THE CIRCULATION CRISIS ACCORDING TO THE NEW YORK TIMES: NO PROBLEM

From a memo of Scott Heekin-Canedy, president and general manager of The New York Times:

Dear Colleagues,

Yesterday, the most recent circulation results for The New York Times and other newspapers were released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

As we expected, The Times posted a modest decline (-3.5%) in our daily and Sunday circulation, the first in several years.

This is a result of the strategic decision we made to focus our efforts on the paid circulation that advertisers value most.

For example, we recently replaced our "two weeks free" promotion with our traditional 50% offer.

In addition, we also had a modest price increase in February.

We believe these actions will enable us to sustain our circulation in a more financially prudent fashion, enhance customer loyalty and provide our advertisers with the circulation quality they expect.

Our strategy is, in fact, working: our individual paid circulation, a key indicator of circulation quality, remains at 87%, one of the highest in the industry.

Our daily circulation is now 1,086,798; Sunday circulation is 1,623,697.

You should know that our audience remains strong.

Our home delivery circulation, thanks to national expansion, continues to be stable.

You should also know that our circulation in the key Manhattan market is stronger than all the competition.

Finally, our digital leadership is unparalleled in the newspaper community.

NYTimes.com is the largest newspaper-owned Web site in the world.

We will continue to monitor and manage our profitable circulation growth in the context of our overall strategy objectives.

Scott

What kind of strategy is this one that presents a -3.5% decline in such a optimistic way?

The first rule to find a solution is to understand the problem.

Well, it seems that in The New York Times there are no problems.

Perfectly blind.

THE NEW YORK POST GAINS READERS BUT NOT ADVERTISERS

Daily circulation at the paper overtook the Daily News and showed gains of 5%

Perhaps the only major metro in the country to report such growth to 704,011 copies.

That's an increase of 34,348 copies over the same period in 2005

The New York Post surpasses the Daily News and The Washington Post to become the 5th largest newspaper in America after bucking the national trend and chalking up a whopping 5.1 percent jump in circulation.

Well, keep in mind that the Murdoch paper is losing a lot of money, charging only $0.25 per copy plus giving away as many papers as possible.

USA NEWSPAPERS: WORST NUMBERS THAN EVER. LESS AND OLDER READERS. PERIOD.

Here there are the top 25 daily newspapers in the U.S. by circulation (with percent change) for the six-month period ending September 2006.

1. USA Today: 2,269509, (-1.3%)

2. The Wall Street Journal: 2,043235, (-1.9%)

3. The New York Times: 1,086,798, (-3.5%)

4. Los Angeles Times: 775,766, (-8.0%)

5. The New York Post: 704,011, 5.1%

6. Daily News: 693,382, 1.0%

7. The Washington Post: 656,297, (-3.3%)

8. Chicago Tribune: 576,132, (-1.7%)

9. Houston Chronicle: 508,097, (-3.6%)

10. Newsday: 413,579, (-4.9%)

11. The Arizona Republic, Phoenix: 397,294, (-2.5%)

12. The Boston Globe: 386,415, (-6.7%)

13. The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J.: 378,100, (-5.5%)

14. San Francisco Chronicle: 373,805, (-5.3%)

15. The Star Tribune, Minneapolis: 358,887, (-4.1%)

16. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 350,157, (-3.4%)

17. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland: 336,939, (-0.6%)

18. The Philadelphia Inquirer: 330,622, (-7.5%)

19. Detroit Free Press: 328,628, (-3.6%)

20. The Oregonian, Portland: 310,803, (-6.8%)

21. The San Diego Union-Tribune: 304,334, (-3.1%)

22. St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times: 288,676, (-3.2%)

23. The Orange County (Calif.) Register: 287,204, (-3.7%)

24. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 276,588, 0.6%

25. The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee: 273,609, (-5.4%)

In no other country in the world, no one, the leading newspapers are doing so poorly.

Even more: many of these papers are going to be sold, some of the editors and publishers will be fired and only a few of them will make real changes.

What's Nex?

Less readers.

Older Readers.

Less advertising.

Less journalists.

Less journalism.

They were sleeping.

And still they are.

ELECTION PREVIEWS (I)

As always, small newspapers do things better than the big ones.

Election previews, like this one from Daytona Beach.

Via Nicole Bodgas

TED KENNEDY ON NET NEUTRALITY

Politicians using YouTube to send messages on public issues.

A 3:22 minute video from Senator Kennedy, that got until today almost 300.000 views and more than 800 comments.

As one of them says:

"Smart politician. Posting an ad on youtube."

ADWATCH AND OTHER "QUICK-READ-FORMATS" THAT NEWSPAPERS MUT DO DURING POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

Adwatch is a regular column in my local paper.

Today's one is a perfect example of what newspaper can and must do during election times.

Webb revenue quote taken out of context

THE CANDIDATE On behalf of Republican U.S. Sen. George Allen

THE IMAGES An image of a bucolic Virginia farm shatters like a mirror, revealing Democrat Jim Webb in the background. A video clip from an Oct. 9 League of Women Voter s debate is shown in which Webb says, " We kid ourselves if we don't say we need new revenues."

THE CLAIM Webb would raise taxes if elected. "More revenues is Washington-speak for higher taxes," a narrator explains. "Higher taxes for Virginia's families. Jim Webb. He's not a Virginia Democrat. He's a Washington liberal."

THE FACTS The snippet from the debate was taken out of context and violated an agreement not to use the debate footage in campaign ads, reasons the League of Women Voters demanded - unsuccessfully - that Allen stop airing the ad. During the debate, Webb said America could not continue to run up huge deficits. He said he would target corporate tax loopholes, not individuals, to close the gap.

THE SCHEDULE The ad, paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is running throughout Virginia.

Reach Tony Germanotta at (757) 446-2377 or tony.germanotta@pilotonline.com.


Well, newspaper must develop similar quick-read-formats for:

1. The public opinion polls released during the campaigns.

2. The main speeches of the candidates.

3. The analysis of their programs.

4. The political blogs.

5. And also, please, be fair, for the print newspaper political ads.


Peter Zollman is right in his recent column about The Voter Guide Challenge:

With midterm elections coming up in the U.S., many newspapers offer an online voter's guide.

But I fear some of them may be missing the most important issues.

Information is available in lots of places -- print, online, television, etc. -- about the governor's race and the Senate race.

There’s lots of material handy, too, about the candidates for state attorney general, chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture.

But I have only one place to turn, my local newspaper, for information about such things as a county charter change; a ballot referendum on "disclosure of ownership interests for county land-use applications," and similar community initiatives.

The supervisor of the soil and water conservation district isn't advertising on television or sending me direct mail -- only my local paper is likely to cover that race and provide me with the information I need to decide.

HELLO, THERE! THE HERO OF THE NBA IS DEAD

I am not a basketball fan, but reading today´s sober farewells to Red Auerbach makes me think about was really wrong in the USA newspapers.

He was a real hero.

The force behind the NBA.

A basketball legend.

The author of “Basketball for the Player, the Fan and Coach.”

The magic Boston Celtics coach and manager (nine NBA championships in 10 seasons!)

Red Auerbach was the greatest basketball coach/executive who ever lived.

A competition that now is as local in Europe, Asia, Latin America or Australia than in the USA.

Reading the AP obituary (an excellent one, but buried inside of many sports sections) I realized that his departure deserved the front page of our best newspapers.

Well, we were so busy in yesterday's "page one" news-meetings packaging boring news that we forgot about the 98-year NBA hero.

Bill Simmons an ESPN columnist wrote today:

"The Celtics will mourn the soul of their franchise on Wednesday night.

Red's seat in Section 12 will remain empty.

Old players will show up.

Bagpipes will be played.

A tribute video will run on the brand-new Jumbotron that Red would have hated.

People will cheer, people will clap, people will cry.

It's going to be an emotional night."

Yes, what many newspapers do not carry anymore: emotions.

In the pictures: Red Auerbach made his final public appearance on Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., speaking after being honored with the 2006 Lone Sailor Award by the United States Navy, and flowers were placed yesterday at the Red Auerbach statue in Faneuil Hall.

WALTER MOSSBERG, THE KING OF PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY JOURNALISM

Read this from his last column at The Wall Street Journal and you will understand why he is the most well paid journalist in the USA:

It's time for my annual fall computer buyer's guide, and this year my message is a little unusual.

If you're thinking of acquiring or giving a new Windows desktop or laptop computer this holiday season, don't do it.

I suggest that, if at all possible, you wait around 90 days and get that new Windows machine in February. I advise this delay because the Windows world is on the verge of an upheaval. Microsoft is about to replace its tired, insecure Windows XP operating system with the first all-new version of Windows in more than five years.

It's called Windows Vista, and it's likely to be more secure and easier to use. But Vista won't be available until around Jan. 30, 2007.

So, all those brand-new Windows computers you might buy this holiday season will be powered by an operating system that is on its deathbed.

Walt Mossberg is the author and creator of the weekly Personal Technology column in The Wall Street Journal, which has appeared every Thursday since 1991.

Newsweek magazine calls Mr. Mossberg "the most powerful arbiter of consumer tastes in the computer world today."

Readers love him.

I am too.

THE MIAMI HERALD IN FREE FALL

From the last ABC figures:

Circulations losses at the Miami Herald were dramatic.

Daily circulation fell 8.8% to 265,583 and Sunday fell 9.1% to 361,846.

As I said in this blog many times, they are sleeping.

It was a great paper.

Now is almost dead.

Why?

Arrogance.

They lost connections with its community.

EL PAIS, NEWSPAPERS, UNICEF, LOFTS AND MERCEDES BENZ

You bought yesterday EL PAIS and you got in the print edition this kind of code.

With the same code you can send a SMS or phone to the paper and you could enter in a daily contest to win a loft in Madrid every Sunday, and a Mercedes Benz A Class model every day from Monday to Saturday.

And, very important, all the money will go to the UNICEF.

Why EL PAIS is giving away all these prizes in the next 30 days?

Because the newspaper needs to increase its circulation.

And also because EL MUNDO, the second largest newspaper in Spain is closer and closer to EL PAIS.

This must be the most extraordinary newspaper promotion ever done in the world.

The "newspaper battle" of Ma drid is going to be very interesting, and expensive.

LULA AND THE BRAZILIAN WATCHDOG MEDIA

With more than 60% of the votes, Lula wins the Presidential elections in Brazil.

As you know, the independent media has been very persistent covering corruption scandals linked directly to the President´s party but the candidate of the left was able to survive and now has been re-elected.

My impression is that this is going to be a short happy-victory-time as many of these scandals will not go away.

The media in Brazil has a very important mission in the next few months: to act as a powerful watchdog.

Lula has been a moderate leader but at the end of the day he was unable to control the corruption inside its party, and between his closest assistants.

Folha de S.Paulo, O Estado de S.Paulo, O Globo, Zero Hora, Veja and many other first class Brazilian media are going to have a great time.

You always perform better when you become a real watchdog.

CASTRO'S LAST VIDEO AND THE LATE RESPONSE OF THE MIAMI HERALD

A 80-year-old Fidel Castro with terminal cancer, in a 5 minute video shown in the Cuban television.

But The Miami Herald web site did not have these pictures in the following hours to the TV program.

Just the AP dispatch from 8:41 pm of last Saturday

More than two hours later, no pictures.

Why?

Well, at least next day the print edition of The Miami Herald had the photo from the last video of Castro.

And the online edition has now portions of the video in an AP video story.

A breaking-news, but not for the Miami market from the dominant paper and the largest newsroom in Florida where the Cuban community rules.

The old campaign against the Herald: "I do not trust The Miami Herald" could be now "I do not need The Miami Herald."

A BLOG FOR BOOK PLATES

If you like "ex libris" (I do) bookplatejunkie is your blog.

Blogs like that one explain very well the instant success of any hobby-oriented blog.

What a joy!

THE UK PRESS GAZETTE CRISIS

Let me start saying that I have been a regular subscriber of this old fashion trade magazine.

And always I had the impression that was as bad andf soft as the US Editor&Publisher.

Like E&P, as soon as the UKPG started to do independent reporting... media companies and advertisers did not like the approach.

Well, nothing new for trade publications as their audiences are their advertisers.

So, now the new owners of the UKPG want to create and independent Trust in order to survive.

I am sorry, but I don't see why they are going to fund a publication that they are not going to be able to control.

But more important that that.

Like many other ex-readers of these publications, I don't subscribe anymore to these print magazines.

Internet and the media blogs provide today a lot of information on real time.

E&P is now a monthly print magazine.

Perhaps UKPG must do the same.

But the era of media gatekeepers is gone.

THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION 50 YEARS AFTER AND THE WORDS OF ALBERT CAMUS

Why the Western media is not remembering too much the 1956 Hungarian revolt?

In Time words:

October 23, 1956: Students hold demonstration in front of the General Bem statue demanding reforms, democratization, and the return of premier Imre Nagy.

When students attempt to be heard over Budapest radio, police try to disperse crowd with tear gas, beatings and numerous arrests.

The crowd attempts to free the students and the police open fire.

The bloody revolution begins as the demonstration turns into a riot and street fighting breaks out.

Martial law is declared, a call for Russian troops issued, and, during the night, Soviet tanks and jets are reported used against demonstrators.

State Minister Bibo on November 4th, as Soviets continued their massive attack on Hungary: "I appeal to the great powers of the world for a wise and courageous decision in the interest of my enslaved nation and of the liberty of all Eastern European nations. God preserve Hungary..."

Hungary repeated free radio broadcast calls for Western help.

But the West never came.

November 4th marked the end of Hungary's valiant fight.

But marked the beginning of suffering for thousands involved in the fight for freedom.

Thousands died, and many more many more jailed.

2% of the population, over 200,000 people, were forced to flee.

One year after, Albert Camus wrote this magnificent "Stirring Letter to the World"


"The Blood of the Hungarians"

I am not one of those who wish to see the people of Hungary take up arms again in a rising certain to be crushed, under the eyes of the nations of the world, who would spare them neither applause nor pious tears, but who would go back at one to their slippers by the fireside like a football crowd on a Sunday evening after a cup final.

There are already too many dead on the field, and we cannot be generous with any but our own blood. The blood of Hungary has re-emerged too precious to Europe and to freedom for us not to be jealous of it to the last drop.

But I am not one of those who think that there can be a compromise, even one made with resignation, even provisional, with a regime of terror which has as much right to call itself socialist as the executioners of the Inquisition had to call themselves Christians.

And on this anniversary of liberty, I hope with all my heart that the silent resistance of the people of Hungary will endure, will grow stronger, and, reinforced by all the voices which we can raise on their behalf, will induce unanimous international opinion to boycott their oppressors.

And if world opinion is too feeble or egoistical to do justice to a martyred people, and if our voices also are too weak, I hope that Hungary’s resistance will endure until the counter-revolutionary State collapses everywhere in the East under the weight of its lies and contradictions.

Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any people for twenty years. But for this lesson to get through and convince those in the West who shut their eyes and ears, it was necessary, and it can be no comfort to us, for the people of Hungary to shed so much blood which is already drying in our memories.

In Europe’s isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them.

It would indeed be difficult for us to be worthy of such sacrifices. But we can try to be so, in uniting Europe at last, in forgetting our quarrels, in correcting our own errors, in increasing our creativeness, and our solidarity. We have faith that there is on the march in the world, parallel with the forces of oppression and death which are darkening our history, a force of conviction and life, an immense movement of emancipation which is culture and which is born of freedom to create and of freedom to work.

Those Hungarian workers and intellectuals, beside whom we stand today with such impotent sorrow, understood this and have made us the better understand it. That is why, if their distress is ours, their hope is ours also. In spite of their misery, their chains, their exile, they have left us a glorious heritage which we must deserve: freedom, which they did not win, but which in one single day they gave back to us.

WEB DESIGN IS 95% TYPOGRAPHY... AND SIMPLICITY

Information Architects got it right:

95% of the information on the web is written language.

It is only logical to say that a web designer should get good training in the main discipline of shaping written information, in other words: Typography.

And then they add:

Simplicity as a result of a creative process is “the ultimate sophistication”, as Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said.

Simple websites are easy to use, easy to understand, nice to look at. In practice, websites are either unusable or ugly and in general filled with too many complicated words. Why do designers have such a hard time to keep it simple?

Web-designers are confronted with a set of rules that websites have to follow in order to work, such as:

- Links have to be recognizable either through being underlined or blue.

- Logos should be placed in the upper left corner.

- Fonts should not only be big (at least 12px) but also scalable.

- Few pictures is better than many pictures.

- Few fragmented text works better than text-blocks.

- No columns for text, as websites scroll.

See the creative way to present themselves in this pdf about Information Architects.

SIR, YOU BETTER PAY MORE ATTENTION TO INTERNET

WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell said yesterday that the relentless rise of the internet was a key factor in the depressed state of the overall UK advertising market.

Well, Sir, you must start to consider that Internet is also part of the advertising market.

THE GUARDIAN, THIS SATURDAY: A MAGAZINE INSTEAD OF A DVD

Today, The Guardian is promoting its Saturday edition with Space, a free magazine.

The Italian "panini" strategy comes to the UK.

Also The Observer will offer tomorrow its monthly Sports magazine.

Newspapers that promote their sales with editorial print quality products send the right message to the market.

WHY DOW JONES IS SELLING SIX OF ITS COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS?

Dow Jones & Company announced a definitive agreement to sell six of its community newspapers to Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. for $282.5 million in cash (after-tax proceeds to be approximately $268.0 million) which will be used to fund the recently announced Factiva acquisition and to pay down debt.

"This sale and the pending acquisition of Factiva are the latest examples of our commitment to transform Dow Jones from a company heavily dependent on print publishing revenue to a more diversified company capable of meeting the needs of its customers across all consumer and enterprise media channels, whether print, online, mobile or otherwise,'' said Rich Zannino, CEO of Dow Jones.

"By selling these papers for more than 11 times EBITDA and buying the remaining 50% of Factiva for an effective price after tax benefits and cost synergies of about 4 times EBITDA, we are efficiently redeploying capital from print to faster growing digital publishing.'' Mr. Zannino concluded.

Well, like The New York Times Company, the publishers of The Wall Street Journal need to concentrate in their main products.

These newspapers were the legacy of buying the Ottaway Group many year ago and since then Dow Jones made good money as anybody does in the US with these community publications, but at the end of the day they were a distraction.

The Wall Street Journal is another great newspapers with a poor financial performance, and I will not be surprise if very soon a free financial newspaper like CITY AM comes to Wall Street and grabs some of its readers and advertisers.

"MONOCLE", A NEW MAGAZINE OR LET´S INVEST MORE IN PRINT...

Here it comes, a new international print magazine.

Name: MONOCLE

Editor in Chief: The 37-year-sold Canadian Tyler Brule (founder of Wallpaper)

Managing Editor: Robyn Holt, from the Russian office of Conde Nast.

Headquarters: London, with bureaux in New York, Tokyo and Zurich.

Launching date: February 2007

Pages: 240 average.

Cover price: 5 British pounds.

Investment: 5 million British pounds.

Editorial staff: 22

Periodicity: 10 issues per year.

Initial print run: 150,000

Focus: Geopolitics, Culture, Business and Design, inspired by Conde Nast Traveller, BBC, Wallpaper, The Economist and BusinessWeek

Inspiration: Der Speiegel and Stern ("I used to work in Hamburg, the hub for Der Spiegel and Stern. I was always fascinated by those titles -- the depth of reporting, the quality, the sheer volume."

The last word from Mr. Brule: "If you look at magazines in Korea and Japan, which are markets that are four or five years further into the digital revolution, there is actually a greater emphasis on print and a greater investment. That's where publishers need to go, both in Europe and the United States, and not downgrade the quality of magazines."

Well, good luck, my friend, and a lot of full rate ads!

BENCHMARKS... NOW FOR LIBERATION

Bush is losing his war in Iraq and to stop the mess he is talking about "benchmarks."

Welcome to the last argument!

Now the Rothschild's team in Liberation is talking also about "benchmarks."

Well, not good.

The newsroom responded that their approach to save the paper "est uniquement comptable et statistique".

Rothschild wants to have a "quotidien haut de gamme, de 40 pages".

And the new Liberation has to achieve these "benchmarks":

"Un feuillet = 1500 signes; un article = 3 feuillets en moyenne; un journaliste = 1 article par jour en moyenne... Un éditeur édite 7 pages"

In summary, the banker wants only "100 journalistes écrivants" against the current "198 journalistes permanents."

The Liberation of Mr. Rothschild is dead.

Somebody has to tell this brilliant financier that a newspaper is something more than numbers and ratios.

NEW FRONT PAGES ON ELECTION TIMES

The two leading Catalonian newspapers are covering their autonomic elections in a big way with a lot of creativity.

El Periodico had two days ago this front page with just a letter from a reader.

And La Vanguardia is asking to all the main candidates to design a fake front page with a different politician every day taking control of the "page one" news meeting.

It seems that these politicians are not doing the editor´s job very badly.

And readers like it.

Via periodistas21

THE WELCH'S OPTION FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

The Financial Times reports today:

Jack Welch became one of corporate America’s most celebrated leaders for transforming General Electric from a solid, if bureaucratic, company to an entrepreneurial giant during his long tenure as chief executive.

Now, Mr Welch, known as “neutron Jack” for the widespread job cuts at GE, may be poised to attempt an even greater management feat: publishing a newspaper.

The prospect of Mr Welch’s managerial prowess being applied to a newspaper that is bleeding readers and advertisers may be tantalising to some. But the question many are asking in Boston is whether Mr Welch’s skills would be suited for the newsroom of one of the US’s most prestigious papers – where results are not measured purely in profits.

Would he and his partners be running the paper to maximise their return on investment, for example, or more as a matter of civic duty?

Mr Welch is no stranger to the media business. During his tenure at GE, it acquired NBC, one of the largest US broadcast networks. Mr Welch made deep cuts to the news division, and some former executives say he meddled with their coverage. Lawrence Grossman, former president of NBC News, claimed Mr Welch ordered him to tone down reporting on the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987.

In retirement, Mr Welch has crossed the editorial divide. Along with his wife, Suzy Welch, a former editor of Harvard Business Review, he now pens a regular column for Business Week magazine.

My comments:

1. Let´s not be too arrogant. Newspaper business is complex but not a rocket science.

2. Jack Welch has a good record as a successful executive and I don´t see why he is has to fail in the media business.

3. I read the Welch couple's column in BusinessWeek and it is really good indeed.

4. The newspaper industry has become an isolate business and perhaps one way to solve our problems is to bring in new management blood.

5. Yes, I know, you will tell me about what a disaster was when Los Angeles Times hired Mark Willes, "the cereal killer."

6. But his was hired by the Chandler family, the same one that sold the company to the Tribune Group, and the only responsible of the current mess at the Los Angeles Times.

7. In summary: if The New York Times does not know how to make the Boston Globe a successful business, its shareholders have the right to ask for better management, new ideas and new ownership.

8. At the end of the day, Jack Welch in his partners are risking their own money and reputation.

9. I will be more than happy to see what they can do.

10. The New York Times Company had more than 10 years to change the paper, failed, and now it´s time to change the horses.

Illustration, Manuel Morgado

VENTURE CAPITALIST INVESTING IN MEDIA

Roger McNamee, one of the most successful investors in Silicon Valley, he launched in 2004 Elevation Partners, a private equity partnership focused on media and entertainment content.

In this video interview at this week's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT, he spoke
about his much-discussed investment in Forbes magazine.

In the picture: McNamee, a business partner of Bono, with Steve Forbes.

CRAZY NEWSSTANDS

Quioscos locos (Crazy Newsstands) is a great blog reporting all the promotions made by Spanish publications.

The Spanish newsstands sell today more books, DVDs, and all kind of gadgets... than newspapers and magazines.

The reason is clear: many publications make a lot of money selling these "collateral" products.

As our Italian partner Nicola Bovoli says: "these sales are now the revenue's third leg, after the income from circulation and advertising."

El Pais, the largest Spanish paper, leads also the promotions and the revenues for those sales..

Below, an astonishing sample of some recents offers:

THE APPLE IPHONE?

Down Jones reports about the long-awaited Apple iPhone music-playing phone.

SELL, SELL, SELL...

Oh, boy! Jeff Jarvis is in a selling mood.

His three main suggestions to newspaper owners under attack:

1. Sell fast.

2. Get out of the printing business and into the news business.

3. Give it away.

Well, a lot of people will be more than happy to buy many of these papers, and still make a lot of money.

JACK WELCH AND THE LOCAL OWNERS TREND

Jack Wells interest for the Boston Globe is driving nuts the people of the NYTC.

The Wall Stret Journal reports today about the possible sale of the Boston Globe:

Ben Taylor, the former Globe publisher whose family sold the Globe to the New York Times, has long been unhappy with the performance of the business and has talked about wanting to buy it back, according to a person close to the situation. Mr. Taylor didn't return a call for comment.

The local interest resonates in a climate when a major change in newspaper ownership appears to be in the offing all over the country. Private equity concerns have been actively looking at newspaper properties, but deep-pocketed citizens who made their money elsewhere have also been circling and, in some cases, buying.

But the most high-profile example of a local owner buying up the hometown paper has already run into difficulty. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Mr. Tierney last week said he would need to slash jobs and aggressively cut costs in order to pay off his bank loans.

"We have to come to a basic reality that it's not 1976, it's 2006, so rules like when I send an ad-sales person to entertain a client at the Phillies game, I can't pay him time and a half for that," said Mr. Tierney, who says he is determined to cut the paper's labor costs. "I can't put a bubble around this building and make it like it was 1976, because it's not. And so we just need to be rational about it and do what we need to do to compete."

In other cities, local business people have expressed interest in a variety of newspapers. David Geffen, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle have signaled their desire to own Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times; Frank Zarb has privately expressed interest in putting together a group to buy Tribune's Newsday. Local groups in Hartford and Baltimore have also expressed interest in Tribune's Hartford Courant and Baltimore Sun.

If some of these investors begin acting on their aspirations, it could mean a major transformation in the ownership structure of a unique industry with its own particular demands. Moguls like Hearst, Scripps and Pulitzer built dynasties initially, and then newspaper companies began to assume two models. One was the paper controlled by family trusts like those of the Sulzbergers (New York Times), Grahams (Washington Post), Chandlers (Los Angeles Times) and Bancrofts (The Wall Street Journal), with some public money.

But this model is breaking apart as later generations get frustrated with the returns.

QUOTES: HENRY FORD

Henry Ford:

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have asked for a faster horse."

IF JACK WELCH IS INTERESTED IN THE BOSTON GLOBE... YOU BETTER WATCH OUT

From today's Boston Globe:

Two of Boston's best-known businessmen -- retired General Electric Co. chief executive Jack Welch and adman Jack Connors -- are quietly exploring the possibility of making an offer to buy The Boston Globe from The New York Times Co.

While neither Welch nor Connors would comment, several executives who have participated in the discussions caution the plans are preliminary.

But the executives are working with the investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. to analyze a potential deal.

They say JPMorgan has valued the Globe at $550 million to $600 million, well below the $1.1 billion the Times Co. paid in 1993.

Times Co. has said repeatedly that the Globe, despite its continued poor financial results, is not for sale.

IS THE BOSTON GLOBE FOR SALE?

Today´s memo from Boston Globe publisher Steve Ainsley

Dear Colleagues,

As the front page story in today’s Globe points out, these are difficult
times in our industry.

In cities across the country, rumors abound aboutthe future of newspapers and these are likely to continue for some time.

Boston is no exception.

It is very frustrating to me that neither I nor the company can say more about them but because we are part of a publicly-traded company, to ensure compliance with securities laws, we do not comment on rumors of potential acquisitions or divestitures, regardless of whether they are true or not.

What I can say is this, I am committed to improving the performance of the Globe.

We have a great newspaper.

We can make it even greater. And I mean that from both a journalistic standpoint and a business standpoint for the two go hand in hand.

In order to continue to produce the high-quality journalism for which we have long been known, we must put this newspaper on a strong and stable financial footing.

It means continuing to cover our community better than anyone else.

It means creating new products both in print and online that serve the needs of our readers and advertisers.

It means finding innovative ways to reach new readers and advertisers, and being disciplined on expenses and allocating our resources.

This is not easy.

No one knows that better than all of you who walk through the doors of the Globe every day and work hard to make it better.

But it can and will be done.

Together we will ensure that the Globe continues to produce outstanding journalism and together we can strengthen its financial foundation.

TIME TO BUY SHARES OF THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY

See these charts and you will realize that it is time to get some stock from this great media company.

More than ever if they sell the Boston Globe.

At $22.96 it is a real bargain.

Let´s "invest" today $100.000 and I will report to you week by week if this "virtual investment" was or not right.

UPDATE: I asked my Merrill Lynch broker to invest real money in this stock, as you must do what you preach.

READ IT! SPY WAS ONE OF THE MOST FUNNY MAGAZINES OF THE LATE 80´s

Are magazines in crisis?

Well, at least they are not as funny and creative as SPY was.

It has become a collectors magazine, but now you can read the inside history of that great publication told by Kurt Andersen, Graydon Carter and George Kalogerakis.

On sale today.

Get it!

NETWORKED COMPUTERS, AS REVOLUTIONARY AS THE PRINTING PRESS

From an interesting article in Los Angeles Times:

Think of television as the great downloading device, a one-way flow of content produced by few and consumed by many.

The networked computer, on the other hand, allows for as many producers as consumers and for individual or universal distribution.

This is what makes it as revolutionary as the printing press.

Downloading can be a great thing, giving poor schoolchildren access to online encyclopedias and e-textbooks that they could never afford otherwise.

But it is the Internet's unique capacity for uploading our own music, images and opinions that makes it central to the development of 21st century culture.

Via Rodrigo Lara Mesquita, RadiumSystems.

WE ARE LOST IF BUSH ALSO STARTS TO TALK ABOUT "BENCHMARKS"

President is Bush is speaking right now in a press conference.

"Benchmarks" is the number one word of the conference.

Well, I doubt that 99% of the American people know what is he talking about.

Perhaps he also does not know.

And this could be worse.

THE NEW YORK TIMES INVESTMENT IN IRAQ

The New York Times expends around three million USD per year to cover Iraq.

With four or five rotating correspondents, two photographers, 70 stringers and 45 armed guards, the budget looks to me very modest for the amazing job that they are doing.

120 journalists and assistants have died in this conflict.

The 130.000 US soldiers in Iraq and their families and friends deserve such coverage, and wise investment.

In the picture, NYT correspondent in Bagdad, John Burns.

Via leblogmedias (in French).

PICTURES OF FERNANDO ALONSO

The 2006 Formula One racing king is the Spaniard Fernando Alonso.

As you can imagine, this Monday the front page of many Spanish newspapers were very similar, and very boring.

As Arsenio Escolar says in his 20 Minutos blog, Formula One pictures have a lot of "advertising" noise and the cars, cars, cars fever... that make the pilots almost irrelevant robots.

And you will get as always the same pictures with the same girls around, and the same bottles of champagne.

No genuine, personal, or moving pictures, does not matter that hundred of photographers are there.

For what?

OH, NO! MORE COMPETITORS...

What about this one from Taiwan?

THREE 100% CREATIVITY LESSONS FROM SAATCHI & SAATCHI

Did you get it?

Three great ads for Mondadori Books by Saatchi&Saatchi Italy.

Gold prize at ADCI Awards in newspaper advertising category.

Great work of copywriting!

BARRY DILLER SPEAKS OUT

Some quotes from a conversation between Michael Eisner and Barry Diller:

About multimedia companies:

“As they get more diversified they get less well managed.”

About old news media companies:

“All of these companies were based upon being dictatorial and telling people how they would do business with them.”

Diller values editorship, so much so that he repeated the point. The more content, the more editorship “as clear, as narrow as possible, is going to be prized.”

THE NEW YORK TIME WILL USE LESS SPACE...

The New York Times Company is giving up five floors at its new corporate headquarters before it even moves in.

The company is seeking a tenant to occupy the 23rd through 27th floors.

The Times originally planned to occupy the first 29 floors.

Another way to cut, cut, cut.

ARTISTIC PHOTOSHOP

Watch this slideshow and you will see how Photoshop can be used in a very creative way.

THE DOVE COMMERCIAL

Smart.

Smart.

Smart.

Pure marketing.

J.J. Garcia Noblejas makes the point (in Spanish)

THE NEW YORK TIMES PERFUME CRITIC? YES, A VERY GOOD ONE

Chandler Burr, The New York Times new perfume critic gives his first five stars.

His grades:

(0) Do not inhale

(*) Inoffensive

(**) Eminently sniffable

(***) Breathtaking

(****) Total nose job

(*****) Transcendent

Not bad for a great paper that gets better and better, except in the Book Review where they could apply the same concept with this new stars ranking:

(0) Why this book was written and published?

(*) To read just if you don´t have anything else around.

(**) To read only by book critics.

(***) To read and forget about it.

(****) To read and recommend to your friends.

(*****) Buy it, read it, keep it.

Please, send me your own ranking.

THE DISNEY DIFFERENCE? WHAT ABOUT NEWSPAPERS

Reading this remarkable piece about the Disney parks, I was wondering if our newspapers could deliver the same kind of unique experience.

If not, we are in trouble.

The media arena is becoming more crowed than ever.

Only the best will survive.

And the best will be the ones that are different.

Only the different will survive.

Be different!

Be unique!

Be magic!

Be a necessary newspaper!

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT: A DIFFERENT FRONT PAGE EVERY DAY

What I like the most of my local paper is that its cover is different everyday.

Sometimes is good, sometimes not, but at least they try very hard.

As my wife, Deborah Withey, is the AME/Presentation, and she is right now working full time for the redesign of the paper, and not involved in the daily operation, let me congratulate her design team for today´s front page.

The best: the two columns to present the Virginia poll about the November´s Senate race.

Red vs blue.

Great!

THE NEW YORKER WINS THE BEST US COVER OF THE YEAR

A New Yorker magazine cover depicting President Bush being flooded in the Oval Office after Hurricane Katrina has been chosen a panel of the nation’s magazine editors and designers as the best cover of the year.

The illustration shows the waters rising around Mr. Bush and his top staff as the flood from New Orleans engulfs the White House.

The magazine-cover contest was held jointly by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASNE) and the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) to promote their industry. Last year, to mark the 40th anniversary of the society, a panel of editors, designers and photographers chose the 40 best covers of the last 40 years; the two groups later decided to make it an annual contest for covers published between Aug. 1 and the following July 31.

Winning covers and runners-up in all categories are posted online at the society’s web site.

THE NEW PHOTOJOURNALISTS

Thanks to Aaaron Johnson

THE ENRON GANG AND THE NEW YORK TIMES "GRAPHIC"

I love this "graphic" of The New York Times.

Simple.

Clear.

With a lot of information.

Perhaps is not a proper "graphic."

But it is journalism.

FINANCIAL TIMES: LET´S START EARLY...

From today´s The Independent and about Lionel Barber, the new editor of the Financial Times:


Barber now demands that increasing numbers of FT staffers are at their desks at 7am.

"I think we all realise that everybody's coming to work a bit earlier these days," he says, convinced news organisations need to adapt to survive.

"Everybody in the news business today is having to think differently. You have to be more flexible, to work different patterns to the ones we've become used to, the 10.30am to 7.30pm shift say."

This need is most evident at times of breaking news.

"On stories such as the North Korean nuclear crisis we can't wait 12 or 18 hours for some analysis.

We have expertise in the building who can deliver a take after an hour," says Barber, who detailed defence correspondent Stephen Fidler to file a reaction piece on FT.com.

One hour?

Well, BBC, CNN, SKY and FOX NEWS can deliver "instant analysis" in less than that, but for a traditional newspaper this must be a "first."

One of the biggest revolutions in newsroom management has to be: "start early, leave early."

WHERE IT IS MY EAGLE? OR THE MASTHEAD QUESTION

You redesign a newspaper and you know in advance that the masthead question will take 80% of the discussions.

The recent changes in the front page of the Los Angeles Times got a lot of reactions from readers.

One of them, Mr. Ben Sullivan, writes to the paper:

"The L A Times without the Eagle is not the L A Times. Change and evolution is good, but do it in a way that maintains the quality that has attracted us readers for many decades."

I don´t get it.

What the hell has to do an Eagle (IN CAPITALS, YOU SEE) with "the quality that has attracted us readers for many decades"!

The only feedback that you need to have after a redesign is the increase of circulation and advertising.

Readers vote everyday in the newsstands.

BERTELSMANN INVESTS $63 MILLION IN DIGITAL VENTURES

Bertelsmann said it has established a new venture capital fund aimed at emerging technologies and businesses in digital media.

The new venture arm, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, will focus on digital media opportunities to build out Bertelsmann’s media portfolio—including broadcast television, book and magazine publishing, music, media services, and direct marketing.

The investments ($63 million) will primarily be minority stakes in early-stage companies, but can also include majority stakes and external fund investments where appropriate.

Cut, cut, cut, but also invest, invest, invest!

A POLITICALLY CORRECT TIME MAGAZINE PHOTO

A great cover with a compelling headline.

And a more real picture of the black democratic senator from Illinois.

If you compare the pictures of Barack Obama you will understand why Time is a politically correct magazine that after the dark and controverrsial cover for O. J. .Simpson, now is in the lighter side.

LESS IS MORE: THE NEW LOS ANGELES TIMES SUNDAY FRONT PAGE

This is a real improvement.

Dean Baquet, the editor of the paper, wrote in Page One:

Starting today, you will notice major changes in the appearance of the Los Angeles Times.

On Sundays, pictures at the top of the page will highlight stories and sections inside.

Headlines will come in a greater variety of styles and sizes.

On inside pages, more boxes and graphics will offer background on major news stories.

On weekdays, the changes are even more pronounced. Column One, long a showcase for The Times’ best story-telling, will be presented more dramatically.

And the weekday and Saturday editorial pages will move from the California section to the main news section.

These changes will highlight our best work, make the paper more visually engaging and help readers find whatever interests them throughout the paper.

You will see more changes in the coming months, all the result of much study of what our readers have told us they want from The Times.

You can see more details in Newsdesigner.

NEWSROOM CUTS AND THE REAL PROBLEM FOR OUR NEWSPAPERS

Howard Kurtz writes in his Media Notes at the Washington Post web site:

"In recent months, executives have announced staff cutbacks of 19 percent at the Dallas Morning News and 17 percent at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The new owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer -- which cut its newsroom by 15 percent last year -- told his staff Friday that further layoffs are "unavoidable" because of plunging revenues. At The Washington Post, 8 percent of the newsroom staff recently took early retirement offers. All of which means fewer bodies to pore over records at City Hall, the statehouse or federal agencies. Newspapers and networks face the same dilemma: too many people doing other things with their time, from Web-surfing to podcast listening, or simply losing interest in news altogether. Some of these customers are consuming the companies' wares online, which is great for exposure but doesn't produce the revenue needed to support long-form reporting. If this erosion continues, it would be bad news for serious journalism, and good news for corrupt politicians."

In his piece Kurtz review some recent scandals discovered by traditional media newsrooms and it seems that the message is clear, but... are we sure that just keeping or increasing the newsroom staff numbders our newspapers will do a better job?

Of course that you need journalists, but for what?

To re-package the same news from the same sources?

To attend the same boring press conferences?

To publish today the same news that our readers knew YESTERDAY?

To produce pages and pages of commodity information with no value added?

To edit pages and pages of listings that could go directly to our web site?

To attend long and badly planned news meetings?

To expend hours and hours in front of our computers?

To work with not real feed-back from your editors?

To work with no time to think?

The real challenge in our industry is not how many people do we need, but to know how to change the rules and traditions of a newsroom management system that does not work anymore.

Firtst fix the newsroom management system, and then let´s discuss how many people do we need.

And then we will not have any problem to keep or find the best talent.

Today´s problem is the opposite: newspapers are loosing or not attracting talented people because our newsrooms are not creative places to work, to discuss, and to dream.

I am not worried about the people that leave (many of them with great early retirement packages) but about the people that stay in our newsrooms to work under the same conditions.

THE NEW EUROPEAN DIGITAL GENERATION

Spain leads the revolution.

In this recent study of NetObserver Europe in France, Italy, UK, Spain and Germany, a new generation of internet users rules the new digital markets.

60% of the Spanish internet users are less than 35 years old.

Click on each of the charts to read better the data.

Via Demain Tous Journalistes?

THE TITANIC IS SINKING AND OUR DESIGNERS ARE JUST RE-ARRANGING THE CHAIRS...

I said a few days ago that the recent redesign of the St. Petersburg Times was, in my opinion, quite modest.

Well, if you read the comments from the peers in NewsDesigner, they think it´s fantastic!

One of them comments is from "Tom" and it is less grandiloquent, but the poor guy is surrounded by congratulations and all kind of self-serving empty words (Great job guys, a thoughtful job, A huge undertaking and a really nice look...) and the only that he can say is:

Changes, in my opinion, I don't see any.

And there is also this very good one:

Oh, yeah. Now I see.

"City" is now "Local."

Then another point out that the last "revolution" in the US newspaper design was USA Today, and I agree 100 per cent.

USA Today does not get big awards from the Society of News Design (SND), and the reasons seem clear to me:

1. Has first class color.

2. Good printing.

3. Short pagination.

4. No "jumps" except for the cover-stories of each section.

5. The inside pages are well designed.

6. Texts are short and well edited.

7. Carries good infographics are there since the beginning.

8. They never "redesigned" the paper but just improved it day by day.

9. It is a "readers" oriented paper.

10. Has the same Art Director since its foundation.

11. It is the largest paid newspaper in the country.

12. It´s different.

13. Has an unique audience.

14. Does not compete with local papers.

15. And, well... makes a lot of money.

I really wish the best to the new St. Petersburg Times, but I am not sure that these changes will make any difference for an industry that needs more bold propositions.

Newspapers designers could have been in the front seat of this revolution but now it seems that they are very busy giving away thousands of awards, and telling each other how great they are.

I was in the 90´s I founded the Malofiej Infographics Awards, I was the first SND European director and an active member of the SND board of director.

I love newspaper design and I respect the great work of many of my colleagues.

They work very hard, specially in the US market where too many publishers and editors don´t care about good color, good printig, good graphics and good design.

But times have changed.

Many of the SND founders are retired or gone.

The SND annual workshop is now a sad shadow of what it was in the past, and more parroquial than ever.

Yes, there are exceptions.

Like Richard Curtis, the USA Today´s managing editor for design, photo and graphics, still in the daily battle, but as I said his paper is seen as a break in the politically correct US newspaper design world.

Let´s be optimistic.

Visual journalism still is one of the few solution for this industry.

I am sure that many newspaper designers will fight this battle.

We don´t need more awards.

What we need is first class journalists, doing first class journalism.

Not decoration.

And as always, remember:

They are not killing us.

We are.

A FLASH PARODY ABOUT ITALIANS AND THE EUROPEAN UNION

This is really a great 6'20" flash film from 1999 with music and sound effects of Roberto Frattini, but looks fresh and new.

It is about the Italians, but it could be about Spaniards or Greeks too.

Bruno Bozzetto is a genius.

TV FUTURE?

The TV is dead, long live video.

THE LIBERATION SOAP OPERA

The board of directors ofLiberation, saw the editorial reform project presented by the Société civile des personnels de Libération (SCPL), or the Civil Society of Libération Staff, and suspended its decision after the paper’s main shareholder, Mr. Rothschild, saidf that the plan was economically unviable.

The SCPL, which owns an 18.4% stake in the paper, proposed a budget-balancing plan for 2007 including 50 staff cuts and a reduction in the number of pages with more emphasis being placed on the paper’s website.

Rothschild, who invested €20 million in the paper last year of which all has been spent, would like to see about 100 journalists cut from the paper’s payroll.

It is figured that the paper needs a €15 million euro investment to stay on its feet.

The board will meet again on October 26 for another vote.

Le Monde has this dramatic chart about the crisis of Liberation and the French daily newspaper industry.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: THE REASON FOR HER DEATH...

The reason for her death seems clear, according to a Russian blogger:

She got too close to the truth.

IRANIAN CENSORSHIP

No comment.

Just click here.

And if you want to know more, read this interview.

THE FULL "ON AND OFF LINE" INTEGRATION OF NEWSPAPER NEWSROOMS

You will agree with me that:

1. Editors of many print newspapers don´t believe in the full integration of the "on anf off line" newsrooms.

2. So, they promote separate editorial teams.

3. But they don´t want to share the direction of both platforms.

4. In other words: they want a "silos operation" except in the top.


The reality is that if you promote the two hearts, two lungs model you are going to:

1. Expend more money, and hire more people.

2. Waste and duplicate editorial resources.

3. Perpetuate the separation of "two cultures" that readers and advertisers have already embraced.

4. Develop technological platforms and editorial systems that will not "talk."

5. And, what it is more crucial, your two products will lack the necessary unitary editorial direction that any media company needs if does not want to confuse its audience.

There are, more and more, cases of newspapers that are having trouble with this necessary "only one voice."

INNOVATION believes instead in the one heart, one lung model.

If you don´t promote the full integration, you will pay the consequences... and, indeed, the bills.

NOTICIAS, A NEWSMAGAZINE THAT HAS CREDIBILITY AND COURAGE...

...or perhaps because it has courage, has credibility.

Published in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by our friend Jorge Fontevechia, NOTICIAS is a weekly breaking-news magazine that has been for many years a brave publication.

Always with first class editors, NOTICIAS has powerful cover-stories and is a perfect example of how practicing Journalism 101 you will get readers and advertisers, if not happy politicians and tycoons whose dealings are expose without no mercy.

Veja in Brazil is another successful case with the same DNA.

The crisis of all the traditional newsmagazines starts here: they don´t do journalism anymore.

They are in the show business.

Working now in a major redefinition of a leading European newsmagazine, INNOVATION believes very strongly in this basic proposition: newsmagazines are facing dramatic challenges, and they must become again 100% explanatory and anticipatory media outlets.

Not soft news publications or news cathedral without soul.

ASTONISHING PICTURES

Thanks to mira¡!, a smart blog about the new visual culture, I see this amazing gallery of pictures.

Once again, reality is more rich than fiction.

THE NEW YORK TIMES READERS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE WORLD OF... FOOD

This is today´s most e-mailed story in the nytimes.com web site:

Entrees Reach $40, and, Sorry, the Sides Are Extra

The picture of James Estrin has this caption:

$8 A BITE? A lobster dish of 1 3/4 ounces is offered by the Modern in New York. Its price: $42.

And Jodi Cantor explains that:

“Forty is the new 30,” said Richard Coraine, the chief operating officer of Union Square Hospitality Group, which recently began charging $42 for a 1¾-ounce appetizer portion of lobster at lunchtime at the Modern in New York. Ten percent of its lunch patrons order the dish, it says.

Well, the world is falling down but U.S. restaurants are up.

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT: PHOTOJOURNALISM AT ITS BEST, 100 HUNDRED YEARS OF GREAT PICTURES

Norfolk's Chrysler Museum of Art opened today a fantastic exhibit featuring more than 300 historic and contemporary pictures from The Virginian-Pilot.

You can watch here a visual presentation of this great exhibition.

GREAT LOGO FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION

A brilliant Polish student has won a competition to design a logo for the EU's 50th birthday celebrations next year.

Szymon Skrzypczak, 26, made his design using the words in English "Together since 1957".

The competition was entered by 1,700 students.

Mr Skrzypczak, currently a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, wins a prize of 6,000 euros (7,250 USD)

Great job!

THE SAD LEGACY OF KNIGHT-RIDDER: CUTS, CUTS, CUTS

In the same day, two former Knight-Ridder newspapers announced staff cuts.

101 at the San Jose Mercury News.

The publisher of the Philadlphia Newspapers (Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News) Brian Tierney (in the picture) said today:

Cash flow has dropped from $100 million in 2004, to $76 million last year, to less than $50 million estimated for 2006, according to Brian Tierney. After interest payments, that leaves less than $10 million "to invest in the business," he said. Without "immediate and dramatic changes", the company won't be able to meet interest payments next year, he added.

Any layoffs would follow a 16 percent reduction in newsroom staffing at the two newspapers in November 2005.

Read the memo of Brian to his staff and you will understand better how the US newspapers are going to collapse faster than expected.

DAN GILLMOR: KENNEDY, VIDEOS AND DIGITAL CAMERAS

In Valencia (Spain), Dan Gillmor speaks about how different will be today the visual records of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas (Texas).

NBC UNIVERSAL: MEDIA NEWS? BAD NEWS

Again the front page brings media news.

Our industry is becoming BIG NEWS.

Well, I am afraid that this not good.

Media news?

Bad news.

For sure.

Better not to be in the front pages.

Why we think that we are so important?

Is this the best way to serve our readers and advertisers.

Perhaps we are writing for our peers, not for our costumers.

THE DOW JONES INDEX HITS THE 12,000 MARK BUT US FRONT PAGES DON´T PAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION

Higher than ever.

Over 2,000.

But the US newspapers reacted in a very sober way.

Only a few charts.

Small ones (The New York Times just in the bottom of the page)

And no one did a great infographic, not just big, but really a good one.

Why?

Again, this was going to happen soon or later...

No planning.

No creativity.

No risk.

No gain.

Today we heard more bad news about American newspapers (profits at The New York Times are down in a dramatic way)

Nobody is killing them.

They are.

RETOUCHING HISTORICAL PICTURES

October 23, 1940, Hitler and Franco meet in Hendaya (Spain).

The photo in the left is the real one.

The photo in the right has Franco with the eyes open and a less rigid right arm.

Click on the pictures to see better the manipulation.

The photo archives of EFE, the Spanish news agency don´t lie.

From El Pais and via http://blogs.20minutos.es/martinezsoler.

QUOTES

Quotes from the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

"Technology is [just] a tool. It's the content, stupid," said Martin Nisenholtz, The New York Times Company's senior vice president for digital operations.

John Carroll, who left the Los Angeles Times last year after refusing to implement newsroom cutbacks, said the requirement that a newspaper maintain a 20 percent average profit margin -- which he called the industry standard -- diminishes quality, which in turn erodes circulation. "With a 10 percent profit margin you'd have $75 million more to spend improving the quality of the paper and another $75 million to spend to build the future on the web," he said.

Bill Marimow, a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter fired from his post as editor of The Baltimore Sun two years ago amid controversy over management style and cost cutting, said, "We're eroding the fundamentals of long-term journalism deliberately to satisfy investors' goals."

Marimow, who last week accepted a new job as ombudsman of NPR after resigning as NPR's vice president of news, said newspapers must do three things: First, invest in "great journalism: the best reporters, editors and business side people." Next, put "a chunk of profits into the newest, latest technology." And finally, "promote and market our news organizations."

"It's a fatal mistake, especially for local news, not to do this."

And Jeff Jarvis: "The media doesn't matter, journalism matters."

TONY BLAIR´S NEW CARRIER AS A ROCK SINGER

Watching this 2,26 minute video you will understand better the reasons of the YouTube success.

ARCHITECTS THAT DON´T CARE ABOUT YOU AND US

I can not believed.

The new terminal of Barajas Airport in Madrid gets the RIBA Stirling Prize 2006

Designed by Richard Rogers Partnership, this is one of the most inefficient airports ever constructed.

Beautiful from outside and inside, you are granted to lose connections, get lost and walk marathonic distances.

Great for the ego of the builders, terrible for you and us the poor passengers.

The Guardian has a marvelous piece about these prizes with this great headline:

"The truth about those iconic buildings: the roofs leak, they're dingy and too hot"

300 MILLION IN GRAPHICS (2)

The McClatchy's one.

Good.

300 MILLION IN GRAPHICS (1)

The Chicago Tribune did an excellent job explaining the population growth in the USA.

Other will try the same.

CHICAGO SUN TIMES: A COVER TO CELEBRATE

Here she is.

The Chicago Sun Times is not sure about the fact but does not matter.

She is from Chicago and was born around the time that the US Census Bureau predicted the birth of the 300.000.000th American citizen.

And another candidate from New York.

WAN: DIGITAL MEDIA STUDY USA TOUR

A first class study tour.

The World Association of Newspapers is offering a unique opportunity to visit some of America’s leading newspaper and web technology companies and return home with many profit-generating digital publishing ideas.

The tour will start in Chicago on 26 November before moving to the west coast cities of Seattle, Sacramento and San Jose. Visits will include:

Chicago

The Chicago Tribune
The Tribune has been a leader in online revenue making and cross-media advertising. Chicago is the headquarters and strategic hub of several major newspapers, both print and online, across the U.S.

Classified Ventures
Classified Ventures CEO Daniel Jauernig will talk about the classifieds network, owned by the top six newspaper chains in the U.S., which includes Cars.com, Apartments.com, Homescape.com and HomeGain.com.

Seattle

Microsoft
Microsoft’s Advanced Reading Technologies Group, which is bringing newspapers, including the New York Times, to tablet PCs.

MSN
MSN, one of the world's most trafficked and profitable web sites, with revenues of more than $1 billion USD. MSN General Manager Steve Cvengros and a variety of MSN producers will lead the discussion on MSN.com’s strategy for content and moneymaking.

Seattle Times
Executives from both the Seattle Times and Seattletimes.com will share innovations in editorial and advertising strategies.

Sacramento and San Jose

Stanford University’s Cantor Centre for the Arts
A joint seminar, - “Media companies in an era of change”

McClatchy
McClatchy, the largest newspaper chain in America, where CEO Gary Pruitt and Chris Hendricks, President of McClatchy Interactive will discuss innovative strategies on the print and digital sides of the business.

Google
A visit to Google’s fascinating 8,000-employee headquarters in Mountain View. Participants will hear about the innovative product development process and of Google’s many unique online advancements.

Media News Group Interactive
Presentation and discussion with Eric Grilly, President of Media News Group Interactive, one of the most profitable online operations in the news world.

Yahoo!
The number one website in the world in terms of traffic. Participants will go behind the scenes to see their impressive search functionality infrastructure with Yahoo!’s top news and business executives.

More information here.

GOOD FRONT PAGE AT THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

I am back in New York, waiting for my flight to Norfolk and I see today's cover of my local paper.

The PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE presentation is excellent for such an important story.

More and more, newspapers will be like this one: explaining, analyzing and giving background.

This what INNOVATION calls the "daily-news-magazine" approach.

A BLOG'S VICTORY IN SWEDEN

Sweden's new Minister for Trade, Maria Borelius, today resigned, after a series of negative articles that took off after a blogger, Magnus Ljungkvist, revealed some startling facts about her and her husband's income during the 90's.

Borelius only lasted a record short period of 8 days as Minister.

Via Media Culpa.

THE NEW YORK TIMES STOCK IS VERY LOW

Today Morgan Stanley disclosed a 7.62% stake (10.95 million shares) in The New York Times Company.

This is up from the prior 9,541,084 share stake (6.62%) the firm disclosed in a past filing.

Why?

Because the stock is very low, does not matter that was up in the last few days due to rumors about the sale of the paper...

If you want to own a piece of it, now is the time.

WEB 2.0 IS SOLD OUT

If you were planning to attend this year's Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, sorry, is sold out.

But don't worry, it will be almost instant reports via blogs, podcasts, etc. and you will save money and time.

CHEAPER NEWSPRINT? HOW TO SAVE MONEY AND TIME

Dow Jones announces cheaper newsprint for newspapers...

Well, I am not sure.

Are you?

Better start to review your paper and see if you can compact it.

Yes, newspaper around the world have too many pages with too many irrelevant news, and too many useless sections and supplements.

Readers expect more and more compact newspapers.

And editors must edit, edit, edit.

We will save a lot of money (newsprint, I am sorry, will be not cheaper) and readers will save a lot of time dealing with these un-edited and intimidating newspapers that does not serve our audiences.

WHAT KIND OF REDESIGN AT THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES?

This Florida newspapers has been redesigned again.

You can see some of the new pages here.

It is really difficult to appreciate and evaluate this kind of redesigns.

To me it looks like other average US papers.

More of the same.

This is a pithy because this is an excellent paper, with great resources and the mother of the Poynter Institute were so many innovative ideas are presented to the newspaper industry and where Mario Garcia and other first class designers have preached the new gospel of newspaper design.

THE WRONG STRATEGY FOR AGORA

This are the news from the Warsaw Business Journal Online

"Agora's management board declared that the internet is going to be their main priority.

By strengthening its position in this area, Agora wants to increase its earnings from advertisements and attract investors. One of their ideas is gazetawyborcza.pl which will be launched this month and which will replace Gazeta Wyborcza's current website. Analysts say that changes are necessary because people read fewer newspapers and are switching to electronic media."

If this is true, these directors must be fired.

How the leading East European newspaper company can have doubts about its strategy?

How they can doubt about the future of its printing operation?

How the are not able to value the strong credibility of its main paper?

How a public traded company can present the future on a "black or white" manner?

Of course that "changes are necessary" but always keeping your positions, not sending the wrong message to your investors and your own people.

It seems that the Knight-Ridder insecurity syndrome is here to stay...

GREEK MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS: THE DAY AFTER

Amazing!

New Democray (right) won the elections and holds the power in many places, including Athens.

Pasok (left) had some wins but it did not gain too much after months of problems, scandals and demostrations against the party in power.

All the papers produced very big editions plus special supplements (many of them with more than 40 pages with all the results for all the canidates).

For instance, Eleftheros Typos had 96 pages and the final edition was at 4:30 AM, with a great coverage of data, news, opinions and analysis.

The only difference between the papers were the headlines.

Conservative papers: NEW DEMOCRACY WINS.

Leftist papers: PASOK WINS.

My first reactions:

1. Kill all the data supplements and send readers to your website (I know, internet is still not as popular like in other countries) or compact this in half of the space.

2. Cover the TV, Radio and Internet coverage, rate it, add gossip (Eleftheros Typos did it) and news behind the cameras, microphones and screens.

3. Tell me stories: the oldest voter, the youngest ones, an unexpected winner or loser...

4. The elections seen by foreigners or immigrants.

5. The elections seen from abroad.

6. Start a great forum in your web page, invite some of the most popular winners to talk with your readers.

7. Teachers of public schools have been on strike for more than one months, tell me what is their reaction after the ruling party wins...

8. And, of course, what does all this means to you, what's next, why, why, why...

As I said, print newspasper have to change in a dramatic way to cope with the challenge of the instant news media.

ELECTIONS IN GREECE: THE NEWSPAPERS DILEMA

I am in Greece.

This Sunday evening I was visiting some of the municipal election stations in downtown Athens, and I saw the TV crews ready to broadcast at 7 PM the first exit polls.

Then I went to the newsroom of one of the main papers.

Sitting with the political editor and the art director I watched the first TV news about the results.

The paper has more than 30 pages ready to present and analyse these local elections.

Well, it is not going to be easy.

TV is dominating the coverage: polls, commentators, political experts, pollsters, politicians, winners amd losers, instant analysis, data, charts, animated graphics, interviews... including the editor of this newspapers that has TV cameras in his office ready to broadcast his insights.

What the Greek newspapers are going to do tomorrow?

Almost nothing new or more interesting than what we have watched in the last hours of the evening and the first of a long night for many politicians... and journalists.

This is, once more, the great dilema.

Newspaper become unable to play the old news role as their deadlines are against the news.

But also you can not offer too much more quantity or quality analysis than the broadcasting media.

And I did not mention news web sites that still in Greece are not as powerful as in other European countries...

I will tell you tomorrow about the media winners.

Newspapers are going to have a rough time, for sure.

In Greece and everywhere.

THE LONDON NEWSPAPER CRISIS

September has been a very bad month for the London newspapers.

Roy Greenslad asks what to do, and this were my 10 cents in his blog at The Guardian website:

Roy,

The problems in London are the problems of everywhere.

And the solutions, the same.

Not just multi-media integration, but multi-media journalism.

Newsrooms are against both, and you will see, I am sorry, how The Daily Telegraph experiment fails.

Newspaper publishers and editors need to re-train their newsrooms, quick in a dramatic way.

They need to invest in sophisticated multi-media journalism training.

Until very recently nobody offered these services, because nobody demanded them.

Trade, international and national newspaper association need to work together in this field, much more, much more, much more.

The question today is not to agree about A (where we are) or B (where are we going), but HOW TO GO FROM A TO B.

Integration is not a technology question (IFRA) but a newsroom management one.

And I don't see why multi-media interactivity, dialogue and conversation with our readers and advertisers can be done only via the new media.

Newspapers were always, and must be always, new media.

Newspapers will survive only with Journalism.

Period.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL: A GREAT PICTURE FOR A GREAT COVER

"Show don't tell"

The Toronto's quality paper at its best.

Congratulations!

LOGO FOR CHICAGO 2016

Chicago wants to have the Olympic Games of 2016.

Ten years in advance they are presenting now the possible logo.

The logo was created on a pro-bono basis by design and branding consultancy VSA Partners, a Chicago-based firm.

A beautiful one!

THE NEW PHOTOJOURNALISM: NYC, FLICKR & LIFE

Where to go for pictures of the NYC airplane crash?

Wait for any magazine or newspaper photoessay?

Look at the newswire services?

No.

Go to Flickr.

More and more, after any big news media event, regular citizens will post hundreds of pictures.

Some of then, as good or better than the best ones deliver by the professional media.

Well, Flickr is becoming the LIFE of the 21st century.

AIRPLANE CRASH IN NEW YORK, AND NO REAL INFOGRAPHICS IN THE FRONT PAGE OF THE BIG ONES

It was big news in the world media.

TV cable news channels did a superb job as "breaking news" media.

The newspapers were sleeping again.

Poor front pages in the big ones.

And no real infographics at in the front page.

When you have watched the crash almost live and repeated again and again so many time, the last thing that you want to see in your paper is a front page with pictures and headlines from the time that we were in the frontline of the news.

Infographics, great infographics, will provide a more clear explanation, understanding and context for the accident, but editors and photo editors did not give us the opportunity to "see" the real story.

I am sorry for the infographists that were sent to the inside pages, not always with too much space for the kind of news that deserve as much space as possible.

Words still rule.

Pictures, with very poor editing, won.

And infographics lost.

Next.

THELONDONPAPER IS OUT OF CONTROL AND KILLED ITSELF: HERE IS THE PROOF

This was the Monday's front page of thelondonpaper, the new free evening newspaper of Rupert Murdoch

It was an a wrapper around the paper that used a fake front page, created by Channel 4’s in-house ad agency, 4creative, to sell the airing of their controversial film “Death of a President.”

Well, this is as brilliant as mad.

Newspapers, including the free ones, are in the credibility business.

This Monday, thelondonpaper lost its credibility.

Not a good beginninging for a new paper.

You will see, very soon, the consequences.

YOUTUBE SALE ON YOUTUBE BY YOUTUBE FOUNDERS

YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen delivered the news of their purchase by Google to the YouTube community by posting a video to YouTube.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE FRONT PAGES AS A SYMPTOM

Many U.S. newspapers were yesterday able to cover the North Korean nuclear test, but if you see all of them what you will find is this:

1. They just posted the news dispatch.

2. There was a lack of the "instant analysis" that all the TV cable news did immediately.

3. There was no "what's next"

The Chicago Tribune was a good example of the problem.

Everybody knew that this was going to happen, but nobody planned a background, news-analysis or what's next piece ready to add to the breaking-news.

Newspaper reacted like news web sites.

And today, The Chicago tribune did today the front pages that readers were expecting yesterday!

Again and again, our newsrooms forget that next day, newspaper readers expect more than yesterday news.

This is one of the reasons of our crisis.

As I said, they are not killing us, we are.

THE KILLING OF ONE OF US

I said in the last few days that I don't like when newspaper publishers and editors become news in the front page of their newspapers.

Well, one of us, a journalist, a brave journalist was killed in Russia and... many,too many, quality papers around the world did not present this tragic event in their front pages.

Why?

Freedom of the press in crucial.

To ignore such criminal attack, is also a crime.

Timothy Balding, Ceo of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), said: "This is tragic and deeply shocking news. We condemn this as an outrageous attack not only on a journalist but on freedom of the press and democracy in Russia. We call on the Russian authorities to pursue mercilessly the killer or killers and those behind this cowardly act".

He spoke of the "skeptics" who had cast doubt on claims that she had been the victim of attempted poisoning, and observed: "This assassination is terrible confirmation, if any were needed, that she was not inventing her claims that she was constantly under physical threat".

Sadly, Anna Politkovskaya was today in the front page of her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

Rest in pace.

Via Maquetadores.

THE GUARDIAN: ONE DVD EVERY WEEKEND

One year after its change to Berliner, THE GUARDIAN keeps its weekend edition with free DVDs.

Promotions are here to stay.

They are not anymore marketing tools for special occasions.

In London and everywhere.

NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS IN THE FRONT PAGE

When you see newspaper publishers in the front page, something wrong is happening.

This week we had publisher-front pages in Miami and Los Angeles.

Both publishers resigned and/or were fired.

Readers buy newspapers for other reason, not to read about us.

WHY THE SCOTSMAN IS GOING OUT BUSINESS

Today´s front page tells you why The Scotsman is not any more the great paper that was in the past.

Nobody is killing newspapers from outside.

We are.

THE SECRET OF FOXNEWS ACCORDING TO JEFF JARVIS

FoxNews is 10 years old this week and Jeff Jarvis explains why it is a success:

I had a ding moment about FoxNews in 2003 when CNN’s Jeff Greenfield interviewed me about bloggers.

He came trailing a show producer, a field producer, a cameraman, and a soundman, plus unseen editors behind the scenes.

I’d done such segments over the years and never thought anything of it — this is how the pros do it, this is how TV is made — until I came to contrast this with FoxNews, which didn’t have armies of field producers and produced pieces.

That’s when I saw the true genius of Roger Ailes, which had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with money.

Ailes was creating a third cable news network with little money and so he built it around not producers and their pieces but around conversation and personality.

It made the news a helluva lot cheaper to make; it was, as it turns out, a lot more compelling (or entertaining or enraging, if you prefer).

And it gave TV news a voice. This wasn’t the artificially inseminated humanity of network anchors or local news morons.

This was opinion and sometimes passion. And it worked. It drew a huge audience; it made money; it set agendas in both politics and media.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND TIME MAGAZINE SLIDESHOWS ABOUT GOOGLE

A business editor and a photographer of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE made this slideshow about Google ("How Will Google Stay On Top?").

And there is another magnificent photo essay about the Google headquarters ("Life in the Googleplex"), that was published in Time magazine.

Both documents present a very unique view of a very unique company.

Media company or not, Google attracts today talented young people that we don´t find in traditional media companies.

Talent, talent, talent is the problem, and the solution.

THE INDEPENDENT AS AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER: A GREAT STORY

Twenty years ago today, the first issue of 'The Independent' rolled off the presses.

Stephen Glover, the first editor, remembers the day the paper was born.

Roy Greenslade was yersteday night in London at the 20th anniversary party of The Independent:

"Editor Simon Kelner led off the speeches.

His final anecdote got across the message that the paper remains as independent, in both spirit and practice, as it was when it first appeared in October 1986.

He told of a meeting with Tony Blair's communications chief, Alastair Campbell, in the presence of Tony O'Reilly, ceo of the paper's owning company, Independent News & Media (INM), O'Reilly's wife, Chryss Goulandris, and the ceo of INM's UK division, Ivan Fallon.

The conversation was about The Independent's hostility to the invasion of Iraq, said Kelner, so Campbell asked whether any of them supported the war.

All but Kelner put their hands up.

So, said Campbell, the proprietor, the proprietor's wife and the chief executive don't agree with the editor: "Now that's what I call an independent newspaper".

THE SPORTSMAN IS GONE. WHY?

The Sportsman was shut down yesterday after just seven months of publication.

The paper failed to hit circulation targets since launching in March. After selling 65,000 copies initially, the £1 title fell well sort of its 40,000 target.

In May, its full price sale was just 12,762 copies.

It was launched by Sports Betting Media, a company created by Jeremy Deedes, a former managing director of the Telegraph Group, Charlie Methven, a former Telegraph journalist, and Max Aitken, the great-grandson of Lord Beaverbrook, former Daily Express proprietor.

A few months before its foundation, I meet Jeremy Deeds at his office in the now old Daily Telegraph building.

He wanted to know about the "secrets" of the Spanish sports newspapers.

I told him that there were no secrets, but passionate journalists doing passionate journalism. And concentrate in just soccer, soccer, soccer.

It seems that my recommendations were not useful to him and his partners.

And what they did was a really boring sports paper.

With no passion and too much pages for too many sports.

The Spanish way of sports newspapers was invented by Luis Infante, a friend and a mentor of many of us.

He was the most charismatic editor of the Spanish press in the 90s´.

He used to say that he did not like sports, and he was not a fan of any soccer team...

"I don´t know anything about sports, but I know a lot about journalism."

Luis Infante was the driving force behind MARCA when that paper became the most read and popular newspaper of Spain (today is 20 MINUTOS, another popular and passionate free paper).

The working day of Luis Infante as editor of MARCA had only one mission: to produce the best front page possible.

His office in the newsroom had only a big board od directors table and everyday he invested hours and hours challenging his editors and designers.

It was a fantastic daukly show.

He was an editor acting likequintessentialial reader: "I don´t get it!", "It does not excited me!", "It´s boring!", "Where is the fun?", "And what?", "That´s all?", "This is bullshit!"...

Well, The Sportsman is gone not because there is no space for a new daily of sports in the UK, but becacuse, I´m sorry!, it was very, very bad.

Period.

LINK, A NEW FREE NEWSPAPER IN NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

Today, the Virginian-Pilot Company (Landmark) launched LINK, a new free newspaper for the 18-34 generation.

With good design, full color, well printed in good paper, this new tabloid, Monday to Friday, follows the same strategy of other "quick-read" newspapers published by traditional broadsheets.

And very important: the readers and advertisers reaction to the new product was very positive.

NEW AD CAMPAIGN FOR THE WELT KOMPAKT

These are two of the new ads to promote the Welt Kompakt, the "light" and cheaper tabloid version of the broadsheet Die Welt.

Unfortunately, both newspapers are losing money.

And the new formula is not working.

Perhaps these ads will have more impact than the papers.

This is the wrong version of a real quality "compact", that is not a "light" newspaper.

"MacPapers" will never succeed.

Via Visualmente.

FIRST PICTURES OF THE NEW DAILY TELEGRAPH NEWSROOM

BOLLORE AND HAVAS, TWO DIFFERENT PROTOTYPES FOR THE NEW FREE PAPER IN PARIS

Reading the blog of Frederic Filloux, editor of 20 Minutes in Paris (I had the opportunity to work with him and David Hillman of Pentagram, when we were trying to save Liberation five years ago, but all of us were fired!):

It seems that Havas, the advertising company of Vincent Bollore has done a prototype of the new free paper that he is going to launch next month with Le Monde.

And Le Monde has done another one.

The reactions have been:

1. What the hell is doing an advertising agency producing such a design protototype?

2. What the hell is doing Le Monde producing a protototype when they have been publishing for many years the worst designed newspaper of France?

Filloux says that he would love to see them.

Me, too.

And here is my bet:

I am sure that the Havas one is better.

INNOVATION has been working in the past with Bollore and I can assure you, as Frederick says, that he is not going to be what Edouard de Rothschild has been for Liberation.

More than that: he could be able to save Le Monde itself.

THE OLD AND GOOD TIMES: HATS AND NEWSPAPERS, NEW YORK COMMUTERS

Many of you have seen a very similar 19550´s picture of Westchester (New York) commuters, wearing hats and reading newspapers.

Well, I got today this 1955 picture of the same crowd.

Again, hats and newspapers.

What a difference if we take today the same picture in the same ride.

Our readers are changing, and many newspapers still have not realized how dramactic are these changes.

I going to frame this picture.

Print copies of the picture and send it to your newsrooms with a brief message:

What we need to do to become again a necessary newspaper?

HARD LESSONS FROM THE FOLEY CASE

"I'm not interested in media interviews," says the Stop Sex Predators blogger.

"Thank you for your interest, but if you were doing your job to begin with, Mark Foley would have been exposed a long time ago. Instead of wanting to do a story about this blog, how about covering the fact that the media sat on this story for over a year. You're as bad as the Congressional Leadership that covered for Foley."

This is what the site's owner responded to CNNer Peter Hamby's inquiry.

The Poynter Institute web site has an extensive recollection of how the story was known but never reported, until the Stop Sex Predator blog posted some of the Foley´s messages to his pages, and then Brian Ross and the Investigative Team of ABC News broke the news: Sixteen-Year-Old Who Worked as Capitol Hill Page Concerned About E-mail Exchange with Congressman.

Well, the media is now trying to confirm that other politicians knew about the case, but we are not saying too much about what we, the media, knew.

Traditional media scooped again by a little blog.

A Republican Representative, gay, pedophile, that was sponsoring legislation agains sex offenders... and the press was sleeping.

What a shame!

RUSSIAN EDITION OF THE INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS WORLD REPORT

The Russian Newspaper Publishers Association (GIPP) has translated and published the Russian edition of our last INNOVATION IN NEWSPAPER Global Report produced by INNOVATION for the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).

The printed book is available in digital format (PDF).

The CD is available at the GIPP bookstore: books@gipp.ru

THE CUBAN MELODRAMA. ARE WE READY?

Marta Fernandez de Batista, the widow of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, has died, her son said yesterday. She was 82.

Born Marta Fernandez Miranda, she was Batista's second wife.

Her husband was pushed out of power by Fidel Castro's rebels more than 47 years ago, and left Havana in the middle of the night on Jan. 1, 1959. The former dictator, then 58 years old, fled first to the Dominican Republic, then Portugal and finally Spain, where he died in 1973.

Well, Fidel Castro is the last survivor of the Cuban melodrama, but it seems that his colon cancer will take care of him very soon.

Another great story to tell.

Let´s see how we cover his final days.

This is going to be a great story.

SENTIMENTAL STORYTELLER, WHY NOT?

Read in The Huffingtonpost:

This week's Entertainment Weekly gives some love to Tuesdays With Morrie author Mitch Albom with a piece that answers to critics who accuse Albom of being treacly or sentimental, possibly buttressed by the fact that his other two books are called The Five People You Meet In Heaven and For One More Day, about a guy who gets to spend the day with his dead mother.

Whether intentionally or not, Albom challenges the reader (and writer Gregory Kirschling ) to remain cynical about him, as Kirschling meets Albom in Detroit at a homeless shelter ("This is just where I was on Monday. If you had come tomorrow, we could be at a nice restaurant") and chats with the self-described sentimentalist who doesn't write for the critics anyway ("Critics have a problem with sentimentality. Readers do not. I write for readers").

Other humbling reasons why Mitch Albom is probably a better person than you, besides the above-mentioned volunteering at the homeless shelter: He is tying his book tour to fundraising events for various charities ("If it works, I'll be doing good for somebody other than myself while I'm out there") and stops in airports to talk with fans about their life-altering experiences.

Albom feels no shame in embracing sentimentalism; chances are he thinks you're actually too cynical.

And really, where does that get you aynway: "For better or for worse, I've watched people die in front of me. I see how they are in the end. And they're not cynical. In the end, they wanna hold somebody's hand. And that's real to me."

Well, his readers rule, not critics.

Mitch Albom is a sports journalist that has been able to write passionate books.

Sentimental ones?

Yes, why not?

NEWSROOM INTEGRATION YES, BUT BE CAREFUL AND NICE

Rory Satran maskes the point with this excellent summary about the on and off line newsroom integration trend in The Editors Weblog:

The industry must continue to break down the barriers between print and online. A fragmented newsroom will not progress. But neither will a newsroom plunging too quickly into an unprecedented situation. Hasty, unsound integration is worse than none at all.

Very good!

ANOTHER FRONT PAGE FROM LE SOLEIL

I said yesterday that this paper from Quebec (Canada) had a fresh look.

This paper was a traditional broadsheet until last April when it became a compact.

See today´s cover versus the old front page.

DAILY LIFE ANIMATED VIDEO

This has gotten passed around a bit over the last few months, so forgive me if you've seen it already. It's the This is an amazing animated video for "Remind Me," a 2002 track by Röyksopp, the electronic duo from Norway.

BOLD AND SMART CHANGES IN THE SUN SENTINEL OF FORT LAUDERDALE

At least it looks different.

A 100.000 copies U.S. paper that has personality.

The editor says that "we were shooting for bolder -- not radical."

Well it is quite bold and smart.

Congratulations!

Via Nicole Bodgas.

BILL GATES WAS RIGHT: NEWSPAPERS DELIVER TOO MANY THINGS FOR TOO MANY PEOPLE

Johanatan Weber writes in The Times of London:

Publishers have been slow to realise how fundamentally their world has been changed by the internet.

Back in the early 1990s, when I was a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, Bill Gates came to the paper for an "editorial board" meeting, a weird combination of meet-and-greet and press Q&A in which company brass schmoozed the mogul while lowly reporters and editors were supposed to ask him tough questions.

Even then, newspapers were worried about what new technologies would mean for their business, and Gates was hardly re-assuring. In a comment that has always stuck with me, Gates observed that newspapers delivered a bundle of things – national, international and local news, brand advertising, classified advertising, event listings – that didn't logically belong together as a bundle. Why would people turn to the same source for both Iraq war dispatches and used cars?

The answer, historically, was that newspapers alone had the distribution apparatus – trucks and printing presses – to get both of those things to the masses.

But Gates was right: the internet, by changing the distribution equation, would bring about the unbundling of those various services, and that would mean trouble for newspapers.

Yes, Gates was right.

Newspapers can not follow the U.S. model because newspapers with everything to everybody are going to be newspapers for nobody.

Compact, compact, compact.

Focus, focus, focus.

CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES DIGITAL GURU

From a Business 2.0 magazine conversation with Martin Nisenholtz, the senior vice president for digital operations at The New York Times Company.

When he first met Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., "Arthur basically said to me, 'We're not in the ink-on-paper business, we're in the news business. It doesn't matter how we distribute information; what matters is that we can make money out of it.'" Even so, Nisenholtz is loath to predict the death of print.

"We expect the print side of the business to continue to grow," he tells me. "We just expect the digital side of the business to grow much faster."

Technorati Profile

READERSHIP AT U.S. NEWSPAPER WEB SITES IS BOOMING

The Newspaper Association of America´s Fall 2006 Newspaper Audience Database presents new trends about on and off line readership:

– An average of 55.5 million unique visitors went to U.S. newspaper sites in the first half of 2006, compared to 42.2 million in the same period last year.

– Sites seem to be drawing younger readers, pushing the total 15-34 audience up by 15 percent and 18-24 by 10 percent.

– The number of page views increased some 52 percent.

– 56 percent of users tend to visit a newspaper site at least once a day. 40 percent are under 35.

– 80 percent of online newspaper visitors mix between the web and print depending on convenience.

– Newspapers reach more 18-34 years old on an average weekday than an average half-hour of primetime TV, early TV news and an average 15 minutes of a.m. radio drive time.

ONLINE MAGAZINES? NOT YET

BRANDO (Argentina) and DON JUAN (Colombia) are two different Latin American magazines.

Both have a very similar macho-approach.

But DON JUAN is a more interactive product.

BRANDO is the past.

DON JUAN is the present.

But no one of them is the future.

OH MY GOD, NOT AGAIN!

Via NewsDesigner a new case of clonic-front pages.

PROMOTIONS CALENDAR IN THE FRONT PAGE

A quality paper in Belgium tells its readers about the promotions calendar.

In-house ads are becoming more sophisticated and prominent.

FRESH FRONT PAGES

Two good examples of fresh front pages in today´s papers.

From Austria and Canada.

JOURNALISM 101 ACCORDING TO JUAN LUIS CEBRIAN

Juan Luis Cebrian, CEO of Grupo PRISA and first editor of EL PAIS (Madrid, Spain) said in Mexico City, during the Inter American Press Association (SIP) annual conference, some basic truths:

1. Newspapers can not survive just telling news that always deliver late.

2. Newspapers will not die if they are able to promote collective reflection and dialogue,

3. Newspaper publishers and editors spend too much time looking to themselves.

4. Newspapers are under the attack of Internet and free publications.

And when one person in the audience asked him "What journalists have to do?" his response was: "Journalism."

I agree 100%

Journalism.

Because our main problem is this: we spend 90% of our time in front of computers, reading and processing information and propaganda produced by external sources that at the end of the day control and direct our agendas.

What newspapers need is Journalism.

What journalists need to do is just Journalism.

What readers expect from us is Journalism.

What this is not what we do and what we deliver.

Well, I am writing a chapter about how newspapers have to be different, that the Spanish Newspaper Publishers Association (AEDE)is going to publish in its annual White Paper about the State of the Industry, and these are some of my initial ideas:

1. Newspapers must become the core of 24/7 breaking news information engines.

2. Newspapers must deliver unique, compelling and exclusive news and stories, and not just package old stuff.

3. Newspapers must hire the most talented, respected and curious reporters and editors with multi-media skills.

4. Newspapers must promote dramatic interaction with readers and advertisers.

5. Newspapers must make money. Money brings independence. With independence you get credibility. Credibility brings readers. Readers attract advertising. And with advertising you make money. As simple and as complicated as that.

6. Newspapers must believe in Journalism. Period.

NINE SKILLS THAT SEPARATE GOOD AND GREAT DESIGNERS

Cameronmoll.com makes the point.

-Good designers:

Decorate

Believe “less” is more

Fix problems

Are inspired within a genre

Macrodesign

Treat text as content

Use good typefaces

Code for one instance

Redesign


-Great designers:

Communicate

Believe “less” and “more” co-exist

Prevent problems

Are inspired by their total environment

Microdesign

Treat text as UI

Use good typography

Code for many instances

Realign

LIBERATION, WITH NO DIRECTION AND NO MONEY

The new owner of Liberation in Paris, Edouard de Rothschild does not know what to do, except to sign new checks.

Liberation lost 0,4 million euros in 2002, 3,7 million euros in 2004 and in 2006 is going to lose 13 million euros.

Patrick Eveno shows the numbers in this comment for leblogmedias.com (in French),

HEADLINES, GOOD HEADLINES PLEASE!

The Daily Telegraph in London did it.

A great front page with a great headline.

But look at some of the US papers in Pennsylvania and Maryland and you will see how the headlines were very, very boring.

UK 1, USA 0.

THE MIAMI HERALD MESS

The Miami Herald publisher resigned yesterday.

Well, he was fired.

But they did not say it.

And the paper presented an internal problem as the big news of the day in the front page.

This is the problem.

Some publishers and editors still believe that they are more important than the papers or the readers.

They are wrong.

Less ego, more ethics and please leave quietly.

ARMANI FAILS AS AN ONE-DAY NEWSPAPER EDITOR: WHO´S NEXT

Fashion designer Giorgio Armani’s cover for The Independent failed to achieve the success of Bono’s May edition.

Despite a cover featuring Kate Moss covered in black paint, the issue caused a spike in circulation of only 10-15,000 above average.

The Armani Independent sold 9,000 copies less than the previous Thursday’s Independent, which offered a human body wall poster.

Bono’s May issue resulted in a rise of 70,000 papers.

Who´s next?

My three choices:

Elton Jones, an Independent for music.

Steven Spilberg, an Independent for movies.

J. K. Rowling, an Independent for kids.

E POLIS, THE NEW MULTI-CITY ITALIAN PAID/FREE PAPER

Launched on September 28, E POLIS is the new Italian 11 multi-city paid/free newspaper network owned by Nicola Grauso, the visionary editor of Il Sardegna.

Rome and Milan are the first city-editions.

At the end of 2006 the network wants to distribute around 900.000 copies.

The cover price is 0,50 euros (0,60 USD) in newstands, and free in bars and other public places.

With full color, tabloid format and short pagination, E POLIS is produced by young and small newsrooms, and follows the same graphic and content patterns of EL PERIODICO (Barcelona, Spain) that were applied before in Il Sardegna.

VIEWS-PAPER FRONT PAGE

An excellent cover in today´s The Scotsman.

Another example of the "views-paper" approach.

THE 100 LEADING MEDIA COMPANIES IN THE USA MARKET

Advertising Age reports:

Internet and cable were the growth locomotives behind the 6.6% increase in 2005 U.S. media revenue, reaching $268.48 billion for the 100 Leading Media Companies.

Time Warner, powered by its internet and cable offerings, retained its position as the No. 1 media company in the U.S. at $33.73 billion, up 0.9%, far ahead of the $22.08 billion from Comcast Corp. As runner-up, Comcast replaced Viacom, the media-entertainment company that split early this year into CBS Corp., No. 7 at $11.80 billion, and a much-reduced No. 9 Viacom that drew $8.25 billion from its movie and cable network properties.

Internet: $16.92 billion. The ultimate distribution system will be the internet, if it isn't already so. It certainly has the eyeballs. The medium contributed $16.92 billion from advertising and subscription fees from 14 companies, up 20.5%. Ad Age does not count internet retail transactions in its totals.

No. 19 Google and No. 21 Yahoo are neck in neck from their search ad totals of $3.71 billion and $3.67 billion in revenue, respectively. But Time Warner's AOL is at the head of the class at an estimated $6.32 billion in U.S. revenue. However, AOL revenues are declining (down an estimated 7.3% in 2005) because of a drop-off in subscriptions, a revenue model Time Warner is set to change in favor of an ad-supported AOL, a new-generation network.

Newspapers have become media's favorite whipping boy as more and more ad dollars migrate to the web. Among the 35 media leaders with newspapers, those properties advanced only 2.1% to $35.68 billion in revenue. The industry's biggest casualty was Knight Ridder, most of its newspapers now in returns for McClatchy Co., No. 24 on the list, and MediaNews Group, No. 36. KR's demise also introduced to the list newly formed Philadelphia Media Holdings, No. 77, a holding for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. The climate for newspapers continues to sour. In first-half 2006, local and national advertising fell 2.7%, which combined with stagnant circulation, have led many of the leading metro dailies to cut staff.

Magazines advanced 6% to $20.39 billion generated by magazines at 30 media companies on the list. The list gained two new magazine members: No. 66 Wenner Media, powered by the inclusion of Us Weekly, and No. 95 Bauer Publishing, led by In Touch Weekly. Consumer magazines are up 4% in revenue in first-half 2006, with all top 10 ad categories showing strength except for last year's lead category, autos, down 13.3%.

Download here the Annual Media Companies' Report poster detailed the family trees of media ownership.

LARRY KING INTERVIEWS BOD WOODWARD IN CNN

State of Denial, ther new book of Bob Woodward is number one on Amazon.com and last night was the main subject of CNN´s Larry King Live.

One of the most interesting topics was the role of Henry Kissinger as a regular advisor of The White House.

KING: Speaking of formers, for the first time we learned through your book that Henry Kissinger is called upon by this White House. I think he said the other day, sort of in passing, that lots of former secretaries of state and other officials are called in by lots of administrations. It doesn't mean that they're wielding any influence. They're just offering their thoughts.

WOODWARD: Yes but...

KING: I'm paraphrasing but I think that's what he said.

WOODWARD: But as Cheney told me, Kissinger is, excuse me, the person they see the most often. In fact, Cheney said...

KING: Cheney told you that?

WOODWARD: Cheney told me.

KING: But I thought he didn't interview.

WOODWARD: In a discussion he told me about this and said he meets with Kissinger once a month and the president every two or three months. Kissinger has gone on television and said he had about 15 to 20 meetings with this president. That's a lot of meetings.

KING: Does it mean he has impact or just thoughts?

WOODWARD: Well, trace the chain of what happened. Kissinger goes out and writes in August of '05 that in Iraq victory is the only meaningful exit strategy. About three months later, the White House comes out with what's called the plan for victory right out of Kissinger's play book.

KING: And did that surprise you when you learned?

WOODWARD: It did.

KING: Because they never speak about Henry Kissinger.

WOODWARD: I know, exactly, and in fact Andy Card is quote in the book saying that Kissinger was almost like family. He was told "Any time you're in town, call and see if the president's available and stop by."

Read here the full transcript.

BRANDING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER

The results of this study from Lexis Nexis should be no surprise.

Ultimately, when users want reliable information, they will turn to their Top-of-Mind brands.

This is true for any product category, including media. In a world with infinite options, a clear brand strategy is crucial for creating a sustainable audience.

Media companies can no longer rely on their monopolistic access to the audience and have to implement sound marketing techniques to achieve success in today's environment.

Associate your brand with quality and reliability in your content segments and you will be among those chosen more often.

MediaPost Publications - Lexis Nexis: Traditional Media Seen As Most Reliable - 10/03/2006

SNDE: THE BEST DESIGNED NEWSPAPERS OF THE YEAR

Last weekend, the Spanish Chapter of the Society of News Design (SNDE) announced the 2006 winners of the third annual edition of a design competition open to Spanish and Portuguese newspapers.

The best newspapers of the year are: ABC in the +50.000 category, DIARIO DE SEVILLA in the +20.000 category, and EL ECONOMISTA for newspapers with less than 20.000 copies.

The best front page of the year was also for this cover of EL ECONOMISTA, a new financial full color newspaper designed by a team of INNOVATION consultants lead by Javier Errea, and Miguel Buckenmayer, Art Director of this paper.

FINANCIAL TIMES: BI-MEDIA NEWSROOM

Steven Vass, media correspondent of the Sunday Herald reports in detail about the final integration of the on and off line newsrooms at the Financial Times in London.

FT was one of the first papers to promote such integration.

It was more than five years ago.

London is becoming the capital of bi-media newsrooms.

The Daily Telegraph is done.

The Times, Guardian and The Independent are the next ones.

After the "compact" revolution, here it comes the "integration" revolution.

BRAZIL: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE FRONT PAGES

Very, very boring.

Big news but not too much creativity.

The best, the photo editing of O POVO (Fortaleza) zooming a serious Lula and a happy Alckmin.

The rest, very, very bad.

Not a brilliant day for Brazilian newspapers.

GREAT BOOKS FROM GREAT REPORTERS

State of Denial latest book of Bob Woodward includes a lot of facts never told before.

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, the book of Thomas Ricks, also from The Washington Post is another example.

My questions:

Why these two great reporters have not presented before some of these facts to the regular readers of their newspaper?

Why the readers of The Washington Post have to wait until these books are published to know very relevant information about the Iraq war?

Are these journalists working part-time?

No.

And the books are no published by the Post either.

Perhaps The Washington Post is just a "book incubator."

SOME POWERFUL PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS

Marisol Garcia has compiled a wonderful selection of profiles and interviews.

From the famous "Frank Sinatra has a cold" in Esquire, to "Zar Vladimir" in The Atlantic Monthly.

What a great collection!

Read it and you will recover the faith in journalism.

ALAN FLETCHER: "I DON´T DIVIDE MY LIFE BETWEEN LABOUR AND PLEASURE"

Alan Fletcher is dead.

He was one of the five founders of Pentagram and one of the world's greatest designers.

Michael Bierut writes in Design Observer:

Colin Forbes deserves the credit for inventing Pentagram's unique organizational structure, which has endured now for nearly 35 years.

But it was Alan Fletcher who showed by example, across three decades, how one could work, and live, within that structure.

For him, design was not a profession or a craft, but a life.

In an interview for his 1996 book Beware Wet Paint, he told Rick Poynor:

"I'd sooner do the same on Monday or Wednesday as I do on a Saturday or Sunday. I don't divide my life between labour and pleasure."

The title of another book from Pentagram could serve as a concise statement of his philosophy: Living by Design.

INFOGRAPHIC POWER

Death and Taxes is an amazing poster done bt Jesse Bachman that now has been updated with the 2007 version.

You can see the full infographic poster and buy it here.

OLD NEWS FOR TODAY´S NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS AND EDITORS

Vin Crosbie reports about the "Newspaper Next" Project of the American Press Institute (API):

Innosight’s explanation and recommendations costs the American Press Institute $2.5 million. I’m currently writing this at a Starbucks café inside a Barnes & Noble in Syracuse, New York, where Christensen’s The Innovator's Dilemma book costs $17.95 per copy. Had API simply send a mailed a copy of the book to all 139 attendees of Innosight’s presentation, it could have saved approximately $2,497,000 and saved a lot of time.

The advice Innosight gave would have been excellent advice for the newspaper industry in 1995, shortly after newspapers first began publishing online, before their printed product’s circulations began precipitous drops, and before the newspapers’ businesses began being eaten by small and then unknown competitors whose innovative and cheap new products and services newspapers initially ignored as flawed or not lucrative enough -- new competitors named Google, Yahoo!, CraigsList, etc. Innosight’s advice has come ten years too late.

However, the presentation's audience was largely comprised of newspaper corporation presidents and publishers. Not just suits, but expensive suits, inhabited by bodies in their late 40s through early 60s. People for whom 1995 was just yesterday. People who are still exercising unchanged whatever skills learned in the 1980s or early 1990s had brought them to prominence in the industry. The people who continue to exercise those skills unchanged despite their industry having lost nearly a fifth of its users since 1995 and nearly one-half of its market equity since 2000. Chief executives who still inhabit their offices but for all practical leadership purposes are lost in 1995.

Innosight’s outdated advice is still new to them.

Well, better later tan ever.