The Newsonomics of Journalist Headcounts

So let’s look broadly at those numbers. Count them all up — and undoubtedly, numerous ones are missing — and you’ve got something more than 65,000 journalists, working for brands of one kind or another.

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9 Questions: Zell’s Clown Car, The New “100,” Tablets & Print Circ & Daughter of Alesia

Will the cats of newspaper industry be successfully herded? After pouring millions into his Alesia project, Rupert Murdoch gave the retreat order to his would-be Roman warriors, killing the tablet-oriented paid news portal initiative. Though his News Corp is the biggest news company in the ...

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“Public Media” $100 Million Plan: 100 Journalists Per City

One hundred "public media" reporters and editors in a market is a huge increase. Among those four stations, the news staff would now range from 12 to 30 each, among them. It's tough to count because these are legacy radio operations and radio requires different job descriptions than digital ...

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Philly Report: Thinking About the Roll-Ups to Come

The magic word here from a business perspective: Roll-up. Whoever figures out how to roll up major audiences and monetize them wins. J-Lab's report holds out hope that may come about somewhat organically. History, though, teaches us that it's more likely to come by dint of more singular zeal.

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Nine Questions: Murdoch’s Lion in Winter, Alicia Calling, Junk Traffic and Negotiating Like It’s 1999

It’s quite a cat-and-mouse game. The cat is Rupert Murdoch, a lion in the winter of his career. Astoundingly, he’s become the leading spokesman for American journalism. The mouse is the crafty Google, adjusting its algorithms and its tactics, faster than publishers can bemoan, “who moved my ...

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The Star Tribune Hears a Who

If Sweeney came concerned, he might have left more worried. Yes, Public Radio’s legacy business is radio, and, more recently, audio, via podcast and streaming. What Sweeney heard, though, was a larger Who, public radio’s nascent attempts to assert itself as a major online (and then presumably ...

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Pocantico Signals New Networked Future for “Watchdog” News Sites

$128 million is a significant number – but it may be just a drop in the bucket of what’s to come. Sources tell me that major foundations – some that have previously considered “news and information” to be fairly far afield from their philanthropic mandates – are talking about the large sums of ...

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New Detroit Daily: Nature (and Entrepreneurs) Fills Gaps

Yes, SDNN is an online site, while the Detroit Daily News in a print product, with some secondary digital presence to come. Both, though, point to an emerging reality: The rapid shrinking of daily newspaper companies is beginning to leave vacuums in local markets and marketplaces. Entrepreneurs ...

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Google and Newspapers: Fairplay, Fair Share and Fair Use

I think it's time we get beyond this tired storyline and confront the realities of the moment. Just as God didn't ordain that newspapers should drive 25%+ profits from their daily monopolies, God didn't set the pay-out rules that drives current web business models. It's time to re-boot the ...

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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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