Tag Archives: USA

Information Clearing House publisher receives threats

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The publisher of a US website that aims to ‘correct the distorted perceptions provided by commercial media’ has been threatened with violence, according to reports from a friend and fellow independent publisher.

Tom Feeley, who runs Information Clearing House, and his family have received a string of threats relating to his work online, Mike Whitney reports.

Most recently Feeley’s wife was threatened in her home by three men with a gun, who demanded he stopped his online publishing. Feeley himself has also received death threats, according to Whitney.

At the time of writing the website is still active.

LA Times breaks web traffic record with 127m page views

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The LA Times recorded 127 million page views last month – breaking its previous record of 120 million.

The site attracted 19 million unique users in July, a memo from the paper’s Meredith Artley, executive editor for interactive, said.

While the recent Californian earthquake was a contributing factor to the traffic surge, new SEO techniques and growing popularity on social bookmarking sites have had a significant impact, Artley said.

Blog traffic also grew last month rising to 12 million page views. The most popular blog, in terms of traffic, was Top of the Ticket, which recorded 1,800,770 views, according to the paper’s figures.

Deepening newsrooms cuts are changing the face of American newspapers, says PEJ study

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The American daily newspaper in 2008 has fewer pages, shorter stories and younger staff, but its coverage is more targeted than ever, according to a new report.

The study released yesterday paints a grim picture of how lay-offs in US newsrooms are damaging the quality of their products – but it’s not all doom and gloom.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) study, “The Changing Newsroom: What is Being Gained and What is Being Lost in America’s Daily Newspapers” surveyed senior newsroom executives at more than 250 newspapers in the US to map the effects of these cuts.


Less foreign news

“Papers both large and small have reduced the space, resources and commitment devoted to a range of topics. At the top of that list nearly two thirds of papers have cut back on foreign news, over half have trimmed national news and more than a third have reduced business coverage. In effect, America’s newspapers are narrowing their reach and their ambitions and have become niche reads,” the study said.

Larger metro newspapers were worst hit by the cuts – 85 per cent of those dailies with circulations over 100,000 surveyed have cut newsroom staff in the last three years compared to only 52 per cent of smaller papers making cuts.

More targeted and competitive

However, 56 percent of the editors surveyed said their news product is better than it was three years ago because coverage is more targeted.

The news organisations were perceived to have grown leaner and meaner and are attracting a different set of employees as a result of this:

“New job demands are drawing a generation of young, versatile, tech-savvy, high-energy staff as financial pressures drive out higher-salaried veteran reporters and editors. Newsroom executives say the infusion of new blood has brought with it a new competitive energy, but they also cite the departure of veteran journalists, along with the talent, wisdom and institutional memory they hold as their single greatest loss.”

One of those surveyed, Steven Smith, editor-in-chief of the Spokesman-Review, blogged about the study. His newspaper is also affected by the cuts, but he had the following message to his staff:

“Our readers are migrating away from print to digital platforms. We must migrate with them. Failure to change, put plainly, means failure (…) Our success will depend on the commitment of each of us to be fearless in the face of relentless, never-ending change, gritty in the face of doubt and resolute in the service of our communities who continue to rely on our journalism as never before.”

Finding “a way to monetize the rapid growth of Web readership before newsroom staff cuts so weaken newspapers that their competitive advantage disappear, ” was identified as a key concern for many editors, and 97 per cent of the editors surveyed said they are actively trying to develop new revenue streams.

University of Florida sets up new digital media centre

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The University of Florida is to build a new journalism training centre aimed at new methods of storytelling using digital and new media.

The Center for Media Innovation and Research (CIMR) will experiment with multimedia storytelling on different platforms and test their effectiveness, a release from the university said.

“News media of all types are struggling with the transition to digital. Our new center will help them find the way. It also will help us produce students who are prepared to lead media companies in the changing landscape,” said John Wright, dean of the university’s college of journalism and communications.

“It will be a sort of farm for new ways of disseminating news and information.”

The centre will include a ’21st Century Newsroom and Laboratory’ with a later addition of a ‘Digital Laboratory for Strategic Communications’. Students and staff from across the university’s journalism courses will use the centre.

“The result will be a sort of think tank consortium for digital media,” the release said.

Reuters blogs: WSJ axes 50 jobs, creates new posts at New York ‘hub’

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A reorganisation of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial and production operations will lead to around 50 jobs being lost, editor Robert Thomson has said in a memo.

The paper’s editing and production for print, online and mobile will be centralised around its New York ‘hub’, with editorial operations at its South Brunswick offices to cease.

New York Times reporters told to keep political views under wraps

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Reporters and editors at the New York Times have been told to keep their political affiliations offline and out of sight in the build up to the US presidential election.

A memo received by the New York Observer sent to staff by Craig Whitney, standards editor at the paper, warns journalists that social networks and other websites pose ‘potential political entanglements’:

“When Facebook asks what your political preferences are, don’t answer, and don’t say anything in a blog, video, radio or television program or any other medium that you couldn’t say in the paper or on our Website – about politics or anything else,” the memo says.

An earlier memo from Whitney referred staff to the title’s ethics policy, which states:

“Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of The Times. . . They should recognize that a bumper sticker on the family car or a campaign sign on the lawn may be misread as theirs, no matter who in their household actually placed the sticker or the sign.”

A good day for unbiased reporting? A bad day for bumper stickers.