I DREAMED I SAW "HELLO DOLLY" IN MY MAIDENFORM BRA: We don't even pretend to be an expert at knowing what goes on once we type these words. The computer's internal processes to the computer and what goes on once we cut-and-paste the text into the "Blogspot" software is a mystery only Agatha Christie- or an IT person- could solve.
We tried to keep up. In high school we got to play around with a 40 feet long"paper tape" computer that, if you programmed it just right, could play tic tac toe. But years later we spent an entire semester learning "DOS" only to have it become obsolete as we handed in our final exam so we decided to concentrate on the user side and leave the operational stuff to the techies.
But one thing we have come to understand as a user of the on-line universe is that the "everything you ever wanted... for free" days are fast coming to a close. Even newspapers- from the New York Times to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser- have gone to putting up "paywalls" and, after some sputtering false starts and stops, it looks like the much reviled fee system is here to stay and probably expanding.
The one thing that's keeping some stuff "free" (as much as anything is ever free) is advertising. But, if the much ballyhooed "individualized" advertising that companies like Google are promoting to their clients is an example of the future, it's no wonder that on-line advertisers claim they aren't getting their money's worth.
Two personal examples should illustrate why, even at fractions-of-a-penny-a-click (assuming pennies don't outwear their welcome soon) data-mining is not all it's cracked up to be.
Recently our favorite do-gooders at Malama Pono Health Services held a contest on Facebook offering two free tickets to their "Kaua`i Sings Gershwin" event (aw, how cute- our first "plug"- this Fri., Sat. and Sun. at the Kaua`i Coast Resort; call 246-9577 for info and tickets) to the first to answer the question "What is the latest Gershwin play on Broadway and who are the stars?!"
Having been born a Broadway Baby- no, not the fur-wrapped, dance-the-night-away, Broadway Lullaby type but the kind that, at the age of three or four got hooked after being dragged to see South Pacific- we'd heard about the Porgy and Bess revival with Audra McDonald, one of the all-time Broadway greats, and had even seen a couple of numbers from the production on TV.
So we hurried to Google to look up the other stars. It was an action that still haunts us almost a month later.
The answer Porgy and Bess was actually wrong because it turns out that the success of P&G led to another Gershwin revival, that of Nice Work if You Can Get It. But damned if we're not reminded of our our decision to search for who was in Porgy and Bess every time we go on-line.
It doesn’t matter which website we go to, what articles we read. Nothing we do can escape the flashing banner ads urging us to buy tickets to Porgy and Bess. Morning, noon and night, tiny blogs to the international press and everything in-between: it's "Porgy and Bess Tickets- Get Tickets Now-Click Here" virtually screaming across the top and down the sides of every other page.
This includes the aforementioned Honolulu newspaper, although you'd think they'd also have an ad for a time space portal to go to New York to use the tickets.
But in one way the Porgy and Bess ticket ads have been a relief- at least we're not being hounded to buy long underwear any more.
About two years ago we heard from our grandson at school in northwest Pennsylvania who was going through what was at the time called the "worst winter ever." And being the attentive "spoil 'em rotten" grandparents we dutifully Googled "Long Underwear" and ordered two pair of their top-of-the-line thermal long-johns and matching tops from Hanes.
So of course for the next two years- until finally replaced by the Porgy and Bess ads- every ad on every web site beckoned us to return for more Hanes long-johns.
Now being a good American, we're used to being advertised to death in newspapers and on TV. It's second nature to tune them out. But at least there's an awareness that advertising must be working or "they" would have given up years ago.
But how this supposed to "work?" Even the fact that there's no "human element" to all this shouldn't leave them in the dark as to the fact that they are adverting to someone in Hawai`i who is NOT going to Broadway plays in their thermal skivvies- and is not likely to do so any time soon.
If "data mining"- tracking searches and using them to individualize what ads people see- is what companies like Google and Yahoo! are counting on to make on-line advertising profitable enough to keep things "free," we'd better all get ready to pay through the proverbial teeth for the content we've become all-too-accustomed to getting "gratis."
Unless of course we buy a lot more mail-order underwear. Oh, and about that time-space transporter...
Showing posts with label Newspapers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newspapers. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, October 3, 2011
A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC SAMMY
A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC SAMMY: The first time it occurred to us that it had been way too long since we'd been off-island was when Hawaiian Air unexpectedly assigned us a seat.
But then, flying to the Big Island this weekend to participate in Saturday's UH- Hilo Media Symposium was all about change... in the media at least.
The "Old Media versus New Media" panel contained the mucky-mucks of Hawai`i journalism... and Andy Parx- who almost didn't get to go because one of the sponsors said with an upturned nose "he's just a blogger."
We told the story of how, after 30 years in journalism, much of it as a "columnist," we "became" a blogger as a function of choosing the "blogger" software, giving us a McLuhan-esque thesis for the weekend: there is no "new media," just one new medium after another.
The really observant in attendance saw that we were all a bunch of old media dinosaurs trying to figure out exactly what this "new media" was.
Our main observation was that Hawai`i Island has what Kaua`i lacks - a vibrant journalism community with dozens of "journalist-bloggers"- or whatever you call people like Andy Parx and Ian Lind, who shared two panels- many "aggregator" sites and seemingly dozens of local reporters that have eked out a living and in fact a career practicing their craft.
Not to mention a packed room full of J-school students expecting to make a living at it.
There's no such thing on Kaua`i. We feel all alone in a forest- along with Kaua`i Eclectic's Joan Conrow- in "news-blogging" (if you will) because there are simply no opportunities for local journalists here. The local newspaper pays starvation wages and usually hires reporters from those who are "on the circuit" on the mainland. They stay for anywhere from two months to two years and then move on to the next stop.
The few professionals who live here have long since left the trade and ended up selling anything from real estate to "activities" or waiting tables.
The Big Island on the other hand has an actual press club that has existed for decades. And, although there was quite a bit of damage in keeping it that way, the Hawai`i Tribune Herald remains the only union shop in the islands.
The result for Kaua`i is a distinct lack of available information, almost all of which is "courtesy" of the local paper where incompetence is a tradition that began with the departure of (full disclosure) our mentor, legendary editor Jean Holmes, in the early 80's.
But back to the weekend. We did manage to meet people who heretofore had been only names on a web site, including Damon Tucker who, as we wrote last month, was beaten allegedly by the cops and arrested, apparently for taking taking pictures of a melee in front of a Pahoa nightclub.
Tucker was arrested for "obstructing a government operation" and the police, according to reports, allege that he was physically getting between them and those involved in the fracas. But Tucker sat us down and shared the cell-phone video taken that night and our observation was that he would have had to have been a magician to have managed to get between the cops and their subjects.
Though the two clips are very short, the timing between the two is what caught our attention.
In the first, which is only nine seconds long, an officer can be seen telling Tucker to "stop" and that’s where it ends. Tucker says that the rest of the sentence was "taking pictures" or something to that effect.
The second clip was taken one minute and thirty-one seconds later according to the time stamp and in it you can hear the sound of handcuffs being put on Tucker and in that intervening time is when Tucker says he was thrown to the ground and beaten.
The thing is that according to Tucker, the view is of the officer standing almost directly across the street from the nightclub where the fight occurred with Tucker taking the video right in front of him. That means that in the minute and a half, if the police's story were true, Tucker would have had to have crossed the street, gotten between the police and the fighters gone back to the other side of the street and been taken down, beaten and handcuffed.
In addition Tucker had a regular camera which the police confiscated and claimed that that was what he used to take the pictures of the fight. So add "getting out the regular camera" to the list of chores he miraculously performed in a minute and a half.
Oh- and according to Tucker, the police have told his attorney that there were no pictures on the memory card of the camera.
Today according to Associated Press,
Journalist Amy Goodman, host of the syndicated program "Democracy Now!" and two of her producers will receive $100,000 in a settlement over their arrests during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
Many will remember how Goodman was arrested simply doing her job in reporting on the convention.
"When journalists are arrested, it is not only a violation of the freedom the press, but of the public's right to know," Goodman said in a statement. "When journalists are handcuffed and abused, so is democracy. We should not have to get a record when we put things on the record."
Getting back to the symposium, it seemed that every time we mentioned Tucker's name in close proximity to the word "reporter" it elicited an audible groan and a rolling of the eyes from the professionals there.
But the fact is that when someone is acting in the capacity of a reporter and has the means to distribute the story and has done so in the past, that person becomes a reporter by performing the act of reporting.
And that may be the crux of why many in the old guard of the old media insisted on there being reporting standards of professionalism for bloggers, especially those who do reporting and opinion in the same piece.
We maintained that there's no need because critical readers will be able to sort out who is reliably reporting events even if it is intermixed with opinion. And of course those without those skills will not.
It's really no different than it's ever been. When we were growing up you could either read the New York Times or The New York Post. Some people can't tell the difference and for them their lack of critical reading and thinking skills will never allow them to distinguish between the two. Even with time showing the reliability of the Times and their reputation for veracity that comes with it, those who lack those skills will see the Post's material as factual no matter how often they are proven to be purveying false information.
The lesson we took from the symposium is that the "new media" is simply a function of the new technology- nothing more and nothing less. There's no need for new rules of journalism on the part of the writers because the readers and their skills will be what determines the viability of each publication in the future.
As it was half a century ago, the medium is still the message and no new gizmo is going to change that.
But then, flying to the Big Island this weekend to participate in Saturday's UH- Hilo Media Symposium was all about change... in the media at least.
The "Old Media versus New Media" panel contained the mucky-mucks of Hawai`i journalism... and Andy Parx- who almost didn't get to go because one of the sponsors said with an upturned nose "he's just a blogger."
We told the story of how, after 30 years in journalism, much of it as a "columnist," we "became" a blogger as a function of choosing the "blogger" software, giving us a McLuhan-esque thesis for the weekend: there is no "new media," just one new medium after another.
The really observant in attendance saw that we were all a bunch of old media dinosaurs trying to figure out exactly what this "new media" was.
Our main observation was that Hawai`i Island has what Kaua`i lacks - a vibrant journalism community with dozens of "journalist-bloggers"- or whatever you call people like Andy Parx and Ian Lind, who shared two panels- many "aggregator" sites and seemingly dozens of local reporters that have eked out a living and in fact a career practicing their craft.
Not to mention a packed room full of J-school students expecting to make a living at it.
There's no such thing on Kaua`i. We feel all alone in a forest- along with Kaua`i Eclectic's Joan Conrow- in "news-blogging" (if you will) because there are simply no opportunities for local journalists here. The local newspaper pays starvation wages and usually hires reporters from those who are "on the circuit" on the mainland. They stay for anywhere from two months to two years and then move on to the next stop.
The few professionals who live here have long since left the trade and ended up selling anything from real estate to "activities" or waiting tables.
The Big Island on the other hand has an actual press club that has existed for decades. And, although there was quite a bit of damage in keeping it that way, the Hawai`i Tribune Herald remains the only union shop in the islands.
The result for Kaua`i is a distinct lack of available information, almost all of which is "courtesy" of the local paper where incompetence is a tradition that began with the departure of (full disclosure) our mentor, legendary editor Jean Holmes, in the early 80's.
But back to the weekend. We did manage to meet people who heretofore had been only names on a web site, including Damon Tucker who, as we wrote last month, was beaten allegedly by the cops and arrested, apparently for taking taking pictures of a melee in front of a Pahoa nightclub.
Tucker was arrested for "obstructing a government operation" and the police, according to reports, allege that he was physically getting between them and those involved in the fracas. But Tucker sat us down and shared the cell-phone video taken that night and our observation was that he would have had to have been a magician to have managed to get between the cops and their subjects.
Though the two clips are very short, the timing between the two is what caught our attention.
In the first, which is only nine seconds long, an officer can be seen telling Tucker to "stop" and that’s where it ends. Tucker says that the rest of the sentence was "taking pictures" or something to that effect.
The second clip was taken one minute and thirty-one seconds later according to the time stamp and in it you can hear the sound of handcuffs being put on Tucker and in that intervening time is when Tucker says he was thrown to the ground and beaten.
The thing is that according to Tucker, the view is of the officer standing almost directly across the street from the nightclub where the fight occurred with Tucker taking the video right in front of him. That means that in the minute and a half, if the police's story were true, Tucker would have had to have crossed the street, gotten between the police and the fighters gone back to the other side of the street and been taken down, beaten and handcuffed.
In addition Tucker had a regular camera which the police confiscated and claimed that that was what he used to take the pictures of the fight. So add "getting out the regular camera" to the list of chores he miraculously performed in a minute and a half.
Oh- and according to Tucker, the police have told his attorney that there were no pictures on the memory card of the camera.
Today according to Associated Press,
Journalist Amy Goodman, host of the syndicated program "Democracy Now!" and two of her producers will receive $100,000 in a settlement over their arrests during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.
Many will remember how Goodman was arrested simply doing her job in reporting on the convention.
"When journalists are arrested, it is not only a violation of the freedom the press, but of the public's right to know," Goodman said in a statement. "When journalists are handcuffed and abused, so is democracy. We should not have to get a record when we put things on the record."
Getting back to the symposium, it seemed that every time we mentioned Tucker's name in close proximity to the word "reporter" it elicited an audible groan and a rolling of the eyes from the professionals there.
But the fact is that when someone is acting in the capacity of a reporter and has the means to distribute the story and has done so in the past, that person becomes a reporter by performing the act of reporting.
And that may be the crux of why many in the old guard of the old media insisted on there being reporting standards of professionalism for bloggers, especially those who do reporting and opinion in the same piece.
We maintained that there's no need because critical readers will be able to sort out who is reliably reporting events even if it is intermixed with opinion. And of course those without those skills will not.
It's really no different than it's ever been. When we were growing up you could either read the New York Times or The New York Post. Some people can't tell the difference and for them their lack of critical reading and thinking skills will never allow them to distinguish between the two. Even with time showing the reliability of the Times and their reputation for veracity that comes with it, those who lack those skills will see the Post's material as factual no matter how often they are proven to be purveying false information.
The lesson we took from the symposium is that the "new media" is simply a function of the new technology- nothing more and nothing less. There's no need for new rules of journalism on the part of the writers because the readers and their skills will be what determines the viability of each publication in the future.
As it was half a century ago, the medium is still the message and no new gizmo is going to change that.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
THERE''S NO BUSINESS LIKE NEWS BUSINESS
THERE''S NO BUSINESS LIKE NEWS BUSINESS: It's not as bad as we expected it to be to skip the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (S-A) when their paywall went up today because we realize now how little information we actually got from our morning perusals.
But that reality has spurred the realization that the one thing that the "newspaper of record" accomplished is to lose that status and throw itself into an all-out "NewsWar" with the nascent on-line news provider Civil Beat (CB).
Presumably the S-A started charging for their on-line version in an attempt to capitalize on what they thought was the fact that they are the 'real' newspaper. But, with the addition of their own "breaking news" section linked to the neighbor island papers and the AP feed, Civil Beat has positioned itself to go head to head with the S-A.
And, it's no contest. The group of young eager journos at CB actually like where they work and it shows in their work. But the old line "survivors" that populate the news desks at the S-A have all been to hell and back recently after the so-called "merger" made jobs in reporting scarce. They all no doubt resent the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads- the unspoken fact that "you can be replaced chickie-baby."
It shows in their work. It's rote and formulaic. There's very little depth and there's nary a link to any additional information. The S-A's coverage hit only the surface of the news like a flat stone skimmed across the water.
While over at CB the writing is lively and inventive and the reporters seem to have the attitude that even coverage of daily events should be treated as "enterprise" journalism that digs into the subject and provides the kind of full perspective that comes from writing for on-line consumption.
For CB reporters, space is unlimited and not just the result of a "news hole"- a term used for what is left over for content when the advertising is laid out in a print newspaper.
But the S-A isn't taking things lying down if yesterday's "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"- or at least do too- moment during the Sou trial in any indication,"
CB reporter Sara Lin, in the Annie Oakley role, had unsurprisingly taken the initiative weeks ago in making the enterprising move of asking Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway if she could "live blog" from the human trafficking trial of Aloun Farms owners Mike and Alec Sou.
Mollway okayed the request after a much published discussion and said that Lin could do it but would be the only one and had to share her information with the rest of the press in a "press pool" arrangement.
Then S-A courts reporter Ken Kobayashi in the Frank Butler role decided that, a week into the trial, he wanted "in" on the action in a seemingly day late and dollar short decision that reeks of a distinct "what exactly are we" through process from the S-A publisher, sent a letter to Mollway asking to join Lin in live blogging.
Mollway told Kobayashi that essentially that boat had sailed and that she would have to think about a fair way to do it again in the future should she or others in the federal court decide to do it at all.
That came with a caveat on Mollway's part as to whom she would consider in the future for such blogging, noting that requests would have to come from "authorized" or "credentialed" press because she didn't want, for instance, the defendant's "spouse (to) set up a blog to advocate the party's case."
She also noted that a "one blogger only" policy would likely be imposed so that the U.S. marshals could keep track to make sure that there were no recordings or pictures, which are forbidden by federal law.
That of course brings up the matter of who would be considered for this pool assignment.
Because while Lin and Kobayashi might think they are the only marksmen in town, "I'm just a blogger" Larry Geller of Disappeared News might just stake a claim as the new gun in town.
Apparently Geller has also been attending the trial and giving his account after he gets home every day. We're sure he would like to be considered to be part of that "pool"- if not THE live blogger.
But although Lin said that CB has emailed each blurb to various news outlets before she hit the "post" button we seriously doubt any bloggers were included.
The fact is that while the winner in the S-A's decision to charge for the on-line news is undoubtedly Civil Beat- which is now a direct competitor whereas yesterday they weren't- it also opens up the field for other news providers, even if they are "just bloggers."
When Blogger Geller comes to Chief Sitting Bull Mollway and says "I'm An Indian too," in light of today's leveling of the table, he's as entitled as anybody to be "Doin' What Come Naturally."
But that reality has spurred the realization that the one thing that the "newspaper of record" accomplished is to lose that status and throw itself into an all-out "NewsWar" with the nascent on-line news provider Civil Beat (CB).
Presumably the S-A started charging for their on-line version in an attempt to capitalize on what they thought was the fact that they are the 'real' newspaper. But, with the addition of their own "breaking news" section linked to the neighbor island papers and the AP feed, Civil Beat has positioned itself to go head to head with the S-A.
And, it's no contest. The group of young eager journos at CB actually like where they work and it shows in their work. But the old line "survivors" that populate the news desks at the S-A have all been to hell and back recently after the so-called "merger" made jobs in reporting scarce. They all no doubt resent the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads- the unspoken fact that "you can be replaced chickie-baby."
It shows in their work. It's rote and formulaic. There's very little depth and there's nary a link to any additional information. The S-A's coverage hit only the surface of the news like a flat stone skimmed across the water.
While over at CB the writing is lively and inventive and the reporters seem to have the attitude that even coverage of daily events should be treated as "enterprise" journalism that digs into the subject and provides the kind of full perspective that comes from writing for on-line consumption.
For CB reporters, space is unlimited and not just the result of a "news hole"- a term used for what is left over for content when the advertising is laid out in a print newspaper.
But the S-A isn't taking things lying down if yesterday's "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"- or at least do too- moment during the Sou trial in any indication,"
CB reporter Sara Lin, in the Annie Oakley role, had unsurprisingly taken the initiative weeks ago in making the enterprising move of asking Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway if she could "live blog" from the human trafficking trial of Aloun Farms owners Mike and Alec Sou.
Mollway okayed the request after a much published discussion and said that Lin could do it but would be the only one and had to share her information with the rest of the press in a "press pool" arrangement.
Then S-A courts reporter Ken Kobayashi in the Frank Butler role decided that, a week into the trial, he wanted "in" on the action in a seemingly day late and dollar short decision that reeks of a distinct "what exactly are we" through process from the S-A publisher, sent a letter to Mollway asking to join Lin in live blogging.
Mollway told Kobayashi that essentially that boat had sailed and that she would have to think about a fair way to do it again in the future should she or others in the federal court decide to do it at all.
That came with a caveat on Mollway's part as to whom she would consider in the future for such blogging, noting that requests would have to come from "authorized" or "credentialed" press because she didn't want, for instance, the defendant's "spouse (to) set up a blog to advocate the party's case."
She also noted that a "one blogger only" policy would likely be imposed so that the U.S. marshals could keep track to make sure that there were no recordings or pictures, which are forbidden by federal law.
That of course brings up the matter of who would be considered for this pool assignment.
Because while Lin and Kobayashi might think they are the only marksmen in town, "I'm just a blogger" Larry Geller of Disappeared News might just stake a claim as the new gun in town.
Apparently Geller has also been attending the trial and giving his account after he gets home every day. We're sure he would like to be considered to be part of that "pool"- if not THE live blogger.
But although Lin said that CB has emailed each blurb to various news outlets before she hit the "post" button we seriously doubt any bloggers were included.
The fact is that while the winner in the S-A's decision to charge for the on-line news is undoubtedly Civil Beat- which is now a direct competitor whereas yesterday they weren't- it also opens up the field for other news providers, even if they are "just bloggers."
When Blogger Geller comes to Chief Sitting Bull Mollway and says "I'm An Indian too," in light of today's leveling of the table, he's as entitled as anybody to be "Doin' What Come Naturally."
Friday, April 1, 2011
ANOTHER PRICK AND THEIR WALL
ANOTHER PRICK AND THEIR WALL: As a news junkie- in recovery or at least reducing consumption to a more reasonable ration of late-the hammer came down for us on Monday when the NY Times started charging for on-line access.
Not that we really have time to read the Times much but they do host the Associated Press wire which we peruse as time permits. In the past three years since we've started concentrating on more local news, a quick glance down the AP wire- which is nearly impossible to find at the main Times page- has given us the basics of national and international news so that if we ever get to more "alternative" news providers we have the background to get past the "explanatory" paragraphs and gnaw on and digest the meat.
So, caught unawares, we got to our 20th article of the day on Monday rather quickly and were told we'd have to pay almost a buck a pop to read any further articles.
We say this not to whine too much but to point out that we found the solution to the problem rather quickly because blaringly and glaringly we couldn't help but notice a bunch of beckoning headlines every time we logged into our Yahoo! mail account.
And, of course, one click away were all those self-same articles "aggregated"- along with some Reuters- for free.
Now being a journalist we have sympathy for our brethren who are victims of the mammoth downsizing of the newsgathering business and the "everything you ever wanted for free" nature of the internet. The question of who pays for all that first hand newsgathering in that age is a perennial stumper and has led the Times to decide to erect their pay wall.
But geez guys- what the heck are you thinking?
The only thing that the Times is accomplishing is to drive the eyeballs that they had, to other sources, And although the amount that on-line advertising brings in is miniscule compared with the ad revenues that newspapers have traditionally reaped, they're doing nothing but directing those eyeballs to the aggregator sites like Yahoo!, Google and the like.
People searching for a workable business model to support newsgathering need to think about the only workable solution- to form a consortium of all news providers and charge a small monthly amount- maybe five or ten bucks or whatever happy medium price point wont discourage readers/customers- for access to all on-line "newspapers"... national, state or local.
The model is similar to one that's existed since the first days of radio. The ASCAP/BMI model provided music artists a small amount per play for many years and, although the profits are less now- and their tactics in achieving it have pissed off many a customer- it has remained, if not as successful in an on-line world, at least as viable with subscription services and on-line radio beginning to thrive.
The Times has picked the easy and thoughtless was to protect their intellectual property. You'd think people that smart would be smart enough to see that it's an experiment bound for failure.
Not that we really have time to read the Times much but they do host the Associated Press wire which we peruse as time permits. In the past three years since we've started concentrating on more local news, a quick glance down the AP wire- which is nearly impossible to find at the main Times page- has given us the basics of national and international news so that if we ever get to more "alternative" news providers we have the background to get past the "explanatory" paragraphs and gnaw on and digest the meat.
So, caught unawares, we got to our 20th article of the day on Monday rather quickly and were told we'd have to pay almost a buck a pop to read any further articles.
We say this not to whine too much but to point out that we found the solution to the problem rather quickly because blaringly and glaringly we couldn't help but notice a bunch of beckoning headlines every time we logged into our Yahoo! mail account.
And, of course, one click away were all those self-same articles "aggregated"- along with some Reuters- for free.
Now being a journalist we have sympathy for our brethren who are victims of the mammoth downsizing of the newsgathering business and the "everything you ever wanted for free" nature of the internet. The question of who pays for all that first hand newsgathering in that age is a perennial stumper and has led the Times to decide to erect their pay wall.
But geez guys- what the heck are you thinking?
The only thing that the Times is accomplishing is to drive the eyeballs that they had, to other sources, And although the amount that on-line advertising brings in is miniscule compared with the ad revenues that newspapers have traditionally reaped, they're doing nothing but directing those eyeballs to the aggregator sites like Yahoo!, Google and the like.
People searching for a workable business model to support newsgathering need to think about the only workable solution- to form a consortium of all news providers and charge a small monthly amount- maybe five or ten bucks or whatever happy medium price point wont discourage readers/customers- for access to all on-line "newspapers"... national, state or local.
The model is similar to one that's existed since the first days of radio. The ASCAP/BMI model provided music artists a small amount per play for many years and, although the profits are less now- and their tactics in achieving it have pissed off many a customer- it has remained, if not as successful in an on-line world, at least as viable with subscription services and on-line radio beginning to thrive.
The Times has picked the easy and thoughtless was to protect their intellectual property. You'd think people that smart would be smart enough to see that it's an experiment bound for failure.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
WATCH OUT WHAT YOU ASK FOR
WATCH OUT WHAT YOU ASK FOR: It seems a week doesn’t go by when we don’t hear words to the effect that Kaua`i needs a new newspaper.
And although it might not be exactly what they are talking about it’s nonetheless nice to learn from Joan Conrow- one of the reporters- that
there’s a brand new newspaper in town, called For Kauai. It has a print edition that initially will come out monthly, as well as an online version that will be updated regularly. The paper is still taking shape, in terms of content, but with reporting veterans like Anne O’Malley, Jan TenBruggencate and me contributing the articles, it promises to be a bit more solid than the competition.
And make no mistake, For Kauai is definitely out to compete with both TGI and MidWeek. It’s a freshened up, newsier, less fluffy reincarnation of Kauai People, the hugely successful weekly newspaper that made a lot of money for its previous owner, The Honolulu Advertiser.
There’s still no word from Joan on distribution but we must assume that it will be a “TMC” type publication- the acronym for “total market circulation,”
The concept, devised in the later part of the 20th century, is that since advertisers make up the bulk of revenue for a newspaper and they want their ads in the hands of as many people as possible, the price of the paper is a deterrent to doing that.
Though the actual price of a newspaper has become a more important revenue source in the past decade or so, it’s traditionally been a “nuisance fee” designed to give the illusion of value to make sure that people didn’t just pick one up and throw it away without reading it.
But the TCM concept was that the cost of the newsprint and the lack of purchase price can be made up because if advertisers were convinced you could put more eyeballs on their ads they would flock to you. Not only do you get more advertisers with bigger circulation but you can charge more for each ad.
The TCM wars on Kaua`i started with The Kaua`i Times (TKT) which actually tried to compete with the local newspaper of record with news, albeit slanted- originally to reverse the Nukoli`i vote that first banned the resort that sits all alone between Hanama`ulu and the golf course and later to support the “north shore boaters.”
Though in big cities the distribution usually takes place via “free” news racks, in smaller more rural areas there are two preferred methods- by mail or by physical distribution to people’s driveways.
The downside of mail is two fold and both have to do with cost. First of all there is a postal definition of a newspaper that says that it must have a certain percentage of actual news versus advertising. But since cheap content has always been out there the big one is that a certain percentage of the people receiving it must actually request it.
Some kama`aina will remember when TKT hired a clipboard bearing army who invaded post offices trying to get people to sign up for the paper. And few on-line readers of local publications can miss those banner ads asking for you to sign up so you can “continue to receive” Mid-Week, which has gobbled up the ads from the now defunct Kaua`i People and stolen two advertisers- Times Supermarket and Foodland- from the local newspaper-sponsored, driveway-delivered “Island Shopper”- although Foodland has been going with both since KP’s demise.
And make no mistake- those “ad supplements” are where the big bucks are. They pay for the lion’s share of production costs with the smaller ads providing the rest... and the profit.
So far an examination of their “on-line” edition shows “For Kaua`i” to be just more fluff- albeit the kind that apparently lots of people seem to like, with profiles of local artists and businesses.
The one newsy entry- if you scroll down past the fluff- is Conrow’s “overview” of the county council, although a read reveals simply each one’s broad “priorities” rather than anything earth-shaking.
We wish them luck- we’re not out to break anyone’s rice bowl. But with the Chamber of Commerce on the war path lately we’ll have to wait to see the “guts” of the new guy on the block.
And although it might not be exactly what they are talking about it’s nonetheless nice to learn from Joan Conrow- one of the reporters- that
there’s a brand new newspaper in town, called For Kauai. It has a print edition that initially will come out monthly, as well as an online version that will be updated regularly. The paper is still taking shape, in terms of content, but with reporting veterans like Anne O’Malley, Jan TenBruggencate and me contributing the articles, it promises to be a bit more solid than the competition.
And make no mistake, For Kauai is definitely out to compete with both TGI and MidWeek. It’s a freshened up, newsier, less fluffy reincarnation of Kauai People, the hugely successful weekly newspaper that made a lot of money for its previous owner, The Honolulu Advertiser.
There’s still no word from Joan on distribution but we must assume that it will be a “TMC” type publication- the acronym for “total market circulation,”
The concept, devised in the later part of the 20th century, is that since advertisers make up the bulk of revenue for a newspaper and they want their ads in the hands of as many people as possible, the price of the paper is a deterrent to doing that.
Though the actual price of a newspaper has become a more important revenue source in the past decade or so, it’s traditionally been a “nuisance fee” designed to give the illusion of value to make sure that people didn’t just pick one up and throw it away without reading it.
But the TCM concept was that the cost of the newsprint and the lack of purchase price can be made up because if advertisers were convinced you could put more eyeballs on their ads they would flock to you. Not only do you get more advertisers with bigger circulation but you can charge more for each ad.
The TCM wars on Kaua`i started with The Kaua`i Times (TKT) which actually tried to compete with the local newspaper of record with news, albeit slanted- originally to reverse the Nukoli`i vote that first banned the resort that sits all alone between Hanama`ulu and the golf course and later to support the “north shore boaters.”
Though in big cities the distribution usually takes place via “free” news racks, in smaller more rural areas there are two preferred methods- by mail or by physical distribution to people’s driveways.
The downside of mail is two fold and both have to do with cost. First of all there is a postal definition of a newspaper that says that it must have a certain percentage of actual news versus advertising. But since cheap content has always been out there the big one is that a certain percentage of the people receiving it must actually request it.
Some kama`aina will remember when TKT hired a clipboard bearing army who invaded post offices trying to get people to sign up for the paper. And few on-line readers of local publications can miss those banner ads asking for you to sign up so you can “continue to receive” Mid-Week, which has gobbled up the ads from the now defunct Kaua`i People and stolen two advertisers- Times Supermarket and Foodland- from the local newspaper-sponsored, driveway-delivered “Island Shopper”- although Foodland has been going with both since KP’s demise.
And make no mistake- those “ad supplements” are where the big bucks are. They pay for the lion’s share of production costs with the smaller ads providing the rest... and the profit.
So far an examination of their “on-line” edition shows “For Kaua`i” to be just more fluff- albeit the kind that apparently lots of people seem to like, with profiles of local artists and businesses.
The one newsy entry- if you scroll down past the fluff- is Conrow’s “overview” of the county council, although a read reveals simply each one’s broad “priorities” rather than anything earth-shaking.
We wish them luck- we’re not out to break anyone’s rice bowl. But with the Chamber of Commerce on the war path lately we’ll have to wait to see the “guts” of the new guy on the block.
Monday, March 2, 2009
YOU CAN KEEP THE BONES
YOU CAN KEEP THE BONES: It’s official now. Every columnist and blogger in the nation and the state has put in their two cents about the demise of newspapers.
And even those that pillory the commercial media mourn the death of the technology that has been its chief enabler.
Certainly something will be lost as the corporate media consolidation continues it’s dirty work The only question is do we keep the bathwater and tub along with the baby?
Newspaper reporters’ resumes litter the job websites. Many either find PR work, start their novels or go on-line and work for free. Or they wait tables.
There are many reasons expounded upon as to why news dailies are dying and most center around the lack of adaptability of the advertising-supported business model inherent in the new on-line news world.
But local and regional newspapers have had a dirty little secret for at least a decade. In-depth investigative daily coverage of business and government has been replaced in our cup by freeze-dried crystals of pap and fluff seasoned flavor enhanced with blood and sex.
Oh sure they still give out Pulitzers every year. But there are far fewer eligible articles and series and the ones that do win are no, er, prize-winners but rather usually a result of a reporter stumbling upon a disaster, finding a tear to jerk or skewering some other equally insipid subject matter..
Locally, among the dozens of Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin firings (ok-layoffs) in the last few years are some of the best reporters around. But any one of them will tell you they never did get to do any investigative pieces – or even got to cover those types of stories.
The truth is that if a story isn’t a very short burst of “now” information– preferably with a couple of “he said she said” opposing quotes- editors at both papers don’t want it
Result? Over the last few years you can count the number of investigative news pieces on one hand.
There were probably two last year- Rob Perez’s charities piece and Derrick DePledge’s Superferry document prowl. And neither was really more than a on-and-off.
Even the political coverage at the papers is horrible – both Richard Borreca at the Star Bulletin and Jerry Burris at the Advertiser are dry as dust and less perceptive and incisive in their coverage. Their analyses make conventional wisdom look like radical rants.
Certainly some if not many of those reporters on the unemployment lines are no big loss to the profession. If they land a flack-catching job as a mouthpiece for a big polluter or a corrupt pol it’s because that’s probably appropriate given the kind of journalist they were.
But there are experienced reporters out there who do have the skills- and the fire in the belly- it take to take on powerful authorities and speak truth to them.
Many keep their chops up on-line where they find out another open secret- there is not now and there never will be a way to transfer the commercial and advertising model from newspaper dailies to on-line news.
We keep hearing that the oxymoronic :”newspaper web sites” haven’t figured out a way to get enough advertising revenue on-line.. yet. But that’s simply the physical nature of the beast and the fact that no one has come up with one apparently means there just isn’t one.
You can force the eye to an ad in a newspaper because just the act of turning the page and looking for the article causes the reader to have to examine the page just to find the article. Not so on a computer screen where one can more easily focus only on the central list of content on an index page or the one-article-per-page text and never really “see” even the one or two ads on a page,
As the future unfolds the only way an original news proving web site is going to survive is that we are going to have to start paying for it.
The big question is, what is “it”.. Is it that crap that passes for reporting these days packaged around, the latest gruesome car crash, the murder of the day, the baby with a terminal disease and “news” of the wonderful new restaurant down the block?... and don’t forget weather, sports, entertainment and Sudoku.
The “important” stuff in commercial newspapers has already died in many places such as where local papers on the mainland contract out coverage of their government meetings via TV to India. And what is reported is provided sans context.
Well guess what?- no one’s gonna pay for that. It’s too ubiquitous and anyone can provide it. And it’s not like that’s the kind of “news” for which we need three different views or want to avoid having a single voice reporting upon.
But that’s a good thing Because if they’ll pay for anything what people will pay for is good in depth and investigative reporting. That’s something they can’t even get now- perhaps when they see it again they’ll remember what it was.
As luck would have it everything is lined up to help make a venture to provide that service- the one thing that all the pundits agree on is people will actually miss when commercial newspapers die.
First of all there just happens to be a glut of good experienced reporters ready willing and able to do that kind of reporting.
Second it just so happens that the means of physical production involved in the “business” of providing news has made the switch away from requiring hard assets like printing presses and office buildings (and transportation to get there) that consume a forest of paper and oceans of ink every day. It now requires little more than people sitting in home offices linked by computers and telephones.
The business models possible in this new world are many and varied, By the piece or by salary, any model from a corporate owner-editor-reporter system to a co-op or consortium of reporters to a non-profit, reader-sponsored entity- or anything in between- could succeed..
Today Denver, tomorrow Seattle, next week San Francisco. As newspapers disappear- and their web sites with them- the content people are looking for is going to settle into two on-line groupings.
First is the commercial stuff where most of what is reported today will most likely stay free. Business and government have an interest in keeping that kind of drivel going and for the most part it is interchangeable. It’s not hard to produce and any number of entities who will continue to do it.
They will find a way to provide the bread and circuses for those who crave it and we have confidence that even if advertising dies they’ll do it, as they do now already, through content.
And even if there’s only one source, no big loss. One crossword puzzle or movie review in one paper isn’t that much different than the next and the need for more than one “voice” escapes us..
All that will leave is something minimal like $5 a month looking like a good price for the kind of local and regional reporting that comes with lots of legwork, sitting through hours of meetings and some mind-numbing document rummaging... all the stuff that costs money to pay reporters to do it.
As, as luck would have it that’s the stuff that fulfils the reason d'etre for a free press which we all hold to be essential.
If 1/10th of the people “subscribe” in a region of a million people, $6 million a year should be plenty to hire a few dozen reporters and editors and buy some computers with broadband connections, all with enough left over for a Lexis-Nexis subscription..
We doubt those who are qualified will read this and jump head long into a brave news world. But as the circumstances move from future tense to the present perfect it just might be the only way for real reporting to survive.
And even those that pillory the commercial media mourn the death of the technology that has been its chief enabler.
Certainly something will be lost as the corporate media consolidation continues it’s dirty work The only question is do we keep the bathwater and tub along with the baby?
Newspaper reporters’ resumes litter the job websites. Many either find PR work, start their novels or go on-line and work for free. Or they wait tables.
There are many reasons expounded upon as to why news dailies are dying and most center around the lack of adaptability of the advertising-supported business model inherent in the new on-line news world.
But local and regional newspapers have had a dirty little secret for at least a decade. In-depth investigative daily coverage of business and government has been replaced in our cup by freeze-dried crystals of pap and fluff seasoned flavor enhanced with blood and sex.
Oh sure they still give out Pulitzers every year. But there are far fewer eligible articles and series and the ones that do win are no, er, prize-winners but rather usually a result of a reporter stumbling upon a disaster, finding a tear to jerk or skewering some other equally insipid subject matter..
Locally, among the dozens of Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin firings (ok-layoffs) in the last few years are some of the best reporters around. But any one of them will tell you they never did get to do any investigative pieces – or even got to cover those types of stories.
The truth is that if a story isn’t a very short burst of “now” information– preferably with a couple of “he said she said” opposing quotes- editors at both papers don’t want it
Result? Over the last few years you can count the number of investigative news pieces on one hand.
There were probably two last year- Rob Perez’s charities piece and Derrick DePledge’s Superferry document prowl. And neither was really more than a on-and-off.
Even the political coverage at the papers is horrible – both Richard Borreca at the Star Bulletin and Jerry Burris at the Advertiser are dry as dust and less perceptive and incisive in their coverage. Their analyses make conventional wisdom look like radical rants.
Certainly some if not many of those reporters on the unemployment lines are no big loss to the profession. If they land a flack-catching job as a mouthpiece for a big polluter or a corrupt pol it’s because that’s probably appropriate given the kind of journalist they were.
But there are experienced reporters out there who do have the skills- and the fire in the belly- it take to take on powerful authorities and speak truth to them.
Many keep their chops up on-line where they find out another open secret- there is not now and there never will be a way to transfer the commercial and advertising model from newspaper dailies to on-line news.
We keep hearing that the oxymoronic :”newspaper web sites” haven’t figured out a way to get enough advertising revenue on-line.. yet. But that’s simply the physical nature of the beast and the fact that no one has come up with one apparently means there just isn’t one.
You can force the eye to an ad in a newspaper because just the act of turning the page and looking for the article causes the reader to have to examine the page just to find the article. Not so on a computer screen where one can more easily focus only on the central list of content on an index page or the one-article-per-page text and never really “see” even the one or two ads on a page,
As the future unfolds the only way an original news proving web site is going to survive is that we are going to have to start paying for it.
The big question is, what is “it”.. Is it that crap that passes for reporting these days packaged around, the latest gruesome car crash, the murder of the day, the baby with a terminal disease and “news” of the wonderful new restaurant down the block?... and don’t forget weather, sports, entertainment and Sudoku.
The “important” stuff in commercial newspapers has already died in many places such as where local papers on the mainland contract out coverage of their government meetings via TV to India. And what is reported is provided sans context.
Well guess what?- no one’s gonna pay for that. It’s too ubiquitous and anyone can provide it. And it’s not like that’s the kind of “news” for which we need three different views or want to avoid having a single voice reporting upon.
But that’s a good thing Because if they’ll pay for anything what people will pay for is good in depth and investigative reporting. That’s something they can’t even get now- perhaps when they see it again they’ll remember what it was.
As luck would have it everything is lined up to help make a venture to provide that service- the one thing that all the pundits agree on is people will actually miss when commercial newspapers die.
First of all there just happens to be a glut of good experienced reporters ready willing and able to do that kind of reporting.
Second it just so happens that the means of physical production involved in the “business” of providing news has made the switch away from requiring hard assets like printing presses and office buildings (and transportation to get there) that consume a forest of paper and oceans of ink every day. It now requires little more than people sitting in home offices linked by computers and telephones.
The business models possible in this new world are many and varied, By the piece or by salary, any model from a corporate owner-editor-reporter system to a co-op or consortium of reporters to a non-profit, reader-sponsored entity- or anything in between- could succeed..
Today Denver, tomorrow Seattle, next week San Francisco. As newspapers disappear- and their web sites with them- the content people are looking for is going to settle into two on-line groupings.
First is the commercial stuff where most of what is reported today will most likely stay free. Business and government have an interest in keeping that kind of drivel going and for the most part it is interchangeable. It’s not hard to produce and any number of entities who will continue to do it.
They will find a way to provide the bread and circuses for those who crave it and we have confidence that even if advertising dies they’ll do it, as they do now already, through content.
And even if there’s only one source, no big loss. One crossword puzzle or movie review in one paper isn’t that much different than the next and the need for more than one “voice” escapes us..
All that will leave is something minimal like $5 a month looking like a good price for the kind of local and regional reporting that comes with lots of legwork, sitting through hours of meetings and some mind-numbing document rummaging... all the stuff that costs money to pay reporters to do it.
As, as luck would have it that’s the stuff that fulfils the reason d'etre for a free press which we all hold to be essential.
If 1/10th of the people “subscribe” in a region of a million people, $6 million a year should be plenty to hire a few dozen reporters and editors and buy some computers with broadband connections, all with enough left over for a Lexis-Nexis subscription..
We doubt those who are qualified will read this and jump head long into a brave news world. But as the circumstances move from future tense to the present perfect it just might be the only way for real reporting to survive.
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