Podknife - Press Publish – Nieman Lab by Harvard University

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Show notes

Jason Kint on Twitter Digital Content Next, formerly the Online Publishers Association “CEO Explains Why the Online Publishers Association Changed Its Name” (Nov. 3, 2014) “Back in DC. 48hrs. 7,300 flight miles. 30+ premium publishers, 10 meetings all related to adblocking. Working hard on this issue.” “Dear ad blocking community, we need to talk” (Sept. 10, 2015) “Rise of ad blocking threatens German publishers” (May 28, 2015) “The Rise of Adblocking” (2013) “A blow for mobile advertising: The next version of Safari will let users block ads on iPhones and iPads” (June 10, 2015) “How big a deal will adblocking on iPhones and iPads be for publishers?” (June 12, 2015) “Ad Blockers Shoot to the Top of iPhone App Store Chart After Debut Day” (September 17, 2015) Auto Image Loading in Netscape WTF Ad Tech series at Digiday Napster Recording Industry Association of America Pop-up blocking “Over 300 businesses now whitelisted on AdBlock Plus, 10% pay to play” (February 3, 2015) Direct marketing “‘Tracking’ is immaterial to most publishers’ revenue streams. industry myth that it’s necessary.’ What is online behavioral advertising? Podcasting on Nieman Lab Native advertising on Nieman Lab “Publishers arm for war with ad blockers” (February 19, 2015) Timeline of file sharing Crystal “A wave of distributed content is coming — will publishers sink or swim?” (March 24, 2015) “Facebook’s Instant Articles are live: Either a shrewd mobile move by publishers — or feeding the Borg” (May 13, 2015) “Content blocking in iOS 9 is going to screw up way more than just ads” (August 28, 2015) “Separating advertising’s wheat and chaff” (August 12, 2015)

Sep 09, 2015

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It’s Episode 15 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast!

publish-2-1400px.jpg" alt="press-publish-2-1400px" width="300" height="300" class="nakedrightimage">My guest today is Matt Thompson. Since earlier this year, Matt has been deputy editor of TheAtlantic.com, But you might know him from some of his previous career stops. He spent a few years at NPR, heading up some of its most interesting digital initiatives, like Project Argo. Maybe you know him from Snarkmarket, the influential group blog he led with fellow smart guys Robin Sloan and Tim Carmody. Or you may just know him as a provocative thinker on the shape of modern media.

Matt’s one of the key people behind Notes, a new section The Atlantic launched last month that promises to bring blogging back to The Atlantic. It’s an interesting attempt to recapture some of the looser, voicier, more conversational structures of the early 2000s — some of which has been lost in the rise of social media and commercialized online news.

We talked about how blogging seeped into the DNA of today’s news, whether Wikipedia-ing the news is still a thing, and how Slack is creating a new context for editorial voice. Here’s our conversation.

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Show notes

Matt Thompson (his site still has an old bio on it, alas) @mthomps The Atlantic The Atlantic’s Notes section Chris Bodenner, Atlantic senior editor “Welcome to Notes” (August 27, 2015) “The Atlantic is returning to blogging” (August 27, 2015) “The People Formerly Known as the Audience” (June 27, 2006) J.J. Gould, editor of TheAtlantic.com “For the Golden Horde” (December 22, 2010) “The Atlantic redesigns, trading clutter and density for refinement” (April 22, 2015) The reader survey The Atlantic used for user testing “Two out of two news organizations recommend user research” (July 29, 2015) Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic The Matt Thompson tag page on Nieman Lab “Building permission structures for short content (Vox edition)” (May 19, 2014) “The blog is dead, long live the blog” (December 19, 2013) The Sully lede Infocom #thedress Email newsletters on Nieman Lab Podcasts on Nieman Lab TheAtlantic.com homepage in 2011 media-venture-to-include-nbc-buzzfeed-and-new-york-times.html?_r=0">“Facebook Begins Testing Instant Articles From News Publishers” (May 13, 2015) “A confab with Matt Thompson: Noodling the future of context” (May 5, 2009) Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans (March 4, 2008) Power laws Slack Alexis C. Madrigal Stewart Butterfield Game Neverending FiveThirtyEight makes an article out of its Slack Snarkmarket Project Argo, an NPR blogging initiative Matt led Nieman Lab coverage of Project Argo The Argolinks WordPress plugin, developed by Project Argo, now powering our What We’re Reading “The 2016 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet” (updated September 7, 2015) “Wikipedia-ing the news,” Matt’s RJI Fellowship project in 2008 Vox’s card stacks Nieman Lab coverage of Circa Parse.ly MediaWiki, the software that underlies Wikipedia An example of a Vox StoryStream on The Verge Radiolab: The Rhino Hunter Pop Culture Happy Hour An array of Walking Dead response podcasts

Aug 26, 2015

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It’s Episode 14 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast!

publish-2-1400px.jpg" alt="press-publish-2-1400px" width="300" height="300" class="nakedrightimage">My guest today is Jenna Weiss-Berman, the director of audio at BuzzFeed. Jenna was hired last fall to figure out the site’s podcasting strategy, and thus far she’s launched three shows, each targeting the sites’s young diverse audience.

Just about everything BuzzFeed does draws attention, and its approach to podcasting is no different. Jenna’s job is to figure out audio’s place between BuzzFeed’s two great goliaths — text with pictures on one hand and video on the other. BuzzFeed’s enormous success with viral content might make you think social sharing is her team’s main goal — but in some ways BuzzFeed’s podcasts are more traditional than that.

We talked about how podcasts can reach a younger audience, whether audio is just a stepping stone to video, and her advice for young people who want to break into the podcast business. Here’s our conversation.

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Show notes

Jenna Weiss-Berman on LinkedIn @WBJenna BuzzFeed Podcasts Another Round Internet Explorer Rerun Jack Shepherd What is the best way to track podcast “listenership”? Ben Smith, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Lean In Julia Furlan Heben Nigatu and Tracy Clayton, hosts of Another Round Internet Explorer on SoundCloud Another Round live show in June “What Kind Of Stuff On The Internet Do Teens Actually Think Is Cool?” (July 15, 2015) “14 Times Daria And Quinn Morgendorffer Were You And Your Sister” (Aug. 17, 2015) Earwolf Panoply The debut episode of Internet Explorer Carl Kasell NPR One TED Radio Hour Call Your Girlfriend Matt Lieber of Gimlet Media Serial Welcome to Night Vale “35 Hidden Podcasts You Really Should Be Listening To” (July 8, 2015) An example of an ad in Another Round “BuzzFeed Motion Pictures videos reach 1 billion monthly views” (March 12, 2015) Grantland’s podcasts to-invest-200-million-in-buzzfeed.html">“NBCUniversal to Invest $200 Million in BuzzFeed” (Aug. 18, 2015) Acast 99% Invisible Scumbag Steve Anna Sale Death, Sex, and Money It Gets Better

Photo via Retail DJ.

Aug 19, 2015

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It’s Episode 13 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast!

publish-2-1400px.jpg" alt="press-publish-2-1400px" width="300" height="300" class="nakedrightimage">My guest today is Adam Ragusea, the host of The Pub, a podcast about the state of public media — mostly public radio. I first heard Adam’s voice about 7 years ago, when he was a reporter for WBUR, the local NPR station here in Boston. He’s since moved into teaching journalism at Mercer University in Georgia, and by hosting The Pub — which is based out of Current, the website covering public media — he’s established himself as one of the more interesting and ornery thinkers about the field’s future.

We talked about a range of topics — how the shift to podcasting is putting local news at risk, why he thinks public radio is stuck producing content that doesn’t work well online, and what he’d do if he were running NPR or an NPR member station. Here’s our conversation.

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Show notes

The Pub @aragusea AdamRagusea.com Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism Shaggy dog story The News from Lake Wobegon Savage Lovecast Georgia Public Broadcasting Ringr, an interview-recording app for iOS and Android PodClear, another interview-recording app that Adam couldn’t remember the name of WBUR, Boston’s NPR News station Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory Why you should be using the Oxford comma “Why you’re doing audio levels wrong, and why it really does matter” (July 14, 2014) Adam’s upcoming presentation on loudness An anechoic chamber The Fletcher-Munson curves Audacity Adobe Audition Loudness units GarageBand Hindenburg Lindsay Patterson asks: Where is the YouTube for podcasts? “Journalists shouldn’t lose their rights in their move to private platforms” (April 20, 2015) PRX Morning Edition All Things Considered “Texas Turns Down Cook’s Offer Of Free ‘Last Meals'” (All Things Considered, September 27, 2011) 11 herbs and spices Celeste Headlee On Second Thought The Pub #31: Adam Davidson on the economics of public radio in the podcasting era John Sutton and Adam Davidson debate (at length!) the future of public radio WGBH NPR One Starch, meat, starch, meat, Jell-O The Pub #27: NPR One’s Sara Sarasohn, live from Lost & Found in Washington, D.C. WTF with Marc Maron The Pub #26: The business of podcasting, live from the PMDMC Conference The great Bob Oakes KQED WNYC Finish Line: Inside The Boston Marathon Bombing Trial (David Boeri and Kevin Cullen podcast) West Virginia Public Broadcasting podcasts WBUR’s program schedule WBUR’s Sunday church service broadcast Boston University World of Ideas Jarl Mohn, NPR CEO The NPR board of directors went-wrong-at-national-public-radio.html?pagewanted=all">What went wrong at National Public Radio? (June 12, 1983) An explanation of cume and AQH KRVS, Radio Acadie (great Cajun/zydeco music) Jarl Mohn: “Broadcast radio is the cockroach of media. You can’t kill it. You can’t make it go away, it just gets stronger and more resilient.” Chicago Public Media’s Vocalo “How KPCC in Los Angeles grew its Latino listenership while trying to keep its traditional audience” (July 16, 2015)

Photo by Grant Blankenship.

Aug 12, 2015

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It’s Episode 12 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast!

publish-2-1400px.jpg" alt="press-publish-2-1400px" width="300" height="300" class="nakedrightimage">My guest in today’s episode is Jesse Holcomb, an associate director of research at the Pew Research Center. Jesse is one of Pew’s lead researchers on journalism, which means he’s been part of a lot of interesting projects — analyzing issues like how local news is surviving in the Internet age, digital security for investigative journalists, and how stories get consumed on social media.

It’s not overstating it to call Pew an essential player of the contemporary journalism landscape. Their audience surveys, their deep analysis, their data crunching — they’re all a big part of what we know about how things are changing. And by reminding us that, actually, not everyone is on Twitter all day, and hey, local tv is still the No. 1 way people get their news, they provide a useful corrective for those of us who sit in front of a screen all day.

Jesse and I talked about my slight panic over the future of local news, how they’re thinking about studying the presidential election cycle we’re entering, and how Pew’s own approach to getting its findings out is changing. Here’s our conversation.

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Show notes

Jesse Holcomb’s bio @JesseHolcomb Pew Research Center Our many, many NIeman Lab stories about Pew’s research over the years Pew’s 2015 State of the News Media report Pew’s Journalism & Media work Pew Charitable Trusts Pew’s Religion & Public Life and Internet, Science & Tech “15% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they?” (Monica Anderson and Andrew Perrin) “How Americans Get TV News at Home” (Kenneth Olmstead, Mark Jurkowitz, Amy Mitchell, and Jodi Enda) press.org/2012/09/27/in-changing-news-landscape-even-television-is-vulnerable/">“In Changing News Landscape, Even Television is Vulnerable” Michele’s List “ASNE releases 2015 newsroom census results” “The Growth in Digital Reporting” (Mark Jurkowitz) News-Matthew-Hindman.pdf">“Stickier News: What Newspapers Don’t Know about Web Traffic Has Hurt Them Badly — But There is a Better Way” (Matt Hindman paper) press.org/2015/04/28/what-the-public-knows-in-pictures-words-maps-and-graphs/">“What the Public Knows — In Pictures, Words, Maps and Graphs” “Voter turnout always drops off for midterm elections, but why?” (Drew DeSilver) alan.html">Alan I. Abramowitz “What information does” (on Abramowitz’s research, by Austin Frakt) “Political Polarization & Media Habits” (Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, Jocelyn Kiley, and Katerina Eva Matsa) Walter Lippmann on journalism “9 Most Scathing Jon Stewart Cable News Takedowns on ‘The Daily Show’ (Videos)” “Cable News: Fact Sheet” “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words” Pew Research’s Fact Tank “As Jon Stewart steps down, 5 facts about The Daily Show” (Jeffrey Gottfried, Katerina Eva Matsa, and Michael Barthel) “The Evolving Role of News on Twitter and Facebook” (Michael Barthel, Elisa Shearer, Jeffrey Gottfried, and Amy Mitchell) “Local News in a Digital Age” “Millennials and Political News: Social Media – the Local TV for the Next Generation?” (Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, and Katerina Eva Matsa)

Photo by Hillary Scholten.

Aug 05, 2015

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It’s Episode 11 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast!

publish-2-1400px.jpg" alt="press-publish-2-1400px" width="300" height="300" class="nakedrightimage">Hey, did you not know we have a podcast? That’s fair — Press Publish debuted back in January 2013 and, like many podcasts, it lost steam after a while. But we’re ready to jump back in! I hope you’ll join us as we interview some of the most interesting people in digital news.

In today’s episode, I interviewed Cory Haik, the executive director of emerging news products at The Washington Post. Cory has been the news-side lead for the Post’s Project Rainbow, its attempt to rethink its strategy for presenting news on mobile. (We wrote about its very interesting new iPhone app last month.) There aren’t that many traditional news publishers who are innovating in mobile apps, but the Post is definitely high on that list.

We talked about the Post’s strategy, the design resources necessary to carry it out, how tablet and smartphone app designs differ, the advantage of being preinstalled on a device, and a lot more. I hope you’ll give it a listen — and that you subscribe to the podcast (here’s the iTunes link) and keep listening.

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Show notes

@coryhaik “Meet the Post’s mobile leadership, A Q&A with Cory Haik and Julia Beizer” (Oct. 21, 2014) “Cory Haik named Executive Director for Emerging News Products” (July 21, 2015) The Washington Post The Post’s mobile apps The Project Rainbow-ized version of the Post’s website Julie Beizer, the Post’s director of mobile product “The Washington Post’s new iOS app emphasizes bold design to try to reach a national and global audience” (July 9, 2015) “Washington Post launches twice-daily tablet editions on Amazon Fire app” (Nov. 20, 2014) “The Washington Post is experimenting with bringing its tablet experience to the web” (May 5, 2015) “Squirrel!” “A new app from NowThis wants to reduce the work of finding news to one big red button” (July 29, 2015) The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz Cognitive load “2013: The Year ‘the Stream’ Crested” (Alexis Madrigal, Dec. 12, 2013) “Small podcasters have trouble finding new listeners and monetizing, survey finds” (July 17, 2015) Rainbow Brite The Washington Post (the new app) for iPhone Washington Post Classic for iPhone The Washington Post Advisory Panel Shailesh Prakash, Post CTO/CIO Marty Baron, Post editor “A mixed bag on apps: What The New York Times learned with NYT Opinion and NYT Now” (Oct. 1, 2014) “A new NYT Now: All the aggregation you enjoyed before, now for free” (May 11, 2015) Joey Marburger, the Post’s director of digital products and design “How involved has Jeff Bezos been at The Washington Post? Here’s one data point” (Feb. 11, 2015) “Bezos courts Washington Post editors, reporters” (Sept. 4, 2013) Socialcam “The Washington Post Becomes Official News Partner of Socialcam for 2012 Summer Olympics Coverage” (July 9, 2012)

Photo of Cory Haik by Journalisme & Citoyenneté used under a Creative Commons license.

Apr 03, 2013

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shackelford.jpg" alt="tiffany-shackelford" width="300" height="400" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 10 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Tiffany Shackelford, executive director of Association of Alternative Newsmedia, until recently known as the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. They’re the trade group for alt weeklies in the U.S. — your Village Voices, your Chicago Readers, your Seattle Weeklies — and until recently, the Boston Phoenix.

The legendary Boston alt weekly surprised the publishing world last month when it announced it was closing after 47 years. That led to a new round of concerns about the future of alt weeklies, which have seen a lot of the same revenue declines that dailies have over the past decade. And when daily newspapers were strong, it was easy to know who the alt weeklies were an alternative to; now there’s no shortage of alternatives to the alternative.

publish-logo.png" alt="press-publish-logo" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">Tiffany believes that alts still have a solid future ahead of them, particularly in markets smaller than Boston. We talked about how their revenue mix is shifting, how some alts are changing their publication cycle and becoming more heavily digital, and who are the model players that other publishers should be watching. If you’re interested in the future of some of America’s most prominent newspaper brands, give our conversation a listen.

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Show notes

@tiffanyshack Tiffany’s LinkedIn profile Association of Alternative Newsmedia 2012: “Alt weeklies eye an AP of their own with a content exchange” The Boston Phoenix, R.I.P. end-boston-phoenix-publishes-final-issue-today-statement-from-publisher-stephen-m-mindich.aspx">Phoenix publisher Stephen Mindich’s goodbye The Independent in Lafayette, Louisiana Long Island Press American Independent News Network Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity Stateline.org Barbara Mandrell, “I Was Country (When Country Wasn’t Cool)” Capitolbeat, the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors Ernie Smith, “Alt-weeklies may struggle but don’t count them out” Rachael Daigle, “Alt-Weeklies Are Dead; Long Live Alt-Weeklies” Dan Kennedy, “The Boston Phoenix comes to the end of the road” “The Boston Phoenix closing is another sign that glossing up print doesn’t work miracles” the-boston-phoenix-kept-its-readers-but-lost-its-advertisers078.html">Dan Kennedy, “How the Boston Phoenix Kept Its Readers But Lost Its Advertisers” DigBoston Allyson Bird, “Why I left news” Job listings at AltWeeklies.com Arkansas Times’ Arkansas Blog Walter Hussman’s pro-paywall position OC Weekly Willamette Week WW’s Candidates Gone Wild The Media Consortium Seven Days Creative Loafing’s neighborhoods project with the Home Depot Foundation The Reader of Omaha East Bay Express Charleston City Paper Voice Media Group The Stranger of Seattle paper-to-cease-publication-january-31.html">The Other Paper in Columbus closing The Times of Acadiana (owned by Gannett) New Haven Advocate SouthComm Boise Weekly Chicago Reader Now in Toronto Gambit in New Orleans

Mar 18, 2013

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mitchell-tall.jpg" alt="amy-mitchell-tall" width="300" height="450" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 9 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Amy Mitchell, acting director for the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

This morning, Pew came out with its latest edition of the State of the Media, its annual analysis of where the news business stands. It’s a must-read every year, and Amy and I were able to chat about a sneak peak at it late last week.

While it may be true of-union-address-language-changed-over-time.html?_r=0">that the state of the union is forever “strong,” it’s hard to argue the same about the news industry. Pew’s report goes into the continued financial decline of traditional news outlets (and the hopeful signs of new revenue streams); it examines how the new news ecosystem is changing audience habits; and it looks at the declining state of local television, still the No. 1 source of news for Americans.

publish-logo.png" alt="press-publish-logo" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">Pew’s great at combining original survey research with a keen analytical eye, and their reports are some of the most valuable resources we have to move from ideas to real data. If you’re interested in stepping back a bit and understanding how 2013 is looking different from 2012 or 2011, give it a listen.

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State of the Media 2013 Last year’s State of the Media Earlier State of the Media reports, 2004-2011 Key findings from this year’s report “Many Americans Abandon News Outlets, Citing Less Information” “Friends and Family — Important Drivers of News” “The Changing TV News Landscape” “The Media and Campaign 2012”

Show notes

And here’s the giant infographic Pew assembled to illustrate its findings:

State-of-the-News-Media-Overview-Infographic1.png" alt="2013-State-of-the-News-Media-Overview-Infographic1" width="600" height="5355" class="nakedboxedimage">

Feb 28, 2013

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christensen-cc1.jpg" alt="clay-christensen-cc" width="990" height="660" class="nakedboxedimage">It’s Episode 8 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! Our guests this week are Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen and David Skok, the director of digital at Globalnews.ca in Canada.

Normally, episodes of Press Publish feature me having an extended conversation with someone doing interesting work in journalism innovation. This one’s different — it’s actually a recording of an event we held here at the Nieman Foundation last night.

reports-fall-2012-clay-skok.jpg" alt="nieman-reports-fall-2012-clay-skok" width="300" height="388" class="nakedrightimage">Does Clay Christensen really need an introduction at this point? Once you’ve been named the top management thinker in the world, I imagine not. Clay is the man behind Innovation-Primer.pdf">disruptive innovation, the theory of how industries respond to technological changes that alter access to products or services. His book The Innovator’s Dilemma is one of the most influential business books of the past two decades, and his Newspaper Next project in 2006 provided an alternate vision of what a more agile U.S. newspaper business might have looked like.

publish-logo.png" alt="press-publish-logo" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">David was a Nieman Fellow last year, and during that year he studied with Clay on the application of his theories to news. The result was News.aspx">“Breaking News,” a piece for the fall issue of our sister publication Nieman Reports that outlines the hurdles and the possibilities. (You may remember an interview I did with the coauthors back in October.)

Last night, David came in from Toronto and Clay came in from across campus to talk to a crowd of about 70 about technological disruption in journalism. They were in conversation with Nieman Foundation curator Ann Marie Lipinski. It’s a great framing of disruption and definitely worth a listen.

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Horace Dediu: “Re-framing the dichotomies: Open/Closed vs. Integrated/Fragmented”

Show notes

Clayton Christensen Clay’s bio David Skok @claychristensen on Twitter @dskok on Twitter News.aspx">Nieman Reports: “Breaking News: Mastering the art of disruptive innovation in journalism” October 18, 2012: “Clay Christensen on the news industry: ‘We didn’t quite understand…how quickly things fall off the cliff'” The New Yorker: “When giants fall: What business has learned from Clayton Christensen” Wired: “Clayton Christensen Wants to Transform Capitalism” The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out, Clayton M. Christensen and Henry J. Eyring January 27, 2012: “David Skok: Aggregation is deep in journalism’s DNA” Christensen and Eyring: “How Disruptive Innovation is Remaking the University” to-be-done.cfm">Jobs to Be Done Next.aspx">Newspaper Next Oct. 2011: “The path of disruption: Did Newspaper Next succeed in transforming newspapers? Oct. 2011: “Moms, coupons and search: What happened in the Newspaper Next demonstration projects” Christensen, 2011: “Jobs made Apple great by ignoring profit” 2009: “Godrej creates affordable refrigerator for rural India” chotoKool Godrej The Peltier effect

Photo of Christensen by World Economic Forum used under a Creative Commons license.

Feb 20, 2013

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maness1.jpg" alt="michael-maness" width="300" height="300" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 7 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Michael Maness, who leads the Journalism and Media Innovation program at the Knight Foundation.

If you pay much attention to the journalism innovation world — or if you’ve been reading this site for long — you know that Knight is the biggest of big dogs in the space. They give more than $30 million a year to a mixture of startups, news organizations, coding projects, and other ventures they believe will help support the information needs of communities. Name a prominent nonprofit news outlet or journalism school — or, increasingly, a news-related open source project — and there’s a pretty good shot Knight has either funded it or been asked to fund it. (That includes — disclosure! — this website, which has received Knight funding.) You could get a pretty good idea of the journalism-innovation zeitgeist just by looking at who Knight is funding at any given moment.

publish-logo.png" alt="press-publish-logo" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">Michael and I talked about how Knight decides on its journalism priorities, how those have shifted in recent years, and how they’re trying to ensure the projects they fund have impact beyond the length of a grant. If you’re interested in how journalism’s biggest foundation funder is thinking about the challenges in 2013, you should definitely give it a listen.

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Michael Maness @michaelmaness Michael’s LinkedIn leader.com/">Springfield News-Leader Springfield (The Simpsons) — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia About Knight Foundation John S. Knight James L. Knight Knight Communities Code for America Knight Chairs in Journalism Knight News Challenge Nieman Lab coverage of the Knight News Challenge Alberto Ibargüen Previous winners of the News Challenge 2010: “Trust, mobile, and money: New focal points (and hints for applicants) for the new Knight News Challenge” 2011 FCC report: “The Information Needs of Communities: The changing media landscape in a broadband age” Texas Tribune Knight’s 2009 grant to the Texas Tribune 2009: “Gary Kebbel on the Knight News Challenge: Repetitive ideas, tougher judges hurt some applicants” Recovers.org “Knight Foundation diversifies its journalism investments again with its new Prototype Fund” “A new class of Knight News Challenge winners focuses on mobile in the developing world” Ushahidi International Center for Journalists “One wonders whether ‘News’ Challenge will always remain the appropriate name.” OpenIDEO DocumentCloud Scott Lewis vs. Scott Klein EveryBlock Knight’s 2007 $1.1 million grant for EveryBlock Knight’s 2010 $235,000 grant for OpenBlock Knight’s 2011 $275,000 grant for OpenBlock Rural Mark Armstrong: “The death of EveryBlock and why I suddenly care about local” “News Challenge on Open Gov: Submit now, not later” Nieman Lab Book Club 2009: Jay Hamilton’s All the News That’s Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News Jay Hamilton, Duke University Rachel Sterne Haot, chief digital officer, New York City “A court case against those skeezy mugshot websites raises First Amendment issues” “Journal News Gun Map Goes Out With A Bang: ‘We Do Not Cower’ To Bullies, Says Publisher” Knight Media Learning Seminar 2013 “Beyond Lehrer: Some optimism in Miami around foundations helping fill community info needs” Community Information Toolkit 2010: “Knight Foundation’s new biz consultant thinks news startups can learn from outside of journalism” Peter Spear (@pspear)

Show notes

Feb 13, 2013

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edmonds.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 6 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Rick Edmonds, Poynter’s media business analyst, and our topic is the business outlook for American newspapers.

Rick’s been writing about the business side of newspapers for many years, and in reading some of his recent work, I thought I’d detected a slight hint of optimism. Not full-blown excitement about the business future of newspapers, mind you — they’re still awfully challenged, by a host of factors — but a general feeling that a combination of paywall, ancillary products, and other strategies are, at least in places, helping steady a sector that has seen little but bad news over the past decade or so.

publish-logo.png" alt="" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">Rick and I had an informative conversation about the state of play around paywalls and digital advertising, where new strategies are being tried, and how they’re working. (We discuss The New York Times Co., MediaNews Group, Digital First, Journal Register, Gannett, Media General, the Columbus Dispatch, the Orange County Register, U-T San Diego, and more.) If you give it a listen, you’ll come out the other side smarter about how American newspapers are performing.

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Rick Edmonds on Poynter @RickEdmonds Dec. 9, 2008: “Rick Edmonds predicts a lot of coal in newspapers’ stockings” Poynter: “Newspapers report ad revenue loss for 25th quarter in a row” Poynter: “At New York Times, 65% of digital-only subscribers are ‘entirely new'” Poynter: “The case for paywalls: Gannett gains while Digital First experiments” Poynter: “The tale of 3 paywalls: E.W. Scripps goes all in, Gannett brags, Washington Post thaws” April 21, 2011: “A New York Times TimesSelect flashback: Early numbers are nice, but growth over time is nicer” March 7, 2011: “Who owns newspaper companies? The banks, funds, and investors and their (big) slices of the industry” Fast Company: “Why Dell Decided To Go Private” Digital First CEO John Paton: “The Subscription Project — Or A Paywall By Any Other Name” Jonathan Stray: “Focus and web-only content: How the Deseret News supports a local newsroom with a national strategy” Ken Doctor: “The newsonomics of Advance’s New Orleans strategy” Philip Meyer, The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age Poynter: “New York Times suspends paywall for Hurricane Sandy” Huffington Post: “New York Times Amps Up Paywall, Non-Subscribers Can Only Access 10 Articles Free” “The Boston Globe tightens up as executives seek ‘the optimal balance’ between free and paid” AJR, 2004: “Churn, Baby, Churn” 2004, St. Petersburg Times: “When newspapers fudge the numbers: to-reflect-leadership-in-new-world-of-media.aspx">Alliance for Audited Media (formerly the Audit Bureau of Circulations) 2010: “How much can we trust e-edition numbers? Depends on the paper” NAA’s John Murray talking to Rick about how Sunday circulation is counted deal-on-postage-for-direct-mail-upsets-newspapers.html?_r=0">New York Times: “Newspapers Fighting Deal on Postage for Ad Fliers” Groupon’s stock decline since IPO “Lessons from the Motor City: What New Orleans might expect when the printing presses slow” Ken Doctor: “The newsonomics of pressing innovation” (on the Columbus Dispatch/Cincinnati Enquirer format change) The Berliner format at The Guardian 2010: “Doubling down on print: Canada’s Globe and Mail unveils a new print edition to complement the web” 2010: “Does investing in print help the bottom line? Discouraging evidence from the San Francisco Chronicle” “Tuesday Q&A: Globe and Mail Publisher Phillip Crawley on the paper’s paywall plans” Ken Doctor: “The newsonomics of Tribune’s metro agony” Media General sells 63 newspapers to Warren Buffett Ken Doctor: “The newsonomics of Aaron Kushner’s virtuous circles” “The Orange County Register is hiring dozens of reporters, focusing on print-first expansion” Ken Doctor: “The newsonomics of near-term numerology” (noting The Tampa Tribune’s $9 million sale) 2011: San Diego Union-Tribune sold to Doug Manchester Poynter: “What to expect at next week’s big media investors’ conference & who will be missing” Poynter: “For newspaper stocks, 2012 was a surprisingly good year” Poynter: “Newspaper investor Randy Smith breaks silence to speak up for Gannett” 2011: “Alden Global Capital drops a shoe: Is the Journal Register acquisition prelude to more consolidation?” Martin Langeveld: “Journal Register’s bankruptcy is strategic, all right — but for whom?” Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism: Newspapers turning ideas into dollars James “Scotty” Reston

Show notes

Feb 06, 2013

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new.jpg" alt="chanders-new" width="300" height="363" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 5 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Chris Anderson, author of the new book Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age.

Chris — you’ll know his byline as C.W. Anderson, since contemporary American journalism and technology is silly with Chris Andersons — has written a book that looks at how the Philadelphia media market was affected by (and responded to) the rise of online journalism. He spent months inside the city’s major newsrooms, at The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, and among the bloggers, startups, and other new players introduced to the media ecosystem by the web’s lowering of barriers to publication.

How did reporters’ conceptions of themselves change with the new competition for their audiences’ attention? How did they differentiate what they did from what others did — and who was willing to steal a few tricks from the bloggers? How did journalists take advantage (or not) of new opportunities to collaborate?

publish-logo.png" alt="" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">Chris and I had a good, vigorous discussion about how his thinking about traditional media institutions evolved during his research, about how Internet-native approaches to news had trouble penetrating the Inquirer building, and whether or not “post-industrial” really describes the phase journalism’s going through. (He also outs himself as a confirmed Weberian.)

Aside from this book and his other writing at Nieman Lab and elsewhere, Chris has been part of two of the most important state-of-the-news reports of recent years: 2009’s Downie-Schudson report (Chris was a research assistant on it) and 2012’s “Post-Industrial Journalism,” coauthored with Emily Bell and Clay Shirky. By day, he’s an assistant professor of media culture at CUNY’s College of Staten Island, a visiting fellow at Yale’s Information Society Project, and a Knight Media Policy Fellow at the New America Foundation.

This was a fun one — give it a listen.

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Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age

Show notes

anderson-chanders-rebuilding-the-news-cover.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="467" class="nakedrightimage">C.W. Anderson

@chanders on Twitter

“How journalists’ self-concepts hindered their adaptation to a digital world,” an excerpt from Rebuilding the News

“The public is still a problem, and other lessons from Rebuilding the News,” Chris’ reflections on the book

Community organizing — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chris’s articles for Nieman Lab

Alternative media — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Democracy Now!

WBAI Free Speech Radio

Objectivity (journalism) — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Ethnography — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Haddon Township, New Jersey, “where community thrives”

The Wired City, Dan Kennedy’s upcoming book on local journalism in New Haven, Conn.

Herbert J. Gans, author of the classic ’70s news ethnography Deciding What’s News

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia Daily News

Alex Jones’ “iron core of journalism”

Len Downie and Michael Schudson’s 2009 report “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” (Chris was a research assistant on it)

“Post-Industrial Journalism,” the 2012 report by Chris, Emily Bell, and Clay Shirky (see the section on institutions)

Nieman Lab gloss on “Post-Industrial Journalism”

“Local journalism’s vision of itself — as an institutionally grounded profession that empirically informs (and even, perhaps, ‘assembles’) the public — is a noble vision of tremendous democratic importance. But the unreflexive commitment to a particular and historically contingent version of this self-image now undermines these larger democratic aspirations.”

Philebrity

Mass media — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Publics — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Simon in 2009: “The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing is the day I will no longer be worried about journalism.”

My talk at Harvard Law in 2010 on journalists’ conception of aggregation

Will Bunch’s blog Attytood

Noblesse oblige

Philly.com, the joint site of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News

NetNewsCheck, Dec. 10: “Inquirer, Daily News to split from Philly.com”

“Tuesday Q&A: Bill Marimow on his new old job, and the future of the Philadelphia Inquirer”

Charlie Beckett on networked journalism

PBS MediaShift’s Collaboration Central

Jeff Jarvis, 2007: “Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.”

Max Weber — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“[Weber] notes that the instability of charismatic authority forces it to ‘routinise’ into a more structured form of authority.”

media-network-sold-for-55-million.html#axzz2K5NpDvbo">Philadelphia newspapers sold in 2006 for $515 million, in 2010 for $139 million, and in 2012 for $55 million

Photo by Jessica Kaufman.

Jan 30, 2013

Unknown

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publish-logo.png" alt="" title="" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 4 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Trei Brundrett, the VP for product and technology at Vox Media.

Vox is the publisher of the sports site SB Nation, the tech site The Verge, and video game site Polygon, and it’s one of my very favorite online media companies. I love that they’re ambitious on content — building a quality mix of short and long, user-generated and pro-generated, aggregated and original — and that they’re ambitious on technology. And they make money. To me, Vox feels like one of a very few online media companies that is both native to the web and invested in some traditional values about quality. They’re worth watching, even if you have no interest at all in sports, tech, or video games.

Trei started out in the world of politics and helped build SB Nation to the point that it could evolve into Vox. When Adweek named him to its Adweek 50 (“the people who make the machinery of media, marketing and technology hum”), this is what they said about him:

Under Brundrett’s direction, Vox Media has evolved into one of the most agile Web-based publishers. Building a proprietary content management platform, his technology powers the journalists of The Verge, Polygon and over 300 SB Nation fan-created media properties. Focused on functional and design-rich technology, Brundrett and Vox have pushed past conventional Web design with efforts such as StoryStream, which populates a writer’s updates in real time to provide an organized and intuitive history of complex breaking news.

We had a good, wide-ranging conversation about Vox’s evolution and where it’s headed in 2013. Give it a listen, and I hope (if you haven’t already) you’ll subscribe to Press Publish in the podcast app of your choice.

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Show notes

@clockwerks, Trei on Twitter Trei’s resume Vox Media SB Nation, Vox’s sports site The Verge, Vox’s tech site Polygon, Vox’s gaming site Vox Media 2012 By the Numbers (185 employees; 389,692 pieces of content; 35,412,480 comments) Chorus, Vox Media’s proprietary backend Vox Media’s product team blog Markos Moulitsas Jerome Armstrong Tyler Bleszinski Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) Ryan Gantz Daily Kos Daily Kos’ diaries a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/2845741941/732bf90726e616fa23c98cadf4f9aef6.jpeg">Trei in an Astros hat Scoop CMS Slashdot Rusty Foster “For once, Nick Denton seems pleased with Gawker’s commenting system” Canal Street Chronicles, an example of a SB Nation community site Jim Bankoff, Vox CEO Content management systems Nieman Lab stories on Jim Bankoff and Vox An example of a SB Nation player page An example of a Verge product page An example of a Polygon game page An example of The Verge’s product comparison tool The Verge’s features page Vox Product blog: “An inside peek into the Polygon design process” An example of a templated, less-“designed” feature: “After Aaron: how an antiquated law enables the government’s war on hackers, activists, and you” An example of a more designed feature: “For Amusement Only: the life and death of the American arcade An example of a Verge review (of the iPad mini) Source’s interview with Vox staff on building the arcades feature A few videos from Vox Studios, Vox’s “in-house creative and production group” that does work for both editorial and business-side An episode of “90 Seconds on The Verge,” the site’s daily video briefing An episode of “On The Verge,” the site’s late-night-talk-show-style program, hosted by Josh Topolsky, with example of an integrated sponsorship from Ford (go to 45:50) The New York Times’ Snow Fall package An example of a SB Nation Storystream, on the Pro Bowl SB Nation United, the site’s recent rebranding and visual unification The Atlantic’s Scientology sponsored-content snafu SB Nation’s Marines sponsored-content package SB Nation user SDCat09, who has left 227,399 comments (at this writing) “How We Moderate Here On SB Nation” The Verge iPhone app Editable comments The Verge’s iPad mini liveblog An example of a Vox review that’s been revised over time

Photo by @nivshah used under a Creative Commons license.

Jan 23, 2013

Unknown

publish-logo.png" alt="" title="" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 3 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor and thinker about the ways of journalism.

Given that journalism is a profession centered around the idea of an audience, it’s a little bit disappointing how few journalism academics ever feel much need to engage with the general public. And the names that might come to mind as exceptions to that — Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman — were more fundamentally interested in media than in journalism proper. That’s why Jay has been so valuable to the field and, I’d argue, the profession — he’s an inside-outside voice pricking journalism when it needs to be pricked. His ideas, once shouted down in newsrooms, have become something closer to received wisdom for many. He’s changed the way people think about political reporting in particular, and he’s built an audience of his own for his thinking, both in and out of journalism.

rosen.jpg" alt="" title="" width="300" height="311" class="nakedleftimage">My conversation with Jay touched on a lot of subjects: his entry into first journalism and then the journalism academy; the influence of James Carey, Postman, and McLuhan on his work; the Lippmann-Dewey debate and the changing conception of “the public” in journalism; the rise and quasi-fall of civic journalism; why we need a better horse-race journalism; how the press’ conception of itself evolves; how he’s trying to model a different kind of journalism education; whether I’m too much of a pessimist; and what he’d like to be remembered for. It’s an idea-packed hour; I think you’ll like it.

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Show notes

Jan 16, 2013

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mcgrane.jpg" alt="" title="" width="600" height="342" class="nakedboxedimage">

publish-logo.png" alt="" title="" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">It’s Episode 2 of Press Publish, the Nieman Lab podcast! My guest this week is Karen McGrane. She’s a content strategist and user experience designer who’s worked with a number of media companies — The New York Times, Condé Nast, The Atlantic, Time Inc., and others. (She was the design lead on the Times’ 2006 redesign — which, with a few accumulated tweaks, is still the basis of what NYTimes.com looks like today.)

Karen’s got a great new book out that I’d recommend you check out: Content Strategy for Mobile.

strategy-for-mobile-karen-mcgrane.jpg" alt="" title="" width="600" height="289" class="nakedboxedimage">

I think a lot of people would benefit from reading it — it’s not a technical book about building a mobile website. It’s more about the backend than the frontend; it’s about how publishers should structure their content — from workflows to tools to processes — to enable that content to flow across multiple platforms. In other words, if you view your task as optimizing for iPhone screens or Galaxy S III screens, you’re making the same mistake as when you optimized for desktop browsers. You will have to deal with new platforms in 2013 that you haven’t yet heard of, and being agile with your content is more important than picking a platform or two and building for them.

Karen and I also talk a bit about the basics of content strategy, new startups like Circa and Summly, responsive web design, and the possibilities (and absurdities) of responsive text. Hope you enjoy. (By the way, Wednesday is the day I’ll be aiming to put out a new episode each week.)

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Show notes

Karen McGrane @karenmcgrane Karen’s book, Content Strategy for Mobile Razorfish Content strategy Karen’s “Adapting Ourselves to Adaptive Content,” An Event Apart Boston, 2012 The Daily Blobs vs. chunks Tumblr Patrick LaForge: “Writers wonder why editors trim stories in the online report. Answer: Reader patience online is even more precious than newsprint space.” Highlights from NPR in Karen’s book Smashing Magazine: “Is There Ever a Justification for Responsive Text?” Frankie Roberto’s demo of responsive text (resize the width of the browser window and watch what happens to the text to see) Inverted pyramid Karen’s “Your Content, Now Mobile,” A List Apart Responsive web design Circa Summly

Jan 10, 2013

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publish-logo.png" alt="" title="press-publish-logo" width="314" height="195" class="nakedrightimage">I’m very excited to welcome you to Press Publish, our brand new weekly Nieman Lab podcast.

Here’s the deal: At Nieman Lab, I’m very lucky to be able to talk with a lot of smart people engaged in building the future of news. Journalists, technologists, business-side folks, entrepreneurs, academics: They each have different angles on where we’re headed and how they’re trying to get us there. I’ve always wanted a forum to have longer conversations with these people — to nerd out with them, really — and share them with our audience.

So that’s what Press Publish will be: a weekly conversation with the people making the future of news.

We’ll be putting out a new episode every week, and they’ll usually average 45 minutes to an hour. (Great for commutes!) My hope is that, if you listen regularly, you’ll get a good sweep of the many ways news is changing — and also that you’ll get to hear from a lot of interesting people.

A quick note: Most episodes of Press Publish will be at least a little bit nerdy. This one gets a little nerdy about code; future episodes might be nerdy about advertising formats or workflows or analytics or academia. I’ll do my best to make sure it all remains accessible, but, hey — nerding out is what we aim to do here. I think part of our mission is to be a center point for different kinds of nerds to learn from each other, and I hope Press Publish will be part of that. Also, with each episode I’ll pull out links to all the things we talk about and include them in the Show Notes section below.

Episode 1: Dan Sinker and Erin Kissane

sinker-erin-kissane.jpg" alt="" title="dan-sinker-erin-kissane" width="600" height="299" class="nakedboxedimage">

Dan Sinker and Erin Kissane are two of the key people behind Source, the new(ish) site from Knight-Mozilla OpenNews. Here’s how they describe it:

Source is a Knight-Mozilla OpenNews project designed to amplify the impact of journalism code and the community of developers, designers, journalists, and editors who make it.

They do that by assembling a big, living repository of journalistic code, interviewing developers about how they did certain things, highlighting community events, and more. It’s pretty great for those of us are interested in the code side of journalism — and it’s definitely worth watching if you want to keep up with that rapidly developing space.

I talked with Dan and Erin about how Source came to be, how they designed a content strategy for it, how they’ve tried to work with the existing community of news devs, and how the journalism+code equation is evolving.

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