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Caroline Little to speak at ONA Convention

December 28, 2012 · 1 Comment

Caroline Little, President and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, will be the headline luncheon speaker at the 2013 Ohio Newspaper Association convention, which runs from Feb. 13 to 14 in Columbus. Little joined the NAA in 2011. Prior to that she served as CEO, North America of Guardian News and Media Ltd., where she oversaw all U.S. operations, including the digital news media properties guardian.co.uk and ContentNext Media Inc. (operators of paidContent.org) from 2008 to 2011. She has also served as publisher and CEO of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive (WPNI). During her last four years there she lead the division to its first year of profitability and playing a key role in integrating WPNI with other units of The Washington Post Company. Little joins a number of headliners for the convention, including Phillip J. Castellini, chief operating officer for the Reds; Paul Dolan, chairman and chief executive office of the Cleveland Indians; and Ken Doctor, the president of Newsonomics and one of the industry’s keenest commenters and observers. For the complete convention schedule, and for more information on how to register, please go here.

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Judge in T.J. Lane’s case puts restrictions on media; experts say he doesn’t want media circus

December 28, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Plain Dealer The shooting rampage at Chardon High School is the biggest case to hit the tiny courthouse in Geauga County. And a judge's restrictions on how the media handles the case will hamper the reporters, TV cameramen and photographers collecting news. Common Pleas Judge David Fuhry, who has been on the bench since 2005, issued a 15-page order detailing the rules media must follow during the T.J. Lane case. The trial is set to begin Jan. 14, and could last at least six weeks. The proceedings are sure to capture national attention, especially after the recent shootings in Connecticut. Lane, 18, is accused of killing three students and shooting three others in the school cafeteria Feb. 27. He is charged with three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of felonious assault. Read the Full Story>>

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State government keeping more secrets; Ohio open records law should bring light, but exceptions, fees cast growing shadow

December 27, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Cincinnati Enquirer Consider this: Ohio legislators created an arson offender registry much like the state’s sex offender registry, supposedly to deter the crime. But unlike the older one, the names of those making the arson list will not be public. That means you won’t know if your neighbor is an arsonist. Or this: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled recently that asking for the emails sent to and from public officials is too “ambiguous.” What’s going on? Those are just two of many examples of how government is becoming more secretive as lawmakers and the courts turn transparent government to opaque in Ohio. It means you can’t see what your government is doing or where it’s spending your money or what deals are being cut. In fact, some public officials even want you to pay for accessing what are now free online records – such as the deed to your house or your military discharge papers – if you print them in your own home. Since the state first enacted its public records law (Ohio Revised Code 149.43) in 1963, the number of legal exemptions spelled out in the law has grown from the first one – medical records – to 29, but that doesn’t include hundreds of other exemptions. Read the Full Story>>

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Newspaper publishes names, addresses of gun owners

December 27, 2012 · Add Comment

Editor's note: Under Ohio law, conceal carry licenses are not covered by public record laws. There is a journalist exception, but journalists are only allowed to view the license information and can't take notes or make copies of the records (meaning journalists must memorize what they see). An attempt was made in the 2011-12 General Assembly to remove this journalistic exception and force journalists to receive a court order to view conceal carry licenses, but the bill did not move. From Poynter The Journal News honored victims of the Newtown, Conn., shooting on its front page Christmas Day with memorial candles that named the 26 students and staff killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. The paper chose a less lyrical approach last weekend, when — in response to the shooting – it published maps with the names and home addresses of people who had been issued pistol permits in Westchester County, where the Gannett paper is based, and nearby Rockland County. Readers were outraged, as were conservative commentators. Soon after the paper published the data, acquired through Freedom of Information requests, bloggers published what they believe to be the home addresses of Gannett CEO Gracia Martore, the paper’s publisher, its editor, and the story’s reporter. That response seems entirely appropriate to Poynter senior faculty Al Tompkins, who said by email: “I hope any journalist who does this is willing to be accessible and responsive. If it is unfettered openness you want, you jolly well better set the example.” Read the Full Story>> Additional Coverage

Where The Journal News went wrong in publishing names, addresses of gun owners (from Poynter)
Newspaper That Published Gun-Owner Addresses Gets Its Staff's Info Outed (from The Atlantic Wire)

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Old Enquirer building to house 2 hotels – not 1

December 27, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Cincinnati Enquirer The hotel planned for the old Enquirer building Downtown will actually be two – an extended-stay Homewood Suites and a limited-service Hampton Inn – developer SREE Hotels has announced. The Homewood will have 105 suites, all with full kitchens, and the Hampton Inn & Suites will have 144 rooms, according to Parag Patel, SREE’s chief financial officer. The project is in the design phase now, and Patel expects general contractor JDL Warm Construction to apply for building permits in January. The hotels will open in March 2014, he said. The 14-story building at 617 Vine St. was built in 1926 for The Enquirer, which moved to Elm Street in 1992. Condos were proposed there several years ago, but the plan fell through when the economy faltered. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, and Patel said some historic features will be preserved. Read the Full Story>>

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Favorites from the field: Plain Dealer photographers pick their favorite images of 2012

December 27, 2012 · Add Comment

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State now alerts businesses if they’re due tax refund

December 27, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Columbus Dispatch Nearly $14 million in refunds will be given to 3,500 companies, the initial fruits of a Kasich administration effort to help businesses determine whether they’ve overpaid Ohio’s commercial activity tax. The number of refunds and their cumulative dollar amounts will grow as the administration’s audit expands, but the public won’t be able to track which companies receive refunds and how it was determined that they overpaid, Department of Taxation Commissioner Joe Testa said yesterday, citing confidentiality provided by Ohio law. Testa and Gov. John Kasich said during a news conference that the initiative is another step in Ohio becoming more business-friendly. They said the tax department’s review of commercial-activity tax filings and its notification of businesses that overpaid break from past practices; the state used to keep the overpayment if the business didn’t apply for a refund. “The idea is not that we’re just taking money out of the treasury and just willy-nilly giving it to people,” Kasich said. “What we’re doing here is the really important work of saying you shouldn’t overpay and then we kind of keep your money and not tell you about it. That’s just a rip-off. There’s no other way to describe it other than a governmental rip-off.” But the apparent inability of the public to track which businesses are receiving the refunds drew criticisms from Democrats and government watchdogs who favor transparency, citing the importance of being able to track the millions of dollars that will go from the state back to businesses. Read the Full Story>>

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Photojournalism in 2012: A year of excellence, ethical challenges and errors

December 27, 2012 · Add Comment

From Poynter As 2012 nears its end, we look back at the major trends and memorable events that defined photography and photojournalism this year. Photo-sharing battle heats up Instagram exploded into the mainstream in 2012, capitalizing on three cultural trends: The widespread adoption of smartphone cameras, people’s desire to quickly make their amateur photos look good, and the need for an easy way to share photos with friends. Others took notice. Facebook snatched up Instagram for $1 billion. Twitter built its own photo filters, and Yahoo relaunched the Flickr mobile app with filters as well. This photography boom wasn’t all brunch plates and landscapes either. Instagram had a breakout moment during Hurricane Sandy, with more than 800,000 photos of the storm and its aftermath. Time Magazine sent five professional photojournalists out to document the storm, using Instagram, and the resulting Time.com photo gallery was one of the most-viewed ever. Read the Full Story>>

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How to fix the media ownership debate and boost local reporting

December 27, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Columbia Journalism Review The debate over “who owns the media” is heating up again, and has already become stuck in a bit of a 1980s time warp. That’s unfortunate. Smart media policy could actually help local news ecosystems during a critical time. Specifically, the Federal Communications Commission, where I used to work, will soon issue new regulations governing when media companies can buy TV or radio stations or newspapers in the same communities. Progressives have, with good reason, traditionally fought against relaxing ownership rules and Free Press, the media reform group, is attacking the FCC for planning to “gut” crucial public interest safeguards, allowing dark forces (a.k.a. Rupert Murdoch) to grab more power. I’m normally wary of media concentration, but look at what this supposed “gutting” would actually do: a newspaper and a TV station in the same town would be allowed to merge if the station is number five in the ratings or worse and if it is also in one of the top 20 markets in the country and if there would still be at least eight media voices left in the town. Not exactly radical stuff. Let’s keep focused on the most important fact about today’s local media: the Internet has increased the number of voices and provided many other benefits, but at the same time undermined the economic models that had previously subsidized local journalism. Newspapers are still laying off reporters by the thousands, and a major FCC report (of which I was principal author) found that neither local TV stations nor independent websites have sufficiently filled the gap, especially when it comes to labor-intensive accountability reporting on courts, schools, municipal government, state legislatures, and other important civic areas. Read the Full Story>>

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Steve Buttry: Journalism is improving, not declining

December 19, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Buttry Diary, by Steve Buttry I can hardly believe I’m ready to write a second blog post about a single paragraph in a 122-page report. But I question the notion that the quality of news coverage in the United States has been declining and will get worse before it gets better. Here’s passage in question, from the Post-Industrial Journalism report by the Tow Center for Digital Media:

The effect of the current changes in the news ecosystem has already been a reduction in the quality of news in the United States. On present evidence, we are convinced that journalism in this country will get worse before it gets better, and, in some places (principally midsize and small cities with no daily paper) it will get markedly worse.

I blogged Monday about the community-size issue. Now I want to address the issue of whether news coverage has been declining and will get worse before it gets better. I absolutely disagreed with the contention that community size is the primary factor affecting the quality of a community’s journalism. I’m less certain of the question of declining quality, past and present. I’m not going to say they’re wrong, but I can’t agree with their statement of the reduction in quality as a fact and with their conviction that journalism is going to get worse. Without question, the quantity of newspaper journalism has declined with the loss of 26 percent newsroom jobs since 2007, according to theAmerican Society of News Editors newsroom census of daily newspapers. Quantity of news is certainly related to quality, and lots of those cuts have been buyouts and firings of outstanding journalists whose loss has, without question, also harmed the quality of newspapers. But at the same time, some newspapers have been aggressive in maintaining their commitment to investigative journalism and in improving their use of digital techniques such as liveblogging, curation,databases, social media, multimedia storytelling and data visualization. I believe the increase in fact-checking has improved political reporting, which has focused too much on horse-race journalism and day-to-day trivia. And Nate Silver’s analysis of polling has elevated the horse-race journalism. Continue Reading>>

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Editorial: Let broadcasters invest in newspapers

December 18, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Washington Post by Caroline H. Little, president and chief executive of the Newspaper Association of America. Nearly four decades ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) feared that dominant newspapers would control all local news in their markets. So the FCC crafted a rule that prohibited investors from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. That policy, adopted in 1975, seems quaint going into 2013. To put the explosive growth of the Internet in context: In the first six months of this year, Google brought in more advertising revenue than all printed daily and Sunday newspapers and magazines in the United States combined. While online, TV and mobile-app markets are teeming with new players, newspapers can no longer be seen as dominant. Congress, the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission recently held hearings and workshops about how to support newspaper journalism as they grapple with the seismic changes in the digital marketplace. There is little the government can or should do to help newspapers, but one thing is clear: The FCC’s rule barring broadcast companies from making investments in newspapers hurts the publishing industry and should be repealed. Nearly a year ago, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowskiproposed liberalizing the rule, and it seemed that the newspaper industry might finally get some relief from this regulatory penalty. However, a handful of vocal public-interest groups claim that this proposal, which has been open to public comment for months, has taken them by surprise. Letting TV companies invest in newspapers will harm minority ownership of media, they argue. Continue Reading>>

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Toledo Blade switches to unified CMS

December 17, 2012 · Add Comment

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Hyperlocal news trade organization adds to membership

December 17, 2012 · Add Comment

From NetNewsCheck A nascent trade organization for hyperlocal news sites has added dozens of online publishers to its ranks in an initial membership drive, its chair said on Monday. Local Independent Online News notched about 60 members in a monthlong drive that began in November, said Dylan Smith, LION's chair and publisher/founder of the nonprofit Tucson Sentinel website in Arizona. The group also added two new members to its board, which now totals 11 directors. "It was really quite heartening that so many people showed a confidence in what we're trying to do," Smith said. "The majority of publishers paid dues up front for the next three years." Those publishers range from sites across the country including New York's Riverhead Local, Virginia's Charlottesville Tomorrow, Minneapolis/St. Paul’s Twin Cities Daily Planet, The Ann Arbor Chronicle and San Antonio's Plaza de Armas. Read the Full Story>>

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Benefit for family of Toledo Blade’s Jim Williams

December 14, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Local Media Association Jim Williams (formerly with Journal Register Company and now with The Toledo Blade) and his family were in a horrific car crash the week before Thanksgiving as they were on their way to vacation. A drunk driver hit their car and all seven passengers (two adults and five children) were injured. Jim's 16-year-old son, an accomplished student and athlete, was killed in the crash. Another 16-year-old friend was paralyzed from the waist down. Jim and his wife both suffered head injuries but are expected to recover. Jim served on the Local Media Association board for the past six years (his term just ended this past September). He donated his time to help our organization and the industry. Now it is time for us to help him. LMA has set up a fund for the Williams family to help them with their many financial burdens that this accident has caused. To donate: CLICK HERE.

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Ohio legislature gets ‘incomplete’ as lame-duck session ends

December 14, 2012 · Add Comment

By Dennis Hetzel, Executive Director

The two-year session of the 129^th Ohio General Assembly ended Thursday with a flurry of activity during a wild, lame-duck period. A lot of bills were pushed through the political funnel. From the ONA perspective, we won a few rounds and lost a key battle but could win the war as the cliché goes. Here is the scorecard from the past few days. All these bills are on their way to Gov. John Kasich for his signature in one form or another. Self-storage public notices: The self-storage industry managed to insert an amendment into a bill, House Bill 247, that was larded with language unrelated to its original form. It essentially allows these owners to bypass the public notice requirement for two newspaper notices by simply affirming that “three independent bidders” showed up for the auction of someone’s private property. It is the worst public notice language I have ever seen, and we partnered with the Ohio law journals to work hard to fix this language because of that – even though we were told this legislation was “wired,” and there was no way to have an impact. We had an impact, but we ran out of time. The Senate passed the bill Thursday. We have an agreement among all parties to fix this language with our compromise suggestion early in 2013. Sen. Frank LaRose and Sen. Michael Skindell in particular deserve credit for their support. Newspapers that editorialized against this provision were a big help. The editorials were cited and read – and drew a strong reaction from the self-storage industry, which is fine. (The law already allows them to bypass the cost of hiring an attorney and going to court before they auction private property.) Getting this done will be one of our priorities in 2013. Fees to print public records: ONA member editorials helped here, too. The county recorders were hoping for an amendment in HB 247 that would allow you to look at their records on the Internet but pay a fee to print them out. The amendment was never offered, and legislators had little enthusiasm for the idea once this absurd concept was made public. Continue Reading>>

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Rep. Steve LaTourette to Cleveland.com commenters: He won’t miss you

December 14, 2012 · 1 Comment

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Kansas City Star tells two reporters to decide which one gets laid off

December 14, 2012 · Add Comment

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Applications being accepted for 2013 Reynolds High School Journalism Institutes

December 13, 2012 · Add Comment

From a Reynolds High School Journalism press release Five premier journalism programs will host the 2013 Reynolds High School Journalism Institutes next summer, where high school teachers learn the latest trends in news literacy and multi-media journalism.

Arizona State University, Phoenix, June 16-28
University of Texas at Austin, June 16-28
Kent State University, Ohio, July 7-19
University of Nevada, Reno, July 14-26
University of Missouri, Columbia, July 14-26

Applications are being accepted through March 1. Teachers’ expenses will be paid for the two-week Institutes. For more information, visit http://www.hsj.org. The Institutes are part of an ongoing national effort to grow an informed citizenry that can discern quality news and inspire multi-media youth journalists. “The Institutes provide top-level training and tools to teachers committed to their craft,” said Le Anne Wiseman, director of high school journalism programs at the American Society of News Editors. In addition to the two-week training, each teacher will be given the building blocks of a classroom media library, including guides on news literacy, multimedia journalism, scholastic press law and engaging diverse communities. More than 1,908 teachers have completed the ASNE-coordinated training since 2001, and most continue to teach journalism and/or advise student media. “The teachers return to their communities and educate both newsreaders and future news-leaders,” said Wiseman. “The goal of the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute is to create a multiplier effect that impacts future generations for years to come.” The Institutes are named for the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation that has funded the Institutes since 2007. The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, it is of one of the largest private foundations in the United States. The American Society of News Editors (ASNE), in partnership with the five University hosts, provides significant support for the Institutes. ASNE is a membership organization for leaders of multimedia news organizations and academic journalism programs. ASNE focuses its efforts on the First Amendment, leadership development, journalism education and diversity. ASNE’s youth journalism initiative also has a website that hosts student news organizations at http://my.hsj.org and an educational site at http://hsj.org. For more information about the Summer 2013 Institutes, contact: Le Anne Wiseman Director, High School Journalism Programs American Society of News Editors 209 Reynolds Journalism Institute Columbia, MO 65211 573-884-2689 lwiseman@asne.org http://www.asne.org

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Editorial: Some lame-duck sessions can produce ugly results

December 13, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Vindicator Lame-duck legislative sessions are a dangerous combination of legislators rushing to clear the decks of a backlog of bills — some of them of the flawed special-interest ilk — and the lack of accountability that comes when the lawmakers know they won’t be facing the voters for at least two years (or know that they won’t be coming back in January). To his credit, out-going GOP Senate President Tom Niehaus blocked lame-duck action on three potentially divisive issues: a clearly unconstitutional limit on 1st and 2nd trimester abortions, restrictions on funding for Planned Parenthood and tighter voter ID requirements. Any sighs of relief, however, are likely to be short-lived, because the General Assembly that will take office in January is more conservative than the one now finishing up its work. Still, among the measures that this General Assembly is working on are a few that have the potential of ruffling some feathers. ... Storage wars We mentioned that some of the legislation pushed through in the final days of a session is driven by special interests, and one of those has captured the attention of Ohio’s newspapers. Most people are familiar with “Storage Wars,” a cable TV reality show that centers on a group of people who bid on the contents of storage lockers on which the rental fee is overdue. Given the great degree of public interest in such auctions, logic would seem to dictate that the more publicity these sales get in Ohio, the better. And yet, in a bill that rewrite the law governing several aspects of such sales, an amendment was slipped in that effectively negates the current requirement that an impending sale be advertised once a week for two consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the self-service storage facility is located. Instead, HB 247 would require notice by “any other commercially reasonable manner” and then makes a bizarre leap by saying that the advertising “is deemed commercially reasonable if at least three independent bidders attend the sale at the time and place advertised.” Read the Full Editorial>>

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What happens when only non-local newspapers still cover the news?

December 13, 2012 · Add Comment

From The New Republic

The news last week that Michigan Republicans were rushing through a bill to make the state “right-to-work” was a reminder that much of the action in the next few years is going to be happening at the state level, not in Washington: battles over unions, the implementation of the new health care law, and social issues such as gay marriage and drug legalization, to name just a few fronts. But from a bordering state came renewed reason to worry about whether all this highly consequential activity would get adequate coverage and public scrutiny: The Cleveland Plain Dealer announced that it would be cutting one-third of its staff, further raising the hefty body count from the country’s mid-size regional papers (a toll that has been concentrated recently on papers owned by Advance Publications, which, in addition to the Conde Nast magazine goliath, owns the Plain Dealer and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which recently stopped circulating a daily print edition.) It’s really getting to the point where we have to ask: If a tree—or a union or a company or a corrupt local official—falls in Ohio or Michigan or anywhere else outside the well-covered coastal precincts, will anybody hear it? And if not, what is to be done?

This is hardly a new concern of mine. A few months ago, I noted that a discovery I made in Ohio—an FBI investigation into large, questionable donations made by employees for a North Canton company to an Ohio congressman and Republican Senate candidate—surely would have been exposed much earlier in the days of a more vigorous local press. T.C. Brown followed up with a reported piece in the Columbia Journalism Review exploring how this story had been overlooked, and what he found was predictably alarming…

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Toledo Councilman calls for public records on Navy Week, says city withholding information

December 13, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Toledo Blade Somewhere in the widening chasm between the Bell administration and Toledo Councilman D. Michael Collins, emails and other public records about Navy Week events this past summer were either lost, forgotten, or withheld. Mr. Collins, who is known to hammer Mayor Mike Bell’s office with public-records requests, accused the administration of withholding copies of invoices, checks, and emails concerning the weeklong event that attracted nearly 33,000 people to the downtown and East Toledo riverfronts. “I think they know they got caught,” Mr. Collins said Wednesday after calling on officials to explain why they had withheld records. Jen Sorgenfrei, Mayor Bell’s spokesman, said nothing was withheld. “In compliance with Ohio public records law, we made a good faith effort to comply with the public-records request Mr. Collins made to our office,” Ms. Sorgenfrei said. “No documents were intentionally withheld that would have been responsive to his request.” Mr. Collins did not accept that explanation. “The fact is a good faith effort is not acceptable,” he said. “The law requires all of the records as defined in my request, and the records that were not provided based upon my request does not excuse away the unlawful actions of the Bell administration.” Read the Full Story>>

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Gallina helps kick-off Canton Ex-Newsboys annual charity drive

December 13, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Canton Repository While engaging and humoring a dinner audience with mind exercises, Michael Gallina praised the Canton Ex-Newsboys Association as a charitable organization that has established “trust and uniqueness” here over the years. Gallina, who spent about two decades as superintendent of North Canton City and Minerva Local school systems and now is director of AultCare Outreach, was the featured speaker Wednesday at the Canton Ex-Newsboys annual dinner. The event starts the group’s annual fund drive to provide shoes and clothing for children of low-income families. Using the advertising logo for FedEx cargo delivery company, Gallina drew the audience’s attention to the inconspicuous white arrow in the “Ex” portion. That signifies trust the cargo deliverer has earned through its performance. Read the Full Story>>

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Buffett is latest billionaire to struggle with newspaper revival

December 13, 2012 · Add Comment

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Sandusky Register earns Romenesko’s “headline of the year”

December 13, 2012 · Add Comment

The Sandusky Register has created what Jim Romenesko calls his pick for headline of the year. The article focuses on one Roger Oates, who bit the eyebrow off Scott Hall and earned the masterful headline of "Maneater: Hall bitten by Oates." According to Romenesko,

Sandusky Register design desk chief Mike Schaffer gets the credit for this headline. “It was a no-brainer,” he says. “That song title popped into my head right away. …We were joking about it in the newsroom, saying things like, He’s lost that loving feeling. We’ve had a lot of fun with it.”

Schaffer, 47, says of Hall and Oates: “I’ve seen them in concert before; I know all of their songs. Some of the younger people in the newsroom didn’t get it.”

Emil Whitis, the 27-year-old reporter who wrote the story, was one of them.

“I’d never heard of them,” he says. “The sheriff deputies were rolling with laughter and I didn’t get it. Then they played the song for me.”

Whitis’ story ran on A2, but had a page one teaser — with the suspect’s mug shot — that read “Watch out, here he comes!”

The headline is already attracting attention from around the world, including the UK's Daily Mail, Yahoo News, ABC News, and The Smoking Gun.

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Newspaper Guild endorses labor agreement with The Plain Dealer

December 12, 2012 · Add Comment

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Columbus Dispatch publishes negligent property owner names

December 12, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Canton Repository Ohio’s capital city hopes to pressure owners to clean up blighted properties by publicly identifying them online and in a newspaper. The Columbus Dispatch reported the newspaper and a city website were scheduled Wednesday to publish names and addresses of owners who ignored city notices and didn’t clean up more than 100 blighted properties. Mayor Michael Coleman says the owners should do their part to help keep blight out of Columbus neighborhoods. The public identification of the owners is part of Coleman’s plan to demolish hundreds of hazardous properties and rehabilitate others. His office says 66 homes have been demolished so far and dozens more are cleared for demolition soon. Councilman Zach Klein says the city has to hold owners accountable when their negligence affects neighborhoods.

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Anti-paywall dead-enders

December 12, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Columbia Journalism Review In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese Army to the remote Philippine Island of Lubang with instructions to never surrender to the Allies and to fight to the death. “We’ll come back for you,” his commander wrote. “But until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that is the case, live on coconuts!” At this point, the people opposing subscription models for American newspapers and advocating for them to be supported by digital ads (and unproven innovations somewhere in the future) are living on coconuts. The war is over. The evidence is in. Newspapers, large and small, premium and not, gain additional revenue through subscriptions and lose little if anything in digital ads (UPDATED this sentence to add links to more evidence, since Digital First’s Jim Brady doesn’t like my Press+ link in the previous sentence.) The Allies have won. Read the Full Story>>

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Pew Study: Readers prefer print-like tablet experience

December 12, 2012 · 1 Comment

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Editorial: Keep self-storage auction notices

December 11, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Plain Dealer As soon as Tuesday, the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee could approve a measure that appears aimed at eliminating published legal notices about the public sales of property that owners abandon in self-storage units. Such a measure would defeat the purpose of these public announcements. The proviso was tacked onto an unrelated legal-procedure bill (pdf) that the House passed last December. Backing the amendment is the Self Storage Association, which says it represents 1,600 Ohio self-storage facilities. It is opposed by the Ohio Newspaper Association. The amendment would allow notice of public sales of abandoned self-storage property to be given either in newspaper advertisements, published once a week for two consecutive weeks, or "in any other commercially reasonable manner." Read the Full Editorial>>

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Editorial: Cross-ownership ban has outlived its purpose

December 11, 2012 · Add Comment

From Politico In 1975, Sony introduced the Betamax video recorder. Atari’s Pong was the top-selling holiday gift. And the Federal Communications Commission, fearing that one company would control local news, prohibited investors from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. Much has changed in the past 37 years. Generations of newer technology have replaced Betamax and Pong. Newspapers face unprecedented online competition for advertising revenue and readers. Yet the FCC’s antiquated cross-ownership ban remains on the books, discouraging much-needed investments in local newsrooms. Fortunately, Congress has required the FCC to review its media ownership rules every four years and repeal any regulations that are no longer in the public interest. As the FCC nears the end of its current review, there are encouraging indications that Chairman Julius Genachowski is circulating a draft that finally would liberalize this outdated and archaic ban on investment in the newspaper industry. Read the Full Story>>

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Recorders’ bid for fees for online records bites the dust

December 11, 2012 · Add Comment

From The Columbus Dispatch An attempt by Ohio's county recorders to charge fees for online access to public records is dead -- for this year, at least. An amendment proposed by the Ohio Recorders' Association will not be adopted as part of House Bill 247 pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to the office of committee chairman Sen. Mark Wagoner, R-Ottawa Hills. The death of the proposal is a relief to title companies, realtors, bankers, journalists and other members of the public who regularly visit recorders' web sites to search for deeds, mortgages and other documents. The recorders wanted to authorize county commissioners to allow their offices to charge up to $2 a page or up to a $500 annual subscription fee to download or print public records from their government-funded web sites. Read the Full Story>>

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Cox makes changes in Butler, Warren counties

December 11, 2012 · Add Comment

From the Springboro Sun Ohio’s oldest weekly newspaper will soon cease to exist. As of Jan. 20, 2013, The Western Star — along with the Pulse-Journal and the Fairfield Echo — will be closed, according to Terry Bouquot, Cox Media Group’s senior director of business operations for the Cincinnati market. The company has announced that it will create two free publications that will be distributed on Sunday, and known as “Today’s Pulse of Butler” and “Today’s Pulse of Warren County.” The Western Star was first published Feb. 13, 1807 by John McLean, who eventually became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, according to Wikipedia. Over its first 116 years, the paper had several owners until it was purchased in 1923 by the Brown Publishing Co. which was owned by Congressman Clarence J. Brown. Brown owned it until 1998. Over the years, the newspaper was led by a number of well-known local journalists. In March 1970, William Kreeger was named publisher; Joe Falter became editor in August 1971, serving until he retired in 1994. Thomas Barr served as Western Star editor from 1994 to 2008. Under Falter and Barr, the paper earned many first or second place honors in General Excellence in the Ohio Newspaper Association Hooper Awards. In 2007 the paper earned third place nationwide in the Best Non-Daily contest by the national Suburban Newspapers of America. Read the Full Story>>

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“Homicide victims rarely talk to police” and other horrible headlines

December 10, 2012 · Add Comment

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NYT debuts Pinterest-like tool for content

December 10, 2012 · Add Comment

From Paid Content Many newspapers and magazines have already created accounts on Pinterest, and it’s not surprising they’re thinking about other ways to get readers to share their content. This week the New York Times Research & Development Labs launched a new tool called Compendium, which lets readers “use articles, imagery, videos, and quotations to tell your own stories using New York Times content.” A good comparison might be Storify for a single source’s content, or Pinterest with more text. Users sign in with Facebook or Twitter, add the Compendium bookmarklet to their browser and then create a collection with a title, description and choice of format — standard, timeline or gallery. They can then add NYT content to that collection. When you click on the bookmarklet from an page on the New York Times site, a Pinterest-like box pops up with options to add the entire article, a quote, or images or video. You can share finished collections on Twitter or Facebook. Read the Full Story>>

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