Some Media Environment!

As far as I know, I plan on becoming a journalist – a sports journalist.  The thrill of seeing your name in print – yes, it’s that nerdy a sensation - is a part of the business that never gets old, regardless of the venue in which your story finds its way to hungry readers.

That being said, the industry’s morphing before our eyes.  I won’t bother explaining how – I think I’ve highlighted news’ trials and tribulations more than enough over the past few months – so just assume things aren’t as peachy keen as they once were. 

As the monolithic bastions of the old guard – namely, The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal – crumble beneath the heavy footsteps of the World Wide Web, a new, more futuristic media environment is taking shape, one whose ramifications for average news consumers are both unprecedented and unpredictable.

Jobs no longer exclusively include writers, editors and market researchers.  Web designers, blog contributors and online database compilers are members of the new guard picking up the pieces the traditional news outlets left behind.

As for college graduates, their place in this system is more unclear than ever.  See, despite all this talk about the end of print and the death of conventional news delivery, the old guard still exists.  Dailies still run daily, weeklies still run weekly and monthlies still run monthly.  Magazines are yet to be relics and broadcast news programs have for the most part maintained their modest ratings. 

However, circulation and advertising numbers are falling by the quarter, popular magazines, such as Gourmet, are closing up shop, newspapers are gradually transitioning to online formats and evening news shows are gaining viewership at paces slower than in the past.

The picture doesn’t look so lucid, now, does it?

Moving forward, college graduates through the next five years or so will probably find better luck working on sites like Brian Farnham’s Patch.com and Michael Rosenblum’s Rosenblum.tv than with more conventional news outlets.  Newspapers like the Times, Newsday and the Post still offer summer and winter internships, which shines some promise in an otherwise dire sky.  But overall, I see papers and magazines having little priority for entry-level employees when they can barely support themselves.

And as for me, well, who knows where I’ll end up.  Not that anyone reading this blog actually cares, but I hope to one day land a job in one of New York ballparks’ press boxes.  Internships through MLB.com and its affiliates always help, so why not start there?

And for the rest of ya, good night and good luck!

A Time For Thanks

As families from SoHo to Seattle sat around their Thanksgiving tables this past holiday, thinking of the past with their minds set on the future, all were linked by a single overlying truth – the times they are a’changing. 

Unendingly, I’ve written in this blog of the dessertification of traditional newspapers, the countless job cuts and nationwide declines in circulation and advertising.  I’ve written of the Internet’s influence and the innovations of Google, YouTube and Microsoft, among others, that are transforming the American news machine.

To say the least, print, broadcast and online news are in a state of major flux – one unseen in the nation’s history.  But isntead of wallowing in self pity – especially you, soon-to-be college graduates – think of all there is to look foward to (if you can).  In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ll count down the top 10 things about journalism for which we’re (more or less) grateful.

10.  You want celebrity news? You got it! Between The National Enquirer, People, US Weekly and Star Magazine, you can find out who’s got the hottest body and who’s getting married before you can say, “Holy Kardashian!” The options are limitless!

9.  Cable news brings to light the ultimate money driver in American news - who’s got the loudest mouth and the most biased opinions.  If Glenn Beck won’t make you want to change the channel, Rachel Maddow certainly will.

8.  The media always keeps the public on top of breaking stories.  Where would our nation be without the networks’ coverage of that poor boy who got stuck in his dad’s helium balloon?

7.  With online news the way of the future, it’s great that newspapers are gradually making the transition to the Internet.  And they’re charging, too! Terrific! What we sometimes fail to realize, however, is that they’re moving because nobody buys newspapers anymore!

6.  The end of Charlie Gibson’s reign as “World News Tonight” anchor and his replacement by Diane Sawyer is big news in TV Land – up to a certain point, of course.  C’mon, people.  Katie Couric took the limelight for that “first woman” gig, so let’s get on with it.  If a woman can come awfully close to winning the White House, winning 7 million elderly viewers shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise.               

5.  Fox News wants us to watch their nonsense so badly, they purposely air old footage for new stories, thinking we’d fall for the trap.  Fittingly, a comedian called their bluff.

4.  It’s too bad journalists don’t own the papers they write for.  If they did, maybe quarterly job cuts wouldn’t be so painful to look at.  Thanks a bunch, you corporate bigwigs, you!

3.  Remember the days when opening a newspaper meant seeing ads besides the stories, not on top of them? Well those days are over as nauseating pop-up ads on nearly every news site block stories and frustrate readers to the point of no return.  Why read a story if you can’t even view it?

2.  Citizen journalism is beneficial to a degree.  But after the hyperlocal benefits fade away, are we really getting credible journalism? How much can Joe Schmo possible know about heary surgery than, say, I don’t know…an ACTUAL SURGEON?!

1.  It’s nice to know we’ve got out national priorities straight – and I’m talking to you, Larry King.  When Michael Jackson died, boy oh boy did you go to town with that! Forget about anything else happening in Iraq or Afghanistan or even the United States.  MJ was centerstage – no pun intended – and you played into his death like the worst of the paparazzi.

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It

“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” sang R.E.M. in their 1987 hit by the same name.  Unfortunately, newspaper offices around the country have heard this tune many more than times than they would’ve liked to.  And new updates from The Associated Press don’t help matters much.

Last week, the AP reported that newspapers’ advertising revenue fell by about 29 percent in the third quarter of 2009, dropping to $5.8 billion with classified ad revenue down about 40 percent to $1.5 billion.  The consolidation of classified ads through Monster, eBay and Craigslist have facilitated this problem.

Likewise, the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) said print and online combined ad revenues sunk to $6.4 billion in the third quarter from $8.9 billion during the same period last year.

As daunting as print figures were, newspaper companies couldn’t have been too happy with the most recent online numbers.  With print ad revenue obviously in decline and differentiated online ads appearing the way of the future (eventually), the national drop in online revenue poses great obstacles for publications planning to charge for Web access and those that already do.  Overall, third quarter online ad revenue declined by about 17 percent to $623 million, still well behind the amount brought in for print advertisements.

And not to be the bearer of bad news – it’s hard not to be these days – but print ad revenue for American papers has now fallen for 13 consecutive quarters.  Online ad revenue has nose-dived for the last six quarters.

Circulation downfalls are partially to blame, as are advertising companies’ financial troubles in the recession.  It’ll be very interesting to see how the industry picks itself up once the economy stumbles to its feet.  That’s assuming, of course, that print will survive the next decade, let alone the next few years.

 

Good For Google

Google recently introduced a new system that will bring text captions to many YouTube videos, a move making the site more accessible to the deaf and hearing-impaired, according to The New York Times.  The technology will also make YouTube videos more searchable and open to broader foreign markets.  The news is appealing to advertisers, who will be able to reach larger audiences through the Google-owned site, as well as Google, which hopes to boost profits through ad sales.

Even though the system only allows for the insertion of English-language captions, Google is giving users the choice of using its automatic translation system to read the captions in 51 different languages.  This may broaden the general appeal of YouTube videos to millions around the world who do not speak English but could use the technology to read subtitles in their native tongue.

Furthermore, according to The Times, “[t]he speech recognition technology that Google uses to turn speech into text is not new; Google currently uses it to transcribe voice mail messages for users of its Google Voice service.”  But sources said the technology has never been applied on such a vast scale.

AOL and Hulu already feature videos with captioned text, and YouTube has hundreds of thousands of videos with preset closed captions, usually from broadcast networks that include them in their daily programming.

Google also announced the arrival of a similar service that gives anyone who uploads a video to YouTube the choice of uploading a text file of the words spoken in the video.  Google can then turn the text file into closed captions.  Known as “auto-timing,” the service will be available to all YouTube users.

Lastly, the captions will make it easier for the deaf and others, for that matter, to look inside individual videos and locate specific sound bites.

Here’s an explanation of Google’s innovation, fittingly via YouTube:

Half Just Isn’t Good Enough

Looks like Americans aren’t too thrilled about the Internet after all.  Well, at least the news component.

In a recent survey, more than half of all Americans who regularly use the Internet were found to be unwilling to pay for online news, including on mobile devices.  This comes as an alarming reality for struggling print publications that may need to move to the Web to keep themselves afloat.  For those papers and magazines that already charge for online content, the results can’t be that much more promising.

The average American said his/her price for online news would max out at a measly $3 per month, which tied Australia for the survey’s lowest figure.  Those asked in other Western nations, including Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Norway and Finland, had higher figures for several reasons.  Among them, in Western European countries, news tends to be disseminated by a handful of big companies.  In the United States, a highly-fragmented news market allows for free online news sources.

However, Americans are much more likely than people overseas to pay for admission to sites that offer access to multiple papers.  This is essentially the business model offered through Journalism Online.

The study also found that consistent newspaper subscribers are more likely to pay the most for Web news.

As for the survey results, whether the majority of Americans don’t read newspapers often or just feel inconvenienced by the prospects of online news is up for debate.

Based on 5,000 people, the survey said that because newspapers are so deep in debt, charging for online news would minimally increase their revenues.  On the other hand, since it costs companies little to reach readers via the Web, profits may jump unexpectedly.

Regardless, the Web IS the future.  There is no doubting this.  There is no turning back.  The digital revolution is here and will lay even greater burdens on the print industry than it already has.  If they wish to keep themselves informed, the American public should quit complaining about the cost of online news – they pay who-knows-how-many times more than $ 3 per year for print subscriptions anyway – and get used to the way things will be for a long, long time.

Super News!

Audiences around the globe will tune in to the most spectacular of America’s sporting events when CBS airs Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7, 2010.  As always, the commercials will drive many to their TV sets, giving the network high ratings in an otherwise lowly media environment.  But CBS doesn’t need to wait until next year to feel the effects of its showing the Super Bowl.

As of this week, the network announced that nearly all of its commercial spots have been sold, with a mere 6 to 12 remaining.  More than 60 30-second ads are usually sold for the Big Game, and CBS has already outpaced its ad sales for 2007, when it last aired the contest.

CBS has sought between $2.5 million and $3 million for each ad, with higher prices allocated to prime real estate, such as the first ad spot in the commercial breaks closer to the start of the game.  Many of these spots have already been sold.

As for interested companies, sources say Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch, Bridgestone and GoDaddy.com are definites for the braodcast, with Motorola also chipping in.

Last year, no American car manufacturer placed an ad for the Super Bowl.  This year, foreign automakers have already singed up and rumors say GMC might use ad space to promote its newest vehicles.

Here’s one of several great commercials from Super Bowl XLIII:

 

They’re At It Again!

Only Fox News can pull this nonsense off not once, but twice!

Within the past two weeks, the conservative cable news network ran stories on two separate events – one an anti-health care rally, the other Sarah Palin’s book tour – using footage from other events! How preposterous! To think that Fox News, America’s bastion of respectable and credible journalism, could fall to such a low, such an undoing of moral fiber! Oh, how it brings tears to my eyes.

Get real, people.

Is anyone really surprised by Fox’s intentional attempts to dupe its audience? It’s not as if the network has had a history of overemphasizing the dramatic at the expense of sacrificing good journalism.  And they’re fair and balanced, right? They wouldn’t dare meddle with their own integrity!

In the first case, Sean Hannity aired footage of a much larger September 12 rally when referring to a November 5 rally against the House’s latest health care proposal.  The anchor and his guests frequently spoke of the rally’s massive turnout, which ended up being tens of thousands less than actually appeared in the video.

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart broke the news:

Fox Lies

►

In the second case, Fox used footage of Palin’s VP campaign from last year when referring to the crowds she’s gathering for her book signings.  That footage is more than a year old! What were they thinking?

Here’s how the network’s “Happening Now” program mislead its viewers:

And so the sage continues.  What’ll they screw up next?

Rosenblum TV vs. Patch.com

The journalism industry asks a lot of aspiring reporters, especially those looking to one day make it big – whether working for a national news network or big-market newspaper.  Showing potential employers that you’re capable of being a self-starter is a crucial skill.  In fact, it’s almost, if not equally as important as your ability to report.

However, journalism faces its most epic fight for survival.  Newspapers, magazines, TV and radio have sliced thousands of jobs in the past 2 years alone, leaving many college graduates fresh out of luck.  For those of us pursuing journalism careers, optimism seems hard to come by.  Sure, we’d love to show Newsweek or Newsday or MSNBC that we’re brimming with new story ideas and that we’re eager to hit the streets and report like we’ve been taught, but our options are limited.

So, Michael Rosemblum says, start your own business!

Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? As an exhausted college senior with an unrenewable income, the first thing that comes to mind is this exact suggestion!  Seriously, what on Earth is this guy thinking?   As a successful television producer and video journalist, Rosenblum has reason to believe that hard work will get you places.  And having the funds to do so doesn’t hurt.

But how will students jump-start their own news ventures – especially one as “state-of-the-art” as his self-marketed Rosenblum TV? None of us, at least I don’t think, have the money or time necessary to take such a huge leap forward.  Besides, his company’s use of hand-held cameras and newly-trained “reporters” poses risks to journalistic integrity as we know it.

And do the lessons learned in Stony Brook’s journalism school apply at all to Rosenblum’s model? If anything, his videos resemble a hybrid of “hard” news and skimpy collaborative journalism.

As for Brian Farnham and Patch.com, things are far less intimidating.

Encouraging college grads to take advantage of the digital revolution, Farnham introduced his website as a hyperlocal alternative to, say, Yellow Book or Google Maps.  Patch essentially acts as an aggregator of local news, sports, restaurant listings, community events and classified ads, bringing entire towns – in New Jersey and Connectict (and soon New York) – together in a user-friendly Web format.  The site consists of an editorial as well as a business team, both of which are looking to expand.

Absent from Farnham’s views were Rosenblum’s overwhelming demands and unreasonable predictions.  With all due respect to those who’ve succeeded with online video jouralism, it seems a relatively untested field forced into being by the Internet.  Patch.com, on the other hand, acts more like a local paper or TV station in the sense that individual “patches” highlight news specific to a certain region.

More akin to the models we’ve been studying, Patch seems a more enticing choice over Rosenblum TV.  At least for me, it does.  But then again, what do I know? I’m only a frustrated college student in need of a job.

 

Shining Bright? I Don’t Think So

Starting this Monday, The San Francisco Chronicle will begin printing its editions with high-quality glossy paper, a style once used solely in magazines.  The paper’s move is the first for a general-interest daily, necessary for one of the hardest hit publications in the United States.

Hoping to make the paper more visually appealing for both new readers and advertisers, The Chronicle plans on using the glossy paper on its front page, the first page of most sections and other selected pages inside the paper.  Ownership assumes that advertisers will commit to the paper more than before since their products can now be displayed with a shine not found in traditional print ads.

But is the paper’s decision too little, too late? After all, its weekday circulation dove nearly 26 percent from a year ago to an average of just over 250,000, and the publication lost $50 million in 2008, prompting Hearst Corp., the paper’s owner, to threaten sale or closure.  To compensate, job cuts and rising newsstand prices have appeared more common than not as 2009 draws to a close.

But there’s another culprit for The Chronicle’s actions.  The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times – two of the nation’s wealthiest newspapers – have extended their influence to the Bay Area to reach affluent residents and high-end advertisers.  To keep its head above water, The Chronicle needed to adapt.

What’s unfortunate here is that the industry is becoming a victim of itself.  Institutional business trends hurting today’s papers are leading those same papers to compromise good journalism for showy labels as their means of attraction.  Whereas its reputation – and the occasionally quirky headline – maintained readership in the past, The Chronicle is yet another example of what’s wrong with modern journalism.

Not to say that every paper out there is doing itself in by making beneficial business changes.  As an aspiring journalist, I hope to one day compete in this environment, so I hope decisions like The Chronicle’s pay off in both the short-term and long-term.  But one question remains.  How bright is the future?

In A “World” Of Trouble

As a diehard Mets fan, I’m conflictingly rooting for the Yanks in the World Series.  All that Subway Series nonsense is a thing of the past, in my opinion, and I’d much rather see the Bombers win their 27th title than see Philly clinch two in a row.  Especially this Philadelphia team – the squad that squandered the Mets far too often the past three seasons.

When the Yankees finally put this thing away, the city will erupt.  It’ll be a celebration almost a decade in the making and the NY papers will have a ball! As if they haven’t already! Check out these headlines from the past week: “Phinnish ‘Em,” “1 For All,” “One Away,” “Yay Rod.”  Get the picture?

However, outside New York, things aren’t as chirpy.  Of the 60 out-of-town papers that cover Major League teams both at home and away, 29 are not covering the 2009 Fall Classic.

Although the Commissioner’s Office declined to list the specific papers missing in action, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig reflected on what he said was a ubiquitous trend.  “It’s a manifestation of what’s happening in America,” he said.  “I’m saddened by it. I think newspaper coverage over the years has enabled us to succeed much more than a lot of people understand so for me this is a very, very unhappy development.”

That’s profound, Bud.  Real profound.  Did you come up with that yourself?

As an aspiring sportswriter, I see statements like the Commissioner’s as much to do about nothing.  We know the print industry’s struggling, so instead of offering solutions relevant to Major League Baseball, Selig gave a resounding, “I don’t know how.  This is far beyond me.”

Ah, far beyond you.  Sort of like managing steroid use, right?

I’m well aware of internships and jobs offered through MLB.com, its affiliates and each Major and Minor League team.  Local papers also provide internships with a focus on certain beats – especially sports.  But what of the future? I know newspapers have been struggling financially for years now, but a New York-Philadelphia series is one for the ages, so you’d think papers would send at least one reporter to the games.

What to do now? Beats me.  Better yet, let’s beat the Phils!

Here’s the article on which I based my post: http://www.murraychass.com/?p=1066