Dear Mr. Cameron: Regulate this
One of the most stunning pieces of media news in our times is being followed with another piece of stunning news. News Corp. announced this week that it is shutting down the 168-year-old News of the World newspaper in an attempt to limit the damage from the publication’s involvement in hacking into citizens’ phones for [...]
How to build audience engagement from scratch
The fundamental difference between media now and media 15 years ago is proximity and data. The rise of digital publishing put readers in touch with reporters instantly via comments. The feedback loop was squeezed immensely; in some cases, it tightened like a noose around the necks of reporters and editors too siloed to listen to [...]
Salon, The Daily Beast and the medium of ideas
Salon.com is the latest online magazine to gasp for air like handcuffed Jack in one of the last scenes of “Titanic.” It’s a fine publication that’s been bleeding red for years, and The Wall Street Journal reports today that it’s looking for some oxygen or Rose with a hacksaw. Whatever. It’s the latest in a [...]
The sound of change
You can kind of hear it in the wind, the sound of change in publishing. The cacophonous clanking of consolidation continues to be sure, but if you listen closely enough there’s music in the distance. Howard Kurtz points at, what I think is, one of the drivers of change in his post earlier this week [...]
No big deal: Magazine circulation falls (again)
The sky isn’t falling, really, even though the Audit Bureau of Circulation reports that overall subscriptions for magazines are down 2.27 percent. Some big titles took it on the chin, to be sure: Playboy (-34%), Reader’s Digest (-25%). Neither of those tumbles is a head-scratcher. But overall, circulation (paid and verified) is 313 million. That’s [...]
It’s the medium is the message, stupid
L. Gordon Crovitz, writing in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required), puts it simply: “It’s ideas that count, not how they’re transmitted.” This is a closing line in a column about e-books and the iPad. That a “print” journalist makes this comment directly and without pussy-footing around with adverbs is a testament to how far [...]
The Great (Print-Online) Debate (Cage Match Edition)
In one corner, John Donovan, the crafty veteran (he of low-powerdesign.com), sat eyeing his opponent, rubbing his Everlast gloves together in anticipation; in the other, another crafty veteran, John Reardon, Donovan’s ex-boss at RTC Group, glared, as he shuffled his laced-up, ankle-high shoes on the canvas. In between them sat a third veteran, Rick Jamison, [...]
Saint Steven frets about blogger nation
Steve Jobs could belch and get national play. He did so this week at All Things D, where he said he doesn’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers. We must do everything in our power to find ways The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc. can continue to get [...]
National Enquirer Schools Mainstream Media; Film at 11
In times as weird as these, it’s perhaps not surprising that one publication doing real journalism is — gasp — the National Enquirer. Ok, maybe its former editor in chief, David Perel, is a bit defensive this morning, but his point is well taken. Perel writes about his publication’s tireless efforts to break former presidential [...]
Has the advertising free-fall slowed?
Don’t break out the Champagne just yet, but signs are emerging that perhaps the advertising collapse for newspapers and magazines is slowing and leveling off. Still, publications have a long way to go to get with the program. The Wall Street Journal reported this week: A year-end flurry of ad spending helped moderate steep declines [...]
keep looking »