Wikileaks is a relatively new media player with a promising approach. Somewhat like The Smoking Gun, it gets the proverbial brown envelope and publishes. It made a big mark in getting some records on Guantanamo Bay.
But its latest strategy is raising questions. Wikileaks has come into possession of a number of documents involving an aide to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and rather than publish them, it wants to auction them to a news organization for a presumed window of exclusivity --- then publish them.
Now, without knowing exactly what the documents contain (let's assume they're terrific), Wikileaks is running a little risk in changing its open-source delivery system into one that is no different than any other researcher.
Concerns are being expressed about so-called chequebook journalism, but news organizations pay freelancers and researchers for their documentary work all the time. The bigger issue here seems to be that Wikileaks feels certain documents will qualify for auctions, which defeats some of its purpose to publish readily and in a timely fashion.
If I were buying these documents, I'd want a very large window, proprietary online rights for some time, and copyright protection of some sort to shield my investment and derive the greatest possible benefit.
I was given the new novel from John Darnton about a string of newsroom murders. It took me a long time to get through it, for good reason. My review for the Sun.
The American hegemony on the Internet --- the carriers and other infrastructure that made using U.S. superhighways such a pleasure --- is slowly but surely diminishing. Where it once held about 70 per cent of traffic, now that number might be 25 per cent.
Part of it has to do with the development in other countries of networks to accommodate demand. But another part involves the U.S. itself and the post-9.11 Patriot Act that repelled Canadian and European traffic because of the personal information that was gathered when it coursed through the U.S.
The implications are outlined in a New York Times piece today and they pose a particular challenge for U.S. surveillance agencies that over the years had effectively intercepted information with the assistance of communications firms.
Philip M. Stone writes in FollowTheMedia that U.S. newspapers might be in their worst possible situation: Print revenues in decline and online revenues barely ticking upward. Given the necessity for online revenues to go through the stratosphere to compensate for the plummet in the U.S. print market, the economic strait has threatened many media companies with collapse or radical propositions.
Stone's view is that, no matter how some are sneering at Sam Zell's purchase of Tribune Co. and its subsequent effort at reinvention, at least it's trying something. Too many places are simply cutting and hoping the conditions are cyclical, not secular.
What radical measures are needed to create a better newspaper? In coming weeks I'll have a few things to say (at last) about this.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project is watching many digital trends. Its latest report involves the impact and use of podcasts. Pew found 19 per cent of Americans had downloaded podcasts for later use, up from 12 per cent from August 2006. What it means is that the podcast is not yet a "fixture" in society (only one per cent downloaded "yesterday") but that they're growing.
More men than women and, somewhat surprisingly, more people over 50 tend to download.
One of Roy Greenslade's more controversial columns has surfaced in the Guardian, in which he decries a fellow writer for seeing journalism through a commercial lens.
Greenslade asserts that journalism needs to see itself as free from its advertising dependence --- the chains of commerce, in effect --- and that new models will emerge that will be smaller but capable of sustaining journalism without the advertising. Professionals and amateurs alike will find funding, albeit in smaller amounts, in the future. He unfortunately doesn't elaborate on those models.
The comments on his column are those of relative consternation.
Many new models of interactivity are emerging in journalism, but a new strain on this comes from the New Statesman in the U.K.,
It is asking its readers essentially to vote for one of five options to pursue: Conservative party funding, lobbying, Prince Charles, the state of British childhood, or the crisis in asylum seekers.
The newsmagazine is publishing updates regularly on its site.
Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine has posted his PowerPoint for his interactive journalism class at City University of New York. It's an extension of many of Jeff's more prevalent themes in new journalism models. If you're having difficulties gaining access to the file below, here is its link to Buzzmachine.
Jill Geisler, one of Poynter's prominent contributors, has weighed in at the 10-year mark at the institute with a thoughtful piece on five myths on managers.
The myths in shorthand: People will do what you want, you should keep your distance, you should arrive first and leave last, you should simply hire well and get out of the way, and you should be the smartest on the team.
What makes a good manager? Comments, even those a little close to the bone, welcome.
The business model for newspapers is posed as so: The decline of newspaper advertising revenue (and circulation or readership) is expected to be offset by the gains in digital revenue (and audience).
But is the lonely newspaper Web site enough? Increasingly, newspaper companies are saying no, that the traffic and its accompanying revenue will not net sufficient funds because online advertising is sold at a far lower rate. Even if that rate grows, it won't match eyeball to eyeball the transformation from print into digital.
They're borrowing a page from such studies as Newspaper Next and launching a variety of so-called verticals, leveraging the power of the Internet to reach markets with comparably paltry distribution costs.
The Mecom chain of papers in Europe boasts it's now launching about one site a week, and not just in categories a newspaper would typically occupy --- in such areas as gambling and social networking. To bolster the papers, Mecom is aggressively into promotional giveaways.
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