Newspapers: core competency is ‘local’ news
August 27, 2008
An American academic argues that newspaper executives have misread the impact of the internet and have come up with the wrong business model. I think it’s a compelling analysis.
Are web hits the lifeline that newspapers need?
August 22, 2008
I was interested, no, shocked, to read Roy Greenslade’s blog that outlines Vin Crosbie’s thoughts on his Digital Deliverance blog and his thoughts on the future of the US media.
More than half of the 1,439 daily newspapers in the United States won’t exist in print, e-paper, or website formats by the end of the next decade. They will go out of business. The few national dailies - namely USA Today, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal - will have diminished but continuing existences via the web and e-paper, but not in print. The first dailies to expire will be the regional dailies, which have already begun to implode…
In part, I agree; the future of regional newspapers seems dire, especially following Trinity Mirror’s announcement of further cutbacks and redundancies.
But hang on a minute! We all know about the demise of print but aren’t the national newspaper sites going great guns on web traffic? Indeed, Roy’s own Guardian was lauding its fantastic result of increasing its monthly website traffic by a massive 2.5 million “readers” in July! What’s the problem there? Lots of interest ergo more advertising … but does it? Ninety-five million visitors to national newspaper websites seems very healthy; indeed this is more than the population of the UK and therein lies the problem….
While many regional sites have massive audiences, including Northcliffe’s regional network, who are focusing on SEO (even to the extent of designing their headlines to benefit SEO) as a way to bump up visitors and therefore add revenue. At the same time, many regional newspaper groups are cutting back on journalists.
The result is that we have a clash with the readers’ interests and the “black hat” techniques of SEO merchants. One has to ask, do the visitors of these websites actively read the content or do they decide it’s not for them? Will the lack of engaging and interesting content, due to the lack of journalistic resource, mean that they seldom come back?
In addition, where are these readers coming from? Many SEO techniques drive large amounts of international traffic, especially regionally from the USA where many towns are named after ours in the UK. Should we be chasing international eyeballs with regional / national content?
And here lies the crunch question (the one the advertiser asks first): Are your readers my target audience? At the end of the day, someone from the USA is not going to buy a house / car in the UK, are they?
Keep your finger on the pulse…
August 22, 2008
We LOVE news at PRBristol.co.uk. Having our own ‘Front Page’ of news helps us to keep abreast of what’s going on in and around Bristol. Being the caring sharing types we are we have designed this ‘aggregator’ for members and visitors to keep on top of the breaking news. Click here. You may even want to have this as your home page…
If your media outlet is not incorporated and and you think it will be of interest to prBristol members, please email us your RSS feed (What is RSS?) at info@pbristol.co.uk.
If you do not have an RSS feed for your site and want a similar facility helping to research or build interest for international, regional, trade or blogging targets, let us know and our web boffins will be more than happy to assist.
The end is nigh …
August 22, 2008
Hope this doesn’t spoil your Bank Holiday weekend … Just when you thought that the wettest August in years had put paid to global warming , it is being suggested by Russian scientists that all life on earth could be destroyed by its interplanetary neighbour, Jupiter. Apparently, strange things are happening around the Great Red Spot and Jupiter’s moons are behaving oddly too. Will it put a dampener on the London Olympics?
What the PRBristol.co.uk team is reading
August 22, 2008
These are PRBristol’s interesting PR and media news links for August 19th through August 21st:
- Latest new look sites for Northcliffe go live - Success is said to be on SEO focused headlines?
- What is a Carrot Mob? - Combined power of consumer networks in driving the environmental agenda.
- PRBristol coverage on Bristol Media - Yet more coverage for the PRBristol team!
- Bristol Media - Changes afoot at Bristol Media
Carrotmob - Our featured video
August 21, 2008
Carrotmob’s goal is to improve the world by helping companies embrace socially responsible choices. The primary focus is the environment. Corporations must keep profit as their top priority. Historically, this fact has meant that the environment has suffered, since companies have made more money by harming the planet. The Carrot mob have produced a very successful social network model that empowers consumers, in large groups, to lobby local business to make environmental decisions. The businesses that listen profit from the buying power of the consumer group.
Great example of a social media campaign using high quality video, twitter and social networks.
read more | digg story
Trinity Mirror’s big gamble
August 21, 2008
Newspaper executives all over the UK must be following with keen interest the bloodletting at Trinity Mirror in the Midlands where 65 editorial posts in Birmingham and Coventry are likely to be made redundant as all journalists are told to apply for new jobs under a revamped newsroom structure.
Critics – and they include former Birmingham Post editor Nigel Hastilow – say the ‘one size fits all’ approach of a new integrated newsroom to serve both Birmingham and Coventry will only perpetuate the decline of the titles. A “tragic capitulation” is his verdict.
NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear, already battling with Johnston Press and Newsquest over journalist job losses, was quick to condemn Trinity Mirror, accusing the company of “cutting back on quality at its newspapers in pursuit of short-term, share price driven goals.”
The management point to the “pioneering” £7.5 million investment in a new content management system ContentWatch but also admits that it is looking to sell or close seven weeklies in the Midlands. “Once implemented, the new editorial structure will require substantially fewer journalists,” a company statement said, before declaring that “content origination will remain local.”
And there’s the dilemma. How do you maintain the quality and quantity of content if you do not have trained journalists at the heart of the news-gathering process? Some of our colleagues in the PR industry might be rubbing their hands … but I can’t help feeling uneasy about it.
What’s the point of a £7.5 million content management system if what’s being fed into it is diminishing in value?
How does news break in Bristol?
August 20, 2008
As a PR professional I am always fascinated to learn who really is behind an emerging story? It might be a publicity agent or a whistle blower but more than often than not it is a PR consultant or an in-house press officer.
Alistair Campbell once said that “he should never have become the story” but the shadow of PR can usually be detected somewhere. Where breaking news is concerned, however, we must not overlook the humble blogger. Many scoops originate with ‘community commentators’ who now enjoy a big following online.
Here is an example of how bloggers now influence the news media in Bristol, rather than just commenting on it (see below). Who really broke the story of the Bristol City Council DVD for recycling recently? The actual source of the story was Indymedia and a post on the Bristol Indymedia newswire.
Bristol Indymedia is a volunteer-run open access website comprising news, views, images and videos from readers/contributors. It is part of the global Indymedia movement, a project focused on grassroots non-commercial news written by ordinary people. A blogger called Katherine posted this on the site.
- (Wednesday August 06, 2008 14:22) Your Chance to Help Promote Recycling in Bristol - Indymedia
Then The Bristol Blogger picked up on the story here.
- (August the 8th) - Money down the drain…
On the 13th of August the Bristol Evening Post picked up on the story…
- (08:00 - 13-August-2008) Bristol City Council to spend £20million on a DVD regarding recycling.
So this is a graphic example of how journalists and bloggers read other blogs for story ideas. It has been calculated that 78% of journalists in the USA read blogs, so it’s no surprise that time-pressed UK journalists, with diminishing news gathering resources, turn to blogs for story ideas.
Bloggers and community journalists not only have the time to research local issues but now have influence over local and national media news content too.
Google’s Upcoming Phone: More Details
August 19, 2008
The first mobile phone based on Android, which is software supported by Google, will debut this autumn. The first mobile phone based on Android, which is software supported by Google, will debut this fall. We know a lot about the phone’s looks already: Made by HTC, it will have a touch screen and a slide-out Qwerty keyboard.
Eco-supermarket’s green delivery!
August 19, 2008
A supermarket-owned lorry which runs on gas produced by rotting waste will leave Bristol on its first delivery trip to Devon.
The Sainsbury’s lorry will leave the firm’s depot in Bristol and make the 310 mile (500km) round trip to its new environmental store in Dartmouth.
Using bio-methane can save up to 60% in CO2 emissions compared with diesel.
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