloved purveyor of fake news, will cease its weekly print circulation in San Francisco and Los Angeles, despite a recent increase in readership, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Hannah sent a memo to the two offices by last week, in which he described advertising revenue in both cities "abysmal." The Bay Area edition, which counts 60,000 copies distributed in 1,300 locations in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, will print its last edition this week.

De Pers, a free daily in the Netherlands, is planning to cut an additional 100,000 in circulation Newspaper Innovation reported. The daily will concentrate more on distribution in urban areas including Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam.

The newspaper is working with Mecom-owned local dailies on advertising, and is now focusing on building advertising in more metropolitan areas.

A newly published handbook for journalists in Jordan aims to be the new favourite reference tool of journalists in the country, Zawya reported.

Mohammad Atiyeh, of Abu Mahjoob Creative Productions, a group that produced the book along with USAID's Jordan Media Strengthening Programme, said he wanted the handbook to "serve as a single common stylebook for media organizations and individuals and spur a positive spirit of competition that will fuel the continual advancement of the media industry as a whole."

In a Monday briefing, U.S. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters he didn't know what "government can do about it" in response to questions about struggling newspapers, Politico reported.

While stressing President Barack Obama's commitment to "a strong free press," Gibbs called the problems facing the newspaper industry a "tricky area (for the government) to get into."

The press secretary took the occasion to turn the tables on journalists who had called into question Obama's pledge to cut spending saying, "you guys didn't think $100 million meant a lot a few weeks ago...but looking at some of the balance sheets, $100 million seems to mean a lot."

Platinum Equity will buy the San Diego News Tribune from parent company Copley Press Inc., after eight months of being on the market, The Associated Press reported. The Copley family will leave the newspaper industry upon completion of the sale.

After implementing an experimental mixture of online and print formats, accompanied by a limited delivery schedule, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News have seen a rise in readership of their e-edition, as well as less subscription cancellations than expected, Poynter Online reported.

An assessment of the Detroit papers' experiment reveals some heartening results, including an approximate 6,300 readers who choose to pay more to have the paper mailed to their homes on days that have been cut from the delivery schedule, about 30,000 visits per day to the papers' e-editions and a mere 50 percent of the projected subscription losses that actually took place - with new subscriptions being filled at impressive rates.

When asked if he would consider investing in newspapers, Warren Buffet replied that due to newspapers "possibility of going to just unending losses" he "would not buy them at any price," The Wall Street Journal reported.

While Buffet seemed confident in his share of the Washington Post Co., due to its strong cable business, he didn't deny that its newspaper branch is struggling.

Allentown, Pennsylvania's The Morning Call plans to cut 10 percent of its staff- approximately 70 positions, Philly.com reported.

In an e-mail to staffers, of which 50 should be immediately affected by the layoffs, publisher Time Kennedy wrote that "the traditional newspaper business model is broken" and stated that the industry must build the foundation for a new model.

Kennedy also lamented the "painfully ironic" fact that the cutbacks and financial troubles come at a time when the paper's readership is showing signs of growth.