Reactions to story from Invisible Inkling

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  Write elephants

  http://virtualeconomics.typepad.com/virtualeconomics/2008/07...
  45 days ago in Virtual Economics · Authority: 92

  Ryan Sholin has a typically thought-provoking post up about the future business model for journalism, calling the "broken business model of newspapers" the elephant in the room. In it he points out the unsolved problem of news shifting to
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  Random links (hand-coded!)

  http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog/2008/07/28/random...
  40 days ago in Innovation in College Media · Authority: 92

  A few things I’ve read over the past week that’ve caught my fancy: Danny Sanchez points out that Google’s Knol (press release blog post) puts it firmly in the content creation category as a challenge to media companies. The NYT’s Bits blog writes about Verve Wireless, a company that is helping to make local newspapers’ mobile web sites more attractive in How to Save Local Newspapers: Cellphones. Len Witt points out the Pew Research Center’s report on what we all know already: The Changing Newsroom: Gains and Losses in Today’s Papers. Ryan Sholin is turning his attention to the business model, which everyone knows is the elephant in the room. As long as he’s looking at the business model, we all might want to consider the broader perspective of the role of “maximizing corporate profits” in cutting newsrooms to boost that bottom line (which still hovers well above the profit margins of most major U.S. industries). Daniel of Crooked Timber unpacks the terminology (via Boing Boing). Earlier in the week, Sholin reminded us of the fact that it’s really possible to be a journalist without a job at a mainstream news organization. Even though we still see most of our graduates land jobs at small and medium-sized dailies, I’m wondering if the opportunities outside the traditional newspaper newsroom won’t be better for most of them, depending on how hidebound the management is at the local daily. Of course, this is another one of those mindset issues. It’s a bit like telling a teacher that it’s possible to be a teacher without teaching in a local public school district. And just for fun, Mark Hamilton points to the CBC’s new beta site for great Canadian documentaries. Check it out. UPDATE: Promoted from the comments - Blogging 101 - a little help, by John Hassell (thanks to Will for the heads up).
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  Of journalism and elephants

  http://adrianmonck.com/2008/07/of-journalism-and-elephants/
  44 days ago in views on the news business — Adrian Monck · Authority: 66

  Seamus McCauley responds to Ryan Sholin and tells it like it is: Maybe the elephant in the room is a reluctance to even think of newspapers (or journalism or whatever you want to call it) in business terms. Because if we did, we wouldn’t start with the premise “since we’re definitely going to keep making journalism, how can we pay for it?” We’d already be thinking “is there enough of a market for journalism to keep doing it?” And nobody wants the answer to that question, because we kind of know already what it probably is.
• 

  Write elephants

  http://virtualeconomics.typepad.com/virtualeconomics/2008/07...
  45 days ago in Virtual Economics · Authority: 100

  Ryan Sholin has a typically thought-provoking post up about the future business model for journalism, calling the "broken business model of newspapers" the elephant in the room. In it he points out the unsolved problem of news shifting to digital - that the value of online news audiences is a fraction of the value of that same audience in print. (This is, broadly, the same point that Vin Crosbie has been making since at least 2006 and might most easily be abbreviated as The Impossibility of the Rusbridger Cross.) Here's the bit I'm stuck on. As one of four news industry "givens", Ryan writes: "Regardless of what else we change about our print edition, or how we present information online, or how we reorganize our newsrooms, funding investigative and enterprise reporting must be part of the core mission of the industry" Taking a step back, this seems an extraordinary economic position. What other industry organises itself around the proposition "in this business it is a given that we must produce X. Now, can we get anyone to pay us enough money to produce X?" If it costs £20 to dig a ton of coal out of the ground and people will only pay £15 per ton, no-one digs coal. At that point we stop digging coal and start...well, making computers or flipping burgers or farming or whatever other activity does make us money. I'm not sure it's the business model that's broken here. Maybe the elephant in the room is a reluctance to even think of newspapers (or journalism or whatever you want to call it) in business terms. Because if we did, we wouldn't start with the premise "since we're definitely going to keep making journalism, how can we pay for it?" We'd already be thinking "is there enough of a market for journalism to keep doing it?" And nobody wants the answer to that question, because we kind of know already what it probably is.

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