Newspaper Death Watch |
| Poynter Botches Romenesko Divorce Posted: 23 Nov 2011 08:26 AM PST
Romenesko is the prolific blogger who has attracted a large following with his almost obsessively updated newsfeed about the latest goings-on in media. His style for years has been to post short summaries or excerpts and one or two links to the source. Most media outlets consider it an honor to get a link from Romenesko, who has more than 40,000 Twitter followers and a huge mind share among media professionals.
What Moos failed to do was consult others for their opinions or give Romenesko himself much more than a cursory heads-up that the post was going to appear. The reaction from readers – including several of the sources allegedly wronged by the sourcing practices – came down like a ton of bricks. As of this morning, Moos' post had collected nearly 300 comments, most ranging from critical to hostile. Rather than taking umbrage at the Romenesko, most people said they were grateful for the service he provided and had no confusion whatsoever about where his information was coming from. And even if the sourcing wasn't always rigorous, the outcome was: gushers of traffic to their websites. Which is a good thing. Romenesko's account on his new blog, JimRomenesko.com, fills in some of the background details. According to Romenesko, Moos' blog post was preceded by months of negotiation over renewal of Romenesko’s contract, which expires on December 31. Two days before the post appeared, Moos expressed concern to Romenesko about his plans to sell ads on his new website, potentially cannibalizing Poynter’s business. Without explicitly accusing Moos of anything, Romenesko’s timeline portrays an increasingly panicked editor who is about to see her star columnist become a competitor. The sourcing accusations appear to be timed to cut off competition at the knees. It's unfortunate that this issue degraded into personal attacks, because the issues that Moos raised are legitimate. The old rules of attribution seem out of touch with the new age of copy-and-paste publishing. A decade ago, publishers sued each other over “deep links." Today they beg for them. Erika Fry, the CJR reporter who first raised the sourcing issue to Moos, published a calm and level-headed account of her concerns shortly after Romenesko quit. She was never out to get Romenesko, but rather to understand Poynter could play a valuable role in facilitating a discussion over the new ethics of plagiarism. It’s unfortunate that one editor chose to use the issue for character assassination instead.
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| Differing Views of Paywall Potential Posted: 23 Nov 2011 07:55 AM PST In places where paywalls are working – and yes, they are working in some places – publishers have abandoned the metaphor of a wall and focused instead on bundled subscriptions that looked a lot like cable television. So writes Poynter’s Rick Edmonds in a summary of a report by the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) that looks at 15 successful paid subscription models. No two are exactly alike, and some even challenge credulity, such as the Oklahoman, which charges 20% less for a combined print/digital package than for an online-only plan. That’s right, they pay you to take the newspaper. All the models have one thing in common, though: they’re working. Instead of being positioned as obstacles, they’re marketed as ways to serve readers' need flexible consumption via computer, smart phone, tablet or some combination of all three. The INMA report cautions that hybrid subscriptions aren’t any easy sale. Readers need to have options and explanations laid out clearly, and digital can’t be positioned as an afterthought. However, readers have adopted so-called "digital replica" editions with surprising enthusiasm, indicating a fondness for the look and feel of print even when reading on a screen. The report also indicates optimism that paid subscription models can work when tuned to the needs of the specific audience. Start by discarding the concept of a wall. Digital subscriptions need to be seen a convenience rather than a barrier. The emergence of multiple digital platforms may be the best thing that has happened to publishers over the last decade. It has given them a way to make simplicity a feature worth paying for, and audiences are proving to like that story. Andrew Birmingham isn’t quite so optimistic. The CEO of Silicon Gully Investments and a former associate publisher of the Australian Financial Review pens a lengthy piece in the Australian edition of CIO magazine arguing that pay walls are a fundamentally defensive strategy undertaken by panicked publishers whose entire business models are collapsing around them. "The time to implement paywalls was 15 years ago when [editorial content] was worth paying for," he writes. "The time to invest in editorial was also 15 years ago when [publishers] should have been erecting paywalls." Birmingham’s conclusions aren’t particularly novel, but his explanation of the spiraling downward cost of online advertising is worth reading. Advertising networks in general, and Google in particular, come in for particular criticism. Both promised publishers easy money in the late 1990s, when times were good. The consequence, though, has been cannibalization leading to a plunge in advertising prices "from hundreds of dollars per thousand to $1 to $2 dollars per thousand in Australia across general news websites," Birmingham writes. "In the US, they are now measured in cents per thousand. Publishers did this to themselves, of course. Few understood the implications of the Internet on their businesses in the early days and most saw online advertising as simply frosting on the cake. Most are making the same mistake with social networks today, choosing to believe that Facebook is simply another publishing medium rather than a reinvention of the way people consume information. It’s good to see some paywall experiments paying dividends, but it’s also hard to believe that publishers will get themselves out of this mess. New entrants will have to figure that one out. In the meantime, playing defense probably makes sense. Miscellany
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