Have an essay.

The focus would be the news of a particular large city with some focus on national and international stories which have been licensed from other newspapers/wire services.

The audience will be the general population of the region mostly. The main difference between this paper and other generic ones is that it will consist of young professionals who have knowledge about a variety of subjects. The main focus will be on the division of labor, so to speak. If one person’s expertise is on video gaming, an increasingly large chunk of the market nowadays, then he or she will exclusively cover that “beat.” The same can be said for entertainment (no gossip) reporting such as movie reviews.

The “paper” will consist of a limited print edition and an online edition which will be the main focus. The print edition would garner some subscriptions hopefully but the online version is where the drastic idea of being subscription based happens. Users will have all the content on the site for a variety of time periods (daily, monthly, yearly) for a set fee.

Advertisements can bring in revenue of course. However, it would be imperative not to separate church and state in this function. As it’s a local paper, it would be beneficial to procure advertisers of local establishments such as restaurants, cinemas and other businesses which can be found an arm’s throw away. This doesn’t have to include the advertisers who would, if the paper is successful, bring in large ad revenues that are national companies like Best Buy or Target.

As it’s an all-around paper – advertisements for movies, band CD releases (another sector in trouble) or upcoming video games can play a significant role. However, even though it may seem elitist, online advertisements which are annoying (which pop up, play sound without a choice or are generally gaudy) cannot find a place in the paper as it will doubtlessly annoy the readers. A useful component of advertisements would be to read key searches or articles viewed in a user’s account and develop an algorithm to deduct some sort of pattern in their interests which can then be used to advertise a certain product to them whenever they read a story. This function is not to be exploited though – with emails and the like – and the option must be given to the user to disable such monitoring if they please.

Donations are a touchy subject. While it would be a boon for the paper to receive grants without strings attached – one should realize that’s rarely the case. As long as the body donating the funds has no expectations of the paper – it would work.

As it’s mostly a local paper, the metro section will require a number of reporters who will cover various branches in the city. One important factor in this coverage will be the constant ear-to-the-ground approach which reporters will be expected to adhere to. This basically means that reporters will be expected to be up-to-date on the “word on the street” and will talk to their target audience and listen to their concerns. This will serve to decimate the stereotypical elitism shown by a newspaper towards those who read it. The starting number of reporters will likely be eight to ten. They will mainly handle the online functions and a local printer will be used for the limited hard copies.

There will be no blurring of lines between opinion and news. This may seem draconian, but if a reporter blogs about his or her story and expresses an opinion – it will reflect poorly on the newspaper as a whole and therefore cannot be allowed. However, if someone in the music department (for example) blogs about politics and endorses a local candidate whom he or she has nothing to do with professionally, it can pass as long as it is made sure that their views do not reflect the paper’s as a whole.

There will be emphasis on transparency and sourcing in the stories. In an era where journalists are not always liked or trusted by the general public – it is important to maintain a professional nature which will add to the publication’s credibility. At the end of the day, it is only the reputation of a paper that can cause people to flock to it – not shock news and gimmicks. Some stories can incorporate hyperlinks of source files – a task which might require the need of the new age of “librarians” who will research and insert such links in a story after the reporter hands it in to the copy desk.

The staff, which will hopefully grow from the initial number, will mostly be employed at the paper. However, if freelance reporters care to sell a well developed story to the paper – they will be welcome as long as the nature of the story is not too controversial and can be backed up and verified by the reporter. A useful function of the paper can be a special “public forum” area on the website and on a page in the print edition where citizens from the locality can voice their concerns and participate in (mature) debates with one another. Reporters will be expected to moderate the forums pertaining to their own particular subject to weed out any hateful speech and/or spam.

On the subject of online activity – a handful of technical personnel will be needed in order to prevent the “borrowing” of articles on the site. This will be done by taking stories and rendering them in Adobe Flash format for view on the website. Just like YouTube takes video files and renders them in a format which is view only, news pieces will be uploaded in a format which would only make them viewable by the user who is logged in. Flash text cannot be copied and pasted into other areas as it is basically an image. Unless a person has the patience to type out and entire story into his or her blog – this would hinder the “piracy” of articles to all but the most technical-minded.

As stated before, the online entity will be the main focus. Stories will, if possible, be supplemented with photos and videos made by the reporter. Basic video editing skills will be required to handle this. This would need a rather substantial start-up capital for workstation computers, editing software and decent video cameras. If a reporter needs help, the technical personnel can assist in the matter.

While the reporters are doing what they do best – the management will be expected to actually keep the newspaper from coming undone at the seams. The very essence of keeping a newspaper profitable will be to adopt a minimalistic approach. Office space can be rented on a floor of a commercial building. Departments will have their own areas to operate but it will be expected to be cramped. The notion of a paper-less office would work the best in such conditions to avoid the clutter one usually associates with a newspaper office. The top level editors will need to find the best mix of projects to suit a given time. If an especially newsworthy story is being pursued, for example, the funding will need to be scrutinized in order to eliminate any wasteful spending by the paper in the pursuit. As mentioned before, the limited paper version will be done by a third party printer and will be expected to run on weekdays and will be distributed on the street mainly. The online version will be constantly updates all week long as news comes out. Needless to say, the paper will be a sole owner or partnership enterprise at the start which will hopefully ascend to a private limited company eventually. The selling of shares on the stock exchange, which seems unlikely for a news business but becomes a reality with success, is a touchy subject as it makes the paper vulnerable to influences and buyouts.

The Associated Press will be an integral part of not only overseas reporting but also of reporting from other cities. The AP and other national news sources will constitute a substantial chunk of the budget, but they are necessary if the newspaper is to give any attention to coverage outside the confines of the city.

As the case with all publications running today, the key to survival will be the success of its brand name. If one can be established, and the content be sufficiently controlled, then a steady income can be earned for for the time being. However, to really take things to the next level, the limited staff will have to go above and beyond to gauge the public’s wants and will have to work around the clock to meet them in a way that isn’t sleazy, immature or compromising to the fundamental principles of journalism.

Shan Carter/New York Times

Maureen Dowd has always annoyed me with her column in the New York Times. The woman’s arrogance knows no bounds. But truth aside:
I know Barack Spock likes newspapers. An aide told me during the campaign that Mr. Obama would get cranky if he didn’t have some time set aside during the day to read The New York Times.

Ignoring all the puns in the article, Dowd likens that death of newspapers to Mr. Spock’s dying race in the new Star Trek movie. I don’t plan on watching said movie because now I’ll be constantly reminded of how my future job prospects are being blown to smithereens by laserfire or whatever Trekkies call those gizmos.

In a fawning and glowy likening of your new president to the fictional character, Dowd gets around to the point that:

David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” who worked for 13 years as a Baltimore Sun reporter, testified that “high-end journalism is dying,” and when that happens, and no one is manning the cop shops and zoning boards, America will enter “a halcyon era for state and local political corruption.”

He said he thought the horse could be lured back into the barn. “I work in television now,” he said, “and no American, for the first 30 years of television, paid anything for their rabbit ears. Now they pay $60, $70 a month for better content.”

Okay it just got serious.

The idea that a political machine running unchecked in an era without newspapers is quite disconcerting indeed. This is why newspapers need to adopt a subscription model for their work and exercise tight content control that would prevent people like me from ripping off parts of their articles and pasting them into my free wordpress blog.

Then again, I lifted this from Dowd’s column. You’ll never catch me paying for that.

The Boston Globe has been a force in the national newspaper scene in America since 1872 and it looks increasingly likely that it will follow in the vein of age-old and reputable newspapers closing this year. The New York Times Co., which owns the Globe, has demanded it obtain $20 million in cost savings by May 1st or it gets the axe.

How will they bridge the gap? The Times’ expects the Globe “to gain new advertising revenues from the expansion of Boston.com’s hyperlocal sites, known as Your Towns, according to a memo sent to staff summarizing the managers meeting. In addition, the memo said, executives see the opportunity to increase revenues from consumers and advertisers by “launching new digital services and consumer-pay programs that do not eat into advertising revenues.”

How is there money in HyperLocal sites? They might cost less to set up but they don’t exactly generate money – unless there’s a subscription set up. But who would pay for that? It seems the Times’ expect a lot from a medium which isn’t on its own two feet yet.

Somewhere in the middle of reading this thoughtful opinion piece by Roy J. Harris Jr. (published in the Christian Science Monitor) – I stopped to contemplate my view on blogs, newspapers, news sites and other means of conveying any sort of reporting.

Since I came to America in the fall of 2007, I’ve found it hard to relate – especially once I was taught to avoid such language – to the wording of certain articles. Reading Jody Powell’s ‘The Other Side of the Story’ didn’t help much either and I pretty much made the conclusion that if even professional journalists let their biases shine through their writing – what objectivity did a mere blogger hold?

Now, the Pulitzer prizes aren’t being given out for outstanding work in blogs…yet. However, one line in the article caught my attention:

Some people suggest that one way to break the ice is to create special categories for online entries. But Pulitzer purists blanch at the idea, noting that over the years categories have been drawn to consider the quality of the work, rather than its source.

Isn’t that really what it’s all about ladies and gentlemen? Who are the New York Times (for example) to dispute the involvement of an online news site to challenge their right to another Pulitzer prize? What it should truly boil down to is the content quality – with a sufficient and verifiable degree of transparency that can instill legitimacy in the story.

Simply put, the Pulitzer should be given to the best and most correct version of the truth in reporting. The recognition of these news sites can boost the idea that if bloggers, citizen journalists and the like deserve a Pulitzer – then they will receive it.

This just might inspire them to shape up no?

Here are some stories that reporters working the White House beat have produced in the past few months: Pocket squares are back! The president is popular in Europe. Vegetable garden! Joe Biden occasionally says things he probably regrets. Puppy!

It’s not that the reporters covering the president are bad at their jobs. Most are experienced journalists at the top of their game — and they’re wasted at the White House, where scoops are doled out, not uncovered. The day of a typical White House correspondent consists, literally, of waiting to be told things. Legitimate security concerns and a tightly scripted political world keep the presidential press corps physically corralled and informationally hostage.

Of course, someone has to keep an eye on the presidency. What’s wrong with the White House beat is that it’s considered prestigious, as though the address the reporters work at makes their work special. I say this as someone who goes to the White House regularly and gets a thrill out of it.

But putting a horde of reporters on the site where the big decisions about the country’s future are made is no guarantee of enhanced coverage. Instead of heaping more telegenic reporters into a single White House beat, break up the work among the corps of plugged-in journalists. When the president speaks out on AIG, let financial and labor reporters truth-squad him; when North Korea launches a missile, let defense and Asia specialists assess the White House reaction. Let the beleaguered journalism business prove its worth by providing something you can’t get by watching the White House’s YouTube channel.

And leave the puppy to me.

In a time where it’s getting more and more expensive to cover any kind of event – Cox has a point when it comes to covering press conferences at the famous residence. Money can be saved by cutting the numbers attending such meetings in the future. When a number of journalists are being spoon-fed the same information – their existence becomes somewhat redundant unless they can raise some insightful questions. Like Cox says, recent stories have all been puff pieces with no real news hook.

On the counter-side, you have journalists like Helen Thomas – who has covered the meetings for so long (since Kennedy in fact) that she has a reserved chair in the front row with her name on it. She stresses the importance of covering the press conferences as a way to preserve democracy. Former Press Secretary for Jimmy Carter Jody Powell (whose book I am currently reading regarding the press’ treatment of his administration) notably mentions in the video below that he had a sign on his desk which said that “it takes a strong government to survive a free press.”

Romanticizing aside, can we still afford it?

According to an article run by the New York Times:

Three longtime media executives are building an automated system to allow newspapers and magazines to charge for online access, including an “all you can read” subscription that would allow access to *multiple publications, the executives said on Tuesday.

Their company, Journalism Online L.L.C., aims to supply publishers with ready-made tools to charge Internet fees, an idea that has gained currency as advertising revenue plummets, but whose prospects of success are doubted by many media analysts. The company, which says it may have a product ready by the fall, says the advantages are that publishers would not have to develop their own systems and readers could use a single system for many different publications.

As you can imagine – the success of such a plan would be the answer to the misery of all those downtrodden chums you call journalists. To be in an environment where newspapers/online publications could actually earn their keep would probably save a dying industry in tumultuous times. Imagine having a subscription to premier publications like the Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal all for – they’re “playing” around with the idea of this number – $15 a month. Sounds great right?

The problem is that, hypothetically, people like me could who have subscriptions could pull entire articles and paste them into my blog. If I have enough hits then many people will have viewed the story for free. Also it’s interesting as to how they’re going to divide the profits between these big-name newspapers. According to hits? Arguments could break out over that.

A possible solution for the copying and pasting could be to have the stories displayed in Adobe Flash. This would entail entire articles to be converted into a flash file so that the text is actually a picture – if that makes sense. Anyways, you can’t right click and copy the contents of a flash slideshow so – unless the viewer is willing to type out hundreds or thousands of words on his/her blog to re-post the story – copying and pasting will be eliminated. The problem is that this will only dissuade those who give up easily. Eventually, people wrote programs to enable the downloading of YouTube’s flash videos onto computers. The same will definitely happen to Flash-locked articles.

But who would go through that much trouble?

The Associated Press has, most likely, increased in importance in recent years. Think of it this way – newspapers are cutting corners and some of those corners include foreign bureaus. Unless you have some kind of income, like a small handful of major newspapers in America, you can afford that Iraq coverage office. If you’re like every other newspaper which can’t carry on with an office in Washington, D.C. – then you have to rely on the A.P.

The A.P.’s various stations around the world are supplemented by the income generated by newspapers shelling out cash to use their stories because they simply can’t afford to gather the news themselves. This has worked for over a century. The advent of the internet, and copy-paste blogging, has complicated things.

The AP tried to gain control of the situation last year but failed. Now it’s saying that all websites that use their articles must “obtain permission and share revenue with them, and that it would take legal action against those that did not.”

Let’s look at this realistically. The A.P. needs a lot of money to carry on doing what it does. However, unless their expensives are gargantuan – they should be making a mint off of all the newspapers around the world buying rights to publish their stories. Of course it’s a thorn in their side when bloggers re-post entire articles. The major “embarrassment” for the AP is that many aggregator sites like Google News tend to link off to blogs which carry entire A.P. articles.

The funny situation here is that the A.P. gets benefits that other newspapers don’t from aggregators. Let me sin a little by copying and pasting a tidbit of this Times article:

Mario Ruiz, a spokesman for Huffington Post, said that the site is an A.P. client, and “we pay for everything we use of theirs.” He declined to address the idea of paying for links to other news organizations.

In essence, The A.P. has taken on the role of acting as a representative for the entire industry, particularly the newspapers — including The New York Times and virtually all large newspapers — that are the group’s owners. Some owners have rebelled against The A.P. in the last year, protesting that it charges them too much.

“The A.P. is trying to assert its value to the member newspapers,” by shifting the industry discussion “from fair use to fair share,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst at Outsell, a media research firm.

Honest attempt to save an age-old business model or a power play? You decide.

The media has, for the first time in 18 years, covered the arrival of the coffin of U.S. marine killed in action overseas. As reuters reports:

A flag-draped coffin bearing the remains of Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers arrived at Dover Air Force Base. Myers, 30, of Hopewell, Virginia, was killed in Afghanistan on Saturday by an improvised explosive device, the Pentagon said.

The administration of President Barack Obama relaxed a Pentagon ban on media coverage of returning U.S. war dead in February, giving grieving families the choice of whether to allow cameras at the solemn arrival ceremony.

The ban was imposed in 1991 during the first Gulf War with some exceptions, including the return of Navy seamen killed during the attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in October 2000 that killed 17.

Former President George W. Bush imposed a stricter ban during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sparking criticism that the federal government was hiding the human cost of its military operations.

Freedom of information is a vital part of democracy – which is absolutely true. Whether you believe in the Iraq/Afghanistan war or not – the U.S. servicemen are to be respected for their role in protecting your rights as Americans. One of these rights, however, was infringed upon by imposing a ban on the media’s coverage of dead veterans’ coffins – something which confused me. I’m sure the Pentagon had its reasons when it imposed such a ban during the first Gulf War but I’m not so sure as to what exactly the motive could be – unless they were trying to avoid a media circus with flag-draped coffins draped over the cover of every tabloid in the country.As for the notions that the government was trying to hide the true death toll, anyone who really wanted to know could easily find out through a simple click.

The realization that each reaction has a reaction and that each war has casualties is something that cannot be ignored. To not allow its coverage is to not fully appreciate the service the late marine provided. The news media, surprise surprise, are capable of going about their business with dignity in such matters – and it hopefully shall regarding such stories in the future.

That’s the training of a good journalist – state the facts and not the opinions. A good journalist is supposed to report each side as well as he or she can without getting involved. To do this, they tend to analyze the “big picture” of issues – interviewing each side and spending a lot of money and time getting it right.

In an era where funding is growing ever scarce, newspapers tend to slip up sometimes and ignore investigative work mainly because they simply cannot afford it. This is when sites like ProPublica are needed to dig deeper into the issues than what the big names can handle before moving on to the next day’s breaking news.

To hold it against the newspapers to not throw funding at in-depth coverage is wrong however. It’s the major point citizen journalists make against big company newspapers.

Amanda Michel, in her article, chucks out the reasons why OffTheBus – the collection of citizen journalists she was the director of – was so successful. She especially name drops one Mayhill Fowler, a 62 year old contributer to OffTheBus who picked up the “Bittergate” story when Obama mentioned the people of rural Pennsylvania as bitter folks who clung to guns and religion. Next thing you know her piece is up on the Huffington Post, which I regard as trash, and it sets off a media storm and Obama’s being branded an elitist.

Here’s why I have a problem with that.

Despite all that you’re trumpeting Ms. Michel, that was NOT news. I frankly don’t care about what Obama said and to credit yourself with starting the media storm that wasted the time of everyone in America with such a petty issue isn’t something to be proud of.

It’s annoying how everyone picked up on, especially the broadcast networks. It took ages, and many “experts” appearing left, right and center to “discuss” this oh-so horrific issue.

It would be incredible if citizen journalists could take a class or two to learn the fundamentals of actual journalism. It would also be incredible if actual journalists didn’t waste their time on “issues” like this. If I was American, and old enough to vote – I would feel betrayed by both parties.

Oh and the Huffington Post sucks.

Jim Cramer has courage.

The host of CNBC’s Mad Money stopped off at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart thursday night to defend himself/CNBC from the criticism Stewart threw their way all week. Although it’s easy to dismiss Stewart as a crude comedian who people can’t understand as to why the public tunes in to all the time – the man is a fierce interviewer.

The duration of the interview, which was so long that it was shortened substantially for television and then posted in its entirety online, an increasingly nervous Cramer defends himself and CNBC from the criticism that they were “in bed” with Wall Street executives and government officials of the Bush era instead of actually reporting and telling the people they were duty-bound to be responsible to – the viewers – the truth. Not the truth that the company heads spoonfed them – but the actual truth.

By the end of the-most-intense-segment on television that night – Cramer acknowledged that he could be a bit less about the entertainment side of things and get down to actual financial reporting and advising. Whether he does it or not isn’t important unless CNBC changes their ways as a whole.

Everything they teach you as journalists was thrown clear out the window by CNBC in recent years. Journalists are questioners, not stenographers. It took a faux-news host like Stewart to call them out on this.

Another thing I’ve noticed is how opinionated they are – something people here don’t seem to mind too much. I don’t quite understand the motivation to turn TV news into entertainment in this country. Jim Cramer, and the folks at CNBC, do indeed have the knowledge to understand and report the markets in these unsettling times but they’re more comfortable not doing so – lest they lose their chummy relationships with company heads. Financial news is a serious thing, not a game – as Stewart pointed out.

The only thing funny about the Daily Show at that moment was that it took a comedian to say that.

- For some reason WordPress isn’t letting me embed video from the DailyShow.com. Lame. -

Have some links instead.

Interview, unedited Pt. I

Interview, unedited Pt. II

Interview, unedited Pt. III