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: Dean Singleton on The Denver Post: “Everything I believe about the news business is being violated”

It might only seem that the walls are tumbling in at The Denver Post. Or it might be reality. In a stunningly quick series of events, the Post has continued to shed staff — not by firing or layoff, but by what might best be described as resigned resignation. At the same time, I’ve learned, a ...

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Newsonomics: Alden Global Capital Is Making So Much Money Wrecking Local Journalism It Might Not Want To Stop Anytime Soon

Is there any chance Alden Global Capital might change course? The majority owner of Digital First Media — publisher of The Mercury News, The Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, 11 Southern California dailies, and 49 others from California to Michigan to New Jersey — has faced a rising tide ...

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Newsonomics: Digital First Media’s Upcoming Sale Produces Some Surprises

Anxious journalists from San Jose to Saint Paul, New Haven to Novato await the final shouts of the Digital First Media auction. Bidding is still in progress, as DFM’s regional business heads coast to coast make presentations to would-be buyers, anonymous to them, by conference call. They share ...

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MediaNews’ New TapIn Bets on the Tablet

That's the dream that the MediaNews' new made-for-the tablet, TapIn taps into. Potentially -- and I cannot emphasize that word too much -- it may become a prototypical product for the news industry, pointing a new way out of the hollowing-out landscape into which the news industry has ...

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The Newsonomics of Overnight Digital Customers

That’s right. You’re no longer a “user”, a hateful term if ever one were invented, or a “visitor,” or a brother from another digital planet. Overnight, you’re a customer again. In this psychology, a news company has put a value on what it produces. You, the customer, now are being shown that ...

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Apple & the News Industry: Accommodate, Negotiate or Litigate?

Negotiation is helped greatly by competition. Ironically, Google, the first big web middleman to drive the newspaper industry nuts, may prove useful here as its Android-powered tablets (Samsung, Dell and more) take on the iPad. Can Google strike a 10% deal with the newspapers, setting a ...

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N.Y. Times’ SF Edition Plays Inside-Out Game

Tired of playing defense and readying itself for offense, the New York Times’ formal announcement of its San Francisco “edition” this week shows us how a world is moving and how the Times and Wall Street Journal (which also will offer an SF edition soon) is taking their battle to a city near you.

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Nine Questions: Philly.Com Gets Risque, Anti-Trust and Newspapers, Senior Niching, craigslist Killers and the Sweet Science of Content

What is Christine Varney taking from her newspaper industry talks? Obama's new anti-trust chief has drawn a lot of attention for her interest in Google's books deal, and beyond that, to Google's great search dominance. Varney has also been meeting with news industry people, management and ...

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