Who needs reporters?
17-Nov-09
The Print After Parties by from Jason Eppink are a series of unauthorized notional raves thrown in the abandoned distribution infrastructure of crumbling print institutions. (They’re pretend parties, not real ones.)
Nonprofit Texas Tribune launches
03-Nov-09
The promotional video [above] gives the flavour of this new news organization which launched this morning, while Martin Langeveld at Nieman Journalism Lab explores the Texas Tribune website.
Founder and chairman John Thornton writes about the Tribune’s mission and the reasons for its nonprofit approach.
Great idea: the vertical newspaper
30-Oct-09
Idea: Peter Bluijs, former newspaperman with Holland’s De Telegraaf
Video: Marcin Nowak and Artur Karda from Media Regionalne
Hat tip: Journalism.co.uk
Today, a roundup of some graphs related to yesterday’s release of newspaper circulation numbers in the United States.
Warning, these graphs may disturb anyone who believes printed news isn’t fading fast. Discretion is advised.
- How much has newspaper household penetration fallen since WW2? From almost 130 per cent to only 33 per cent. Allan Mutter charts it.
- How is circulation changing at the country’s largest papers? Hint: You wouldn’t want to work for the SF Chronicle. The NewsCred blog paints a colorful but ugly picture.
- How has circulation changed for six major newspapers since 1990? If you’re the Wall Street Journal (which can count its paid online subscribers in total circulation) things are great. Otherwise, this is a roller coaster that now only goes downhill. The Awl tracks the trends.
- And finally, how have newspapers themselves reported circulation? With fewer hard numbers, more references to percentage changes and a focus on trying to tell their own positive story. Again, from The Awl.
If you know some basic HTML, you should find this fairly easy to follow.
Click within the player to advance the presentation.
Thanks to Stuart Myles.
I was sad to read of the closure of CKX TV in Brandon, Manitoba last Friday.
In the late 1970s I was the afternoon drive announcer on CKX Radio, a 50,000 watt station covering Brandon and dozens of rural communities across southwestern Manitoba. I occasionally wandered into the TV studios to appear in car dealer ads or do a bit of voice-tracking for station breaks. I was amazed that - back then at least - the competing CTV and CBC television transmissions were run side-by-side from the same control room, apparently a sensible efficiency in such a small market.
Those were the pre-internet, pre-digital TV days. Brandon had its two TV signals (of which only CKX did local programming), three radio stations (dominated by CKX) and the Brandon Sun newspaper. Attracting a substantial audience and selling advertising were a lot easier.
CKX TV has been on the block for a while, but no one wanted to buy it from current owner CTVglobemedia - even at a price of $1 - due to the inability to secure direct-to-home satellite coverage, something Susan Krashinsky explains in the Globe & Mail.
Residents and local officials, quoted in a Canadian Press story carried by the Winnipeg Free Press, bemoan the station’s closure:
“It just feels like you’ve lost part of the household because it’s been part of our lives here in Brandon and Westman [Western Manitoba] for as long as I’ve ever been here,” said Mayor Dave Burgess. “It’s really sad to see it go.”
Without a television broadcaster, the broad exposure to many of the aspects that keeps people interested in life in the Wheat City has been eliminated in one fell swoop.
“It really removes one of the avenues of getting out to the public,” Burgess said.
The closure will also affect local broadcasting students:
Assiniboine Community College’s media productions program has relied on CKX to be the training ground for hundreds of green broadcasters over the years. “CKX has a long and storied history,” said ACC instructor Greg Sherris. “It’s been an important part of our community and it’s also created opportunities for young people from our area to launch careers that have taken them to places far and wide. “
“CKX has meant the world to ACC,” he said.
Photo: Wikipedia
Life magazine has a nice gallery of photos they call When Newspapers Mattered.
The photo above, of NBC “columnist” Walter Winchell, caught my attention because of the semi-automatic telegraph key (commonly known as a “bug”) right next to the Life watermark.
These old keys were beautiful mechanical marvels. I’m fortunate to own a couple of them.