FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop Dec. 1-2 on journalism's survival

[Bill Densmore]

LINK:
http://www.mediagiraffe.org/node/900

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

I promise I will submit this as a comment, being unable to pad out to DC on my own dime to participate, but for heaven's sake, what a faulty explanation (in the FTC text that Bill kindly provided links to) of why online advertising isn't bringing in the big fat bucks that non-online advertising used to. Anyone who (like me) tried to get their old-media organization to stop devaluing online advertising in the '90s and early '00s knows that those orgs have no one to blame but themselves. (I will have to go find the Seattle Channel transcript in which a couple of publishers out here freely admitted that, too, some months back.) It was an add-on freebie, a throwaway, a cheap gimme. And now that those orgs are realizing that they can't fall back on their overpriced main "product" any more ... too late ... they short-sheeted their own bed and now they have to lie in it. But the government thinks it's "websites"' fault.

TR

--- On Mon, 10/12/09, Bill Densmore <dens...@rjionline.org> wrote:

> From: Bill Densmore <dens...@rjionline.org>
> Subject: {JTM} FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop Dec. 1-2 on journalism's survival
> To: jtm...@googlegroups.com, rji-f...@googlegroups.com
> Date: Monday, October 12, 2009, 7:28 AM
>
>
> LINK:
> http://www.mediagiraffe.org/node/900
>
> >
>

[Aldon Hynes]

Bill, and Tish

Thanks for highlighting that. I must say that I find this interesting
after discussions about the FTCs new rules about blogger payola as well as
the recent comments by Tom Curley about the APs efforts with News Registry.

I wove the three threads into a blog post
Who will pay for the news?
http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3778

I would be interested in hearing reactions. I'm also interested to know
who is thinking of attenting the workshop.

Aldon

-----Original Message-----
From: jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com]On
Behalf Of Bill Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 10:28 AM
To: jtm...@googlegroups.com; rji-f...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {JTM} FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop Dec.
1-2 on journalism's survival

LINK:
http://www.mediagiraffe.org/node/900

-----Original Message-----
From: jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com]On
Behalf Of Tish Grier
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 9:21 AM
To: jtm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {JTM} FTC to explore impact of Internet on Journalism

hi Everyone,

The FTC is planning to hold two days of public workshops on the impact of
the Internet on journalism, newspapers, etc:

http://cryptome.org/0001/ftc100709.htm

Best,
Tish

[King Kaufman]

Tracy, I think you're confusing correlation and causation there. The
fact that old-media organizations made their online advertising an
"add-on freebie" a decade ago doesn't mean they caused online
advertising to lose value. Maybe they were right and it didn't have
much value in the first place. In fact, it's pretty clear they were.
How else to explain all the organizations with no old-media
connections that couldn't get much for online advertising then and
can't get much for it now?

Advertising rates are just like any other prices, a matter of supply
and demand. The supplier can't will the price up by asking for more --
as old-media organizations will be learning if they ever follow
through on their paywall schemes. If you'd been successful in your
persuasion attempts in the '90s, your old-media employer probably
would have ended up with a lot of unsold online advertising. The
supply has gone up exponentially. Why wouldn't prices crash?

You won't find many people more critical of the thinking of the old
media in the '90s and early '00s than I, but their failure wasn't in
"devaluing" online advertising rates. It was in not inventing
Craigslist, eBay, Yelp, etc.

king


On Oct 12, 8:55 am, "Tracy Record, WSB Editor"

<westseattleb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I promise I will submit this as a comment, being unable to pad out to DC on my own dime to participate, but for heaven's sake, what a faulty explanation (in the FTC text that Bill kindly provided links to) of why online advertising isn't bringing in the big fat bucks that non-online advertising used to. Anyone who (like me) tried to get their old-media organization to stop devaluing online advertising in the '90s and early '00s knows that those orgs have no one to blame but themselves. (I will have to go find the Seattle Channel transcript in which a couple of publishers out here freely admitted that, too, some months back.) It was an add-on freebie, a throwaway, a cheap gimme. And now that those orgs are realizing that they can't fall back on their overpriced main "product" any more ... too late ... they short-sheeted their own bed and now they have to lie in it. But the government thinks it's "websites"' fault.
>
> TR
>

> --- On Mon, 10/12/09, Bill Densmore <densmo...@rjionline.org> wrote:

[Michael Morisy]

King's right, but if that attention to online advertising had been paid early on, particularly in the new metrics it allows, a lot of the current problems could've been dealt with earlier, at least help alleviating the perfect storm we face now.

While inventing Craiglist wouldn't have really helped news organizations (there's the quote from someone that it shrunk a $billion+ market to a $100 million market that it just happened to own -- that wouldn't have supported much nationally), creating more valuable ad space and ads early on certainly would have helped.

For example, Pay Per Action (PPA) metrics are extremely hard in the print world, but also extremely valuable. While PPC has plummeted, these sorts of alternatives could have helped differentiate news online advertising from shovelware sites that just SEO and go. There's almost an unlimited supply of eyeballs for display, so that's more or less a commodity, but there will always be a value in proving you helped make the sale or even providing the trusted source to make the sale through (more eBay than Craigslist).

-Michael

--
Michael Morisy
Community Editor, ITKnowledgeExchange.com
Blog: http://bit.ly/ITWatch
Phone: 1-857-488-3081 | AIM: MMorisy
GTalk: mor...@gmail.com | Twitter: @morisy

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

And I stand by what I said. It's the same advice I give to the people who ask us for some when they are starting neighborhood news sites. It's REALLY hard to raise your rates. So don't undervalue yourself at the start. (And I'm sorry to say, some are still doing that, which in turn harms us - somebody wants to know why "another blog" is charging $25 for an ad - we have to go to great lengths to explain, um, that's because they have a couple hundred people looking at them every day and we have 10,000.)

Sure, it would have been nice if old media had invented some of these things. (Actually not, because in most cases the interface would have SUCKED - if it was like the proprietary CMS's I worked with at 2 of the nation's biggest media companies - one of which STILL has lousy SEO for its locals because of how they put things together!) But the "oh pshaw, online ads? what online ads? here, please buy a REAL ad with us and um we'll mention you on our 'website' if you REALLY INSIST" was far more damaging.

TR

[Scott Durham]

Tracy is right that big media companies have done everyone a
disservice by undervaluing online ad inventory. But it's also only
part of the story.

Another big factor is that there has always been a handful of major
industries that provided the vast majority of ad revenue for print.
Think of the advertisers that you're most likely to see taking up a
full page: department stores, auto dealers, etc. They spent big $$$
because the local newspaper was one of their only marketing options.
But now they have a bunch of other online options to spread their
marketing budget across. For example, in autos, there's a whole suite
of tools from http://www.cobaltgroup.com/ that allows dealers to
specifically target people who are in the market for vehicles, not
just broadcast to a regional population where only a few need a new car.

The best way to push up online ad rates is by providing an audience
that self-selects in a way that would be valuable for specific
advertisers. One way is through niche content. A site dealing with
boating can command high CPMs for boat manufacturers and suppliers.

Or you can do it for geography. Neighborhood news sites like WSB or
our Neighborlogs network get great ad rates because they provide an
advertising option for small businesses that didn't previously have
one. The Ford Motor Company will never pay big $ to advertise on a
neighborhood news site because they've got a million other options
internationally to spend their money on. But a local plumbing company
might pay a premium to be on a neighborhood site because it's the best
way for them to reach the people who are most likely to do business
with them.

-Scott Durham
Instivate

[Ross Williams]

King is right.

Somebody at the NPR conference commented on non-profit news ventures as the "flavor of the month". Essentially a fad. Paraphrasing - "One girl scout selling cookies is cute, two? Well, OK. Three? This is starting to be annoying." Like those girl scouts, I think there are a lot of local news ventures out there who may find as their numbers grow they lose their luster as advertising partners, A lot of the current advertising is basically "affinity" advertising. The advertisers want to be seen supporting a popular local service. But as the number of "girl scouts" offering online advertising grows people are going to have to pick and choose which ones they buy cookies from.

The reality is, regardless of what internet advertising is worth, it is unlikely that journalism ventures are ever gonig to get the same share of online advertising budgets that newspapers and magazines got of the total print advertising budgets.  That is as true for hyper-local news as it is for larger news organizations. They simply won't ever have the monopoly on local eyeballs that drove newspaper advertising revenue

The revolution in the advertising business has just started and it will be far more disruptive than the news revolution. 

Ross Williams
www.northerncommunityinternet.org

[Josh Wilson]

The two things I can add to that are (and my biases will be clearly revealed): 

- Advertising is the problem, not the solution, the dependency on ad dollars is what has degraded journalism as a civic service in the first place (and if we want to go after that particular topic we should start a whole new thread)

- Calling the new nonprofit news ventures "flavor of the month" reveals a significant lack of understanding of what nonprofits are and the need they're trying to fill (see above). Remember that nonprofit publications can only earn a minority of their revenue from what I believe is termed "non-essential" sources, i.e., sources not directly related to mission fulfillment, which almost always includes advertising (Mother Jones, for example, earns only 15% of its revenue from ads).

The "flavor of the month" comment also highlights the uphill battle for nonprofits. Unlike the VC world, philanthropies historically don't like to fund nonprofit ventures in any significant amount. This is forcing nonprofits to be a lot leaner and meaner. It means the lack of investment will spell doom for many promising ventures, but it also is something of a Darwinian process in that those that make it will be built to last. 

Finally -- we mustn't consider NPR or PBS the bellwether for nonprofit news. They are true media dinosaurs. 

Rather than dismissing nonprofit news projects as flavors of the month, it's important to consider the need they're fulfilling, and the opportunities of the future, not the monolithic, saurian, non-replicable legacy. The nonprofit news renaissance has barely gotten started. 

jw 

[Jane Stevens]

Advertising wasn't the problem until media became corporate, went merger-crazy, went after national accounts and made the ads too pricey for most local businesses.

There are hundreds of niche news sites that understand there's value to the community in providing information and news from businesses that are part of that community and who provide products and services to that community, whether it's topic-based or local. (Here's a link to a beginning list. The ones marked with an asterisk are ad-supported or trying to be. The real story is in the networks listed at the bottom of the page. http://jurnos.wikispaces.com/Organizations)

And that's the type of traditional advertising that newspapers and journalism were built on. To think that members of the community picked up a newspaper only for what journalists were writing is unrealistic. It was the mix of information and news, from the small print of the stock tables to the big print in the car ads. And let's not forget the comics and horoscopes.   

Finding a way to include businesses who are part of a community in a way that's of value to the members of the community benefits everyone. Then, some of them might be interested in funding deep investigative pieces, too. 

Jane E. Stevens

ReJurno.com

707-495-1112 (cell)

[Josh Wilson]

Jane: On that note let me observe that the kind of civic-minded, public interest, watchdog journalism I'm talking about is a thing apart from the "useful information provider" role of the local newspaper or news/information outlet. 

The classic model of that newspaper -- which is indeed family- or at least locally owned -- is, as you defined it, self justifying and intrinsically valuable as a community-building mechanism .... 

The place where the rubber meets the road for true watchdog journalism, however, is a place where traditional funding sources are not always that comfortable. In that regard, being a valuable information provider for one's community can be a starkly different thing from being a source of outstanding local watchdog journalism. 

Given the gyrations of the ad model right now, I actually don't see as robust a future for watchdog journalism in a local, ad-funded community-information source. That type of reporting is expensive when done right, and not always consanguineous with the deeply mutual relationships between local commercial news outlets and local advertisers. 

This is especially true post-Craigslist ... why advertise in an outlet that publishes news you're not comfortable with, when there are so many ad options that don't have an editorial model attached to it? 

Instead, my sense is that watchdog journalism will be provided by a third, independent, and probably nonprofit party; one that perhaps the local news/info outlet can "subscribe" to as one subscribes to a wire service; but even in that case, that third-party provider of watchdog news would need to be available to the public beyond the comfort zone of local advertisers. 

This is all very sweeping, and while I want to be able to speak definitively, I know the situation is a lot more nuanced.   

[Jane Stevens]

I'll throw one more consideration into this discussion: 

Could Web-based niche news/information/social media networks provide continuous watchdog journalism? 

It's difficult to hide things if the sun's always shining on the entire community (continuity) and the data and records are always driving the discussion (context). 

On a local geographical level, I think that Tracy's doing that at WSB, and so is Bob Gough at Quincynews.org. Good local sports sites do that, too. (Talk about the sun always shining on a topic.) So, perhaps, it's less the type of organization than the people who are running the organization -- the question becomes are they good and courageous journalists, or not?

-- J.

[Bill Densmore]

RETITLED FROM:
Re: {JTM} Re: FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop Dec. 1-2 on journalism's survival

Jane:

A swell point. To some degree, investigative journalism becomes necessary
when sunshine isn't shining on a day-after-day basis into the nooks and
crannies of government and public agendas. If data-driven journalism --
potentially inexpensive -- can be ubiquitous and the drivers are skilled
journalists -- perhaps fewer than today but darn good and what they do --
perhaps we can fulfill the watchdog function in a different and effective
way most of the time.

-- bill densmore

[G. Patton Hughes]

Jane:

I think you're on to something with this observation. 

The plain fact is that with on open forum interactive network type of 'community resource,' the publisher/editors really don't have  control that journalists and editors have traditionally exercised. Because of the ubiquitous nature of the Internet - and each site is but a subset of the greater, it is virtually impossible to kill criticisms of businesses  or stories that need to be told.

Josh, while you suggested that the newspaper/ad model would work to create a circumstance where the community building site would avoid the watchdog role ... my experience is more the opposite.  Because I created an open forum/community where most folks can point out most blemishes and redress their government in a variety of ways, my challenge in selling ads was in overcoming the fear that the local 'establishment' had from the get go.  (A good part of my success in building the community is  my light-hand in terms of moderation.)

That said, the corruptions in hyperlocal markets never approach 'a Watergate' in terms of complexity and I'm not going to suggest that we would ever have the resources to mount such a journalistic enterprise.

The other side of that coin is that on local issues 'our size' an open forum is pretty much an open forum.  In regard to elected officials, I've cited Sullivan v NYTimes going on 100 times in response to folks who say, "they can't say that about him, can they?" 

We constantly have posts complaining about this or that business  - some of them advertisers.  If, in my case, I prohibited such discussions, the discussion would just migrate to facebook.

Do we seek to protect our advertiser's/business members?   Certainly we do.  We prohibit the balance of our 19,000+ members from posting a negative comment in a topic started by a business member.  You can't rain on their parade.  So if the local salvage place, which set up shop in an old car dealership with a leaky roof, posts they have cereal for $1.00/box, their topic stands and we sanction the person who posts they bought some stale Chex and the back (former shop) leaks, ruined some food and it stinks and they think it is horrible that people shop there.  Yep, that posts in the salvage company's topic goes invisible! ~ zap!

So what can a member can do?   They have start their own topic!  If they start it in the biggest forum we'll move it to an open-password protected forum (ON is the password) so that the negative comment is not cataloged by google and the other search engines (and so is not quite as easy to find.)  So what did the indignant woman who made that post do?    They set a link to the password protected forum on their facebook profile and emailed everyone they knew!    Did I care?  No.

What did I tell the advertiser ... that I covered their butt and kept it off google which I might not have done if they weren't an advertiser.

Which is another way of making Janes point that with the Internet, the game is changed.

The real discussion is whether ad-supported hyperlocal media can support journalism?   

Sure it can by opening the door to so-called citizen journalists - the folks that contribute 99 percent of the 'posts' to my site.  They actually do a great for spot journalism but they are mediocre to worthless for what I would describe as 'beat' journalism.    

This actually came up in a conversation I had with Bill Densmore earlier today.  I told him you've got to have someone to cover the mundane machinations of things like the school board, city hall and county government.   Basically, you have to have someone who understands the subject matter that goes along with beat reporting -  whether it is water policy or school lunch issues. As a reporter doing the homework to understand the issues, translate them and communicate them is the essence of the job.  We really don't need investigative journalists, we need educated, intelligent, beat reporters who know how government is supposed to work and can call foul when our elected officials deviate from due process of the law.  Basically, beat journalists keep government honest by being pains in the butt and asking questions until they are satisfied with the answers.

So, to me the real question is  whether ad-supported hyperlocal media can support enough good journalists to effectively cover local government beats?  My reading is that it can and I'm getting pretty close to being able to afford one despite the fact that I had to overcome the enormous fear local businesses and community leaders had of an open forum and the Internet in general. 

G Patton Hughes

[Ross Williams]

"That said, the corruptions in hyperlocal markets never approach 'a Watergate' in terms of complexity and I'm not going to suggest that we would ever have the resources to mount such a journalistic enterprise. "

To again point out the obvious,. the Watergate story was largely driven by Deep Throat and congressional investigations, not journalists. In fact, in the summer of 1972, the New York Times was told by Patrick Gray, then deputy director of the FBI,  that the President was involved in the break-in. They apparently failed to follow up on it. 

I know that contradicts the media's own narrative, but does anyone really think Deep Throat would not have been able to get his story told in today's environment? He probably wouldn't even need the middlemen journalists and he could find all sorts of online places that would tell his story.

I think that the journalism in the United States has not done a particularly good job by its own standards. As Mark Twain so aptly said, "If you don't read a newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed."  I think the more complex the story, the more likely that is true.

As for "beat journalists", I think this is way overblown. There are thousands of citizens out there who are knowledgeable about specific topics of interest to them, whether its the school board or road building. They may not always be right, but not much of any real importance to the general public is going to slide by unnoticed. Those are usually the folks who alerted journalists to stories in the past. Now they have a lot of places to directly raise those concerns rather than having to get through a journalists filter.

Ross Williams

[Bill Densmore]

Ross:

I think you are correct, below. The challenge becomes this: How do we
create a platform, part technology and part community, which can surface,
vet and champion these citizens, and make their motivations discoverable
and transparent?

On Mon, 12 Oct 2009, Ross Williams wrote:

> As for "beat journalists", I think this is way overblown. There are
> thousands of citizens out there who are knowledgeable about specific topics
> of interest to them, whether its the school board or road building. They may
> not always be right, but not much of any real importance to the general
> public is going to slide by unnoticed. Those are usually the folks who
> alerted journalists to stories in the past. Now they have a lot of places to
> directly raise those concerns rather than having to get through a
> journalists filter.
>
> Ross Williams
>

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 7:03 PM, G. Patton Hughes <publ...@paulding.com>
wrote:

This actually came up in a conversation I had with Bill Densmore

[G. Patton Hughes]

Ross:

I basically agree with you regarding Watergate. Still, had some
anonymous deep through had posted his 'follow the money' mantra on
'facebook' he'd probably been given about as much cred as those who
complain about the way WTC 7 fell.

Regarding your dismissal of beat reporters, the problem with relying on
those who are knowledgeable about things specific topics like school
boards, city and city governments is my experience is that unless you
work on them as a source they only time they choose to speak up is when
they're getting gored. Most of the time they, instead, use their
knowledge for their personal benefit and personal agenda. The result is
a rare bit of coverage - i.e. the big story. The alternative which is
plodding, regular coverage designed to keep the community not only
informed but involved actively in their community would probably prevent
or deter half the acts.

Second, and this is as important as knowing the information is the
ability to communicate it. Both talent and a commitment to go get the
information is the job and hiring someone to do that job is the only to
guarantee that the job gets done consistently.

And consistent, competent, regular coverage in the public interest is
the heart and soul of journalism. To wit, while I won't suggest that
beat journalism is 'journalism on steroids,' I do know that it has a
better batting average than St. Louis slugger Mark Maguire lifetime .263.

GP Hughes

>>>> <http://jurnos.wikispaces.com/Organizations%29>

>>>>>> <http://www.northerncommunityinternet.org>

>>>>>> <mailto:westseattleb...@yahoo.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> > I promise I will submit this as a comment, being unable
>>>>>> to pad out to DC on my own dime to participate, but for
>>>>>> heaven's sake, what a faulty explanation (in the FTC text
>>>>>> that Bill kindly provided links to) of why online
>>>>>> advertising isn't bringing in the big fat bucks that
>>>>>> non-online advertising used to. Anyone who (like me)
>>>>>> tried to get their old-media organization to stop
>>>>>> devaluing online advertising in the '90s and early '00s
>>>>>> knows that those orgs have no one to blame but
>>>>>> themselves. (I will have to go find the Seattle Channel
>>>>>> transcript in which a couple of publishers out here
>>>>>> freely admitted that, too, some months back.) It was an
>>>>>> add-on freebie, a throwaway, a cheap gimme. And now that
>>>>>> those orgs are realizing that they can't fall back on
>>>>>> their overpriced main "product" any more ... too late ...
>>>>>> they short-sheeted their own bed and now they have to lie
>>>>>> in it. But the government thinks it's "websites"' fault.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > TR
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > --- On Mon, 10/12/09, Bill Densmore
>>>>>> <densmo...@rjionline.org

[Jane Stevens]

I agree, Ross. One of the most egregious examples of reporting that does nothing to serve the community is crime reporting. Most of what traditional media covers is violent crime. The CDC declared violence a public health issue in the early 1980s, something that is indeed preventable. The media still hasn't caught up to that. They rarely provide context, or approach violence as a complex issue that does have solutions. They may do a great job reporting reporting on an individual event, but completely miss the story of the economic and emotional effects of violence on a community. 

What this Web medium finally allows us to do is to create a place that has an opportunity to be a trusted source in the community, where the community is the visual and functional engine, where we journalists serve that community, and must adhere to the community's demands of knowledgeable reporting, continuous reporting, and reporting in context. 

With good beat reporters who understand their area very well, who engage and are engaged by the community, who operate in a place where the community is an equal voice, but where the reporter's responsibility to the community is to ensure accuracy to the best of their ability, we might have a shot at gaining the community's trust again. 

[Ross Williams]

I often hear this conflicted message about the importance of preserving professional journalism while saying next time we will do it right. Maybe the problem is not that professional journalism has been flawed in its implementation, perhaps what is flawed is the the entire concept of professional journalism where we turn over to a small group of paid professionals our responsibility to inform our fellow citizens.  One reason people don't report what happens at meetings, is that they aren't told they should or that they have a responsibility as a citizen to let other citizens know what is going on. Perhaps the "death of journalism" is an opportunity for a new and better form of civic engagement.

Ross Williams
Advocacy Technologies
twitter.com/rosscwilliams

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

for what it's worth, crime reporting is one of the most valuable and valued services we provide - but we turn the old example on its head. While even what's left of our local weekly newspaper still does a blotter that has cursory by-block mention of property crimes and focuses on weird/bizarre/sad incidents (like domestic violence), what we focus on is property crime, which impacts our community the most, and getting it in context wherever possible, including trends, prevention information, and neighbor-to-neighbor sharing - people send us first-person reports when something happens to them. I loathed traditional crime reporting in my TV days and thought I was totally leaving crime behind and then realized that I was looking at it the wrong way. Some days I think we could do an all-crime website and still do as well.

TR

--- On Mon, 10/12/09, Jane Stevens <jste...@mmjourno.com> wrote:

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

And I concur with Mr. Hughes on this one as well. What he has written about is what I spend the bulk of my time doing. Plodding, regular coverage of things such as community councils/associations (more than a dozen of 'em), development issues, "look what I found in the city council agenda/school board agenda/liquor license application file," etc. Yes, these days everyone and anyone can directly post their news somewhere. BUT - here's what we find: (a) Most can't be bothered. I don't fault them - you gotta set your priorities somewhere. There are rare exceptions. PLUS at least in the way the world still works - until we get into Web 3.0 - there is value in having "a place" where many gather (e.g. for example a well-read neighborhood-news site) so that when you have that story to tell, it reaches a fair number of people.

(b) The raw info (meeting minutes instead of journalist-written reports, etc.) equals EveryBlock. You can get the proverbial firehose of information and not have any clue what is really "new" and what's routine. It does help to at least have a curator to put the figurative asterisk on what's interesting and important. I don't pretend to be the mighty voice of the past to say "Hey, this is big because we say it's big" - but I do pull some interesting fish out of the stream that might otherwise be the ones that got away.

TR in WS

[Aldon Hynes]

Random Thoughts: 

Small News Organizations covering big events:

Here in Connecticut, when the Annie Le murder at Yale was making national headlines, the best coverage was from the hyperlocal online news site, the New Haven Independent.  The national news sites all pointed to Paul Bass' coverage of the event.

 

As to the complexity of corruption, we've had our share in Connecticut, with a governor, various mayors and I forget who else ending up in jail on various charges.

 

Personally, I think that a good hyperlocal journalist working for a small news outlet, especially in this day and age can be every bit as effective, if not more so, than a superstar at a major news outlet.

 

There is a saying attributed to President Garfield about one of his professors at Williams College years ago,

"The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other".

 

It seems as if there ought to be some analogous quote about the idea news organization.

 

Protecting our Advertisers

This is another area where we've got a good story.  George Gombossy was the 'first investigative columnist in the [Hartford] Courant's history, and probably its last, as he was fired as of Aug 15 after refusing to "be nice to major advertisers".  He now runs his own online site and has a suit for wrongful termination in the courts against the Hartford Courant and its owner.  I encourage people to closely follow this suit for all its interesting twists and turns and its implications for news outlets that would protect their advertisers.

 

It is worth noting that in this world of social media, a common idea is that an advertiser that wants credibility is better off seeking not to be protected, but instead, seeking to have all the warts uncovered, and then addressed in a way that satisfies customers.  One of the best referals you can get is from a former critic that you've won over.  A lot of companies haven't learned this yet, however.

 

Citizen Beat Reporting

In my small town, I, the now notorious local blogger or volunteer citizen journalist, is normally the only member of the media that attends our local school board meetings.  I've become good friends with many school board members who gladly fill me in on the background to the meetings.  Like me, the school board members are also volunteers, trying to serve the public good.  So, I tend to agree with Ross that the need for professional beat reporters may be overblown.

 

But how do you pay for what volunteers don't cover

I think this remains the big issue.  I touched on it a little bit in my blog post, Who will pay for the news? http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3778 which ties together the AP's latest moves, the FTC and random other topics.  I think that looking at advertising models is very important.  The Waterbury Republican-American hired a person to specialize in online sales and they've seen their online sales quintuple as a result of some smart advertising moves.  I go to a lot of conferences on digital publishing and advertising, and rarely find people from the newspaper industry there, even though there is lots of valuable information about the evolution of hyperlocal advertising, behaivoral advertising and other aspects of online advertising.  One thing that I especially noted was that some publishers are now making more money selling information about their subscribers than they make from the ads.  This sort of data is very valuable to people looking at various types of behaivoral and targeted advertising.

 

Final Ranting Comment

Bill wrote about the loss of $1.6 billion in news organization salaries and guesses that 80% of that is newsroom salaries.  I haven't looked at the numbers and I know many great reporters that have lost their jobs, but I have to wonder how much of this is overhead that is being lost and how much is reporters.  How much of the decline of news organizations is that they are now run like any other commodity business, severely overleveraged with too much focus on ROI and not enough focus on quality product?  How much of our current news mailaise is a result of a new variation of Parkinson's law?  Parkinson's law specifically states that "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion".  Yet the way that work normally expands is through ever increasing bureaucracy, and not through productive work.  If news organizations were leaned down, stripping the leverage and excessive bureaucracy instead of the reporters, we might see a lot more sites like the small nimble online sites that are cited as successes here.

 

Aldon

 

 
-----Original Message-----
From: jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com]On Behalf Of Ross Williams
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 10:02 PM
To: G. Patton Hughes
Cc: Journalism That Matters
Subject: {JTM} Re: FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop Dec. 1-2 on journalism's survival

 




 




Jane Stevens wrote:

-- J.

> TR
>

[Tom Stites]

Hi Jane -- As to your question,

Could Web-based niche news/information/social media networks provide continuous watchdog journalism? 

my answer is that I certainly believe so because this idea is at the core of the Banyan Project, which I lead.  A recently updated executive summary now ledes the website, at www.banyanproject.com.  In invite all on the lest to take a look -- I'd love some fresh eyes and thoughts.

Onward,

Tom

 

Tom Stites

t...@tomstites.com

http://banyanproject.com

http://tomstites.com

[Josh Wilson]

This is extra-interesting because those data sources don't need
expensive sponsorship. They can just sit there and aggregate data from
diverse sources. The rest is up to the journalist who puts it to use.

That would require some complementary sunshine initiatives in gov't
from local to national, though.

Here's an interesting national-scale interface advanced by Obama's
CIO, Vivek Kundra:

http://www.usaspending.gov/
http://it.usaspending.gov/

jw

[Josh Stearns]

Friends

Thanks for the great discussion on online ads, civic/watchdog journalism, and more that has spun of this initial post. There is much in this thread to consider. I however want to return us for a moment to the initial message that Bill sent around about the FTC as it is particularly interesting to me given my work with the SaveTheNews.org campaign, which is exploring the role of public policy in the future of journalism and involving local citizens and journalists in the process.

This FTC workshop has been in the works for quite some time (it had originally been scheduled for mid-September). The workshop will be the fourth major federal government event focused on the future of journalism (2 hearings in the US House, and 1 hearing in the US Senate). In addition, the FCC has made statements about a possible inquiry into the state of broadcast journalism and others like the Dept. of Justice have also weighed in. In our testimony before the House hearing earlier this spring we called for an overarching National Journalism Strategy to help coordinate the diverse agencies that are responding to the struggles in journalism. You can read our statements here: http://www.freepress.net/node/56421

Unlike these earlier hearings, the FTC is looking beyond a small panel of experts and making an effort to involve citizens in the discussion. We think this is vital. I would love to talk with others who are interested in weighing in on these issues and ensuring that working journalists (across all platforms - web, paper, broadcast) and local citizens have a voice in this proceeding.

Let me know off list if you want to talk further about these issues.

Best,

Josh


Josh Stearns

Program Manager

Free Press :: www.freepress.net

SaveTheNews :: www.savethenews.org

413.585.1533 ext. 204



reform media. transform democracy.

-----Original Message-----
From: jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bill Densmore
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 10:28 AM
To: jtm...@googlegroups.com; rji-f...@googlegroups.com

Subject: {JTM} FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop Dec. 1-2 on journalism's survival



LINK:
http://www.mediagiraffe.org/node/900

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

To Josh's point, I would like recommendations on the most effective way to be heard, short of being there in person (and I suppose there'd be no guarantee of getting heard that way anyway). Just send a comment? Actual paper letter? Video clip (HA)? Or?

I am so tired of the highest levels of these debates being almost entirely devoid of reality. I testified at a City Council hearing earlier this year set up to explore the then-semi-new-ish question of OMG HOW DO WE SAVE NEWSPAPERS -- I was a last-minute substitution for someone even stodgier than me, and was greeted with shock and startle when I declared the question wasn't how to save newspapers but how to save journalism (which I stole from maybe this list or another one here in town) - but at least I was glad to be there - the city councilmember who called the hearing is still in love with printed material (he prints a small newspaper as his campaign newsletter) but is now haltingly stepping into the digital age - last time I saw him he tried to engage me in a technical discussion of laptops' merits. (Unfortunately, he did not get a Mac, so the discussion did not go far).

thanks
TR


--- On Tue, 10/13/09, Josh Stearns <jste...@freepress.net> wrote:

[Jane Stevens]

I echo Tracy's request. The traditional media's reports have been so
myopic that they're misleading about news, journalism, the transitions
and opportunities. I've been ignoring most of the bad reporting, but a
recent Newsweek article sent me over the edge -- http://rejurno.com/2009/10/09/another-example-of-poor-reporting/

Cheers, J.

Jane E. Stevens
ReJurno.com
707-495-1112 (cell)

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

Thank you, Jane, I hadn't seen your writeup till now. I was asked on my own site to comment on the newsweek piece and I pretty much sputtered and ranted ...
http://westseattleblog.com/blog/forum/topic.php?id=6762#post-73780
until I switched the topic to the MyBallard.com award.

I was going to leave a comment on the Newsweek piece itself BUT ****after***** I wrote the comment, the site THEN told me I would have to register. Inexcusable. I canceled the whole thing. If you are going to require registration, TELL ME FIRST.

And I thought they showed their age by calling it "PeytonPlace.com" - like anybody younger than me (just turned 50) even UNDERSTANDS that reference? Sputter sputter sputter.

But my biggest peeve about it was that they spotlighted the "Patch" people working for a templatized franchised cloned site, NOT any of us real indies. I'm sure Jennifer C is a bulldog but for heaven's sake (maybe she's on this list) BE IN BUSINESS FOR YOURSELF!!!!! (They also mentioned NYT subsite's Tina Kelley, who ironically came out here to meet with us and MyBallard.com, I think a few others, to figure out how to set up her site.)

TR

--- On Tue, 10/13/09, Jane Stevens <jste...@mmjourno.com> wrote:

> From: Jane Stevens <jste...@mmjourno.com>

[Tish Grier]

thanks for pointing to that article, Jane! and actually, the topic of the Newsweek story was ripped in part from TechCrunch, I think....

But, once again, someone gets independent local sites mixed up with msm local sites. Loudon Extra was a Washington Post product that went completely untended by Rob Curley.--hence its demise. From what I understand, Curley spent very little, if any, time in the neighborhood and did not get to know the people there. Hence, failure...

Here's the post from Jeff Jarvis that also contributed to the Newsweek piece:

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/09/13/newbiznews-in-the-guardian/

Lots of talk of hypotheticals

And if any of you didn't catch it, The Guardian's going to hire bloggers for their local news sites:

http://www.nma.co.uk/guardian-hires-bloggers-for-local-news-service/3005392.article


but I'm expecting the same kind of lack-of-success as msm efforts over this side of the pond.

Tish

----- Original Message ----
From: Jane Stevens <jste...@mmjourno.com>
To: "Tracy Record, WSB Editor" <westsea...@yahoo.com>

[Aldon Hynes]

Well, I'm thinking about going down to the workshop and I hear at least some
other people on this list may be considering the same. Should we try to
meet up in DC?

Also, is anyone writing about the workshop or thoughts leading up to it?

I mentioned it in my blog post,
I get my brand views on Twitter
http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3784

and would love to hear thoughts. Ideally, I'd like to see some sort of
aggregation of comments about the conference, the emergence of a hashtag,
etc.

Thoughts?

Aldon

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

Writing about it is a good idea. My spouse just relaunched his semi-personal blog (I'm not sure if it's ready for primetime so not linking yet) as more of a new media musing thing that I get to write on any time I like, since we never talk about the business on our site, don't want to bore those we serve ... I already put up one rant about the fact that grants galore seem available if you have a new idea but not if you have a bootstrapped enterprise that has seen some level of success but could really use a hand getting to the proverbial next level .. I will try to assemble something quasi-coherent on the topic of the FTC hearings.

rants R us,
TR

--- On Fri, 10/16/09, Aldon Hynes <Aldon...@Orient-Lodge.com> wrote:

> From: Aldon Hynes <Aldon...@Orient-Lodge.com>
> Subject: {JTM} Re: FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop

[Bill Densmore]

Tracy:

It would have some power, I think, if the members of this list who are
doing the local online news community thing were to develop a "consensus
statement" about what is needed to nurture their seedlings. I wonder if we
could manage a process of collecting comment, then have you or someone
write up something that at least 15 or 20 people could sign onto. We might
call it the "Journalism That Matters" consensus statemnet, or someting
like that?

I'd be happy to reach out to the folks I know about ask them to help with
suggestions.


-- bill

--
-------------------------------------
Bill Densmore, 2008-2009 Fellow
Reynolds Journalism Institute
201 RJI Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia MO 65211
573-882-9812 / VOICE MAIL/CELL: 617-448-6600
dens...@rjionline.org

************************************************************
WRAPUP:
"From Gatekeepers to InfoValets: Work Plans for Sustaining
Journalism," May 27, 2009, Washington, D.C.
OVERVIEW: http://tinyurl.com/mstm7g
EVENT ARCHIVE: http://www.journalismtrust.org
ALL VIDEO: http://ustream.tv/channel/infovalet
nCIRCULATE: http://rji.missouri.edu/projects/info-valet/index.php

************************************************************

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

I'd take that on - writing the proposed communique - have to be rather quick about it since the deadline's in a couple weeks. Anybody want to contribute? If you offer your rough points of your concerns I can draft something. I'd be happy to have people e-mail me directly unless, Bill, you have a different idea for collecting comment. I am loathe to say we have to all go be a member of some website to do it, I have reluctantly had to sign up for multiple Ning-y groups for multiple reasons and can't even track them all. Or if people would rather - in the spirit of transparency - send their key points to the list here, I'd be glad to collect them from it. (And I will reach out to members of the Seattle indy-online-news community who aren't on this list - I know one person is but there are several I'm sure are not)

TR

--- On Sat, 10/17/09, Bill Densmore <dens...@rjionline.org> wrote:

> From: Bill Densmore <dens...@rjionline.org>
> Subject: {JTM} Re: FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop

> To: "Tracy Record, WSB Editor" <westsea...@yahoo.com>
> Cc: jtm...@googlegroups.com

[Aldon Hynes]

I think this is great and will gladly provide my comments, as a volunteer
citizen journalist who deals a bit with online marketing issues. If Tracy
is willing to toss out a first draft for people to discuss here, so much the
better.

Also to the extent that people write about this online, please let me know.
I would love to track and link back to people writing about this.

Aldon

-----Original Message-----
From: jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com]On

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

Thank you to those who've already written -

One point I intend to bring up in this is one that I'd love other thoughts on. It's one of those "on my to-do list" things that I haven't been able to mount a major campaign about.

The FTC asks in its call for comment, how might government be helping or hindering.

One set of government policies - at MANY levels - that is exceptionally outdated, involves "public notices."

Everywhere you turn, the government policies were written decades ago, and call for (paid) publication "in a newspaper of general circulation" or something similar.

In many areas, either there is no newspaper OR the newspaper is NOT the most widely read news source - therefore, while the government agency might be adhering to the letter of its law by publishing an agate-size-type notice in a "community newspaper" that has been turned into a thrown-on-doorsteps-and-then-recycled shopper, it's not reaching people. But government money is being spent on those "publications," and not on the news sources that people are actually using.

In some cases when there are government projects/hearings that have led to display advertising around here, we have gotten ourselves on a few radar screens and have gotten a tiny bit of that advertising. But week in and week out, local governments at many levels are spending thousands - tens of thousands, maybe - on public notices, and either they should include online publishers of a certain "circulation" level, or they should find a different way to get the word out. (One instructive example for us: I discovered a significant piece of publicly owned property was being sold ONLY because a reader called my attention to a "public notice" in an obscure print place, advertising a public hearing FOR WHICH A NEWS RELEASE WAS NEVER SENT - and for which the government agency holding the hearing never even published the hearing notice on its own website! We did a series of stories on it, by the way, and the publication where the ad was placed never even bothered
covering it.)

Has anyone out there in the small-online-publisher world managed to establish itself as a place for the publication of public notices? I started seeking out the contacts in local governments on this issue, and that alone could be a fulltime job, when you look at county/city/state/school district/water district/etc. Right now, it stands as a way that local governments are subsidizing newspapers while not necessarily truly reaching the largest audiences, and it's an outdated policy dating way back to when that was the only way to "publish" a notice and the only way for it to reach an "audience."

This could be a revenue stream OR if it's determined that the day of the paid public notice is passe', I'd love to see government agencies make this notices available via RSS so a site like ours could publish a page of them.

Tracy in WS

[Aldon Hynes]

This has been a touchy issue in Connecticut. There was legislation floating
around last session that would allow Municipalities that put their 'public
notices' on a municipal website to be exempt from having to place public
notices "in a newspaper of general circulation". This was at the same time
that several newspapers in the state were shutting down and people at
surviving newspapers were very concerned about the possible loss of revenue.

At the same time, municipalities were complaining about a new law that
required them to post minutes of official meetings online within a few days
if the municipalities had town websites. Some towns complained of the cost
of complying and were threatening to shut down municipal websites if the
rule was not done away with.

I'm not sure how likely it will be to get policies changed so that online
sites could tap into some of the 'public notice' revenue, or what that would
do to further complicate the newspaper print industry.

It seems like some of this starts overlapping considerably with a lot of the
eGovernance issues that people are talking about these days.

As a side comment, one of the issues that people who work as public
information officers, communications directors, or public relations people
run into is that as newspaper staffs shrink, they have fewer and fewer
people to send press releases to. They also have problems finding the
bloggers, citizen journalists and online journalists that, in theory, are
filling some of the gap.

The other side of this problem is the problem that bloggers and volunteer
citizen journalists often have getting on the mailing lists for press
releases and media advisories. To deal with this in Connecticut, I set up
the CTNewsWire. It is a Google group that anyone can subscribe to,
typically it is bloggers and online journalists, and any can send press
releases and media advisories to. I think it has really helped open up the
flow of information.

Aldon

-----Original Message-----
From: jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com]On
Behalf Of Tracy Record, WSB Editor
Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 8:00 PM
To: Bill Densmore
Cc: jtm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: one particular point I'd love feedback on Re: {JTM} Re: FTC
seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop

[Josh Stearns]

Tracy, Bill, Aldon and others.

Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this process of drafting a response from the Journalism that Matters community. This is so vital. Here at Free Press/SaveTheNews.org we'll also be coordinating responses from national allies and coalition partners in addition to creating a simple web tool for some of our 500,000 activists to also make their voices heard. Our hope is to distill the FTC's 8 page memo into a simple online tool that let's people choose the questions they want and customize their response. More on all of that soon.

In terms of the "public notices" question, Jim Haigh at the Mid-Atlantic Community Papers Association has worked tirelessly on this issue in PA. (see the article here: Will PA continue free ride for costly public advertising in paid newspapers? http://weeklypress.com/link.asp?smenu=1&sdetail=1322&wpage=1).  I am happy to put folks in touch with him if anyone is interested.

Best,

Josh Stearns

[Tammy]

Massachusetts currently has legislation pending that includes letting
municipalities and other entities post bidding and contract notices
online and through the state's online Central Registry. The state's IT
counsel estimates it will save the larger cities upwards of $250,000 a
year. The city I cover, North Adams, could save nearly $100,000
annually.

That's not peanuts when financially struggling towns and cities are
cutting teachers and cops. It can't help but have an effect on smaller
papers - this is their bread & butter, along with paid obituaries and
wedding notices. (It would be even worse if they were to lose auto
dealership and bank ads.)

Whether that will help online sites like mine, I don't know. We'd be
happy to run legal notices and could easily undercut any price the
papers are charging. If the towns all go to the Central Registry,
towns might decide not to bother with local sites at all for bidding.
We could pick up public hearings but again, we wouldn't charge as much
the papers.

It's ridiculous to insist publishing legal notices in the papers is
the best way to reach the most number of readers. Filing them online
reaches anybody and everybody, not to mention RSS feeds and e-mail
contacts for companies interested in receiving notices.

There's also the tendency - as you noted - to hide potentially
controversial matters in tiny print in the classified. My city also
doesn't prominently post subcommittee meetings except at City Hall. I
go down there and mark the dates to publish online. I'm working on a
calendar for all governmental meetings in may area so people can see
at a glance who's meeting and when - along with the agendas if I can
get them.

In fact, I'd run the legals for free if they'd just send them to me
(but it would nice to be paid)

On Oct 17, 7:59 pm, "Tracy Record, WSB Editor"

[Jay Young]

The public notices issues has also been a sensative one in
Pennsylvania. There's big money at stake. At least twice legislation
was floated to remove this "public notices" requirement to save money.
Example: My former newspaper in Altoona, Pa (circ about 31,000) made
about $200,000 in one year off the county, city, and big local school
district - that doesn't include the dozens of other municipalities.
Some newspaper are contributing to mypublicnotices.com - basically
allows the papers to say, "It's all online too," and maintain the
monopoly.
The Pennsylvania proposals have died - all of them met by the state
newspaper associations claim that our grandparents don't have the
Internet and it's too expensive to switch - of course it's cheaper
than a subscription to any newspaper and available at even small
libraries. When that claim doesn't work - they hit politicians with
the, "You're killing your local newspaper." That's often enough to get
lawmakers to just leave it alone.
This, what comes dow to govt. subsidy, is definitely the newspaper
industries little revenue secret.

Jay Young

[MFerrier]

Hi everyone,
Great conversation spawned from the FTC discussion about what our
communities need. Check out this CJR report on the state of
journalism:
http://www.cjr.org/reconstruction/the_reconstruction_of_american.php?page=all

Michelle

[Aldon Hynes]

Josh, et al.,

 

   I really look forward to the Free Press online tool.  I hope it can generate some valuable dialog.  I also look forward to Tracy's draft.  I've started gathering my own thoughts, reading through the questions in the FTC's memo and answering them one by one.  I've only gotten through the first seven of the nearly sixty questions, but I've posted them online with my initial thoughts.  I hope to get time to do that for more of the questions over the coming days and would love to hear responses.

 

   You can read the first seven questions from the FTC memo, along with my responses at http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3790  Hopefully they will stimulate some thinking and sharing of ideas.

 

Aldon

-----Original Message-----
From: jtm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:jtm...@googlegroups.com]On Behalf Of Josh Stearns
Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2009 8:56 AM
To: Tracy Record, WSB Editor

[Bill Densmore]

Josh:

 

They best way I can describe my take on this issue is heartbreaking.  Here's why:

 

-- Public notices are a significant source of profitable business for newspapers. Where newspapers still have strong penetration, they belong in papers. 

 

I serve on the board of the New England Press & Newspaper Association. This is a hot-button issue for all state press associations.

 

But what I find heartbreaking is the fact that, as with Craig's List, it is absolutely inevitable that this business will migrate to an efficient, aggregated, searchible web service. I haven't checked, but there may already be some focused on this market.

 

This is one more reason why in the new news ecosystem we have to make room for new thinking about the need to find a way to subsidize the public-purpose role and mission of news organizations -- not just those on paper. The old de-facto subsidies -- classified ads and legals -- are going away.

 

-- bill

 

 

From: Josh Stearns <jste...@freepress.net>
Date: October 18, 2009 7:55:30 AM CDT
To: "Tracy Record, WSB Editor" <westsea...@yahoo.com>
Cc: Bill Densmore <dens...@rjionline.org>, "jtm...@googlegroups.com" <jtm...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: one particular point I'd love feedback on Re: {JTM} Re: FTC seeks comment, attendance at two-day workshop

[Barry Parr]

About six months ago a couple of friends and I tried to figure out how to make a business of providing public notice services to governments.  There are some issues that make it a not terribly attractive market, but it is also clearly an opportunity for someone with money, guts and (lots of) patience who is willing to provide services on a national scale and sell them at retail scale.

As Bill suggests, it will cease to be an advertising business in the next couple of years and become a service that governments buy through whomever provides their regular web services. In the meantime, it's probably not worth pursuing, unless you spy some low-hanging fruit.

bp

--
Barry Parr

http://coastsider.com
http://mediasavvy.com
http://twitter.com/barryparr

650.523.4929
-----------------------------------------

[Bob Gough]

Got a question for the group: should newspaper publishers host political fundraisers? I would love to get someone who specializes in J-ethics to chime in.

---

From: Barry Parr <ba...@parr.org>

Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:45:36 -0700

To: <jtm...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: {JTM} Re: A heartbreaking issue -- what to do about legal notices

[Josh Wilson]

On the flip side, it's interesting to think of print media as the
ultimate bridge over the digital divide. In that case, should there be
a MANDATED role for print in news media's future? And for services
such as public notices? Cuz some folks just won't ever be online "like
that" ... ?

jw

[Aldon Hynes]

Well, I haven't heard much more about comments for the FTC workshops until a
couple emails today. I went and checked and saw that comments are due by
Friday.

I've drafted up some thoughts on this which I've put on my blog
Preparing a comment to the FTC on the Future of Journalism
http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3815

It draws on some of the themes from this list as well as other dicussions
I've had. Any comments are appreciated.

Aldon

[Aldon Hynes]

Today is the last day to file comments for the workshop. I filed mine this
morning, which is essentially the draft version I circulated a couple of
days ago. I've also glanced at some of the other comments, there aren't
that many, and highlighted a few of them.

SPJ has posted theirs on their blog and I provide a link.

Read more at http://www.orient-lodge.com/node/3819

Aldon