Category Archives: Journalism Next

We hear the talk and read the statistics: Newspapers are dying, circulation is eroding and readers are turning to blogs and mobile media for their news. Then there is Santa Barbara, California. I lived in Santa Barbara for five years and worked in the area as a full-time journalist and later as a consultant toContinue reading “The Santa Barbara News-Press: Another U.S. Newspaper Commits Suicide”

The Big Four are no more. According a recent survey published in Ad Age magazine, only one in four 12-to 34-year-olds can name the four major traditional broadcast networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox (sorry CW, you’re not in the club yet.) What networks can they name? MTV, Cartoon Network and Comedy Central. It’s enoughContinue reading “The Brand Illusion of News”

The Big Four are no more. According a recent survey published in Ad Age magazine, only one in four 12-to 34-year-olds can name the four major traditional broadcast networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox (sorry CW, you’re not in the club yet.) What networks can they name? MTV, Cartoon Network and Comedy Central. It’s enoughContinue reading “The Brand Illusion of News”

Want to own your own online newspaper? Bob Leonard, CEO of Out2 Media Group, may have a deal for you. He will set you up with a “hyper-local” local online presence. He will train you to be a newspaperman and a businessman. And he wants your reporters to get paid. Leonard believes all media isContinue reading “Online Community Newspapers for Sale: Out2 Media Group Is Out To Nurture “Hyper-Local” Citizen Journalism”

If the web is alive, as Newsweek proclaims, then conversation is the oxygen that makes it so. But conversation also has a nasty habit of making you think, and a recent comment from John Cass of Backbone Media has had me thinking to the point of obsession, like that song you can’t seem to getContinue reading ““Unbundled Journalists” Revisited: Reporters — and Good Journalism — are What Matter Most”

If the web is alive, as Newsweek proclaims, then conversation is the oxygen that makes it so. But conversation also has a nasty habit of making you think, and a recent comment from John Cass of Backbone Media has had me thinking to the point of obsession, like that song you can’t seem to getContinue reading ““Unbundled Journalists” Revisited: Reporters — and Good Journalism — are What Matter Most”

CARNAGE IN IRAQ, tears over missing teens, stories of lost hope in New Orleans. Cue the music. Run the graphics package. Lights, camera, action. We have seen this so much we have come to expect it – the “big” news story arriving with its own jingle and logo. Newspapers do the same with special sections,Continue reading “Death by Google: What News Must Do to Earn Back its Brand”

In a previous post I said that newspapers have failed because they have lost their brand identities. Newspapers – not all, but the majority – sacrificed voice for profit, and ended up with neither. But that’s only part of the story. In fact, I buried the lead. Newspapers – and broadcast media – used toContinue reading ““Unbundled” Journalists: Every Reporter is a Freelancer – and a Brand”