The Newsonomics of Trust, News Trusts and Murdoch Trustworthiness

One reason News Corp. may move forward with the trust idea rather than a sale of the properties is that it may meet a market without buyers. With the Times’ losses, it’s tough to come up with logical buyers for the papers. Why mess with the market, though, if you can both perform an act of ...

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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 NPR’s Next-Gen Network

As we look at the newsonomics of NPR Digital Services, we can see big potential impacts and dollars. We also see that the public radio movement, and the effort to enlarge it to become public media (“‘Public Media’: $100 Million Plan, 100 Journalists Per City“), is now re-emerging. As ...

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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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Instant Expectations in the Age of Streaming MPR, WBUR, KQED and MSNBC

It comes down to something old-fashioned: News judgment. MPR had the same access to NPR's feed of the press conference as other stations, I'd presume. Yet, it was the only I found (perhaps there were others) that handled the news best and largely smoothly (I even enjoyed the French lessons for ...

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MPR’s Bill Kling Steps Down — and Up — From Public Radio

Kling didn't really care about the nuances of non-profit and for-profit; that's why he had well-paid lawyers. What he cared about was building a public radio station, and then a nationwide network, that had impact. If he and a number of associates did pretty well for themselves financially, why ...

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The Newsonomics of Public Radio’s Argonauts

The Argo funding is one of the first things that tells us about the business of this effort. Like Silicon Valley startups, the effort is about building a product that seems to meet a clear audience need, building that audience — and then finding a sustainable business model. That’s what has ...

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