Newsonomics: The New York Times Is Opting Out Of Apple News

The New York Times has decided to opt out of Apple News. On its own, that may seem like just one more move in the chess game between major news companies and the platforms. But it could also be an indication of a more geologic movement. Will the rest of 2020 bring tectonic shifts in... Read More

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: How Will The Pandemic Panic Reshape The Local News Industry?

McClatchy’s bankruptcy is barreling to a conclusion. Tribune’s quietly trimming its board to prepare for a merger. Google and Facebook face unprecedented calls to pay up on at least three continents. And all the while — wait for it — Alden Global Capital’s Heath Freeman is joining the fray, ...

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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: Will Facebook’s New News Tab Be A Milestone Or Millstone?

  Is Facebook a cesspool of bottom-feeding content? Or is it now the proud leader among platforms in featuring and rewarding high-quality journalism? Or…both? We’ve got a new breakout of platformitis, as news companies try to figure out their complicated relationships with the ...

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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: 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: Newspapers In Name Only & Who’s Going To Build What Comes Next In Local?

Neil Chase knows the painful realities of managing and motivating a daily newsroom in 2018. “You can’t ask dedicated, veteran career journalists to completely change the way they work without explaining why,” the Mercury News executive editor said at a panel discussion I moderated at Stanford ...

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Newsonomics: Will Facebook’s Troubles Finally Cure Publishers Of Patformitis?

That Facebook’s fall from grace will be twinned in history with the rise of Trumpism seems poetic. It’s a digital Frankenstein fable, one even Mel Brooks might have a hard time satirizing: a perhaps uncontrollable phenomenon escaping from the laboratory (or, in the modern case, Room H33). ...

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