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Comment on Dangerous idea: Embrace journalistic algorithms! #jcarn by Carnival of Journalism - Steve Outing, director, Digital News Test Kitchen, University of Colorado Boulder

Wed, 02 May 2012 20:38:02 +0000

[...] http://steveouting.com/2012/04/29/dangerous-idea-embrace-algorithms-jcarn/ Tags: algorithms, book, condense, design, economic, editing, enterprise, focus, football, formatted, government, high school, highlight, human, important, investigative, jobs, machines, mobile, public affairs, responsive, smartphones, tablet, technology « Cindy Royal, associate profess… No Comments Click here to cancel reply. [...]

Comment on The stupidity of our current media age (print-digital edition) by The Morning Lowdown 08-08-11 — paidContent

The Morning Lowdown 08-08-11 — paidContent — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:18:07 +0000

[...] » The stupidity of our current media age (print-digital edition) (Steve Outing) [...]

Comment on Journalism’s impact: Is it becoming less than that of social media? #jcarn by March Carnival of Journalism « Carnival of Journalism

March Carnival of Journalism « Carnival of Journalism — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 20:37:33 +0000

[...] Steve Outing looked at how social media is gaining an edge in the impact realm: When I look at the question, I can’t help but get sidetracked into thinking how social media (i.e., “the crowd” utilizing digital social tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Change.org, among others, to amplify their voices) in a growing number of cases is having more impact than the traditional news media can achieve themselves — or is driving the mainstream news media to pay attention to stories that their editors fail to recognize as important. [...]

Comment on Journalism’s impact: Is it becoming less than that of social media? #jcarn by » Carnival of Journalism: Responses to “How can we better measure journalism?” The Linchpen

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:30:36 +0000

Comment on MiamiHerald.com asks for donations (too subtly) by paidContent Quick Hits 12.16.09 — paidContent

paidContent Quick Hits 12.16.09 — paidContent — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:02:27 +0000

[...] » Is the Miami Herald asking for donations too subtly (and clumsily) on its website? [Steve Outing] [...]

Comment on Journalism’s impact: Is it becoming less than that of social media? #jcarn by Andrew Grant-Adamson

Andrew Grant-Adamson — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:02:47 +0000

Will they? The falling numbers of staff as as managements follow the traditional model of maximising profit in a declining business make it very difficult. Here in the East of England, I see the regional dailies trying to pretend that stories developing on social media do not exist. Becoming engaged in social media chatter around breaking stories would involve staff time when they already scrabble around to find people to cover the day-to-day stuff.

In the UK the two media organisations that are making the biggest efforts to do what you suggest are the BBC and the Guardian. Neither of them have business structures like those of most newspapers or broadcasters. Unless traditional media organisations change that there should be another final question: Can they?

Comment on NYTimes’ new pay model: They blew it! by JayKew

JayKew — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 08:43:31 +0000

Ok, here’s the deal: I initially subscribed to the digital + smartphone plan (I have an iPhone). Last Christmas, I bought an iPad and thought the NYT app for iPad looked really cool. Alas, I realized my digital + smartphone plan was not valid for iPad. And the “upgrade offer” was just too expensive ($35!!). So I thought, OK, I’ll ditch the smartphone plan and subscribe to the iPad one. (Logical, right?). So I went to my iTunes account and deactivated the option. Since then, it has said “EXPIRED ON JANUARY 17″. But for some reason, at NYT they don’t seem to be aware that my subscription has “expired”. They keep telling me “your account is still active”. I have sent numerous emails, screen shots, etc. trying to explain to them that I just want to switch from one plan to another, but to no avail. My former plan is still “active” with them, so I can’t make the change. When I go to my NYT account via their site, it says my account “will automatically renew on March 17″. I have written them that I formally oppose any renewal without my proper consent, and threatened them with a lawsuit should they go ahead and renew the plan. This is totally ridiculous. What it boils down to is, either the NYT/ iTunes partnership is totally dysfunctional (in which case I cannot be held responsible for said dysfunctioning), or it is a veiled attempt from NYT to keep customers tethered to their plan, or worse, force them to upgrade to the “full digital access plan”, which ought justifiably to make me or any customer downright angry. Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for NYT, because they’re likely to lose a lot of customers if they continue treating them like that.
One question: did you have any difficulty understanding what my problem with NYT was? Because apparently, no one at NYT seems to understand. Is it my English? JayKew from France.

Comment on Can good journalist + good capitalist = possible? by Steve Outing

Steve Outing — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:51:51 +0000

Kathy: Thanks for the comment. I tend to think of this issue as: Can all the small-c journo-entrepreneurs add up enough to make up for what we’ve lost with layoffs of so many journalists in recent years? If we have a big-C success among the upstart digital news entities, that could go a long way toward that goal. And a big-C success could be ProPublica really hitting it big and hiring a boatload of journalists, not necessarily a commercial entity. Or NPR. Or public radio outlets succeeding in becoming a dominant force in local news with many more reporters on the ground. But whether for- or non-profit, the people running these news operations need to balance journalism and business while maintaining ethical equilibrium.

You could argue that in the new news ecosystem, leveraging cheap and often-free technology, social media, eyewitness news, wikinews volunteers, et al won’t require as many professional journalists as we had in newspapers’ heyday. But I think we need more professionals than we’ve got now. We’re still at the point where there are plenty of “news deserts” in the U.S., which means that there’s plenty of room for unchecked corruption. I’m not sure that an army of local journo-entrepreneurs, succeeding in small-c fashion, will be enough to right the ship without some big-C success happening as well.

Comment on Can good journalist + good capitalist = possible? by Kathy Gill

Kathy Gill — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:35:24 +0000

+1 for Debbie’s comment (and all the others who did the same).

My heartburn with the seed for this month’s #jcarn was the focus on big C capitalism and the insistence that making lots of money should be the primary goal. I don’t think this is the route to either monetary success or happiness.

Michael’s point is VERY important.

The reason we have information monopolies in the first place is the nature of the good: high fixed costs to produce, low marginal costs to distribute. Today the gap between the two is as wide as possible as the distribution cost is almost zero and the production cost is extremely low relative to newspapers and TV stations. I went on a bit about this on G+ and my blog last night/this morning (depending on your point of view; to me it’s last night when I have not yet gone to bed!).

That does not mitigate the need to be cognizant of the appearance of favoritism (I’m assuming above board ethics) — which was the original reason (I think) for the separation of church and state. It wasn’t so much that journos didn’t need to understand the business, they needed/need for their work not to be influenced by who pays the bills — if we want to continue a model of public service (speak truth to power) journalism.

Comment on Can good journalist + good capitalist = possible? by Michael Rosenblum

Michael Rosenblum — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:35:27 +0000

You’re in.
never too late to join the party
http://www.rosenblumtv.com/2012/01/can-a-good-journalist-be-a-good-capitalist/