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Mar

9

UPDATE: PD says news of death or going digital-only is “baseless”


This post describes the best incidence I know of, so far, that screams for teaching media literacy.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I saw this tweet on Twitter because I follow the Twitter handle, “@themediaisdying”:

INTERESTING ; TIME : “The 10 major newspapers ‘that will either fold or go digital’” http://tinyurl.com/azofa5

I clicked on the tiny url link in that tweet and it brought me to a blog post at the blog of the website, Journalism.co.uk, a nearly 10 year old online publication put out by Mousetrap Media, described here as an “an independent online publishing company.”

The Plain Dealer is listed as the tenth major newspaper, on the list of ten papers that are predicted to either “fold or go digital.”

Like a good blog post, the post at blogs.journalism.co.uk included a link to where they got the list.

Here’s where they got the list: 

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1883785,00.html

TIME.com, its business section.  Here’s a screenshot, just so we all know what we’re talking about:

time

Now, at that article’s online location, there was a one paragraph blurb about the outlook for The Plain Dealer and I published that blurb in this blog post earlier today.

My post grabbed the attention of other bloggers who are interested in the PD and I also posted the information on The Moderate Voice, though I did not include the blurb about the PD there, since TMV is a nationally read blog with a truly national audience. I did, however, note in the headline of the blog post that the item was from TIME.

Why does any of this matter?

John Kroll of the PD, with whom I’ve always had and hope to always have a good relationship, left a comment on my post that’s timestamped 7:07pm.  Here’s what he wrote:

The Plain Dealer would like to note that reports of our death are greatly exaggerated. Or, in the exact word of Publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger, “baseless.”

My experience of John is that he does have a good sense of humor, probably what some might call dry and so I appreciated the way in which he wrote this comment.

The hyperlink on the word “baseless” goes to this cleveland.com blog post: 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/03/publisher_calls_report_baseles.html

It’s titled, “Plain Dealer publisher says online report of paper’s imminent demise is ‘baseless’” and the byline is Patrick O’Donnell.

I’m not going to fisk or reprint the entire post. I would urge people who are interested to go and read it for themselves.

The most salient points of the post, in my opinion, are the following:

1. First, Terry Egger, the PD’s publisher, and O’Donnell, the writer of the article, provide information about the origin of the top 10 list.  Specifically: 

Though this [list and article] appeared on Time’s Web site and with a Time logo on Yahoo!, the report twas from an online-only site, 247WallSt.com.

…

“People put this out there and associate Time Magazine with it,” Egger said, upon hearing that another source produced the report. He doubted readers would notice that distinction. “It’s still the Time brand it’s associated with.”

2. Egger provides information in support of the health of the paper (and I believe just last week I read that Susan Goldberg told the group at the City Club that the paper operates in the black, I don’t remember exactly where I read that though so consider it just my memory and possibly fallable):

But Egger said The Plain Dealer and its parent corporation, Advance Publications, remain committed to producing news both in print and online.

“Every plan we have for the immediate future is to make that work,” he said.

…

Egger said that newspapers are having financial difficulties, but The Plain Dealer made money in 2008. Though it laid off a significant number of employees late last year, Egger said the paper budgeted to make money in 2009.

“Everybody’s got challenges and we’re going to figure them out,” he said.

3. Most of the remainder of the article provides information about the writer of the article and list, the sources he consulted and how he analyzed the PD the way he did. As Egger notes and the reporter confirms, although he says that he spoke to people at Advance (but would not name them), he said that he did not speak with anyone at the PD.  Understandably, Egger was unhappy about that:

Egger bristled that the report did not include any comment from The Plain Dealer or Advance Publications. The report’s author did not include a response from any of the 10 publications or any indication he tried to reach them and they did not respond.

Sigh and take a deep breath.  What is going on here?

Bottom line? Business in the 2009 news provision world as usual.  That is, if you realize just how much news is now provided and consumed online.  But there’s a sense in Egger’s reaction that he does not quite grasp this reality, no matter the lip service he may give to understanding that this is between TIME and its content providers.  

Why do I make this conjecture?

Mostly because I wrote for Newsweek.com The Ruckus for several weeks last year, and Newsweek made it extremely obvious that I was a blogger and you could go see my content and my bio and everything else about me. TIME, on the other hand, is using a content provider and doing several things to blur the lines: the byline is for the content provider, but when you click on it, it goes to a TIME feedback screen.  At the end of the article, there still is no information about the specific content provider.

In other words, it’s as if you’re reading a print publication and see (AP) or (REUTERS) – you know it’s a wire service providing content, it’s not a Plain Dealer reporter who wrote it, but you – the reader – have to just trust the PD, because you cannot follow up in any meaningful, immediate way like you can with appropriately linked and sourced online material. 

Now, in the mind of the reader, the PD is still responsible to the extent that the PD contracts with those entities.  But we know that the PD is trusting those entities to provide a certain agreed upon or understood quality.

And so, people who get their news primarily from online resources will trust them exactly the same way, unless you’re more media literate and, like me, come to expect far better linkage and transparency.

I’m sure it sucked to feel burned by TIME using a content provider that makes it seem as though TIME is predicting the demise of the PD.  But this was the result of a business decision made by TIME.

Media literacy education legislation.  That’s the best advice I can offer.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:52 pm March 9th, 2009 in Blogging, Business, Cleveland+, Media, Ohio, Politics, Tech, Writing, social media 

Comments

7 Responses to “UPDATE: PD says news of death or going digital-only is “baseless””

  1. 1 Paul on March 10th, 2009 8:18 am

    To my knowledge, the first publication of a newspaper online was in the early 1980s when the Columbus Dispatch made its content available through CompuServe, my employer for nearly 30 years. Soon thereafter, the printers union for the Minneapolis Star (which joined the Dispatch on our service) demanded provisions in their collective bargaining agreement that protected jobs in what they (correctly) perceived as the inevitable shift to digital media. It isn’t as though all this sneaked up on the newspaper industry last month.

    It seems to me that the real challenge for the newspaper industry isn’t the format conversation from paper to digital, but rather how they are going to convince the public that their content is valuable.

    You, I and millions of others post a flurry of content which attract a mixture of steady readers and occasional passers-by. Over time, we can try to develop a ‘brand’ that is known to be trustworthy. We cite sources appropriately, and try to make sure it is clear what is fact and what is opinion.

    The newspapers should have this brand game down in spades. I read stories from the online version of the NYT because I have a high degree of trust in their journalistic integrity. That’s not a function of the medium – it’s a matter of, well, integrity.

    So the problem is, I think, that some newspapers, as their revenue falls, have made the choice to further compromise the journalistic standards, by reducing their staffs of editors, fact checkers, etc. They don’t get that their revenue is falling not so much because of the media shift, but rather because their brand was never really that strong in the first place. Crap is crap, whether on paper or pixels. They want to blame the digital world for blowing up their revenue model, as though the digital world can’t accommodate an advertising-based revenue model (Google would disagree). Such publishers are not going to recover by further reducing their quality.

    What the internet has really changed is the competitive environment. If you are a paper that merely publishes the AP feed, and local junk, I don’t have to subscribe to your paper any longer to read the AP stuff – I have other sources than the paper on my front porch. I’ll go the NYT and get not only the AP feed, but also some pretty good ‘branded’ news and analysis.

    We said at CompuServe 20 years ago that “it’s the content, stupid.” It’s still true.

  2. 2 Loraine Ritchey on March 10th, 2009 9:19 am

    I have written many “opinion” pieces about the media and blogging and fact checking one of which “Notorious Opponents of Exactitude” can be found here
    http://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/notorious-opponents-of-exactitude/
    and if you follow the links linking back to various on line media articles you will see some have disappeared(PD especially) ( so now I always copy and paste in Word for future reference).

    Sometimes that has been very beneficial as when Ex Mayor Foltin (Lorain) wrote a blog piece for the PD where he made an erroneous statement with regard to the sale of Ford Plant in Lorain…. I called him on it and looked like a fool as the original blog was “changed” and the statement had disappeared .. luckily I had copied the original and thereby had proof……….

    It is very difficult to cut the wheat from the chaff in the best of times and relying on integrity can be a dangerous thing….. I try to rely on “lack of agenda”

    Another a thought crossed my mind a few days ago when ITV ( UK) is downsizing and cutting programs….they said their main competition for ad revenue was Google….. I asked some of my “circle of 7 or 10 readers” (depending how you count your stats) :) do they ever pay attention to the ads…. not one said yes ( as I never do ) ….hmmmmmm are advertisers being led down a rose tinted garden path ?

  3. 3 Loraine Ritchey on March 10th, 2009 12:04 pm

    The Press Uk as other countries adhere to a Press Council ( I believe only one state in the US has anything similar) whereas other countries have Press Councils http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Press%20Council

    THE INQUIRY
    Gerry McCann is the latest witness to appear before the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee during their investigation into “press standards, privacy and libel”.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7935156.stm

  4. 4 Jeff Hess on March 10th, 2009 3:50 pm

    Shalom Jill,

    This is the comment I left over at Blogger Interrupted this morning:

    Shalom Tim,

    Any PD employee not desperately scrambling to find another job, another career, is delusional. The fat lady is on the high note.

    Egger’s either lying or out of the loop.

    He dare not speak the truth lest his remaining staff evaporate over night before he, and the rest of management, have time to loot the PD carcass before leaving town.

    For a good examples of what this looks like, just review the Jon Stewart fisking of CNBC.

    B’shalom,

    Jeff

    p.s. @paul, i was part of byron scott’s first ohio university videotext class with compuserve in ‘81. ah the good ole days of pounding out copy at 300 baud.

  5. 5 Steve FitzGerald on March 10th, 2009 9:21 pm

    Most newspapers have done a terrible job of embracing then migrating in timely fashion to online, and that’s a shame for their readers and investors.

    Naaah, I take that back. Worse than terrible… horrific, hyper-horrific, terribly worse than that, whatever word that is.

    Wait… the word “negligence” is coming to mind.

    Steve FitzGerald
    Immediate Past President
    Society of Professional Journalists Cleveland Pro Chapter
    steve@lakewoodbuzz.com

  6. 6 Nancy on March 11th, 2009 9:43 am

    The PD has revenue problems and its in trouble; although its demise is perhpas not imminent. Circulation is down, classified advertising is down (look at the Sunday homes section for example), and advertising is on the wane. They need to do something different. Could they attach advertising to online stories that are printed, and charge more for that (if its been printed then you know its more likely to have been read), charge for subscriptions to premium content, start a wiki section in metro? I don’t miss my old typewriter, and I don’t miss newsprint either.

  7. 7 Anastasia P on March 11th, 2009 12:50 pm

    The problem, Paul, is not convincing readers their online content is valuable: it’s MAKING it valuable. When I have to dig through what seems like endless sports stories and updates, featured so prominently as to crowd everything else out, that’s not content it’s worth my time to access, except for the current temperature. The PD seems to hide everything except sports and a half dozen current headlines on its website.

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