Mediabistro Party: April 29 in Boston

RSVP here:
http://www.ersvp.com/reply/circuspartybos

Newspaper Rescue Plan, continued

So here's the online strategy I recommend....

1. News outlets form a consortium and put all their online content behind a wall.

2. Create a new search engine (based on keyword, geography, date)

3. News websites show video and story teasers only;Users must pay subscription to access full articles (or go out and buy the paper)

Which brings me to the topic of print. Although many bloggers and social networking entrepreneurs think (and maybe even hope) that print is dying....it's simply not the case. At least not yet. Online revenues aren't even close to bringing in as much money.

In 2008, newspapers drew about $38 billion in advertising. Only $3 billion came from online....the rest came from print.

Newspaper Advertising, Print vs. Online (from the State of the News Media 2009)

"GateHouse Media was effectively broke by mid-2008, The Tribune Company

filed for bankruptcy reorganization in December and Journal Register,

Philadelphia Newspapers and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune went into bankruptcy

early in 2009. Most of these papers, however, are still profitable, and could continue in business once separated from the parent company’s debt."

- the State of the News Media 2009

And it's no wonder why Google would not want something like Newsfindr to launch....

It's spelled out in this Google SEC filing on Feb. 13, 2009…

"We rely on our Google Network members for a significant portion of our revenues, and we benefit from our association with them. The loss of these members could adversely affect our business.

We provide advertising, web search and other services to our Google Network members, which accounted for 35% of our revenues in 2007 and 31% of our revenues in 2008. Some of the participants in this network may compete with us in one or more areas. They may decide in the future to terminate their agreements with us. If our Google Network members decide to use a competitor’s or their own web search or advertising services, our revenues would decline. Our agreements with a few of the largest Google Network members account for a significant portion of revenues derived from our AdSense program. If our relationship with one or more large Google Network members were terminated or renegotiated on terms less favorable to us, our business could be adversely affected.

Also, certain of our key Google Network members operate high-profile web sites, and we derive tangible and intangible benefits from this affiliation. If one or more of these key relationships is terminated or not renewed, and is not replaced with a comparable relationship, our business would be adversely affected.

Proprietary document formats may limit the effectiveness of our search technology by preventing our technology from accessing the content of documents in such formats, which could limit the effectiveness of our products and services.

A large amount of information on the internet is provided in proprietary document formats such as Microsoft Word. The providers of the software application used to create these documents could engineer the document format to prevent or interfere with our ability to access the document contents with our search technology. This would mean that the document contents would not be included in our search results even if the contents were directly relevant to a search. The software providers may also seek to require us to pay them royalties in exchange for giving us the ability to search documents in their format. If the software provider also competes with us in the search business, they may give their search technology a preferential ability to search documents in their proprietary format. Any of these results could harm our brand and our operating results."

Making Newspapers Profitable - My Newspaper Rescue Plan

[my Newsfindr website. August 2008.]

In the summer of 2008 I bought two domain names – Newsfindr.org and Newsfindr.com – and started building a website. A potential solution for the ailing journalism industry. The tagline for my website was “Newsfindr: Just what you’re looking for.” The introduction I wrote for the home page went like this...

Imagine this:

What if every major magazine and newspaper in the country – the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, the New Yorker, the Associated Press, The Boston Globe – teamed up and stopped letting Google index, reformat and aggregate their news stories? What if they all – together, as a collective group – put the information behind a password-protected wall, and only allowed users to search on this new shared platform?

In essence, they would voluntarily take their content “off the grid.”

The media outlets would then be able to reclaim that search advertising revenues. Each media outlet would continue to operate independently, and compete with each other, trying to attract readers to their sites. Any revenues collected from the overall search product would be distributed to the members of the organization. What would be left for Google and the rest of the search engines? Not much, really. Blogs and tweets would no longer be allowed to link to news stories. RSS feeds would only be allowed to work behind the pass-word protected wall, so outside websites would no longer be able to aggregate content and sell advertising around it. Eventually, people seeking credible information would turn to the news consortium for their information.

Newsfindr is destined to become the #1 source for credible information on the web.

Not bad, eh? In the "About Us" section, I wrote:

You’ve heard of the NNA, RTNDA….and countless other press organizations that formed to improve and promote the growth of the news business. It’s time to create a new consortium: one that will SAVE the industry. This association of newspapers, TV stations, and other media outlets would pay an annual membership fee to put ALL of their news content behind a password-protected wall.

In the “How It Works” section, I wrote:
Newsfindr will help media outlets protect their news content so they can start reaping the benefits — instead of just bearing the costs — of providing credible information to the public.

We all know that Google relies on an algorithm based on link popularity to determine search results and give weight to (supposedly) the highest quality content. This way of indexing the web has given rise to a cottage industry we all know as “SEO,” as well as link-farming spam blogs and other not-so-nice things. The Newsfindr search engine would not have to rely on such algorithms because each media news provides editorial oversight, with real live reporters and editors. So search would be based on three main things: keyword, date, and geography.

In the "Benefits / Services" section, I started writing what I envisioned to be a Newsfindr platform. There would be...

Newsfindr - The Search Engine

MoneySavr - A uniform platform that displays coupons.

KnowledgeNetwork - A brand-new, kickass kind of social networking service (I'll go into more detail about that later)

Newsfindr Security - provides the tools your organization needs to protect your content and keep it off the grid. Secure document formats prevent users from copying and pasting content on other sites.

NewsAds - A standard format for display and classified advertising.

I didn't launch the site because, well, I'm currently employed full-time as a journalist. I wasn't sure if I would be allowed to. I applied for a Knight Challenge grant two years ago, proposing a similar "new media platform" ( one that I dubbed "Boombox") but alas, I did not win.

(Since I just laid everything out right now, maybe I will launch the Newsfindr site, just for the heck of it.)

But over the past year I've been thinking about this online model. The more I think about it, and the more I crunch numbers, I think this is definitely the way to go, if mainstream media companies want to stay in business. If news websites are more disciplined in what they posted online (i.e. post videos on their websites, and headlines of stories, with a brief preview of the article to draw readers in, etc.) they would be able to gain more subscribers (both print and online).

If enough media companies bought into it, the Newsfindr business model would completely disrupt the Internet eco-system as we know it, and put mainstream media companies in control of their content (which they should have kept closely guarded in the first place, instead of giving everything away for free online... But that's a story for another day.)

Anyway, why am I telling you all this? Because I'm happy to hear that Steve Brill & Co. are undertaking a similar strategy, with their venture Online Journalism LLC (which, unlike my idea, has financial backing).

**UPDATE - Actually, I just read their proposal more carefully, and it's much different than my Newsfindr idea, which would take content "off the grid" completely.....Brill & Co. plan to keep the content out there and negotiate licensing fees and royalties with Google and other websites.

-

Free Investigative Journalism Workshop

The New England First Amendment Coalition, in partnership with the New England First Amendment Center at Northeastern, Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University will host a free investigative reporting and FOI workshop on Friday, May 1 at The Boston Globe.

Attendees will hear from an all-star cast of journos, including:

Tom Heslin, executive editor of the Providence Journal Heslin is a 27-year veteran of the news business and has served as head of the paper's prize-winning investigative team.

Mark Benjamin, national correspondent for Salon.com. Benjamin has served as a consultant for the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes, and has been a correspondent for all the major television networks.

Matt Kauffman, investigative reporter for The Harford Courant. Kauffman has worked at the Courant for 23 years. He's currently assigned to the paper’s investigative desk where he works on longer-term projects that often employ computer assisted reporting techniques.

Joe Bergantino, director of the New England Center for Investigative reporting at Boston University. Bergantino is a 30-year veteran journalist who's worked for ABC News, for the Post-Newsweek station in Miami and as the I-team leader for WBZ-TV in Boston.

David Armstrong, investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Before joining the WSJ staff in 2000 Armstrong was an investigative reporter for the Boston Globe. He's also an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Communications.

Frank Bass, director of computer investigations for The Associated Press. Bass is the author of the AP Guide to internet research and reporting and has won a bunch of awards during his long and varied journalistic career.

Mark Horvit, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Horvit has worked for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Charlotte Observer and the Houston Post.

Todd Wallack, business reporter for the Boston Globe. Wallack is a prize-winning reporter who has worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Herald and the Boston Business Journal.

Judy Rakowsky, freelance journalist. Rakowsky has spent the past two years writing for Money Magazine, People Magazine and the Washington Post. Before that, she was on staff at the Boston Globe for 14 years, and wrote for the Providence Journal. Her specialty was judicial corruption.

Analyst: YouTube Is Losing Money. A lot of Money.

Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang estimates that YouTube could generate $240 million in revenues in 2009. He also estimates that it costs $710 million to operate the site. So by his calculations, YouTube stands to lose $470 million this year.

(via PaidContent.org)