Category Archives: Uncategorized

by eubie

N.Y. Times closes the door

This month, the N.Y. Times closed a door on its archives that many bloggers, including myself, used to point to articles past the 7 days the N.Y. Times allows for open access to articles. Now those links point to an archive summary of the story.

Dave Winer says the Times should have given more warning or allowed all previous links to remain open. He also bemoans the loss of a newspaper of record for the Web.

It’s inconvenient, but the Times had the right to close its door. If regular Web readers did not have special access, why should blog readers?

Reuters, another source of news items for bloggers and others, plans to cut the material it gives to organizations such as Yahoo! and CBS MarketWatch, according to an article this week in the Wall Street Journal. (Link works only for paid subscribers.) Reuters’ plan is to offer more its content through subscriptions.

News organizations have wanted to charge for access to their archives and premium content for awhile after it became obvious that advertising revenue alone would not cover the costs. They have increased registration requirements on their sites to boost their appeal to advertisers.

But will readers pay? The belief is most will not. How many other local papers or regional organizations could reach the almost 700,000 online subscribers that the Wall Street Journal has?

by eubie

Skimming more, comprehending less

Interesting column by Joan Silverman and blog item by Amy Gahran on Contentious Weblog about the loss of comprehension of reading online compared with the printed editions. Tip: Smart Mobs

Silverman writes: “When I canceled my subscription to the hard-copy edition of the newspaper, I never looked back — that is, until a recent morning. I opened my e-mail headlines from the daily paper and spotted a half-dozen stories of interest. As I looked at the articles, however, I found that several were fairly long. Suddenly I felt a sense of dread, as if reading had become a form of punishment.

“And there’s the rub. For anything beyond casual browsing or skimming, I think I may hate the computer.”

“Yes, I’m much more of a skimmer than I was a decade ago,” Gahran writes. Then concludes: “There is no shame in being a news skimmer, as long as you still know how to dive deep when it matters, and are willing to take that plunge.”

by eubie

Books — Mar. 31

Current: The Murder Room by P.D. James. Set it aside for awhile to read Emotional Design.

Finished: Emotional Design: why we love (or hate) everyday things by Donald A. Norman. His first book The Psychology of Everyday Things was more eye-opening. Best parts were about designing robots with emotions so humans will feel more comfortable with them and “bystander apathy,” where mistakes happen because everyone in the group thinks someone else will catch or has caught the mistake.

Audio book
Current: Flashing before my eyes 50 years of headlines, deadlines & punchlines by Dick Schaap

Finished: To America: personal reflections of an historian by Stephen E. Ambrose.

by eubie

Wal-Mart, P&G expand as publishers

Wal-Mart and Time Inc. are publishing a magazine that will be sold only in Wal-Mart stores, according to this Reuters story.

If Wal-Mart, which controls 15 percent of all U.S. newsstands sales, is successful, other retailers could try publishing special magazines, says a journalism professor quoted in the article. Tip from rexblog.

Procter & Gamble is considering a print publication building on the success of its web site HomeMadeSimple.com, according to AdAge. One reason P&G is considering a print edition of that brand is possible backlash against Martha Stewart Living from Martha Stewart’s conviction. A P&G executive quoted in the article says HomeMadeSimple has also tested a TV show in the UK.

P&G has created a new online media brand HealthExpressions.com, to tap the unmet need of “light health-care information” and the ability of P&G products to meet that need.

One more publishing note, NY Times reports on Ford’s UK division signing a sponsorship deal with “Chick-lit” novelist Carole Matthews, that includes writing references to Ford’s Fiesta into her next novel. The novel, The Sweetest Taboo, was almost finished when the deal was signed. In the original draft it was a Vokswagen Beetle.

by eubie

Readers reply to “credibility crisis”

Credibility with readers has become a non-stop worry with newspapers.

Losing touch with readers is one reason given for many ills in the industry from falling circulation to believability of articles to news judgment. The revelations of plagarism or fabrication these days fuel the concerns of editors and publishers. Here is an ombudsman column from the Sacramento Bee on the range of comments from readers about the credibility of the Bee.

by eubie

Writing for the web

When newspapers first started Web sites, journalists envisioned it as a place where reporters could write long, putting back into stories what was cut.

That view didn’t last long. Writing for the web requires shorter, tighter writing. People scan Web articles, and they’ll leave a story quicker than they can turn a newspaper page.

Crawford Kilian writes Adapting Print Text for the Web urging shorter sentences, shorter overal lengths, more bulleted lists and being careful of color choices with text.

He has a 1,300-word “print” version and a Web “chunked” version about one-third as long. Tip: Steve Outing.