The Newsonomics of the Newspaper Industry as the Republican Party

Of all votes cast for Romney, 88 percent came from white voters. Yet the white vote declined to 72 percent of the total vote, down two points in four years and 11 points in 20 years. A Politico headline: “GOP soul-searching: ‘Too old, too white, too male?’” Around noon Wednesday, I started ...

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The newsonomics of good news

2. Digital circulation vastly improves circulation revenue margins. Last week, faced with a Wall Street Journal renewal notice, I opted for digital-only for the first time, knowing that WSJ’s tablet format and easy right-hand navigation makes it far quicker to read than the paper version. That ...

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The Newsonomics of the Death & Life of California News

All we can say with certainty: we’re witnessing the death and life of California news. Who will own the biggest news media? Who will manage the biggest news media? How much of a life in print will be left for newspapers as they go digital? And, of course, how many journalists will be paid to ...

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The Newsonomics of (California Watch’s) Single, Investigative Story

So, if California Watch were to be totally supported by foundation money, it would take an endowment of $54 million to throw off $2.7 million a year, at a five percent spend rate. Now $54 million raised one time isn’t an impossible sum. Consider just one gift: Joan Kroc left NPR more than $200 ...

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The Newsonomics of Roll-Up

Once you've clustered -- centralized to the max the administration, circulation, advertising, production, finance and newsroom tasks of all of your own owned properties, you look next door to other companies, for fresh cluster bait. (Wait a minute, wasn't that the plot line in Aliens or The ...

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Summer, 2008: The Smell of “Burning Furniture”

Summertime and the livin’ is far from easy. Now that we’re past Memorial Day, let’s speculate on the summer that will be. It’s a long time til Labor Day for the news industry. We’ve seen Rupert Murdoch, ironically drawing stark attention to his own advanced age ...

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Regional Dailies Give Business Away

We can add still another franchise – business news – to those being abandoned by the daily press. I’ve seen slimming of business pages, some announced grandly, some never acknowledged but painfully obvious to newspaper readers. Once-robust sections of eight pages have trickled to six or four, ...

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