Big, big week last week. Let's get into it. (As always, an explanation of what I'm doing is
here.)
— There's no doubt about the biggest journalism-related news this week: It's the impending death of
Editor & Publisher, the magazine that's been covering the newspaper industry since 1884. E&P's owner, Nielsen Business Media,
announced on Thursday that it had sold the magazine's sister publications and would be shutting down E&P. (Editor Greg Mitchell
offers some more details.) Yup, it was pretty easy to see this as symbolic of the death of the entire newspaper industry itself, and that's where many left it.
A few went deeper, though, on what E&P stood for and what killed it. Longtime E&P columnist
Steve Outing reflected on the newspaper industry's resistance to change, adding that "I let the newspaper industry down, as did E&P." The Philadelphia Daily News'
Will Bunch praised E&P and Mitchell in particular for their criticism of the media's coverage of the runup to the Iraq war. The two main explanations for E&P's demise being passed around are 1) the
drying up of advertising dollars, especially classifieds; and, 2) as articulated by former Rocky Mountain News publisher
John Temple and
agreed with by Outing, the rise of online media-news aggregators like
Romenesko. Steve Yelvington
gave us a little of both in his explanation.
I think Yelvington's analysis probably hits closest to the bullseye. E&P was a publication largely operating in a traditional, dying medium (magazines) covering another traditional, dying medium (newspapers). In other words, we probably shouldn't be all that surprised at its death. I suspect that
what killed E&P was not so much Romenesko as it was sites like JournalismJobs.com, as the Internet eroded the magazine's classified base.
That said, E&P did solid work covering both the everyday and big-picture issues in the newspaper industry right up until the end. Judging from his byline counts and takeout pieces,
Joe Strupp was a force of nature there. But news media coverage is still in fairly good hands; sites like the
Nieman Journalism Lab and PBS'
MediaShift have taken on the task of providing regular reporting on journalism in transition, and I've been fairly impressed with the work they've done (particularly the Nieman Lab).
E&P will be missed, but it isn't a mortal wound for journalism.
— Google made big media news twice this week: First, it announced that it's
adding real-time search from sites like Twitter and Facebook to its traditional search results. This is the beginning of the implementation of
all the deals we heard about in October, and it's big news.
Google assured us its real-time search won't kill journalism (duh) and will find a way to make sure the cream rises to the top.
Daniel Honigman gives a quick look at how the change will affect the PR world.
— Second, Google
introduced a new partnership with The New York Times and Washington Post called
Living Stories, a smart, personalized version of the Wikipedia-style explainers that
Matt Thompson has advocated. (The New York Times has more of the
nitty-gritty details.) The announcement created a lot of buzz early in the week, with Online Journalism Blog's
Paul Bradshaw calling it a "jaw-dropping online journalism form" and others wondering if it would
"give newspapers new life." Elsewhere, Thompson and Danny Sullivan are less enthusiastic:
Thompson likes that news orgs are trying to tie stories together for readers, but says Living Stories is more of a starting point than a finished product. Sullivan
has some qualms with its usability.
I'm with Thompson on this one: Living Stories may be getting a lot of hype because Google's behind it, but
this type of re-envisioning of the way a news story should look is not new, and Google's manifestation of it is not exactly the pinnacle of the form. But, most importantly, it's a good start, and it's miles ahead of the Post's and Times' concept of
topic pages. Like Thompson, I sense that the pinnacle of this "explainer" form is a long way off, but it's encouraging to see news orgs and the brilliant minds at Google diving into the pool.
— Some Google miscellany: Google also expanded its search personalization to include everyone. Danny Sullivan tells you
how it works and
what it means. Also, Rupert Murdoch responded to Google CEO Eric Schmidt's
Wall Street Journal op-ed with
his own. His two main points: Media companies need to give people the news they want, and quality content is not free. Oh, and his third:
The FCC needs to let me own everything.
— NYU professor Jay Rosen's been
talking for a while about his idea for a site built around the concept,
"What is your question? Journalists are standing by." This weekend, he gave us a
mockup for that idea at explainthis.org. I love the journalists-as-question-answerers idea — the Wilmington (N.C.) Star-News has been
quite successful with it at
MyReporter.com, and my paper, the Grand Island (Neb.) Independent, began
trying out the concept a few weeks ago. (Jeff Sonderman
has a good roundup of similar projects.)
Matt Mireles
raises a good question about the project: Why use journalists at all? Why not let the experts answer and cut out the middle man? It's a valid point, but I think journalists still have a role in answering a lot of these questions.
"Sources go direct" is wonderful and all, but
what if the question is about corruption or incompetence somewhere? Do we really want the "experts" answering those questions for us?
Take even Rosen's sample question: "Why is corn still subsidized?" I wouldn't expect an entirely honest answer from the American Corn Growers Association, even though they're certainly experts on the issue. Answering questions like these is a key part of the craft of journalism, and I expect projects like these to start popping up soon at local news orgs around the country.
— Top tech blogs TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb are both lamenting the coming rise of organizations like
Demand Media that offer cheap, mostly useless, ad-driven content. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington calls it
"fast food content," and RWW's Richard MacManus calls them
"content farms." Both fascinating reads on
the assault on quality in some corners of the Web.
— Three for the road: 1) Steve Buttry has a comprehensive (read: long)
followup spelling out the details of his earlier proposal of a
mobile-first news strategy; 2) Conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart
talks to Mediaite about his plans to develop the right's Huffington Post; 3) and CUNY prof C.W. Anderson has a
great roundup of the news industry's current battles and the ones you'll be seeing flare up soon. It's a short but sweet primer on the state of the journalism.