PewResearchCenter: “Many Americans wouldn’t care ‘a lot’ if local papers folded”

“As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43 per cent) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community ‘a lot’. Even fewer (33 per cent) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available,” reports the Pew Research Center, as part of the News Interest Index project.

(…’[D]ata relating to news coverage were collected from March 2-8, 2009 and survey data measuring public interest in the top news stories of the week were collected March 6-9, 2009 from a nationally representative sample of 1,001 adults’.)

Full report at this link…

(thanks: @amonck)

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NYTimes.com: Interactive graphic – ‘bad news for newspapers’

A lovely graphic from NYTimes.com, showing the ‘bad news for newspapers’ in the US. Different coloured and sized circles show which parts of the US have been hardest hit when it comes to falling newspaper circulation. The larger the circle, the larger the circulation; the red circles indicate a circulation change of -20 per cent. Graphs at the bottom show advertising revenue of the largest public newspaper companies.

Follow link to see graphic…

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MediaGuardian: Sir Anthony O’Reilly leaves Independent News&Media

“Sir Anthony O’Reilly, the chief executive of the Independent’s owner Independent News & Media, has announced he will retire in May, with his son Gavin O’Reilly replacing him with immediate effect,” reports MediaGuardian.

Full story at this link…

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AsiaMedia (via EJC): Radio services go offline in Singapore

“A dispute over licence fees has forced most of Singapore’s radio stations to stop streaming online,” reports AsiaMedia.

“Following an amendment to the Copyright Act last November, the Recording Industry Performance Singapore (Rips) asked radio broadcasters to pay an annual licensing fee if they wanted to continue their internet radio service.”

Full story at this link… (via EJC)

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Telegraph.co.uk: ‘Are Twitter and blogging lazy journalism?’

The Telegraph’s Kate Day asks whether Twitter and blogging lead to a different kind of ‘lazy’ journalism, or a different kind of ‘more open media’.

She was at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) conference and comments:

“I was struck by the subdued atmosphere amongst the experts and financial journalists in the room. There was a lot of shaking of heads and very few leapt to their feet when the floor was opened up for questions.

“But outside the room, the debate seemed much more lively. Bloggers such as Documentally and Sizemore covered the event live online and a number of questions from people on Twitter were fed into the discussion via Reuters journalist Mark Jones.”

Day asks: “So is this lazy journalism? It is certainly different journalism. It loosens the grip traditional media organisations have on covering events such as this and brings in people who would never have had the chance to ask questions to those in positions of authority before.”

Full post at this link…

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Independent.co.uk: Does it matter that UK regional papers are in crisis?

A big question indeed from the Independent’s Ian Burrell. He takes a look at issues affecting the performance of UK regional press and presents the ‘for’ and ‘against’ views on whether the ‘crisis’ matters.

Have regionals ‘had their day’? “Not at all,” the article says, at one point. “An impressive 82 per cent of UK adults read local newspapers, a level of penetration matched by no other medium except television.”

Full story at this link…

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New appointment: Ayers is made regional web publishing director at Trinity Mirror Regionals

A week with particularly brutal cuts across UK regional media, but news of a new digital appointment comes from Trinity Mirror this morning:

Richard Ayers has been appointed regional web publishing director for Trinity Mirror Regionals.

“In this key position Richard will work closely with the regional teams across the division to implement digital best practice and develop content and online services to drive usage, audience and online revenues across the regional network,” a release from the group said.

“Richard has a first class background in online publishing and I am delighted to welcome him to the team,” said Chris Bunyan, digital director of Trinity Mirror Regionals.

“The audience for our regional sites has increased by over 30 per cent year-on-year to around 5.5 milllon users a month. Richard’s experience and expertise will strengthen our digital team and will ensure we continue to deliver and drive compelling online user experiences for this growing audience across our regional websites,” Bunyan said, in the release.

Ayers career includes ten years at BBC News online, in ‘a number of senior digital roles;’ he was ‘portal director’ for Tiscali.co.uk, and more recently he was the managing director of a digital production agency, Magic Lantern.

The Trinity Mirror release also announced that Shaun Collins has been appointed as digital recruitment director, a role which sees him focus on ‘driving digital recruitment products and their performance’.

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Newseum.org: Video – ‘The next generation of news’

We can’t embed it, so follow this link for a video looking at ‘Going Digital – the Next Generation of News’ from the Newseum, with some interesting interview extracts and a look at the Rocky Mountain News’ last days and the online future at Christian Science Monitor. Full story at this link…

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GlobalVoicesOnline: 270 proposals for citizen media projects – the five best

In January Rising Voices, part of GlobalVoices, received over 270 proposals from activists, bloggers, and NGOs: ‘all wanting to use citizen media tools to bring new communities – long ignored by both traditional and new media – to the conversational web,’ writes David Sasaki.

“It was, by far, the highest number of proposals Rising Voices has ever received in its two-year history of supporting citizen media training projects.”

Five were chosen as ‘most representative of the innovation, purpose and goodwill that Rising Voices aims to support’: Abidjan Blog Camps; Ceasefire Liberia; Real Experience of the Digital Era (China); Nomad Green (Mongolia); Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (Yemen).

Full story at this link…

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Slideshow to launch Guardian’s Open Platform

From Matt McAlister, head of the Guardian Developer Network: slides shown at the launch event for Open Platform.

Journalism.co.uk’s report here, at this link.

Slides below:

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