According to a report by a union official, the St. Paul Pioneer Press has started to discharge employees, The Associated Press reported today.

Mike Bucsko, executive officer of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild Typographical Union, revealed that the employees to be laid-off were told this morning. Bucsko would not comment on the numbers involved.

Pioneer Press Editor Thom Fladung declined to comment.

The Pioneer Press employs around 140 newsroom staff and had last month requested the union for $2 million worth of wage and benefit concessions before settling for $1.1 million.

The Pioneer Press is owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc., publisher of 54 daily newspapers in 11 states.

Illinois' Carmi Times has invited local businesses to take part in an auction that will be held exclusively through their newspaper, The Carmi Times reported.

Times advertising executives plan to contact local establishments and offer them the opportunity to put their products up for auction. A full-page list of the available items will then be published in the newspaper's July 13 edition, along with a "bid ticket" that readers can use to name their price on the proposed merchandise.

Once the bids have been reviewed by the newspaper staff, another full page ad will announce the highest bids for the items and offer readers another bid ticket. The auction will continue until July 30, when highest bidders will be notified and be given a certificate redeemable for their chosen item.

In exchange for offering products, local businesses will be granted advertising space in the paper equal to the value of the items offered up for auction.

As the bottom has progressively fallen out of print advertising and the economic downturn has left publishers in many parts of the world parched of advertising income, original sources have become increasingly skeptical of giving up their content for free. Many argue that publishers' reliance on advertising online, while not making users pay for content, is flawed, and has sacrificed the perceived value of quality content.

Yet those across the publishing industry are looking for solutions, and two separate initiatives have taken complimentary approaches to the now crucial promotion and defense of the value of online publications. The first, a work in progress, is an attempt to generate circulation revenue from online subscriptions. The second defines a group of communication standards for publishers and authors that attempts to translate the use rights of copyright law onto the Internet. Both aim to give publications an opportunity to defend their content while also creating and marketing a valuable product.

Steven Brill (left), of Journalism Online, and Mark Bide, of ACAP

Paying for content

Thailand news service, Thailand-Today.com, has extended its reporting coverage to include a number of popular Thailand related blogs, The Open Press reported Monday. This is in addition to its presentation of Thai breaking news and newspaper headlines.

"The importance of blogs - as a popular form of personal news publishing - is skyrocketing. Blog authors are quick to publish news and express their views on topical subjects. We observe that more and more people read Internet blogs to obtain news, analysis and commentary - also on Thailand related matters," said Amanta Sriwastigul, spokesperson for Thai Today.

"What is more, on Thailand-Today readers find all their Thailand news in one site which saves them a lot of their valuable time. Newspapers around the world - and from now on also bloggers - also benefit because we drive targeted traffic to their Internet sites," Sriwastigul added.

The Web site aggregates a large number of local and international sources, including the Bangkok Post and The Herald Tribune. All the news is reported in English, allowing the Web site to serve foreigners based in Thailand and Thais living overseas.

The shutting down of the Ann Arbor News next month will result in the first "no newspaper town" in the United States, the Seattle Times reported.

The paper's parent company, Advance, plans to launch an online news site called AnnArbor.com which is said to be a new project that will accept applications from former News staff members, but won't necessarily keep or rehire previous employees.

Poynter's Rick Edmonds reported that reporters and editors from the Ann Arbor News can reapply for positions with AnnArbor.com, "but the pay scale is being dropped to the mid-$30,000 range for reporters," a $20,000 drop for many from their original salaries.

Industry experts have speculated that the demise of Ann Arbor's newspaper industry is due to its literate, young, and tech-savy readers, who are less likely to subscribe to and regularly read newspapers.

Tony Dearing, content director for the nascent AnnArbor.com said as much in an interview explaining, "there are a lot of things about Ann Arbor that make it harder to succeed as a print daily paper. Print papers do a little better with an older audience and Ann Arbor is a little younger."

The Dublin-based Independent News & Media (INM) has been granted an extension on the repayment of a €200 million bond, Reuters reported Friday.

The media conglomerate, which had already extended its bond repayments due on May 17 to June 26, was granted a further postponement until July 24 by its principal banks and bondholders.

"The extension of the standstill period will allow ongoing constructive discussions to continue between all key stakeholders in relation to the group's financial restructuring.''

The publisher's heavy debt load mounted after extensive overseas expansion, reaching €1.4 billion, and financial woes mounted due to the economic downturn and resulting plunge in advertising revenue, Reuters reported.

As part of the annual "What Teens Want" conference, The Nielsen Company has released a study titled "How Teens Use Media." The results show that the younger generation are still using many traditional forms of media.

"The notion that teens are too busy texting and Twittering to be engaged with traditional media is exciting, but false," according to the executive summary. The study shows that teens are making use of all forms of media new and old.

Television still dominates teenage media use, with an average of three hours and 20 minutes watched per day. The results show TV as more popular than ever with a 6 percent increase in the U.S. over the last five years.

Online media pails in comparison. The study found the average teen watches only 11 minutes of online video per day, equating to an average of around hours hours per month. This is less than other age brackets. Adults between ages 18 to 24 watch watch five hours and 35 minutes per month and even those aged 35 to 44 out-view teenagers with three hours and 30 minutes per month, MediaWeek reported on the study.

GroupM has revised its prediction for 2009's global ad spending decline, estimating a 5.5 percent drop, up from the initial 4.4 percent fall forecast in March. This equates to $417 billion in advertising spending, MediaBuyerPlanner reported Wednesday.

The media analyst group believes the advertising climate will begin to plateau next year, predicting a 1.4 percent decline for 2010, with spending coming in at $411 billion.

North American spending is expected to fall 6.1 percent, with $151 billion worth of spending. This comes on top of a 2 percent decline for 2008.

Television dominates U.S. advertising spending, taking up 44.2 percent of the market. Magazines rank second with an 18.4 percent share, according to GroupM.

Interactive media continues to develop globally. In the United States, interactive media, the third largest medium in the country, will take 17 percent of the advertising revenue, up from 15.4 percent from 2008. The UK has the largest interactive media spending where it dominates 30.9 percent of the market share. Denmark is second where interactive makes up 28.4 percent, GroupM reported.

GroupM predicts newspapers will fall to fourth largest advertising forum behind the Internet. The company predicts papers will hold a 13.6 percent share in 2009 and 12.4 percent in 2010.

The DIY social network platform GROU.PS has received a second round of funding from Golden Horn Ventures, which invested US$1.1 million in the company last year and committed to giving the startup another $1 million this year, paidContent reported.

The company reportedly counts more than 100 million users that have created 40,000 online networking groups, putting them in a position to compete with other popular Do-it-yourself sites such as Ning and KickApps.

GROU.PS platform allows users to create photo albums, maps, calendars, amongst other options. Along with basic revenue generating methods such as the use of Google Adsense ads, users of GROU.PS are also able to charge membership fees to the groups they have created.

The World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the leading international associations for print and digital news publishing, have merged into a new organisation, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The combined new organisation will represent more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries. WAN-IFRA is dedicated "to be the indispensable partner of newspapers and the entire news publishing industry worldwide, particularly our members, in the defense and promotion of press freedom, quality journalism and editorial integrity, and the development of prosperous businesses and technology."

The mission statement of the organisation can be found at http://www.wan-ifra.org

The merger, which becomes effective on 1 July, has been approved by the membership of the two organisations. The new organisation will maintain the two current headquarters in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany.

The two organisations have been discussing a merger, on and off, for more than five years, as they have built up several similar products and services and have an increasing overlap in membership.

Medical information firm and USA Today have collaborated to publish a physician database called "Most Influential Doctors," Modern Medicine reported Thursday. The database seeks to provide patients with details on and access to "influential" doctors in specific fields across the United States.

Around 6,000 doctors have been included in the first group for publication on the database. Initial categorization includes diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia specialists, with other diseases and conditions to be included quarterly.

The database draws from a doctor's procedures, referrals and prescribing records, USA Today reported last month. Other information available include records of books and articles published by the physicians, academic achievements and studies the doctors were involved in.

The database gives patients a valuable resource when deciding on health care.

"I do feel strongly that this is a good tool to give people a place to start," says Qforma's CEO Kelly Myers.