Newsroom: What a fantasy!
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Kye Shkymba.
The group is circling around the size of our startup. How big or how small is an efficient local newsroom? Some suggest that we need 130 content managers. Others counter that that’s way too big. How are we going to earn money?
Andrew Heyward underlines, that we don’t want to make a fantasy newsroom here. “I don’t wanna create something that’s so hypothetical that those people downstairs say: Well that’s fine, but meanwhile I’m just gonna go back hang myself.”
The group – with Chris O’Brien in front – makes a list of functions that a startup needs: designers, production people, etc. We assume that we begin with a 5 million dollar newsroom. (Neil Budde does some calculation on his iPhone):
Content creators 20
Community managers 3
Programmers/developers 2
Designers/Graphic artists 2
Editors / copy editors 3
Google’s man in the room thinks there’s too many developers and designers. My view is that the content users make the site, he says. No fancy templates. The content creator is generating her own stuff on her computer. Write your stuff and just push a button!
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Revenue.13 continued
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Emily Mayer.
Big companies should become a place for hyper locally targeted ads. Washingtonpost.com has one of the largets DC audiences.
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Public Support.11 Branding and Goodbye
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Eliot Caroom.
Cohn asks, what leverage do we have that the conventional news business model doesn’t have?
“The idea of filling in what isn’t being done by the major media” is a very fundable area, Rosen says.
Osnos says accountability is the most important role of the media, and is disappointed in declines in coverage like that affecting the Hartford Courant.
Leonard Witt thinks traditional media doesn’t market its watchdog role prominently enough.
Human Rights Watch is a good example, Osnos says, of an organization insisting on its relevance until name recognition gradually was built. “Today, they’ve created a new form of information.”
Rosen initiates the goodbyes.
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Revenue.13
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Emily Mayer.
We are at the tipping point in terms of local inventory being advertised on the web.
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Public Support.10 Cost Basis?
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Eliot Caroom.
“Every situation where it’s a symphony model and an endowment or the government funds us, we’re worse.” says Davidson. He prefers to be a “scrappy beast” finding his own funding.
Leonard Witt asks about the cost basis. Tofel says “you could mount an incredible news gathering organization for $3 million a year in a smaller city.”
Rosen: CUNY could make a model to let us know how much a basic editorial operation costs in a metropolitan area.
Witt says most news organizations don’t care about rural news anymore because there’s no ad revenue in it. How do we make sure both metropolitan and rural areas are covered? What does it cost? If it costs $3 million and you have a city of 1 million, 15% of people, who love news, need to be tapped into and it could be covered relatively easily.
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Newspapers Collapsing… Due to Lack of Adequate Network?
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Adeola Oladele.
Private newspapers are collapsing.
In some developing countries, having a private newspaper is gold.. an implication of real democracy in its government.
But the U.S. is way ahead in the sense that it has experienced its share of having various private newspapers, and now, it’s leading in the reality of the failure of many of those newspapers. Why is this happening? Is it because there’s lack of adequate networking?
No.
Here’s why:
The U.S. is one of the leading countries in terms of exposure to the internet.
“Anywhere the internet use gets over 50% of the population, newspaper is going to fail. The internet has now replaced what we used to have,” said Thomas, Eisenmann, Harvard Business School.
There is a prediction that those developing countries where private newspapers is a big deal will also eventually experience what the U.S. is experiencing as the country gets more exposed to the internet.
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New Structures for News Organizations (4)–Jump the Old Model?
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Jennifer Saavedra.
Geanne Rosenberg (CUNY J-School Professor): Would it be profitable to completely shut down a community newspaper and force the audience to go online?
Bob Garfield (On the Media): You can’t because the newspaper has debt and stockholders that need quarterly reports.
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Public Support.9 News Batting Averages
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Eliot Caroom.
Leonard Witt says gathering money should be a way of sustaining a network. He points to Minnesota Public Radio as an excited donor base.
Osnos says there’s always a tug of war between funder demand for content and editorial independence. He points to Frontline as an entrepreneurial and hard-nosed news show. “Recognize that it’s never going to be easy,” he says. “We’re going to be constantly looking for new forms of funding. …The privilege of independence is eternal struggle.”
“Except for the micropayment model, we’re asking, how do we get people to pay for our models, which aren’t very successful?” says Jan Schaffer of J-Lab. She feels the funding question is too divorced from the main conversation of networking. “How would public support of that mindset goose aspirations … that would help a company move from an old construct to a new construct?”
Jay Rosen: “How do we change the journalism … so it’s more fundable?”
“I’m not at all sure the journalism needs to be transformed,” Tofel says. He points out that although the NYTimes stock price dropped to a 1985 price level, but yesterday the NYTimes reached more people than it could have imagined in 1985.
Tofel compares the excellent story average of 20% that Ira Glass named for NPR with the Times, also calling it a 20% excellent news product. He says a news organization doesn’t need to hit 2/5 stories for him to run out and get it at his doorstep each day.
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Revenue.12
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Emily Mayer.
The audience is not measurable which is a big obstacle when it comes to evaluating competition and how to make a site better. Fred Wilson said to just use all the services that measure “ratings” or hits and to come to the best conclusion possible. Larry Kramer said there can be no improvement in this area.
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Network of Newsrooms?!?
Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Adeola Oladele.
There’s a focus on linking Newrooms together across the city/state/globe… to exchange ideas…
“There’s a public exchange of videos among some stations in Europe,” said Christiana Falcone, Wolrd Economic Forum, an example of journalist drawing closer to having a network for their newsrooms.
Should this be encouraged among journalism organizations in general?
Someone responded that you can’t create it for all of them, such as newspaper organizations because of the way they’re structured.
How would it be like if newsrooms have a network?!?
This question was not really address, but I don’t think most news organizations would want it. They like the competition too much. Everyone wants to be the one to release a breaking news first!
