Yes – according to StinkyJournalism’s research.
When citizen journalists give content to news sites they are making a gift under IRS guidelines – though only when annual gift is greater than $12,000.
Year-on-year drop of 11.7 per cent, according to figures released by the Publishers Information Bureau.
The same stats suggest only 42 of the 230 magazines monitored posted an increase in ad pages during 2008.
US newspaper publisher giant Gannett is to make all non-unionised staff take a one-week unpaid break in the first quarter of this year, in an attempt to minimise redundancies. Full story…
WhatTheyThink? map out employment levels in the US creative industries for the past three years, demonstrating that newspapers have been cutting staff since early 2006. Full story…
Following up from last week’s post on CNN and NPR’s plans to get social with their coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration as US President, the Associated Press (AP), Al Jazeera and Sky News have all announced plans to host their own online broadcast events:
AP
The agency will live stream the inauguration day events from 7am on its online video network, which is syndicated to partner newspaper and broadcaster websites, in a development of its live coverage of election night in November.
“AP Television News will provide unanchored coverage, from morning coffee at the White House, to the swearing-in ceremony, to the multi-camera shots of the inaugural parade. APTN, with access to dozens of pool cameras along with a dozen of its own, will have cameras in the crowds to capture the sounds and emotions of the millions who plan to attend,” says a release.
Al Jazeera English
The broadcaster will make the most of its recent deal with Livestation by hosting a live webchat on the platform between senior Washington editor Rob Reynolds and viewers on Thursday (Jan 15) at 9pm GMT.
Sky News
Sky News made use of plenty of multimedia and some streaming technology in its coverage of election night. On January 20 a news package ‘Obama: The Inauguration’ will be shown in high definition online and live streaming of the inauguration ceremony from 5pm GMT will also feature.
Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was put up for sale on Friday by owners Hearst Corp and – if a buyer is not forthcoming in the next 60 days – the paper will close or continue only online. Full story…
Journalism students and their teachers in the US are to get more protection under a new state law which prevents administrators from taking punitive action against staff who to try to protect student press freedom (hat tip to Adrian Monck), writes the LA Times.
The Journalism Teacher Protection Act will also coincide with another initiative that seeks to educate students about 1st Amendment feedoms, the News Literacy project. This scheme will send working journalists to teach students how to “distinguish verified information from raw messages, spin, gossip and opinion,” Alan Miller, project founder, tells the Times. Full story…
As reported on the Journalism.co.uk main site, Washington newspaper rivals have joined forces to publish shared links relating to extreme flooding in the Western Washington region, in one of the first examples of ‘networked link journalism’ in action.
Journalism.co.uk contacted Paul Balcerak, assistant editor of dynamic media at Sound Publishing, publisher of the PNWLocalNews.com site.
Further to his comments in the main piece, Balcerak shares here his thoughts on using Publish2, the link journalism site and application:
What does it have over other link applications (e.g Ma.gnolia/Delicious)?
“The big selling point for me is the create-a-widget that lets you bundle links by tag and embed them (via Javascript) on your web page. Sure, if we wanted to build our own Delicious widget we could have done that, but this was already there for us and allowed us to work a lot faster.”
What benefit is it to you to work with your competitors?
“It made our jobs a lot easier, too. Pnwlocalnews is an aggregate site for all the sites under the Sound Publishing umbrella (about 35 of them, which all represent small, community newspapers).
“Our newsroom staffs aren’t huge – some consist of only a couple or few people – and to be frank, there’s just no way for us to have all the breaking news, all the time.”
At the moment a lot of US regional journalists seem to be using it (hasn’t really taken off in UK yet) – do you think it suits that environment particularly?
“I can’t really say, as I’m really not aware of how the environment outside the U.S. differs.
“I think part of it might be that it’s sort of this ‘Delicious for Journalists,’ which appeals to those who are hesitant to embrace ‘citizen journalism,’ or whatever we’re calling it. It’s more exclusive.
“For my part, it’s just another aggregate network that a ton of great journalists are on – why wouldn’t I be there?”
How could Publish2 improve its service for journalists?
“There are a few little things that could be improved (I can’t seem to find a search function to look up other people on the network) but I think the only real downside is that, well, it’s another aggregate network.
“It’s another username/password that you have to remember and log into everyday. If the Publish2 people ‘Who Make Things Happen’ could get it listed in Shareaholic or ShareThis, that might make it a little more convenient.”
To mark President Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, news sites are plotting and planning their online coverage already:
CNN
CNN’s going for the social networking angle, teaming its live video streaming site, CNN.com Live, with Facebook. Users will be able to update their Facebook status from the CNN site and see a stream of updates from their friends.
The updates entered via CNNLive will be tagged with the hyperlink ‘via CNN.com Live’ so Facebook contacts can click through to view the inauguration site from the social network.
NPR
At the end of last year, NPR used its inside blog to put a call out for social media ways to cover the inauguration. Among the ideas mooted in the post were:
More help is wanted from techies and journalists – contact Andy Carvin (@acarvin on Twitter) via the blog post.
AP reports that Joe the Plummer, the man from Ohio who became a ‘household name’ during the US presidential campaign, says he is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site pjtv.com. Full story…