Nine Questions on the News Corp Split: The Rise of Twenty-First Century Fox and The Daily’s Demise

Why did The Daily fail? I think the short answer is that it missed the first law of media: Make it interesting. The Daily was attractive, even sometimes stunning, in its visual appeal, but too empty-headed to attract a daily readership. If you are going to call something The Daily, you better ...

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The Newsonomics of Native, Indigenous, and Immigrant content

The newsonomics of native, indigenous, and immigrant content promises a revenue evolution for both national publishers and regional ones. At a time when pricing pressure on display ads remains relentless — and even Google’s paid search rates have hit a bad patch, causing recent investor concern ...

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The Newsonomics of Going Deeper, with Tech-Aided News Creation

You’ve read about some of this, with the “Robots Ate My Newspaper” headlines this summer as the Journatic faked-bylines scandal fueled popular dismay. Well beyond the headlines lies a bigger movement. It’s not quite a computer-generated revolution, though technology aids, assists, and adjusts ...

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The Newsonomics of Rupert Murdoch, American Publisher

Tribune’s own market assessment of all its eight newspaper properties, part of the bankruptcy proceeding, came in at $623 million, compared to $2.85 billion for the broadcast business. Without competitive bidders, that amount may be optimistic. With competitive bidders — especially in L.A. and ...

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The Newsonomics of Near-Term Numerology

Quite literally, significant newspaper nameplates (and, more significantly, the real estate those nameplates rest uneasily on) are going for the prices of mansions in many communities. So why buy? Sometimes, it’s simple: You get a great deal. That’s what Warren Buffett got in his purchase of ...

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The Newsonomics of Pricing 201

Circulation has turned from a means (getting ad-rich papers to shoppers) to an end unto itself, actually getting readers to pay a significant share of the journalism costs. It’s a simple proposition: You ask the people who really value you and your journalism to pay you more. Surprisingly to ...

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The Newsonomics of All-Access Delight

Remember the first time you got cross-platform delight? For me, it was when I started a second look at “Lost in Translation” on my TV, happened to click on my Netflix app while working out the next day, and was astounded to see the film paused precisely and ready to start where I’d left off, ...

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The USA Today Redesign: Too Little, Too Early?

My guess: in a rush to do something to reverse the USAT's flagging fortunes, Gannett and/or new publisher Larry Kramer decided to take one big public step. Change the look first -- and then get to the deeper, underlying questions of identity, purpose, storytelling and content, all of which are ...

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The Newsonomics of the Quartz Business Launch

This is the biggest unanswered question about Quartz, until we actually read it. Is this the same business news others have, but differently covered, written, or presented? Or is business news that others aren’t offering? ... It’s the content, silly, that will make or break a news product. The ...

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The Newsonomics of Leapfrog News Video

Just Monday, both The Wall Street Journal (“The Wall Street Journal wants its reporters filing microvideo updates for its new WorldStream”) and The New York Times made video announcements. A couple of weeks ago, the ambitious Huffington Post Live launched, hiring the almost unbelievable number ...

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