Blogs and columns

On Wednesday I wrote a posting on journalists and bloggers as well as blogs and newspapers. Subject was the public debate in The Netherlands. Today I will be discussing blogs and newspapers in general. The reason for this is that I have been busy with the jury assignment of the EPpy Awards for the past days. I have been doing this for a decade now. The judging process for the EPpy Awards has been closed today.

Since 1997 I have been a jury member of this prestigious award. The EPpy Awards, run by Editor and Publisher and Mediaweek, honours the best Internet services presented by media-affiliated companies, including newspapers, radio, TV/Cable and magazines. The footprint of the competition is international, but entries come mainly from the US. Every jury members gets assigned a few categories. For me the evaluation exercise is an opportunity to see the trends in newspaper world and see how newspapers get accustomed to digital media. This year I had three categories to evaluate. All three contained a pre-selection of entries. One of the categories dealt with newspaper-related blogs in a specific area.

It has taken sometime for journalists to understand the relationship between newspapers and blogs. And having worked my way through the entries of the newspaper-related blogs in a specific area, I am not sure whether all editorial staffs do really understand the relationship.

It is clear that many a newspaper manager has offered a space to a blogger in order to yield more traffic to the internet site. More traffic, more attraction for advertisers, more money. To the blogger it will give a secured income and professional marketing.

The editorial staffs have been wrestling with blogs. Do blogs deliver news and if they do, how do you present it. Blogs are still author related and is not part of the official journalistic articles. Can a blog be used as the precursor in investigative journalism? But so far blogs, except for some US ones, have not been really used by newspapers to harvest news for the public debate.

I discovered that US newspapers often use blogs as a replacement for the former columns. Column writers have either been exchanged for bloggers or column writers have been given a special blogging course. You can see it from the writing and the reaction to the postings. Existing column writers write formally and do not solicit reactions and do not get any reactions to their postings. You can also see it in the lay-out of the postings. Column writers still stick close to a newspaper lay-out, while others have a real blog design and use photographs and even drawings. In the newspaper blogs movies were not part of the toolkit. While I saw the movies being used on the front page of internet sites, not one blogger in a newspaper context had movies in their toolbox.

(BTW The EPpy Awards has only a category of media-related blogs. There is no category for non-media related blogs. That is a pity as it could stimulate the discussion about the position of bloggers in the news provision: do bloggers have a position in the journalistic value chain; should bloggers have a journalistic status).

Blog Posting Number: 729

Tags: blogging, newspapers

Never a dull moment at PCM

It took a while, but now PCM knows the height of the claim by Mr Marcel Boekhoorn, the proprietor of free daily De Pers. Instead of 96 million euro, the claim has been lowered to 10 million euro. PCM disputes the claim and refuses to pay.

The claim is part of talks to collaborate in the free daily project. PCM’s CEO Ton aan de Stegge together with an Apex partner started these talks with Mr Boekhoorn. PCM would provide the printing and the distribution; Boekhoorn would provide the editorial staff. The PCM national newspapers were against the plan as they wanted to have their own free daily or protect their own baby like NRC.next. The Board of Directors/Shareholders stepped in and called off the talks.

Boekhoorn immediately let the company know that he was going to put down a claim and estimated the disaster on 96 million euro. In the meantime Apex and the Board of Directors/Shareholders were in talks for Apax stepping out. Besides the height of the transfer sum, the claim was hanging above the talks. Despite the fact that the Apax representative is said to have made promises to Boekhoorn, the Board of Directors/Shareholders took the claim, if it would come to a court case or a settlement. As the claim has been lowered from 96 million to 10 million, a settlement around 5 million euro will be most likely (and PCM has already 1 million for this claim as the CFO return his bonus of 1 million euro).

In the meantime the PCM project of a free daily DAG has started up. And the former CEO Ton aan de Stegge has been named a commissioner of the PCM love baby. No date for publication has been set yet.

De Pers has not failed one day of publication so far. As with every new paper advertisers still are hesitant. Distribution of De Pers is done at the railway stations. But now the management has also plans to have the free daily be delivered from door-to-door and eventually to convert to paid subscriptions. Eventually the distribution will consist of 30 percent through stations and buses, 30 percent in office blocks and through bookshops and 30 percent from door-to-door; the rest will handed out at gas stations. In the coming weeks De Pers will be distributed from door-to-door. The publisher Cornelius Van den Berg has 50 areas selected where De Pers will be delivered daily. The areas are mainly new developments and new towns. That is where the young families are; they are interesting for advertisers.

The publisher is very optimistic. Besides the mix of distribution channels, he wants to convert from a free daily to a paid subscription in a mid-term view. Having established one arm of the publishing empire, the publisher also announced that the company will be publishing books. Next month the first book will appear. You would think that a publisher would be able to tell the title, but he has not decided which book it will be.

By not getting involved in De Pers, PCM allows a competitor, not hindered by money, to grow.

Blog Posting Number: 723

Tags: newspapers

Never a dull moment at PCM

PCM is many illusions poorer as well as a lot money. Yet it improves its revenue flow due to a financial reconstruction and despite the hefty bonuses for the top management (of course the results could have been better if the bonuses had been added to the final results).

It is unbelievable that after so much mismanagement and turmoil there is still a reasonable financial result. The newspaper and book publishing company had a turn-over in 2006 of plus 3,4 percent from 653 to 675 million euro. The netto loss went down from 51 million euro in 2005 to 31 million euro in 2006.

The positive results were mainly made in the newspaper sector and the educational division. In the newspaper sector the job advertisements brought in more money as the Dutch economy is in full swing. And extra revenues at 50 million euro came from the sale of the book publisher Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum to Springer.

But what is the real status. The newspaper companies keep on working and still have to realise heavy cuts in their budgets. This while the managers of Apax leave with a fat profit and the top management cashes, while it is still possible. Two top managers have left in the meantime, each taking 2 million euro for less than two years of work. The CFO, who stays on, has returned his bonus of 1 million euro. Also two members of the shareholders’ board have left (of course without a bonus). So there is a CFO and a chairman of the shareholders’ board left.

In order to pimp up the picture of the company, PCM expects for the future:
• It has a fine starting position to profit from the economic upswing and new developments in newspaper and book publishing;
• The advertisement sector is picking up again, but the newspaper will have to look to get into the competitive game of television and internet (in The Netherlands newspaper publishers are not allowed yet to possess television stations);
• The company will invest in new products such as the free paper DAG; it aims to develop a cross-media news platform to reach younger target groups and invest in a multimedia strategy for the present quality titles (read established audience; mind you: cross-media for youngsters and multimedia for the elderly!)
• The newspaper and book divisions need to work on improving the results (of course after handing out bonuses so generously);
• The book publishing division will remain part of PCM and no longer be put up for sale.

So what is happening today?
- PCM is still negotiating in silence with the newspaper an book publishing company NDC/VBK. Mr Jan de Roos of NDC/VBK is rumoured to be the new CEO of the merger.
- Mr Marcel Boekhoorn, proprietor of the free paper De Pers has put a claim on the desk of PCM for 10 million euro. This claim represents the damage caused by PCM when the company was talking to Mr Boekhoorn about collaborating in De Pers project, but broke off talks and left promises unfulfilled..

Tomorrow there will be more on the 10 million euro claim and the project De Pers.

Blog Posting Number: 723

Tags: newspapers, cross-media, multimedia

Tracking eyes in print and in online (3)

The Eyetrack07 report throws up the question about the future of text online, at least to some degree. What is the future of text online? In an article, Guillermo E. Franco poses related questions to the usability guru Jakob Nielsen; but as he was probably too busy, he asked Chris Nodder of the Nielsen Norman Group to answer. And Chris Nodder still sees a bright future for text online. The lay-out of the article complies with the suggestions for journalists: the use of the Q&A form, which is stressed in the typography.

In the article there is a mix of questions about readability, writability, the eternal question of pixels and the improvement of usability in online newspapers. In the article there are a lot of observation and presuppositions. Together they are a mixed bag from which everyone can take what they like.

I might have missed something, but I did not understand the implicit relationship between tips for authors and the pixels in the fragment on screen readability. Of course the use of white spaces between paragraphs, the listings and the use of bullets make articles more attractive and makes reading from the screen more pleasant.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Just in case that you do not have time to read the full article, here are the suggestions for journalists, as spelled out in the article.

We suggest that writers:
· Use the inverted pyramid. Start with the conclusion.
· Write abstracts or summaries for longer content.
· Tell readers what questions they can expect an article to answer.
· Make small chunks of content with one or two ideas in each chunk.
· Group content that is similar.
· Write unique titles, headings and subheadings.
· Make lists, not paragraphs. Bulleted lists and white space can break up text.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Straight after these sensible, but not uncommon suggestions Nodder dives into the pixel issue:
Interestingly, although there are some very high-resolution displays commercially available (especially on Tablet PCs), the original prediction of 300 dpi being common by 2007 does not seem to have come about. The technology exists, but it just isn't being exploited yet. Additionally, until computers are produced in a form that makes them as suitable as paper for reading in multiple environments, paper will still be a major factor.

Of course there is a relationship between lay-out and displays, but it feels I like missed something in the argumentation. Besides I am wondering about the statement that only a 300 dpi technology will be the saving grace. Even the iLiad of iRex Technologies with 160 dpi makes reading from a screen a pleasure for the eyes. The difference is between the interlacing technology and the e-Ink technology used in the iLiad.

The question about the future of text online is IMHO more than a question of screens and writing methods. It is a generation problem in terms of media, but also in terms of users of the media. When I started out with digital media (yes I avoid new media) in 1980, there was only text. With ASCII symbols (128 symbols consisting of the undercast and capital alphabet, numerals and diacritical signs) you could make some rudimentary drawings (see the logo of the Fido network), but that was all. Also in videotext, drawings of cars had square wheels. By the end of the decade, it was possible to produce graphs, which was a great improvement for publishing. Digital music was around, but sending files online was still uncommon. But from 1995 onwards music came up, photographs could be transmitted and displayed and music still took a while, but eventually got into use.

But having all these media types available still does not mean that life changes immediately. A culture change is needed for this and these changes take time; in fact it might take more generations; these days I measure generations in completed academic cycles of four years. I am very text-oriented. Music is not an integral part of my communication pattern. Visually I use photographs, but that is what I did also when I was editing print. In order to use video I will have to learn some tricks still, let alone that I communicate in video.

Perhaps there is an immediate future for text online, perhaps even a bright one. However this future will be limited by the speed in which new generations pick up music, video and internet broadcast.

Blog Posting Number: 722

Tags: usability, newspapers, online newspapers

Tracking eyes in print and in online (2)

The Eyetrack07 report does not only tell something about the attention span of the reader when reading a newspaper online or print; eye tracking is also pointing to attention catchers. How can journalists catch and keep the attention of the reader. With almost 600 videotapes almost 600 videotapes of readers reading in print and online the researchers can look at headlines, composition of articles and the use of illustrations. The researchers can take a closer look to make articles more engaging.












The prototype portion of the study showed the value of alternative story forms as they related to comprehension and retention of information such as Questions and answers (Q&A), a timeline, a short sidebar or a list. The respondents were asked to read one of six different versions of a story about the spread of bird flu. Three versions were print (see illustration) and three were online. Each included identical information -- fact for fact -- but the story structure differed. At the end of the test, the respondents were quizzed about the story in an exit interview. In both the print and online, subjects who answered the most questions correctly had read the version of the story with the most alternative structure -- no traditional narrative. On average, we saw 15 percent more visual attention to alternative or "unconventional" text than to regular text. In broadsheet, this number rises to 30 percent.

This is really interesting for it means that the regular text with the lead and the conventional when, how, by who paragraphs, of which a story usually is made up does not draw a great deal amount of visual attention any longer. People want to be caught by alternative structures. It will mean that new narrative forms will have to be developed and taught.

In my mind the question comes up, whether the attention catcher by alternative narrative structures is the result of people being influenced by television and internet presentations of the news.

Photographs have been an attention getter for long. Printed newspaper need to have photographs on the front page these days. Logically eye tracking the photographs was part of the study. One close part of the study was to show the respondents 20 large photos available to be seen and 100 small photos. Proportionally large photos generated more attention, compared to small photos. As such there was no difference with the results in the first eye track study in 1991. Not only large photographs, but also large headlines got dramatically more attention than smaller headlines and photos. In fact, they were the first points of entry in print.
But there is more to photographs. Colour photos draw dramatic attention in broadsheet, compared to black and white photos. Live, documentary news photos -- photos of real people doing things in real time -- got more attention than staged photos. Studio or staged photos received little attention. And mug shots got relatively little attention in any format.From these first findings it looks like editorial staffs will have to develop a new way telling stories, structuring story material and presentation in print in order to keep the attention of their readers.

But the study showed also that reading online stories is a different game involving navigation bars, teasers and story lists that get primary attention. And then it is only the reader behind the screen. For there are still other points of research such as news delivery on large format screens, in high definition, on telephones and even smaller screens. Also elements of television news, like text that moves across the bottom of the screen, or animated graphics need close study. And searcheability online needs major attention (as I have indicated before we need better search engines than Google and Yahoo).

Blog Posting Number: 721

Tags: newspapers, online newspapers

Tracking eyes in print and in online (1)

When April started, a research study of the Poynter Institute, EyeTrack07, was published into the differences between online readers and the readers of printed media. It is a prelude to the Eyetrack07 conference which starts today in St Petersburg, Fla. Normally I am very weary of this kind of studies. I always wonder who was the contractor giving out the assignment for the study and what was compared.










This study is part of a long-term study by the renowned Poynter Institute, a newspaper research instate, which collaborates with its counterpart IFRA in Germany. The long-term study is to find out the differences between print and online and how newspaper editors can improve their print editions and get their online issues more pregnant.

In this case, some 600 testers of various US newspapers co-operated. They were asked to read newspapers for 30 days as well as the related news site. But there was more: two small cameras placed to the right-hand eye of the tester followed what the people read and for how long.

From the test results it became clear that once an online reader had selected a text to read, 77 percent did read it. But readers of a printed quality newspaper read significantly less than online readers: 62 percent. Only 57 percent of tabloid readers read the selected article.
The results are interesting. In general everyone in the newspaper industry believes that short articles are more read than longer articles. Tabloids consist of short articles and are popular with commuters. Yet 57 percent only read an article once they have selected it.

Yet the study also yields questions. With paper a certain selection is made by the editorial staff; in online this is less forceful. Also, online texts are usually shorter than newspaper articles. In Europe we have the phenomenon of teletext, textual news items on television. This service has been one of the longest running digital media in many countries in Europe. In The Netherlands the teletext service started on April 1, 1980 after a test period of almost two years. And it is still popular for news and airport departure and arrival times. The service is now also available on internet in the same text format.

Another question the study throws up is the attitude of the readers: between methodicals en scanners. Methodicals like a medium they can feel. Scanners like to hunt for the headlines. In the end 75 percent of the print readers have a methodical behaviour, while 50 percent of the online readers show methodical behaviour, leaving the other 50 percent to a scanning behaviour. Thus scanners and methodicals read as much text online. So the debate is not over yet.

BTW Did you get this far in the article? Okay, tomorrow I will go into the improvement editors can make in their print and online versions.

Blog Posting Number: 720

Tags: newspapers, online news

Journalism is changing

Recently the Project for Excellence in Journalism published its annual report.

The pace of change has accelerated. In the last year, the trends reshaping journalism didn’t just quicken, they seemed to be nearing a pivot point. Business model that has financed the news for more than a century — product advertising — still fits the way people consume media. Yet audiences are splintering across ever more platforms, from circulation in print, to ratings in TV, to page views and unique visitors online. Every media sector except for two is now losing popularity.

The definitions of enemy and ally in the news business are changing. Newspapers have begun to partner, for instance, with classified-job-listing Web sites they once denounced, brought together by mutual fear of free sites such as Craigslist.

With fundamentals shifting, we sense the news business entering a new phase heading into 2007—a phase of more limited ambition. Rather than try to manage decline, many news organizations have taken the next step of starting to redefine their appeal and their purpose based on diminished capacity. Increasingly outlets are looking for “brand” or “franchise” areas of coverage to build audience around.

For some, the new brand is what Wall Street calls “hyper localism” (consider the end of foreign bureaus at the Boston Globe or the narrowing of the coverage area at the Atlanta Journal Constitution). For others, it is personality and opinion. For still others it is personal involvement. For an emerging cohort of Web sites it is the involvement of everyday people (some alternative news sites now come closer than ever to the promise of authentic citizen media).
In a sense all news organizations are becoming more niche players, basing their appeal less on how they cover the news and more on what they cover.

The consequences of this narrowing of focus involve more risk than we sense the business has considered. Concepts like hyper localism, pursued in the most literal sense, can be marketing speak for simply doing less. Branding can also be a mask for bias. Handled badly, the new strategy might also render a big city metro paper irrelevant. The recent history of the news industry is marked by caution and continuity more than innovation. The character of the next era, far from inevitable, will likely depend heavily on the quality of leadership in the newsroom and boardroom. If history is a guide, it will require renegades and risk-takers to break from the conventional path and create new directions.

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing The Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care,” the paper’s publisher and chairman of the New York Times Company, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., told an interviewer earlier this year. The head of country’s most esteemed news company meant to sound an optimistic tone about journalism’s future, but the statement, like the industry, seemed to teeter between boldness and uncertainty.

This is the fourth edition of our annual report on the state of the news media — the status and health of journalism in America. The broad context outlined in earlier editions remains the same: the transformation facing journalism is epochal, as momentous as the invention of television or the telegraph, perhaps on the order of the printing press itself. (See Previous Reports).

The effect is more than just audiences migrating to new delivery systems. Technology is redefining the role of the citizen — endowing the individual with more responsibility and command over how he or she consumes information — and that new role is only beginning to be understood.

Our sense remains, too, that traditional journalism is not, as some suggest, becoming irrelevant. There is more evidence now that new technology companies have had either limited success in news gathering (Yahoo, AOL), or have avoided it altogether (Google). Whoever owns them, old newsrooms now seem more likely than a few years ago to be the foundations for the newsrooms of the future.

But practicing journalism has become far more difficult and demands new vision. Journalism is becoming a smaller part of people’s information mix. The press is no longer gatekeeper over what the public knows.

Journalists have reacted relatively slowly. They are only now beginning to re-imagine their role. Their companies failed to see “search” as a kind of journalism. Their industry has spent comparatively little on R&D. They have been tentative about pressing for new economic models, and that has left them fearful and defensive. Some of the most interesting experiments in new journalism continue to come from outside the profession — sites such as Global Voices, which mixes approved volunteer “reporters” from around the world with professional editors.
There are signs, meanwhile, that those the press is charged with monitoring, including the government, corporations and activists, have reacted more quickly. Politicians, interest groups and corporate public relations people tell Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) they have bloggers now on secret retainer — and they are delighted with the results.

These are a few of the conclusions we arrive at about The State of the News Media 2007. Each year, we try to identify new key trends facing the media. In the past, among others, we have noted that journalism’s challenge is not from technology or lack of interest in news but from diminished economic potential; that power is moving to those who make news away from those who cover it; that there are now several competing models of journalism, with cheaper, less accurate ones gaining momentum; that while there are more outlets delivering news, that has generally not meant covering a broader range of stories.

Blog Posting Number: 711

Tags:journalism, television, radio, newspapers

Never a dull moment at PCM

Hardly has the private equity company Apax closed the door to the premises of the publishing company PCM and made off with their financial spoils or the new owner, who was the owner before Apax, let the world know that they are in charge again.

Apax is out now. And the other shareholders, foundations, are in charge again just like they were before Apax was invited in. Those shareholders will look back at the Apax era and most likely shake their heads. What did it do for the newspaper and book publishing company?
- NRC.next is only tangible product, which just celebrated its first anniversary;
- One board member went out during the Apax regime: Mr Theo Bouwman;
- Two new board members came in during the Apax regime: Ton aan de Stegge and Philip Alberdingk Thijm;
- A free daily was announced in cooperation with a free daily which has been published in the meantime; PCM is now working on its own free publication;
- For the rest, Apax has financially reshaped PCM, but the company will have to pay off the loans for a long time.

So now the foundations are in charge again and they let it know to the world. They sent off Mr Alberdingk Thijm immediately. He had successfully operated at the Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, where he shaped a cross-media operation, with print, radio and internet. According to the foundations he was unable to pull off the same trick for PCM. But he walks off at least 2 million euro richer, but of course his name in tatters. And also Mr Aan de Stegge will be slaughtered. He has been asked to stay on for another half year until a new chairman has been found.

All this turmoil normally leads to a period with no strategy or a strategy recalled. Mr Aan de Stegge had already announced that newspapers and education were the spearpoints of the strategy. The book division, except the educational section, could be sold, he said. But surprise, surprise PCM (read the foundations) are negotiating a merger with NDC/VBK, a newspaper and book publisher. Their profiles are quite similar. Both are in the newspaper and book business. PCM is in the national newspapers, while NDC/VBK is in the business of regional newspapers. Both companies have a book publishing division. PCM is heavily mortgaged, while NDC/VBK is well financed. The company have been in talks already for months and are already talking about board members. Rumour has it that the chairman of NDC/VBK, Jan de Roos, will be named the new chairman.

But these merger talks could take some time. Discussions about the cross-ownership in the media are certainly coming up. The competition watchdog will have look into the matter. It might be that the watchdog will ask to sell particular parts. In this way the company would become a conglomerate of national newspapers, with regional newspapers in the North of the Netherlands. But the book divisions would be a problem. Putting the two book divisions together would produce the largest book publishing conglomerate in The Netherlands. There will be two reactions to this. The competition watchdog might ask to sell some companies or some book publishers might step out of the conglomerate and start their own company, as happened with the PCM book publishing companies.

For the immediate future there are two operational projects. PCM will finally launch their own free newspaper, named Dag (translated Day or Goodbye). There are high expectations about the project as PCM is working together with the incumbent telco KPN. PCM will produce the paper and be involved in the internet site; KPN will be involved in the internet site, but mainly work on the exploitation of the mobile/PDA and interactive television side. Another project will be the digital paper project by de Volkskrant and by NRC Handelsblad. As I remarked in the flash item of yesterday: this has been on the drawing boards for long. But now it seems to become reality. I personally would have combined it with the launch of the free newspaper Dag and experimented with day-parting. We will wait and see. I am eager to hear the price PCM is going to ask for the e-Reader and the subscription to the newspaper. Besides, with the merger of PCM and NDC/VBK, an expert company on e-Books and digital paper would be included: Pinion.

For the next half year there will not be a dull moment at PCM.

Blog Posting Number 709

Tags: newspapers, digital paper, e-Reader