Newsonomics: Bloomberg’s Justin Smith Is Investing In News When Everyone Else Is Cutting

“Bloomberg” is a Rorschach test of a word. For many, it represents the unique New York City politician whose presidential flirtations reshuffled our politics for a time. For some, it’s his immense wealth and the places — both philanthropic and political — it flows. Then there’s “the Bloomberg,” ...

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Newsonomics: Tomorrow’s Life-Or-Death Decisions For Newspapers Are Suddenly Today’s, Thanks To Coronavirus

As local newspapers’ businesses hit the skids, they’re finding themselves careening right now into a future they’d thought was still several years away. “We are all going to jump ahead three years,” Mike Orren, chief product officer of The Dallas Morning News, suggested to me last week. At ...

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Newsonomics: What Was Once Unthinkable Is Quickly Becoming Reality In The Destruction Of Local News

As words like “annihilation” and “extinction” enter our news vocabulary — or at least move from debates over the years-away future to the frighteningly contemporary — it’s helpful to start out with the good news. Maybe even an old joke. What’s black and white and now deemed “essential”? ...

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Newsonomics: In Memphis’ Unexpected News war, The Daily Memphian’s Model Demands Attention

At first blush, it looks a bit like an old-fashioned newspaper war. (For our younger readers: Long ago, some cities had two or more strong newspapers that fought each other for scoops, talent, readers, and advertisers. Really.) In Memphis, two newsrooms — each with about three dozen journalists ...

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Newsonomics: Here Are 20 Epiphanies For The News Business Of The 2020s

It is the best of times for The New York Times — and likely the worst of times for all the local newspapers with Times (or Gazette or Sun or Telegram or Journal) in their nameplates across the land. When I spoke at state newspaper conferences five or ten years ago, people would say: “It’ll... ...

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Newsonomics: Why I’m Starting A Company To Build Out A New Model For Local News In The 2020s

Over the past decade here at Nieman Lab, I’ve reported a lot of news industry news. Today, I’m sharing some of my own. After months of work, I’m happy to begin introducing the new company that I’m heading, named Lookout. It’s a wide-reaching new model for local ...

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Newsonomics: The Gannett–GateHouse Merger Is Really Happening, And Expect To See More Than 10% Of Jobs Cut Off The Top

The megamerger is really happening. Expect the new Gannett — the brand that will survive that chain’s acquisition by GateHouse Media — to officially take wobbly flight soon, perhaps around Thanksgiving. Both companies, the country’s No. 1 and No. 2 newspaper publishers, say it’s full speed ...

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“Newsonomics: In The Consolidation Games, Enter The Bankers”

The bankers are now hired. Is the early 2019 newspaper chain M&A face-off now getting serious? It’s reminiscent of an earlier brand of warfare. Newspaper chains — all cutting desperately, each facing a shortening deadline to make a “digital transition” — line up their dealmaking armies, ...

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Newsonomics: Amid Screaming Alarms, Consolidation Mania Turns Feverish

Alden’s going to snatch Gannett! No, Gannett’s going to turn the tables and buy Alden’s Digital First Media! But wait, Gannett will reject Alden — is that a real offer? — and turn its attention to merging with Tribune! No, Tribune — having dispatched its CEO Justin Dearborn to clear the way for ...

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Newsonomics: With An Expanding Wirecutter, The New York Times Doubles Down On Diversification

Imagine a world in which Donald Trump is no longer President.       No, really. Okay, if that concept’s beyond your immediate comprehension, let’s make the question a bit more concrete: Imagine what’ll happen to the news business in a world in which Donald Trump is no longer ...

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