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 ...

Read More

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 ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Working The Middle Ground, A Q&A with De Correspondent editor Rob Wijnberg

Companion column: Newsonomics: Can Dutch Import De Correspondent Conquer the U.S.?     Donald Trump’s election may have shocked half of the United States, but the rise of xenophobic nationalism is nothing new in Europe, where, since the Great Recession, nationalists have gained ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Softbank, Fortress, Trump – and The Real Story of Gatehouse’s Boundless Ambition

Sometimes when you connect the dots, you just get more dots. It looked like head-turning news: A Japanese company had taken control of one of America’s largest newspaper chains, New Media Investment Group, a.k.a. GateHouse Media. Tuesday’s headline: “Robotics and tech firm SoftBank Japan ...

Read More

Newsonomics: The New Knight-Lenfest Initiative Gives A Kick In The Pants To America’s Metro Newspapers

For two decades now, daily newsrooms have been becoming digital. Now, finally into 2017, some of them are threatening to actually be digital, some twenty-two years after Nicholas Negroponte’s classic was published. Today’s announcement of the new Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative aims to push ...

Read More

Newsonomics: Trump May Be The News Industry’s Greatest Opportunity To Build A Sustainable Model

One of the most challenging periods in American press history begins at noon Eastern today. The cries of “Lügenpresse” (defended by the outlet until recently run by new chief strategist to the president) echo almost as much as the stiff-arm salutes in the nation’s capital in late October. The ...

Read More

Newsonomics: The 2016 Media Year By The Numbers, and A Look Toward 2017

2016 goes down as a memorable year for those in and around the media. Though audience levels have never been higher, the digital transformation burden weighed ever more heavily on news media’s back. Then “the media” saw itself pummeled endlessly in the run-up to the election and even more in ...

Read More

Newsonomics: The Halving of America’s Daily Newsrooms

Cigar maker. Elevator operator. Pinsetter. Iceman. Lamplighter. Switchboard operator. Local daily newspaper reporter? How soon will we have to add this once-stable occupation to the list of jobs that once were — occupations once numerous that slid into obsolescence? (Not to mention the even ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of How and Why

Follow Newsonomics on Twitter @kdoctor   First published at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab Try this: Make a list with two simple columns. On the left, write Who, What, When, and Where. On the right column, write How and Why. Then, go to any news site — local, national, or global — ...

Read More

The Newsonomics of The Oregonian’s New Editor’s Challenge

Follow Newsonomics at @kdoctor   First published at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab It’s tough to find a place with more news change than Portland, Oregon. At the center of that change is the new Oregonian. Like New Orleans, Cleveland, Syracuse, and most other Advance ...

Read More