Tag: New York Times

More on Geffen and the Times

Newsweek’s Johnnie L. Roberts reports that David Geffen would turn the New York Times into a non-profit institution if he should succeed in buying the paper. But someone — Roberts, Geffen, the unnamed Geffen “confidante” who’s quoted or perhaps all three — doesn’t really understand the model.

The example that’s cited is the St. Petersburg Times, which is owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute. But the Times itself is a for-profit organization. If that’s what Geffen’s really got in mind, then that might be the ideal ownership situation — unlike a true non-profit, the St. Pete Times is free to endorse political candidates, for instance.

But though the hybrid model eliminates the pressure of quarterly reports and shareholder discontent, a paper such as the St. Pete Times (the New Hampshire Union Leader has a similar ownership arrangement) still needs to break even. In the current economic climate, that’s a challenge.

Quality control (or not)

If you click here, you’ll see that New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is in the paper today.* But he doesn’t show up if you choose the “Today’s Paper” feature. Nor will you find him if you read the paper using Times Reader — which, after all, is a paid product.

Even before the new version of Times Reader came out, I noticed that David Pogue’s Thursday technology column, “State of the Art,” was generally missing.

If the Times is serious about charging people for certain types of enhanced online access, it’s going to have to do better.

*Correction: Well, this is really stupid of me. Several readers have written in to point out at Douthat simply wasn’t in the print edition today. D’oh! Looks like Media Nation is experiencing some quality-control problems.

Times Reader 2.0 is a big step up

I’m trying out the new Times Reader software. It’s based on the Adobe Air platform, so there are no longer separate Windows and Mac versions. I was ambivalent about the previous version, but Times Reader 2.0 is faster and more attractive.

The new version abandons the Times print-edition font — too fussy for the computer screen — with what appears to be Cambria, an excellent choice. Photos are better integrated. Videos are part of the mix. Scrolling is smoother. You can even do the crossword puzzle on your computer — something you were supposed to be able to do on the previous version, though I couldn’t get it to work on my Mac.

The questions remain: Where does this fit in the hierarchy of news products the Times offers, and does it point the way for other papers? Times Reader costs $3.45 a week. It’s definitely a faster, smoother read than the regular, free Web edition, and, once you’ve downloaded the paper, you don’t need a WiFi connection to read it.

But free is free. In addition, the Times Web edition is a livelier place, with more ads (perhaps that will change as Times Reader gains in acceptance), blogs and other extra content. In addition, if you’re a blogger and you want to post something you see in Times Reader, you have to leave, access the Web edition and find the story again in order to grab the URL.

On the other hand, Times Reader really does offer a superior online reading experience. You’re more likely actually to read the paper rather than just skip around. And it’s a lot cheaper (we get the Sunday print edition delivered, so there’s no extra charge for us) — not to mention more environmentally friendly — than the print edition.

Might there come a day when the Times and other papers can dump their print editions and instead offer various paid electronic versions via Times Reader, the Kindle and the like? I don’t know. But I do know that Times Reader 2.0 is a huge improvement over its predecessor.

College students and newspapers

I’ve received several e-mails today from folks who saw my quote in today’s New York Times and wanted to commiserate with me about my observation that, on the one occasion when I had an opportunity to teach freshmen journalism students, I discovered that very few of them had previously read a newspaper.

It’s true — I’ve got no complaints with the Times reporter, Richard Pérez-Peña, who quoted me accurately. And I didn’t think I was saying anything controversial, given that I was talking about 18-year-olds. But the point I was hoping to make was slightly different from the way it came out.

At the time I was teaching that class, in the fall of 2007, I made it a requirement that my students pick up a Boston Globe every morning. It was not an onerous task — the Globe was distributed free on campus. By the end of the semester, quite a few students told me they enjoyed the experience, and intended to keep reading the paper.

Then the Globe ended free distribution. I don’t think it’s a contradiction for me to say that the Globe, in general, should be charging more for its print edition, but that to stop freebies for college students was not a smart move.

These days there are so few Globes on campus that I would have a hard time even requiring everyone to buy a copy.

Tuesday follow-up. Peter Porcupine asks, Why the Globe and not the Herald? To which I offer several answers: (1) the Globe was distributed free on campus; the Herald wasn’t; (2) even now, it’s harder to find a Herald on campus than a Globe; (3) I wanted my students reading a metropolitan daily characteristic of such papers across the country. Despite my high esteem for the Phoenix, for instance, I didn’t require my students to read that, either.

Hard times for the Times

In my latest for The Guardian, I take a look at Mark Bowden’s exceedingly tough Vanity Fair profile of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Bowden may be right in arguing that Sulzberger is not up to the job. But given the implosion of the newspaper business, would better leadership have made all that much difference?

Will Hoyt write about the “Note to Readers”?

Here’s part of what New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote about the paper’s report on John McCain’s non-affair last Feb. 24:

A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

Given that this is a libel settlement we’re talking about, Hoyt is unlikely to call the Times’ “A Note to Readers” for what it is. But unless he’s changed his mind, we know what he’s thinking.

The Times’ unromantic “Note to Readers”

From the New York Times’ “A Note to Readers,” published today as part of its libel-suit settlement with lobbyist Vicki Iseman:

The article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain …

From the Feb. 21 story at issue:

Convinced the relationship [with Iseman] had become romantic, some of his [McCain’s] top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

Help me out here.

The two most successful papers in the U.S. Really.

Let’s take a time-out from the news apocalypse to acknowledge the two most successful newspapers in the United States: the New York Times and the Boston Globe.

What? Isn’t the financially ailing Times selling part of itself off to a shady Mexican billionaire? Isn’t the Globe, owned by the Times Co., losing a reported $1 million a week and eliminating 50 editorial positions?

Yes and yes. This week, though, the Nieman Journalism Lab pulled together a year’s worth of Web site figures — compiled by Nielsen and reported monthly by Editor & Publisher — and found that the Times’ and the Globe’s Web sites are far and away the most successful in their respective weight classes.

Among national papers, the Times has built such a huge lead over its rivals that there’s really no comparison. Look at the chart. With nearly 19.5 million unique visitors every month, the Times’ online readership is nearly double that of its closest competitor, USA Today.

The Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, ranked number six in the country, with 5.2 million unique visitors a month. If you consider the Los Angeles Times to be a national paper, then the Globe is by far the largest regional online newspaper.

One other thing. In December, visitors to the New York Times Web site spent an average of 33 minutes poking around. At the Globe, it was nearly 17 minutes. In other words, a substantial number of people are actually reading the paper on line, not just dipping in quickly from a search engine.

To be sure, there are some extenuating circumstances. According to the Nieman analysis, the Times’ average monthly uniques were driven up by the resignation of Eliot Spitzer as New York’s governor last March. The Globe benefited from Red Sox coverage during their September playoff drive. In fact, the Globe benefits from the Red Sox year-round, as Sox fans from around the country check in on a daily basis.

Still, this is further proof that what ails the newspaper business right now isn’t a lack of readers — it’s the collapse of the old business model, compounded by recession and debt.

If there’s any good news here, it’s that there are enough people who want what newspapers are giving them that there may be some way of figuring out the revenue dilemma.