Media Chess
Despite its complication, a game of chess is basically a three-act play. So too is our current, transitional era for media companies.
Training Journalists for the 21st Century
My biweekly Digital Publishing column at ClickZ.com is about the skills that journalism schools need to teach in this century.
New Media Business Syllabus for Spring 2009
What I’m teaching in the New Media Business classes at Syracuse University this semester.
Why Should Newspapers Offer Online Video News?
Why should newspapers offer online video news? Professor Crosbie explains why to journalists from the Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, South Africa, Russia, and the Ukraine, during the Broadcast Design workshop organized by the Media Development Loan Fund. Recorded by Televizija Vijesti in Podgorica, Republic of Montenegro, on November 21, 2008.ast Design workshop organized by the Media Development Loan Fund. Recorded by Televizija Vijesti in Podgorica, Republic of Montenegro, on November 21, 2008.
The Fatal Arrow, Shot From a Crossbow, Struck His Chest
A crossbow arrow kills a newspaper layout artist, yet another attempt to silence freedom of the press in Guatemala.
Ian Alexander Davies (1959-2008), R.I.P.
Ian Alexander Davies, 49, of Topcroft, Norfolk, U.K., a husband, father of two, newspaper and magazine New Media expert, and an ardent private pilot, died Wednesday when the two-person aerobatic biplane he was aboard collided with a crop-spraying tractor as the biplane was approaching the runway at an airfield near his hometown.
Beer Is The Better Investment Than U.S. Newspaper Companies
My ClickZ column Friday pointed out how you would have gotten a better Return on Investment from purchasing $10,000 in beer three years ago and getting drunk each night since than you would have from investing that amount of money in U.S. newspaper company stocks.
Multimedia Newspaper Professorship Opening at Syracuse
Syracuse University’s Newhouse Schools has an opening for a Multimedia Newspaper Professor.
Life Aboard an Academic Supercarrier
Why I prefer teaching New Media at Syracuse University, and what the syllabus is for my New Media Business class.
What Is/Are the New Media?
Video clip of Vin Crosbie defining the term New Media and its potential.
Why Mass Media Content is Dumbing Down
Why Mass Media are ‘dumbing down’, becoming more timid.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Why I’m late posting the third part of my essay ‘Transforming American Newspapers’; my plans to teach a graduate school course about Using New Media to Circumvent Censorship; and a brief thought about gPhones.
Transforming American Newspapers (Part 2)
Why the major reason for American daily newspapers’ demise is their inertia has violated the basics of the Principle of Supply & Demand.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I’m back! I’d taken a year off for reflection. After concluding that no daily newspaper executive in North America knows where their industry is headed, I went back to school approximately this time last year. I’d hoped that news media academics might…
Transforming American Newspapers (Part 1)
American daily newspapers are dying for only two reasons that have nothing to do with advertiser flight or with lacks of sufficient multimedia, convergence, interactivity, Web 2.0, or ‘citizen journalism. Learn the two real reasons.
Second Annual Global Conference on Individuated Newspapers
Why it is imperative for newspaper companies individuate their editions in print, e-paper,and Web formats.
EPublishing Innovations Forum 2008
My opening keynote speech from EPublishing Innovations Forum 2008, London, May 7, 2008. Why 1.3 billion people have gravitate online despite their already having access to mass media in much more convenient formats than online. Why the fragmentation of audiences is an illusion. Why traditional newspapers’ and news magazines’ circulations, and news broadcasts’ viewerships, must ineluctably evaporate. Why most newspapers’ and news magazines’ and news broadcasters’ Web sites won’t save their companies. Why people will be even better served by New Media than by Mass Media. And why the change today is even greater than that during Gutenberg’s era.
Leadership
At this time of fundamental challenges to media industries, are you a true leader or are you a bureaucrat hiding behind a high title?
R.I.P. Mark Schwed (1955-2008)
R.I. P. Mark Schwed (1955-2008). Good Guy. Great entertainment journalist. Former colleage.
LA Times Confirms Ben Franklin's Definition of Insanity
the latest repeated cutting of The Los Angeles Times’ newsroom budget confirms Ben Franklin’s definition of insanity.
American Journalism Review Examines The Faith and Hope in Online
American Journalism Review examines the faith and hope that American newspapers put in online publishing as the savior of the companies now that print is declining.
How Oslo's Dagbladet Newspaper Integrates Videos Into Its Website
How Dagbladet integrates video into its website.
How Asahi Shimbun's 12 Mobile Phone News Sites Work
Asahi Shimbun’s Atsushi Sato explains how his company’s 12 sites for mobile phone users work and earn money.
Ian Davies on the Importance of Geocoding Newspaper Stories
“People live locally,” Ian Davies, director fo business development of the British regional newspaper publishing company Archant Ltd., this afternoon reminded attendees of Ifra‘s annual Beyond the Printed Word online pubishing conference. He said a recent survey by the (UK) Newspaper Society…
Monthly Circulation of 100,000 Without Printing or Website
Rowan Barnett describes how his weekly newspaper has a circulation of 100,000 without publishing a website or in print.
Danny Dagan's Presentation at Ifra's Beyond the Printed Word conference
Danny Dagan of News Group Digital (London’s The Sun and News of the World) describes the challenges popular tabloids face using with user-generated content.
Matthew Buckland's speech to Ifra's Beyond the Printed Word conference
At Ifra’s Beyond the Printed Word conference, Matthew Buckland of South Africa’s Mail & Guardian presents a case study of his newspapers experiments with user-generated content.
Dr. Jo Grobel's Opening Keynote at Ifra's Beyond the Printed Word Conference
The opening keynote by German Digital Institute Director Prof. Dr. Jo Groebel at Ifra’s Beyond the Printed Word conference.
My Re-Appearance
Why I’ve been absent during the past seven weeks.
Payment for Online Content is Far From Dead, Despite TimesSelect's Demise
I hate to rain on the parade of pundits who hail TimesSelect’s demise as proving paid content is dead. Thought payment for the traditional one-to-many package of news content, or even a subsection of it, is dead; people will be willing to pay for customized news services that exactly match from all sources each of their individual needs.
It's Time for News Organizations to Stop Defining Themselves by Obsolete Products
In order to survive, news organizations must stop defining themselves by products (such as ‘newspapers,’ ‘news radio stations,’ etc.) that are becoming obsolete
TimesSelect No Longer $elective
The New York Times Company attempts sleight-of-hand in its announcement ending its experiment at charging for online access to its Opinion section and archives.
Vin Crosbie Takes A Partial Sabbatical
Starting Monday, I have accepted a position as Adjunct Professor of Visual and Interactive Communications and Senior Consultant on Executive Education for New Media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and will be relocating there.
Time To Give Away Some More Consulting Advice (4)
Interactivity and why hardly any news organizations’ websites offer it.
Time To Give Away Some More Consulting Advice (3)
The third of ten pieces of advice that I give my consulting clients.
Congratulations to Dirck Halstead
Dirck Halstead, editor and publisher of The Digital Journalist, wins lifetime achievement award.
Time To Give Away Some More Consulting Advice (2)
The second of ten pieces of advice that I give my consulting clients.
Time To Give Away Some More Consulting Advice
Over the next days, I’ll tell the ten pieces of advice that I give my consulting clients. The need for ‘immediacy’ online is the first.
Monday, September 10
Today’s reading: An Adweek article about ‘Web. 2.0’ in traditional publications; Alan Rusbringer’s prediction that ‘We’re all doomed to be surprised;’ the AOPUK’s short list of winners; a directory of interactive maps about crime; the Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik describes how the very large number needed just to comprehend total the cash cost of the U.S. invasion of Iraq; Veterans Administration security officers detain a Syracuse journalism student who dared photograph a hospital from a public place; and what might North Korea do now that it has its own top-level domain on the Internet.
5,000 Days in the New Medium
Today is my 5,000th day working full-time in new-media. Let me tell you what I’ve seen, and to restate why I’m in the news business.
Bill Moyer's Speech to Journalism Professors
I recommend Bill Moyers’ speech to the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communications conference last week. Moreover, is part of the problem in journalism schools that incoming students pre-decide that they want to be old media journalists?
Congratulations to Elan Lohmann of South Africa
Congratulations to Elan Lohmann of News24.com in South Africa, who will chair Ifra’s 15th World Digital Publishing Conference this year. On other topics: Traffic to newspaper web sites has declined this month; approximately 80 percent of the American consumers who use magazines’ websites don’t read the print editions; Veronis Suhler Stevenson says that American consumers last year used media less than in previous years, the first first time in recent memory that the amount of time consumers spend with media has declined; and The New York Times publishes a story about what happens when a company mistakenly tries to use a new medium as a mass medium.
Minding The ABCs
The American Audit Bureau of Circulations’ attempt to combine print circulation and online traffic is sleight-of-hand; UK online journalist earn more money than their print compatriots; and Conde Nasté’s YouTube channels are laudable but examples of a changing media battlefield that the company is losing.
An American Daily Newspaper Commits Suicide
The San Francisco Chronicle’s decision to cut 100 of its 400 newsroom jobs is an act of suicide.
Are News Sites in Britain Wasting One-Third Their Advertising Potential?
Geography disappears online, except for language and culture. More and more research indicates that one-third of the traffic to news sites based in Britain comes from America. Those sites had best advertise to this audience or else waste over one-third of their sites advertising potential.
The Dead Tree Digital Replacement Index
Forget most financial reports from newspaper companies. The Dead Tree Digital Replacement Index calculates if a newspaper company’s digital revenue gains compensate for the company’s print edition revenue losses.
WSJ Parody; Pan Am and UPI; and Reuters Hot Car
A parody of what Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal might be like; neither the current UPI nor Pan Am are real; funding doesn’t mean much except money; Abel Mutsakani is shot; and Reuter’s burning bad luck at the Tour de France.
The Presses Will Be Outsourced Before Stopped
Though Business Week’s Jon Fine speculates that some major newspapers will stop their presses and publish online only, that would only make their predicament worse and many will instead outsource their printing. Why stopping the presses would be financially devastating. About the mistaken presumptions about why all newspapers need to do in order to survive is publish online. And why the San Francisco Chronicle would be better off financially if it delivered cash rather than newspapers to its readers.
Killed ASAP (which means October)
Why the Associated Press’s ASAP service made no sense and why the AP must revamp itself rather than perform side experiments like ASAP.
Brain Dumps Float All Boats
Why I’d not been blogging much this year.