We need more people in this industry like Amy Webb. If you haven’t heard about the 30-Day Newsroom Innovation Challenge which she announced on her site the other day, you have to check it out. It’s a fantastic idea.
And, remember, a while back when I wrote a post about kicking Rob Curley while he’s down. This is exactly the sort of thing he should be doing to avoid being kicked again.
Anyway, the point of the contest is to help one newsroom, free of charge, who is struggling to innovate. Webb is a consultant to online media companies and organizations and has been working in the digital realm for more than a decade.
It’s 4th of July weekend. In the spirit of unshackling the newspaper industry from the tyranny of outdated business models, I’ve decided to hold a contest. I’m proposing a 30-Day Newsroom Innovation Challenge. I’m willing to offer my consulting services to help a beleaguered newsroom through the process of innovation. I will meet with your newspaper’s publishers, editors, web-site and print-side staff and even your local readers. I’ll facilitate brainstorming sessions and devise a set of strategies that you can implement right away to help monetize your content and motivate what’s left of your staff. At the end of our 30 days together, we should hopefully have short-term and long-term plans for publishing your content and for stabilizing your resources.
She is doing this, it appears, in the wake of news about media companies making huge cutbacks in staffing levels, which she argues may not be necessary. She places a high priority on local reporting. But, like everyone else, she recognizes that the business model we all apply is not working and won’t work as more of us enhance  our digital presence.
I believe very strongly that if newsroom culture changed for just a month, to allow free-flowing brainstorming and fast-track implementation of new strategies, we might just find a workable business model that doesn’t necessarily involve scrapping entire sections of the newspaper or laying off a quarter of your staff.
The rules and how to enter the 30-Day Newsroom Innovation Challenge can be found here. Good luck.
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Posted in innovation, media | Tagged Business model, Kim Fletcher, media, newspaper, newsroom, Rob Curley, Services, Television program, Webb, Website | No Comments »
During the recent flood disaster that struck Cedar Rapids, the role of a media company and how it relates to the community it covers so deeply has become increasingly clear based on lessons learned. Now the role for media turns into one of responsibility. We know we have a tremendous opportunity, but what we do from here will define us for the next several decades.
The Gazette, the newspaper where I work, put out incredible print editions throughout, and continues to do so. It’s been chronicled here by Alan Mutter and here by our still fairly new editor Steve Buttry as to how well the online edition and breaking news text alerts aided people near and far with timely, relevant and contextual information on digital platforms. Both links also mention how the newsroom, as a whole, has operated fantastically throughout the disaster.
This disaster and recovery, for the first time, has shown the company what we already knew: There is tremendous power in delivering news and information on multiple platforms to serve multiple audiences with the idea of bringing a community together.
Since the disaster has turned from breaking news into a years-long recovery process, many people in our building are discussing and planning where we go from here and how, as our CEO Chuck Peters puts it, we become the keel of the community.
Keel: a central fore-and-aft structural member in the bottom of a hull, extending from the stem to the sternpost and having the floors or frames attached to it, usually at right angles: sometimes projecting from the bottom of the hull to provide stability.
Buttry this week offered a tweet to link to a speech given by Tim McGuire at the American Association of Independent Newspaper Dealers Speech, June 23, 2008, Baltimore, Md. The speech is titled “Visions of a future for independent newspaper distributors”. Content Ninja offers her review here.
In the speech, McGuire offers a few paragraphs about the Sunday print edition, which for many newspapers is still the most cherished edition. I think those paragraphs are important to share here, if for no other reason than to further my point in the headline.
That Sunday newspaper and that mass distribution element are so important I think we should seriously consider LOWERING the price. Let’s make it a buck. That’s not an effort to chase new readers; it should be an effort to make the Sunday newspaper available to everyone who still wants to make a newspaper a part of their life.
The content of that Sunday newspaper should be premised on the assumption this is THE mass product of the week. It should be a powerful week in review and week-ahead product designed to create knowledge, guide readers to the vast information resources of the web and to entertain.
It is essential that the newspaper of the future be a convener of people online and in print. This Sunday product should be the center of that convener activity. Newspapers must convene all sorts of audiences in all sorts of imaginative ways. In a fractured media world it is incumbent on the democratic responsibilities of newspapers that newspapers lead, guide and direct everything from democracy to knitting clubs.
One of the greatest threats to democracy is that our long-tailed world might destroy all sense of community. It should be newspapers that save us from that fracture and that Sunday newspaper can be the mass product that serves as a community rallying point.
I am proposing that media companies do something even more radical than what’s mentioned above. Make the Sunday edition - once its revamped based on what I think are good ideas above - a free publication.
Locally, what better time to bring people together than to give them a free resource of news and information during this trying and difficult time. If we promote the Sunday edition with goals similar to what’s mentioned above everyone in our community wins, not just those hurt by the flood.
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Posted in media | Tagged Gazette, media, newspaper, Sunday | No Comments »
The last week has been nothing short of amazing for the community where I live and for the newsroom where I work.
Last Thursday, downtown Cedar Rapids and some surrounding neighborhoods suffered the worst flooding in history. The Cedar River crested at an all-time high of 31.1 feet, several feet above projected levels.
The downtown area is pretty much gone. Several neighborhoods, including the historic Czech Village, sustained significant, if not catastrophic, damage.
To give you a sense of how high the water was here are two photos from downtown Cedar Rapids. The first is a normal day. The one on the right shows the river Thursday afternoon, a day before the crest.
You can see more photos from photographers Liz Martin, Courtney Sargent, Brian Ray, Jim Slosiarek, Cliff Jette and Jonathan D. Woods here.
My new boss, Steve Buttry, gives a breakdown of how The Gazette’s coverage unfolded and the obstacles the newsroom faced in getting news and information out with no power and transportation very difficult.
I’ll tell the story because I can’t take much credit. The outstanding performance you saw, read and heard this week at GazetteOnline and The Gazette was delivered by the staff I found here when I arrived Tuesday. I hope to have an impact here eventually, but a new editor pretty much has to play the hand he is dealt in terms of the staff’s ability to cover a story that is already unfolding. I was dealt several decks worth of aces.
The work done by this newsroom was simply remarkable. Everyone played a role, and everyone stepped up - and those word don’t come close to saying how great everyone was.
It is still a little early for me to put into words just how proud I am to have been a part of covering this historic event alongside the dedicated, professional journalists who reported and photographed this story.
I don’t yet know if the magnitude of the event or the aftermath has set in. The coming days, as I catch up on some sleep, should help.
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Posted in media | Tagged flood, media, newsroom | 2 Comments »
A lot is being said about the recent news of Rob Curley leaving Washington Post Interactive and heading to Las Vegas after what appears to be an experiment in local news and information that, to date, has failed.
For an industry already full of depressing headlines, this one probably hurts the media industry ego the most since our most recent glamour boy couldn’t make a cool experiment work at what is arguable one of the few Mecca’s of U.S journalism.
Curley admits it’s the first time he and his team have had a project called a “flop” as The Wall Street Journal did last week.
Curley also admits the fault lies with him when it comes to the experiment, LoudonExtra.com. The biggest fault is that his team didn’t do enough outreach in the community, which is rule No. 1 when it comes to local news and information.
But I think the fault goes even deeper than that. For all the good and bad about him, Curley is famous for taking new, difficult strides in the media industry. His successes with online projects in Kansas, Missouri and Florida are well documented after the fact.
Yet Curly rarely gives insight into the how and why on anything he or his team does as it’s happening. And he rarely blogs about his success or failures, with about one post a month on average.
I don’t fault a person for being busy. But what would have happened if six months he had blogged about the LoudonExtra.com experiment and admitted it wasn’t going well and asked those of us who follow for advice?
Who knows? Curley didn’t blog about LoudonExtra.com until after the Wall Street Journal wrote the article and likely felt the need to respond.
Will Sullivan of Journerdism, who I read regularly, states the obvious when he says innovation at newspapers won’t succeed if the organization doesn’t support it. But it also seems to further make excuses for Curley by blaming the big, bad WashingtonPost.com.
99 percent of innovation is failing, then dusting yourself off and trying things a different way. If people in your own company aren’t interested in helping you succeed, then maybe it’s time to move on.
Sure, WashingtonPost.com didn’t do enough to promote LoudonExtra.com, but Curley didn’t do even the most basic task to ensure the experiment could succeed: try to engage the community. If he would have done that, he wouldn’t need to rely on promotions from the parent company.
Failing at an experiment, knowing that you give it your best shot, is commendable. Given the current state of the media industry, if you don’t give it your best shot, there’s a good chance the Wall Street Journal is going to write about it.
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Posted in media | Tagged innovation, media | 2 Comments »
I’ve been out of the game for a while, but starting to get back in the saddle. To help get me started again here are some interesting links I’ve read in the past few days that are worth sharing.
Posted in media | Tagged media, journalism, innovation, coders | No Comments »
Will Sullivan wrote a post giving several pieces of advice to new journalism graduates and one stuck with me that I think is also equally important to those who currently work in the media industry.
The one that hit home is this: You should really be trying to get fired. That’s right. You should be pushing the edge, making people uncomfortable and, in essence, trying to get yourself fired.
. . . do speak out with passion, vigor and conviction to any and everyone, regardless of rank, when you see your company doing stupid things in the dying, old media way. Your company probably needs you more than you need them. You can either speak out now and try to save both your butts, or sit back, fall in line and wait for them to cut your job to save theirs.
Pat Thornton weighs in as well:
Journalism is filled with cautious people who fear being fired. Don’t be one of them. Be a rebel, a trailblazer, a maverick, an iconoclast.
More than anything, my communication style gets me in trouble the most. I think people recognize I have good intentions, but some of the things I say and how I say them push people the wrong way, almost to the point that I’ve become irrelevant.
Some of it because of how I communicate and other times because I say things that they aren’t yet ready to hear. But if I don’t speak up, I know am doing a bigger disservice to myself, and if that ends up getting me fired, well, there’s always Wal-Mart or becoming a Chicago Cubs season ticket holder a few years sooner.
Almost more important than communication though, I have realized lately that passing cool links around the office, giving people advice, pushing for certain change isn’t enough and often doesn’t work, at least not very quickly.
It’s more about action. I’ve got to actually do more of what I say to prove to others that it works. I have to experiment more and fail fast more often. Basically, I have to be better or I’ll end up getting fired for a reason I can’t live with.
Posted in media | Tagged change, fired, innovation | 3 Comments »
I recently visited some friends in Oregon and had to stop at the famous Powell’s Bookstore in Portland. While I was there, I came across this book called “The Jasons: The Secret History of Science’s Postwar Elite” by Ann Finkbeiner and, of course, had to pick it up and buy it just on the name alone.
It turns out to be a book that’s right up my alley. The Jasons are an independent group of scientists who advise the U.S. government on science and technology matters at the highest level.
The Jasons, who got their name in reference to a character from Greek Mythology, meet typically during the summer months and have helped solve some of the country’s most pressing military and scientific problems.
The group formed in the post Manhattan Project days and has continued ever since. Mostly, it appears from my early reading in the book, because these scientists knew such thinks like the atomic bomb needed to be built, but they also understood the human ramifications and the moral dilemma that arise from such a weapon.
The Jasons are not paid by politicians or the military. But both groups seem smart enough to listen to them because they know their stuff.
Most of their work is classified. They’ve worked on projects ranging from missile defense to climate change. They do it because they love their country, more than anything. You can read more on the book from the New York Times.
The reason I bring this book up in this forum is because I think it’s time that the media industry look beyond itself to help create ‘The Medici Effect‘ and by that I mean the “the explosion of remarkable ideas at the intersection of different fields, cultures and industries.”
It appears that those of us inside the media industry made need some outside help. So how about encouraging the formation of a group that can advise the media industry? I’m not talking about coming up with a cookie-cutter approach that all news organizations can replicate. We’re already stuck waiting for that, it seems.
Rather how about encouraging some of the smartest and brightest people in our country who love news and information and how people use it to live and engage and get them to meet regularly to advise the industry on areas that we determine need the most attention.
Posted in media | Tagged innovation, jason, media, medici | No Comments »
It seems there has been more written lately about the power of Twitter and so here I am about to add my two-cents worth.
I first signed up for the microblogging site more than a year ago during the Web 2.0 Expo, but didn’t really get into it until the past few months.
For those who don’t know Twitter is a social networking application that gives you 140 characters to tell those who choose to follow you what you are doing right now.
The number of uses for Twitter increases almost daily. The newsroom where I work has not yet taken advantage of the service for breaking news or any sort of coverage or networking, but my guess is that is about to change.
So here are two examples of how it can work.
One Saturday I was at a conference in St. Louis and a guy I was following on Twitter was complaining that the weather in Cedar Rapids really sucked and so he was thinking of not going out and shooting a video as he had planned to do.
Seeing this, I quickly sent him a message saying that if he did go out and shoot a video about the weather that I would put it out on the news site that I have some control over. He quickly agreed. The video was up the next morning and had about 3,000 views in about a day. Pretty cool, huh.
The second example is more abstract, but it comes from this kid Will, who I recently met for a cup of coffee. I met Will on Twitter and we have some similar interest in social and new media stuff.
Well, about a month or so ago, Will put a tweet out that he was spending another day job searching in the social media, new media realm.
another day searching for a job in new and social media marketing 09:28 AM April 18, 2008 from twhirl
I couldn’t believe what Will described happened in the next hour. Some HR person in San Francisco say Will’s tweet on the general public timeline and passed it and a link to Will’s blog onto the company CEO. The company CEO looked at the blog, found Will on Linkedin, downloaded his resume and then within an hour Will had an email in his inbox from the CEO wanting to know more. Pretty cool, huh.
And those are just two examples of the power that Twitter has.
Posted in media | Tagged twitter, web20 | 1 Comment »
The Associated Press has been going around to its members recently announcing some new technology and new ways it will distribute content.
I heard the announcement earlier this week at the Saxotech user conference in Tampa as the AP looks to integrate into Saxotech’s software platform.
This isn’t about more AP. It’s about a more relevant AP. It is all about finding new, smart ways to distribute content and make money on it.
I have to admit, I’m a little skeptical. I know we are all in this business to make money. But I wonder why the AP would put this statement out in this venue.
These changes will mean revenue stability for AP’s newsgathering efforts. Our members are currently getting about $600 million worth of journalism for about $108 million.
Anyway, on to the nuts and bolts. The big announcement was that the AP will allows its members to take advantage of a free classification platform for processing and enriching text, photos, graphics, audio and video. It’s a four step process that is said to take only a couple of minutes.
The other news included in the announcement was the creation of a mobile news network, allowing members to have access to breaking news from all U.S. states and offering more content that media companies leverage in niche publications as they experiment in multiple niche areas.
I don’t know how relevant the AP will be in five years. Some of these changes are encouraging. But on a local level, I wonder how, specifically, these changes will help.
Posted in media | Tagged AP, media | 1 Comment »
It wasn’t all business in Tampa this week. A couple of my colleagues can sing and took advantage of a local bar with a heck of a karaoke DJ.
The first video is Matt singing Billy Joel’s Piano Man.
The second is Matthew singing The Low Rider.
Posted in innovation | Tagged fun, lowrider, piano | 2 Comments »
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