Mathew Ingram and Dave Winer explain the folly of paywalls

I have written perhaps too much about paywalls. I even sort of vowed once to stop writing about them (fortunately I hedged it). I think maybe I kept writing about them in hopes of someday expressing my doubts about paywalls as clearly as Mathew Ingram and Dave Winer did today. Ingram cites three reasons newspapers [...]

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A peek behind the Civil Beat paywall in Honolulu

From the day that Pierre Omidyar announced plans for a digital news organization in Honolulu, I have been intrigued by the project. Here was one of the most successful digital entrepreneurs, venturing into the local news field, where print-focused businesses were mostly failing dismally. But it wasn’t just any digital entrepreneur. Omidyar was the founder [...]

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Editor of the Year? Who, me?

Looking back over the past year or so, in many ways it was the most frustrating, disappointing period of my career. I normally would avoid looking back on it at all. I am a positive person and have been looking forward to a new job that has taken me out of the newspaper business. But [...]

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Newsday’s pleased with 35 paying online customers

No one spins shocking news like people who think news sites need to charge for content. If only 35 people decide to pay for the content you thought was worth $260 a year? No problem. Just say, “That’s 35 more than I would have thought it would have been.” That’s what Staci Kramer of paidContent.org [...]

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Robert Niles says there is no new revenue model for journalism; I disagree

Robert Niles is one of the sharpest commentators about digital journalism and the business of journalism. So his tweet last night caught my eye: Deal with it – There is no new revenue model for journalism. He linked to his latest post at OJR: The Online Journalism Review. He makes a lot of excellent points, [...]

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Reviewing a year’s blogging

Reviewing 2009 on my blog (mostly for my own information, but I share it because that’s what bloggers do): My most popular post by far (more than twice as many views as anything else) was my Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection, posted April 27. I proposed a detailed new business model for community news [...]

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The Internet’s “rivers of gold”: transactions

I have become a bit tiresome, I suppose, in pushing my views that news companies need to stop pursuing paywalls, move beyond advertising and find a more prosperous future in direct transactions. Well, Dale McCarthy of Fairfax Digital in Australia is showing the wisdom of this approach. A story in B&T reports on McCarthy’s dismissal of [...]

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News organizations should learn from Google example

Here’s why I get so angry when smart and influential people in journalism and media operations about charging for content or seeking government subsidies or trying to protect and control their content: We keep falling further behind. Everything you do takes time and energy and communicates priorities. You can mouth lip service about innovation, but [...]

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Chris O’Brien responds about data and newspaper readership

A recent post that I wrote included some hearty debate in the comments between Tim O’Brien of the New York Times and me (with several other people weighing in). That debate for a couple weeks didn’t include the person whose post launched the discussion, Chris O’Brien (no relation to Tim apparently) of the San Jose [...]

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Yes! New Business Models embrace new relationships

I am excited about the New Business Models for News project. Not that I think they got it right. My first two comments on their site after they released their models and spreadsheets of financial figures for the first three years were critical. But what they do have right is the approach of openly consulting [...]

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Newspapers’ Original Sin: Not failing to charge but failing to innovate

A mistaken matter-of-fact statement in an Associated Press story launched Chris O’Brien on an insightful blog post that had little to do with the original story. In the same way, a statement in Chris’s post launched me on this post, which will start out in a different direction from his blog. The AP story, about [...]

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Online news sources abound in most communities

Newspapers can be replaced. Don’t get me wrong. I love newspapers. I have spent my adult life (and the later years of my youth) working in the newspaper industry, starting as a carrier. Old newspapers hang on my office walls and fill my cabinets and file drawers. I believe that pretty much any mediocre newspaper is still the [...]

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