Media – Page 241 – Media Nation

Hyperlocal news and civic engagement

Writing in the American Journalism Review, Barb Palser argues that the new breed of hyperlocal news sites may fall short of expectations because there just isn’t enough demand:

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, only 20 percent of American adults reported using digital tools to communicate with their neighbors or stay informed about community issues at least once in the past year. Only one in 10 reported reading a community blog at least once in the past year.

Palser’s pessimism intersects nicely with an observation I (and others) have been making for some time: that disengagement from civic life is among the most persistent problems plaguing the news business. It doesn’t matter how good a job your local weekly newspaper or website does of covering your community if you fundamentally don’t care about what’s going on in your community. Thus, in order to succeed, a news organization must foster civic engagement in a way that actually builds an audience for its coverage of governmental meetings, neighborhood events and routine police-blotter news.

Palser is right that community journalism is not a big-money business. It never has been. Two or three generations ago, local newspapers were marginal businesses owned and operated by people who were rooted in the community. We see the same phenomenon today with grassroots news sites, whether they are for-profit, like Baristanet and the Batavian, or non-profit, like the New Haven Independent.

In Eastern Massachusetts, we have an interesting battle under way involving hyperlocal sites operated by the the New York Times Co. ( the Boston Globe’s Your Town), GateHouse Media (Wicked Local) and AOL’s Patch.com. The competition is good for readers and good for job-seeking journalists. Yet I suspect that the ones who are in it for the long haul are those who are passionate about their communities, and are trying to figure out how to transform that passion into a business. A good example of this is the network of sites operated at CentralMassNews.com, which aren’t beautiful, but which are chock full of news and advertising.

Palser’s argument, essentially, is that hyperlocal is not a promising strategy for large media corporations to return to the glory days of yesteryear. I agree. But that’s not what hyperlocal is or should be about. It should be about finding news ways of doing community journalism and making a living.

And though local ownership is not necessarily the key ingredient, I think it’s much more likely that grassroots sites will foster the civic engagement they need to build readership than those operated by large, out-of-state media companies.

Further thoughts from Steve Safran at Lost Remote.

B-minus Barack does no harm

In my latest for the Guardian, I survey morning-after punditry following President Obama’s speech on Iraq, and discover that even some of his critics were mildly impressed. The problem is that no one, including his supporters, was particularly wowed, either.

Kerry Healey will not pre-empt the Red Sox

The city’s daily papers strain for significance in reporting on the debut of two shows on NESN, home of the Red Sox and the Bruins. The programs are “Shining City,” to be hosted by former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey, and “After the Game,” co-produced by Linda Pizzuti Henry.

First up is Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald, who reported on the new programs (sub. req.) on Aug. 13. Although Heslam’s account of Healey’s innovation-and-technology show and Henry’s sports-celebrity program was pretty straightforward, she also wrote:

“Shining City” rolls out as NESN, the flagship station for the Boston Red Sox, beefs up its lifestyle programming. The network has lost 36 percent of its viewers from last year as the injury-plagued Sox struggled this season.

Today the Globe’s Johnny Diaz goes one better than Heslam by not simply laying out the fact that Red Sox ratings are slipping, but also tying it all together with a neat bow. He writes:

The shows, called “After The Game” and “Shining City,” are an attempt by the station to reach new viewers who aren’t necessarily sports fans but who may watch entertainment and science-related shows, as the network’s bread-and-butter programming — baseball games — is declining.

I believe this is called the “if-then fallacy.”

Here is the fundamental problem: It’s not as though Healey and Henry are going to pre-empt Red Sox games, or even the pre-game and post-game shows. Healey’s program will cablecast on Fridays at 4:30 p.m., followed by something called “Pocket Money” at 5 and then “After the Game” at 5:30. There will be plenty of repetitions during the week as well, but NESN will continue to offer a one-hour pre-game show, and Tom Caron will keep right on yelling at you as soon as the game is over.

It’s not that Red Sox ratings aren’t down. They are. But that is irrelevant to the debut of two new programs in time slots that don’t crowd any Sox-related programming. The Sox are still one of the biggest televisions draws in New England, as Diaz himself notes: “Five Red Sox games last week ranked among the top 10 most-watched shows in Boston.”

So why try to tie the new shows to declining baseball ratings? Because the urge to come up with an interesting story line — a narrative — is irresistible. Even when there is none.

A corrupt proposal to save radio

The news in this Ars Technica story is so nutty that, frankly, I was reluctant to pass it on until I saw it in this morning’s New York Times. Yes, there are occasions when Media Nation still likes its MSM confirmation.

In case you haven’t heard, your friends at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) have worked out a scheme that would require cell phones, personal digital assistants and other handheld devices to include FM radio.

This mind-boggling federal mandate would be part of a grand bargain under which broadcasters would pay performance royalties, ending an exemption that goes back to the earliest days of radio.

Nate Anderson of Ars Technica reports that the Consumer Electronics Association — yet another lobbying group, although in this case on the side of sanity — is “incandescent with rage.” In the Times, Joseph Plambeck writes that, according to phone-makers, smartphones that include FM chips will be bigger and chew through batteries more quickly.

More to the point, who wants radio on their smartphones? The only reason radio is still hanging on is that the ubiquitous, wireless Internet hasn’t come to your car yet. The idea that Congress could go along with this corrupt scheme to save a dying technology is somehow depressingly unsurprising. In a world of Pandora and streaming Internet audio, no one needs FM (or AM) radio.

I would love to see Steve Jobs frog-marched out of Apple headquarters for selling an iPhone without an FM chip. It would be great publicity for him.

If nothing else, this outrageous story should put the lie to the notion that large corporate interests care about free enterprise. When you think about how gingerly news executives have approached the idea of government subsidies for journalism, it’s quite remarkable that another segment of the media industry thinks nothing about demanding a federal bailout for its archaic, unwanted business.

Photo (cc) via Wikimedia Commons and republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Hamas, the Times and the T-word

Boston Globe alumnus Anne Barnard reports on Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam of the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero, in today’s New York Times. It’s an excellent piece of work, and provides further evidence that hatemongers like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have it all wrong.

But an editor should have flagged one section near the end as needing a disclosure on the part of the Times. Barnard reports that Abdul Rauf has come under fire in some quarters for refusing to refer to Hamas as a “terrorist organization.”

Referring to a radio interview, Barnard writes that Adbul Rauf “clumsily tries to say that people around the globe define terrorism differently and labeling any group would sap his ability to build bridges. He also says: ‘Targeting civilians is wrong. It is a sin in our religion,’ and, ‘I am a supporter of the state of Israel.'”

It seems to me that someone should have inserted a parenthetical noting that the Times, too, declines to use the T-word when describing Hamas. Here’s what then-public editor Clark Hoyt wrote in 2008:

To the consternation of many, The Times does not call Hamas a terrorist organization, though it sponsors acts of terror against Israel. Hamas was elected to govern Gaza. It provides social services and operates charities, hospitals and clinics. Corbett said: “You get to the question: Somebody works in a Hamas clinic — is that person a terrorist? We don’t want to go there.” I think that is right.

Whether you think the Times’ policy is right or wrong, it would have been useful to point out that Abdul Rauf’s reluctance is shared by our leading newspaper.

Talking Patch on NECN

I’ll be on “This Week in Business” on NECN this Sunday at 12:30 p.m. to talk about some recent trends in media and advertising. Among the topics: Patch.com, the AOL-owned network of hyperlocal sites that has attracted quite a bit of buzz lately. (The latest to weigh in is Chris Faraone of the Boston Phoenix.)

The other guest (no doubt he thinks of me as the other guest) is Steve Safran, editor of the blog Lost Remote, which covers trends in local news. The hosts are NECN anchor Mike Nikitas and Paul Guzzi, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

A North Shore reporter’s untimely death

Talk about a bittersweet moment.

On Wednesday, the Salem News reported that longtime staff writer Steve Landwehr had died after a brief, intense battle with cancer. Today, the News informs us that the paper has won a major-investigative reporting award recognizing Landwehr’s work.

Landwehr was best-known for a Monday feature called “Lives,” extended obituaries about ordinary and extraordinary people on the North Shore. Characterized by Landwehr’s deep reporting and sensitive but never mawkish writing, the stories were, News publisher Karen Andreas is quoted as saying, “one of the most well-read columns in our paper.” This July 12 piece, on Salem High School football legend Joseph “Pep” Cornacchio, was among the last stories Landwehr wrote.

The investigative-reporting prize — the Thomas K. Brindley Award for public-service journalism — was for work performed mainly by Landwehr and News reporter Chris Cassidy on the Essex Regional Retirement Board and its former executive director, Timothy Bassett. Landwehr and Cassidy exposed corruption involving violations of the open-meeting law, questionable legal fees and cronyism, leading to Bassett’s resignation.

Landwehr was 61 years old. I didn’t know him, but I valued his work. He will be missed.

More: The Salem News’ editorial on Landwehr.

Rupert Murdoch’s dubious donation

In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that Rupert Murdoch’s $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association may backfire on him.

O’Reilly called Nolan’s protest “outrageous”

Two years ago, the Phoenix newspapers bestowed one of their annual Muzzle Awards on Comcast for firing Barry Nolan, the Boston-based host of “Backstage,” which appeared locally on CN8.

Nolan’s apparent offense: speaking out against a decision by the National Academy of Arts & Sciences to present a coveted Governors Award to Fox News blowhard Bill O’Reilly. Nolan showed up at the Boston Emmy Awards to protest the choice.

“I got fired for saying demonstrably true things in a roomful of news people that people agreed with,” Nolan told me at the time. “Which tells you more, I think, about the times we live in than about the idiosyncrasies of somebody at Comcast.”

Now, at long last, Nolan’s story — and his $1.2 million wrongful-termination suit against Comcast — is getting a full airing. Earlier this week, the Columbia Journalism Review posted on its website a 2,700-word story by veteran Boston journalist Terry Ann Knopf. The chief revelation: a “carefully worded, lawyerly letter” from O’Reilly to Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts in which O’Reilly said he considered Nolan’s one-man crusade to be “outrageous behavior” and “a disturbing situation.” O’Reilly wrote:

We at “The O’Reilly Factor” have always considered Comcast to be an excellent business partner and I believe the same holds true for the entire Fox News Channel. Therefore, it was puzzling to see a Comcast employee, Barry Nolan, use Comcast corporate assets to attack me and FNC.

(Disclosures: Knopf, a former longtime television critic for the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, interviewed me for her story, and quotes me. Also, I have spoken twice to her media-criticism students at Boston University.)

Now, it’s true that Nolan publicly referred to O’Reilly as “a mental case.” But the fact that O’Reilly would reach out to crush a critic who was in no position to do him any real harm only serves to underscore his reputation for bullying people. It’s even more disturbing that Comcast, which is now trying to acquire NBC, would cave.

Oddly enough, Knopf’s story was originally slated to run in the Boston Globe Magazine. When Knopf interviewed me, she was on assignment for the magazine. In late July, I received a call from a Globe Magazine fact-checker. Both Knopf and Globe Magazine editor Susanne Althoff declined to comment this week when I asked them why the piece was killed.

The story of Barry Nolan and Bill O’Reilly is the story of what happens when someone goes up against two of the most powerful media corporations on the planet. In the Age of the Internet, the moguls may not be what they used to be. But they’re still moguls. And they’ve still got a lot of power.

Photo (cc) by Bev Sykes and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Telegram.com takes the paid-content plunge

The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester began charging for online content today. It’s a move widely seen as a test run for the New York Times, which plans to start charging for Web access next year, and whose parent company also owns the T&G (as well as the Boston Globe).

The T&G model, explained in a memo from publisher Bruce Gaultney and editor Leah Lamson, is fairly complex, as the Times model reportedly will be. Here are the basics:

Print subscribers will have full access to Telegram.com for no additional charge.
Non-subscribers will be able to access up to 10 local stories per month without paying. But they will have to register.
Non-subscribers who wish to access more than 10 local stories will have to pay $14.95 per month or $1 for a day pass.
Some Web content will remain free, including breaking-news stories.

Will the plan succeed? It depends on your definition of success. It may bolster print circulation, or at least slow its decline. The tiered pricing system is clearly aimed at non-subscribers who make heavy use of the website. Anyone who’s thinking about dropping his print subscription will now have a good reason not to do so.

According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the T&G’s Monday-through-Friday circulation is about 70,000, and 81,000 buy the Sunday paper. Among other things, charging for Web access will allow management to count paying online readers in those numbers.

On the other hand, I doubt many people are going to fork over $14.95 a month to read Telegram.com without getting the paper. Even if the move bolsters the Telegram’s bottom line, the danger is that the website will wither. (According to Compete.com, the T&G’s website draws about 275,000 unique visitors each month. The T&G claims about 800,000. Measuring online traffic is notoriously difficult.)

I also don’t see how this amounts to a test run for the Times — the papers are too different. The T&G’s readership is almost entirely local, and I can’t imagine its website has ever been a major priority. The Times is a national paper whose website, NYTimes.com, with nearly 20 million unique vistors per month, is the most widely read newspaper.com in the country.

Yet the T&G may be better positioned to get away with this than the Times, which has any number of competitors for national and international news. There is little competition for news in Worcester and the surrounding area — although this does present an opportunity for an existing news organization to beef up its own free website.

Based on a sampling of the more than 300 comments to Gaultney and Lamson’s memo, it doesn’t seem that the T&G’s announcement has been well-received. Yet that’s a self-selecting group. I did like the comment from the reader who buys a copy on his way to work every morning and thus won’t get free Web access. Management needs to think about how to take care of good customers like him.

My prediction is that the move will be of limited benefit, but that it won’t look that way. Very few people will sign up for Web access, and print circulation will continue to decline — but the drop in print would be worse if the T&G hadn’t made this move.

Note: I spoke with WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) this morning about the T&G’s move. I’m not sure whether it made it on to the newscast, and it doesn’t seem to have been posted online yet.