Interview – Michael Rosenblum
Posted on 28. Oct, 2008 by David Cohn.
A quick video chat with Michael Rosenblum to discuss the aftermath of the New Business Models for News Summit.
Michael Rosenblum – Afterthoughts from David Cohn on Vimeo.
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Rapporteur Wrap-up – Ben Wagner for Networking Group
Posted on 28. Oct, 2008 by David Cohn.
From Ben Wagner on behalf of the Networking Group.
If “the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of endpoints,” then one task as digital journalists is to scale our networks — be they organically-grown, hyperlocal blogs or corporate-driven, international communities — as quickly and effectively as possible.
In a broadly-ranging, nearly consensus-free conversation, the “Networks” break-our group explored one case study, factors necessary to support network growth, and inherent challenges.
Tom Evslin provided two key points for our discussion of Debby Galant’s Baristanet, a blog covering news specific to Montclaire, NJ.
- The best Editorial networks grow organically from the bottom up. Individual entities tend towards expertise and passion, but lack platform or ad sale expertise.
- The best Tool networks tend to form top down with standardized platform tools and metrics, plus centralized ad ops.
It stands to reason, then, that a top down initiative like Microsoft’s Sidewalk — possessing platform, metrics, and ad ops standardization lacking editorial expertise, flexibility and voice (see “The Cracks In Microsoft’s Sidewalk“) – might fail.
Likewise, though Debby’s Baristanet is a local success, her network value is less than it could be. Moreover, she is forced to spend resources on platform and ad ops, instead of pure content creation.
Baristanet, then, would benefit from a broader, hyper-local site-supporting platform.
Outside.in’s Mark Josephson and NowPublic’s Merrill Brown contributed valuable insight from a platform perspective on incentivizing network engagement:
- Egos: We’ll make you a star!
- Revenue: My ads on your page.
- Reward/Reputation
In the waning minutes of our conversation, Harvard’s Thomas Eisenmann connected the conversation to a key question as news organizations continue to decline: If a city’s primary paper disappeared, would hyper-local coverage replace the centralized, enterprise-journalism oriented newsroom?
In the end, Thomas’s question lingered alongside a number of others:
- What are the best examples of journalism networks?
- Are journalism networks fundamentally niche?
- Can niche networks serve investigative journalism?
- How does a historically corporate, top-down infrastructure grow a network?
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Public Support for Media – Wrap-up
Posted on 27. Oct, 2008 by David Cohn.
Jan Schaffer- J-Lab: rapporteur for the Public Support group.
Possibilities for public support of news media are clustering in some key areas – foundation grants, member donations, targeted micro-payments, and government support.
Our group discussed how some forms of public support can threaten a news operation’s independence, either by funding coverage of certain topics to a degree that can skew the overall news agenda, or by subjecting the newsroom to corporate or political influence.
By far, the Holy Grail for public support is to raise an endowment big enough to generate the annual revenue needed to run a news initiative, be it a newsroom or a Pro Publica project. This liberates news projects from continual fundraising and lets them concentrate on the journalism.
NPR-like drives for donor support have sustained public radio, but can contribute to tensions between the national programmers and local affiliate.
Several experiments are just now underway that involve soliciting micro payments from individuals. Len Witt’s Representative Journalism project asks people to support a reporter. David Cohn’s Spot.us project asks people to fund a particular story. And Harvard’s Berkman Center has developed software, Vendor Relationship Management (VRM), that aims to engage vendors and customers in new ways.
Should government support the news media in a BBC-like model, possibly with an Internet tax? Such ideas met with cautions of recent influence peddling by executives the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Could the cost of producing news content be supported by those who aggregate it, much like the cable companies support CSPAN? Or could major universities like Harvard shelter news projects? Perhaps.
Should philanthropic foundations be catalysts for what news media ought to do, rather than simply funders of the status quo?
As important is the question of whether news organizations would be more successful attracting public support if they reframed their mission, less as an act of information, and more as an act of community building.
“Can you make the case that you are filing a need?” asked Jay Rosen.
Can you show that news media exist not just to cover community, but to build it as well?
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To Be Efficient, Start From Zero
Posted on 27. Oct, 2008 by David Cohn.
From John Hassell – Star-Ledger, rapporteur for the News Efficiencies group.
We were the fun group — the cost-cutters.
Charged with finding new efficiencies for newsrooms, we struggled a bit to come up with a model that would produce useful lessons. Ultimately, we decided to focus on a market like Philadelphia or Dallas and, rather than tweaking the existing daily newspaper model, to start fresh with an online-only news organization.
Andrew Heyward of Marketspace LLC led the discussion, and we began with traffic and revenue assumptions, then worked backward to create a newsroom that fit within those limits. With Neil Budde of DailyMe doing the math on his iPhone, we projected a website with 800 million page views/year at $5 rpm, for total revenue of $4 million. We set aside $2.1 million of that revenue to pay an editorial staff of 35 FTEs $60,000/year.
Here’s how the staffing broke down:
–Content creators who do blogging/photography/video/curation of beats: 20
–Community managers who do outreach, mediation, social media evangelism: 3
–Programmers/developers: 2
–Designers/graphics artists: 2
–Producers who do site management, etc.: 5
–Editors: 3
There was a spirited debate about whether there should be a newsroom at all; in the end there was general consensus that staff members should be out in the community reporting as much as possible, but that a scaled-back newsroom provided a valuable space for collaboration.
Easier to agree on was a list of things our staff would not do:
–National entertainment
–National sports
-National/international news
-Editorial page
In the areas of primary focus — local government, education, high school sports, etc. — we envisioned beat reporters working with networks of local bloggers to expand the reach of the staff.
We left questions about how to monetize all of this to the revenue group, but as Michael Rosenblum of Rosenblum Associates put it, “We’ve created a digital aquisition machine, and we find creative revenue opportunities based on that content.”
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4:42 – New Students are the Stewards of Journalism
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Carl Winfield.
Chris O’Brien from the San Jose Mercury news: I haven’t heard what the new jobs are on the business side.
Apparently the journalists are much more entrepreneurial than those on the business side.
Thomas Eisenmann of the Harvard Business School is surprised that journalists and business people are working so well together here.
Good job.
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4:39PM – Newsroom as Classroom: See How the Sausage is Made.
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Carl Winfield.
Jeff Jarvis suggests that the role of the newsroom needs to be reinterprted. Now, instead of being a place where news just emanates from, there is a need for greater training, not just on the craft of writing but in the tools of storytelling as well.
Rachel Stern of Ground Report.com has been broadcasting live all day. She’s got a layer of community editors that has “improved the quality of her reporting.”
She and David Cohn are using new ideas to shore up community reporting.
“Rachel and David are the future,” Jarvis said.
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4:33PM – Editors Are Not the Enemy
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Carl Winfield.
There’s a bit of a disconnect between what editors roles are in the newsroom.
Reporters think that they’re the enemy, but Dars of the Indiana Review says different.
“Editors are responsible for the look and tone of the paper,” she said.
David Cohn says that his type of journalism is different and questions whether or not he needs an editor. But Wendy Warren of Philly.com says that Cohn’s work sounds similar to that of the editor of a community paper. Imagine that.
Some, such as Larry Kramer, say that you need both.
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4:30PM – Now We Need Research
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Carl Winfield.
Persephone Miel says that there’s got to be a way for CUNY find out where the values are.
Students and teachers, responsible for the continuance of journalism, should be taking stock of the metrics for now and for the future.
Sounds like a plan: But what is the role of education?
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News Organization
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Rebecca Harshbarger.
I could only catch part of this meeting, due to being in class all day, but everyone seems anxious. Jim Willse, from the Star Ledger, announced that the paper would be cutting 40% of its staff by the end of the year, and everyone wanted to talk about advertising revenue. So much of newspapers’ costs were from the industrial side, the actual production of the paper, but so much of the newspapers’ profits were also from the industrial side, in terms of print advertising revenue. Questions asked- why are newspapers firing journalists to deal with losses from the industrial side, when it is content that is what is ultimately valuable, content that is the future, and printing presses are what is leading to lost. One attendee suggested a hypothetical exercise, where we imagine that the hard copy of the paper is gone, and there is only the web. The verdict? Impossible. Companies are publicly owned, have significant debt, and need the hard paper to pay off their debt, and would go bankrupt if they nixed their paper, despite the industrial costs. One theme- online advertising revenue will catch up in value, but media organization needs to get smart and pick up revenue that is slipping away, when it could be used to create great content.
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Is the news room ALL crap?
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Kye Shkymba.
Andrew Heyward (Marketspace LLC), the group’s moderator, sets the tone for the discussion: Let’s reinvent the modern newsroom. But first, let’s discuss if we need a newsroom at all?
Soon the group splits in two – roughly said; in those being pro-building, and those being anti-building.
Michael Rosenblum, Rosenblum TV, puts the latter position in a nutshell: We don’t need a building with all those people meeting every morning, hanging out, drinking coffee. That’s crap!
Hey! the pro-building people counter, we still need a central place to collaborate, since that (in some cases!) improves editorial quality. Don’t underestimate the value of getting together physically, the argument goes. Also, as John Hassell from Star-Ledger, points out, a physical place gives the audience an opportunity to drop by physically – if used well.
