The Newsonomics of Outrageous Confidence

First published at Nieman Journalism Lab   Who expected a virtual coming-out party for the newspaper industry in late 2013? In the past several weeks, we’ve seen new newspaper owners proudly raising the flags of their new enterprises, speaking grandly of their futures and spouting that ...

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The Newsonomics of 2013 Wizardry: Tribune, Buffett, Murdoch, Paton, Bloomberg, and more

Today, though, most of the reporting power, much of the brand power, and thepolitical power still resides in big companies and their leadership. We may well get our strongest display of that early in 2013: In Washington, the FCC cross-ownership debate may move to center stage in January. And ...

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McClatchy’s Gary Pruitt Scales the AP Mountain

Why do it? Why trade in the sleepiness of California's capital city (Sacramento is McClatchy's headquarters) for the bright lights of Broadway, a long walk from AP's NYC offices? Number one on list may be McClatchy fatigue. Pruitt and his CFO, now-successor Pat Talamantes, have rowed the ...

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The Newsonomics of the Dead Cat Bounce

Are there any positive growth numbers to report? Which categories may be turning positive — maybe national or retail display ads — as the sagging economy continues to plague the traditional classified strengths of auto, recruitment, and real estate?

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Forget Newspapers’ Local-Local: Think Location, Location, Location

Hard as it may be to believe, we may have entered a new rocky period for newspaper companies. It would be a period in which the real estate on which they sit determines their market value. Consequently, their real estate value may determine who wants to sell the newspaper property and who wants ...

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9 Questions: Business News Wars, Gary Pruitt, the Yahoo Bump and the New COOL

As I train down to D.C. for the Online News Association conference (moderating a panel hopefully titled, Optimize and Monetize, tomorrow; if you’re there, say hello), the dizzying news industry news of the last week raises more questions than answers. Here’s my top nine of the ...

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Centro’s Real Cities Signals Online-Only Ad Push, Fueled by Technology

Today’s announcement that Centro is taking over the Real Cities Network isn’t really an exclamation point. It’s more like a period, marking movement between eras. Centro has brought local news websites significantly more revenue over the past several years. Real Cities, on the ...

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Newspaper Stories We Tell Ourselves

Out of many memorable quotes from my Knight Ridder days, one keeps bouncing back to me. It came of the company’s mess in Detroit. Knight Ridder had long run the Detroit Free Press, one of the country’s liveliest, most readable papers. But it fell afoul of Detroit’s tough ...

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Nine Questions on Newspapers’ 2Q Reports

So what do we make of the first half of 2008 in DailyLand? Bad and getting worse. I’ve listened to the CEO webcasts — so you don’t have to! — and must say that there were a couple of eerie echoes of my own suggested remarks, offered a couple of weeks ago ("Candidly, ...

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Frankly, Candidly, Truthfully: Newspapers CEOs Talk About 2Q

It’s time for second-quarter newspaper earnings reports, with Gannett leading off Wednesday, with the long tale of woe to follow. Given the many newspaper staff cutbacks, which I thought might include the investor relations people, I’ve put together a few boilerplate remarks that I ...

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