Recovering Journalist

Not-For-Profit: Just Say No

The newspaper-saving meme of the week seems to be the notion that everything will get better if newspapers can simply be converted to non-profit entities, with endowments supporting them just like colleges and other charitable institutions.

There are some smart people bandying this notion about, but fortunately, there are also some smart people pointing out that it's not a particularly good idea, for myriad reasons. Alan Mutter, as is his wont, runs the numbers, and there's additional data from Zach Seward at NiemanJournalismLab (who's otherwise neutral on the subject). 

But the best takedown comes from Jonathan Weber of NewWest, who pretty much demolishes the idea point by point, and concludes: 

Journalists, like most people, would like things in the future to resemble things in the past, and a gentle billionaire seems like a good enabler of the journalistic norms that we are all accustomed to. But before we commit to that path, I say, give the entrepreneurs a chance. New business approaches will, ultimately, be a much better guarantor of quality journalism - and democracy - than sugar daddies.

Note also, as I pointed out a while back, that the St. Petersburg Times' ownership by a non-profit trust hasn't insulated it in the slightest from the problems infecting all newspapers.

Back to the drawing board, folks. Non-profit isn't the savior. In fact, non-profit is the problem: As Mutter and Weber point out, putting endowments behind businesses that increasingly aren't profitable to begin with isn't going to solve the core problems of the newspaper business. I sound like a broken record, but the real solution will come when newspaper executives start really focusing on how to build the digital business that will, inevitably, succeed their print business. Hint: Start with some of the great ideas advanced by Steve Outing this week.

Update: Dan Gillmor also throws cold water on the non-profit ownership idea.

Reposting: Life After Journalism

One of the most popular posts I've written for this blog was called Life After Journalism. Written about 18 months ago, it attempted to explain that journalism skills can be transferrable to other professions, and to give hope to those who were facing what were then the first waves of what's now a tsunami of journalism job cuts. It lives on in searches, links and notes I get from former journalists who say it helped them with the transition out of journalism. 

The new issue of American Journalism Review includes a story called "Is There Life After Newspapers?" that tracks several journalists who have moved on from newspaper jobs, many of them in the ways that I described. The AJR piece has some good tips, but I thought I'd repost Life After Journalism to try to help the thousands of journalists who've lost jobs in the past couple of years. I hope it gives people hope that there is a future for them, and their skills.

Life After Journalism

Every couple of months, I get a call from an old friend or former colleague facing a newsroom buyout—or concerned that one is in the offing. Their request is always the same: "Tell me there's life after [insert newspaper name]."

My answer is always an emphatic "YES!"

Leaving the cozy confines of a newsroom and journalism career is traumatic. But change can be highly beneficial and even lucrative. Sure, you can look for another journalism job. But odds are that you won't find one that matches what you gave up. Instead, look at the talents you brought to journalism and think about how they can be used in other endeavors. You'll find a much broader array of options.

It turns out that a lot of the skills that make you a good journalist are highly valued in other fields. Indeed, they may be even more highly valued. Newsrooms tend to take good writers, reporters and editors for granted—they've got an excess of supply, in fact. But other businesses are crying for those same talents, and appreciative when they can find them. For instance:

* Writing, editing and storytelling: A dozen years ago, after I'd left journalism for a Silicon Valley company, a consultant came up to me and said, "I've been reading your memos. They're very well written. You've got a hidden talent there." I thanked her and pointed out that I'd spent nearly 20 years writing for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and others. "Ohhh," she said. That's how rare and valuable writing talent can be in the business world. The ability to quickly write clear copy has applications in everything from writing business plans to creating PowerPoint presentations (nothing more than a good story outline) to even coming up with the architecure of Web sites (a form of visual storytelling). A friend who recently left newspapers for a (more lucrative) thinktank job says her new colleagues are amazed at how quickly and well she can write—much to her amazement.

* Reporting: When you do a story, you apply prodigious research and analysis skills that have great value in the non-journalism world. Your ability to dive deep for information and ask tough questions is a real asset. When I spent time on the corporate side of The Washington Post, the bosses liked to send ex-journalists in to do due diligence on possible corporate acquisitions. Turned out we were far more fearless about asking hard questions than any MBA. Or you can follow the changed career path of a friend of mine who became a high-end private investigator. Your curiosity, resourcefullness and analytical abilities can have many interesting uses outside journalism.

* Management and organization: If you've successfully run a copy desk or a daily or weekly section, you've probably got organizational skills you don't fully appreciate. Complicated businesses appreciate those skills, however. The same talents that make you a precise and exacting editor and manager probably will hold you in good stead as a corporate product or project manager, pulling together diverse tasks and people to bring a complicated project in on deadline. Oh yeah, deadlines: journalists live by them. That's often a novelty in the business world.

You get the idea. The skills that you use every day to commit journalism have uses you can barely imagine. If you're looking to leave a newsroom and start a new career, you don't have to worry about massive retraining. Just examine what you already know how to do and think about how you can apply it elsewhere.

Alternatively, you don't have to stray too far from journalism; just try a new, modern form. Writing, reporting and editing skills are very valuable in the world of the Web; it's no secret that newspaper Web sites are hiring even as their print counterparts are cutting back. Non-journalism Web sites also need these talents—which is obvious if you merely read some of them. You'd think copy editors would be able to write their own ticket on many sites!

Or you can try to go it alone: Start a blog. Pick a specific topic about which you have a great deal of knowledge and passion, and start blogging about it. Over time, you may be able to create a following that can lead to consulting or job offers. There are successful examples of it all over the blogosphere.

It used to be that if you left journalism, public relations or freelancing were pretty much your only options. But today there are many more possibilities, if you approach a career change with an open mind and confidence in your existing skills and abilities.

These are scary times in the newspaper business. But there is, indeed, life after journalism.

Every couple of months, I get a call from an old friend or former colleague facing a newsroom buyout—or concerned that one is in the offing. Their request is always the same: "Tell me there's life after [insert newspaper name]."

My answer is always an emphatic "YES!"

Leaving the cozy confines of a newsroom and journalism career is traumatic. But change can be highly beneficial and even lucrative. Sure, you can look for another journalism job. But odds are that you won't find one that matches what you gave up. Instead, look at the talents you brought to journalism and think about how they can be used in other endeavors. You'll find a much broader array of options.

It turns out that a lot of the skills that make you a good journalist are highly valued in other fields. Indeed, they may be even more highly valued. Newsrooms tend to take good writers, reporters and editors for granted—they've got an excess of supply, in fact. But other businesses are crying for those same talents, and appreciative when they can find them. For instance:

* Writing, editing and storytelling: A dozen years ago, after I'd left journalism for a Silicon Valley company, a consultant came up to me and said, "I've been reading your memos. They're very well written. You've got a hidden talent there." I thanked her and pointed out that I'd spent nearly 20 years writing for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and others. "Ohhh," she said. That's how rare and valuable writing talent can be in the business world. The ability to quickly write clear copy has applications in everything from writing business plans to creating PowerPoint presentations (nothing more than a good story outline) to even coming up with the architecure of Web sites (a form of visual storytelling). A friend who recently left newspapers for a (more lucrative) thinktank job says her new colleagues are amazed at how quickly and well she can write—much to her amazement.

* Reporting: When you do a story, you apply prodigious research and analysis skills that have great value in the non-journalism world. Your ability to dive deep for information and ask tough questions is a real asset. When I spent time on the corporate side of The Washington Post, the bosses liked to send ex-journalists in to do due diligence on possible corporate acquisitions. Turned out we were far more fearless about asking hard questions than any MBA. Or you can follow the changed career path of a friend of mine who became a high-end private investigator. Your curiosity, resourcefullness and analytical abilities can have many interesting uses outside journalism.

* Management and organization: If you've successfully run a copy desk or a daily or weekly section, you've probably got organizational skills you don't fully appreciate. Complicated businesses appreciate those skills, however. The same talents that make you a precise and exacting editor and manager probably will hold you in good stead as a corporate product or project manager, pulling together diverse tasks and people to bring a complicated project in on deadline. Oh yeah, deadlines: journalists live by them. That's often a novelty in the business world.

You get the idea. The skills that you use every day to commit journalism have uses you can barely imagine. If you're looking to leave a newsroom and start a new career, you don't have to worry about massive retraining. Just examine what you already know how to do and think about how you can apply it elsewhere.

Alternatively, you don't have to stray too far from journalism; just try a new, modern form. Writing, reporting and editing skills are very valuable in the world of the Web; it's no secret that newspaper Web sites are hiring even as their print counterparts are cutting back. Non-journalism Web sites also need these talents—which is obvious if you merely read some of them. You'd think copy editors would be able to write their own ticket on many sites!

Or you can try to go it alone: Start a blog. Pick a specific topic about which you have a great deal of knowledge and passion, and start blogging about it. Over time, you may be able to create a following that can lead to consulting or job offers. There are successful examples of it all over the blogosphere.

It used to be that if you left journalism, public relations or freelancing were pretty much your only options. But today there are many more possibilities, if you approach a career change with an open mind and confidence in your existing skills and abilities.

These are scary times in the newspaper business. But there is, indeed, life after journalism.

Look in the Mirror, Editors

Paul Farhi's story in the new American Journalism Review about the string of editors of major papers who have quit or been forced out in recent months contains a very interesting reflective comment from Rick Rodriguez, former editor of the Sacramento Bee:

Looking back, Rodriguez recognizes his own faults. "In retrospect, I wasn't changing quickly enough," he says. "I'm not laying everything on the company. I was not in tune with moving resources to the Web as quickly as I should have. My focus was mainly on the newspaper. As far as journalism goes, we did well. As far as embracing change, I probably could have done it quicker."

Truth be told, that statement probably holds true for just about every print editor. Kudos to Rodriguez for understanding it, albeit too late. In an era of enormous change, being resistant to change–an innate part of the controlling personality that most editors have–is a fatal flaw. You need to fully understand what's happening, and embrace and foment the change that's needed in the industry. The old rules just don't apply anymore.

A Balanced Local Diet

Steve Yelvington has a terrific post on the three roles that local news operations need to fulfill: Town Crier, Town Expert and Town Square. Most journalists are very good at the Town Crier role; the other two, not so much. 

As Steve writes, "News is not enough. ... The other roles aren't secondary. They're coequal, and they're grossly neglected by most local news websites."

Right on. But how to do fulfill those roles–which are much better advertising/revenue draws than news, btw–in a time of limited or declining resources? Hint: Ask your readers to help.

Steve's post is excellent. It's required reading for anybody who wants to find ways to better serve local audiences.

GateHouseGate: Why Did the New York Times Wimp Out?

The New York Times historically has shown its willingness to stand up for what's right in the reporting and dissemination of news and information. Time and time again, the Times has been willing to make a stand for the rest of the industry. That's why the newspaper's name is on some of the most important legal decisions in American journalism history. 

And that's also why the Times Co.'s decision to seemingly roll over in the case brought against it by GateHouse Media is so disappointing. Rather than push the case to trial in a way that might have set a valuable precedent for all Web publishers, by stoutly defending the right of its Boston.com subsidiary to cite "fair use" copyright law in excerpting and linking to articles from GateHouse Web sites, the Times Co. chose to wimp out with a strange settlement. That deal seems to give GateHouse what it wanted in a pitched competitive battle in the Boston suburbs: the ability to keep Boston.com's YourTown sites from linking at will to GateHouse content.

It's a muddled settlement, to be sure. It seems to indicate that Boston.com can't use RSS feeds and other means to automate links to GateHouse sites, but hand-crafted links–especially with rewritten headlines–may be OK, more or less. On the other hand: automated excerpts and links to GateHouse content on Boston.com search-result pages? No problem. Deep-linking? Also fine. And GateHouse insists it loves links to its sites (and linking to other sites)–but doesn't want Boston.com doing it (the settlement doesn't apply to anybody else). Boston.com executive Robert Kempf (a former GateHouse official, and hold that thought), insists the Times Co. still believes what it was doing was within the bounds of fair use; it's just not going to do it anymore. Or most of it. Or some of it. 

It's really quite confusing, and disappointing.

There are whispers that GateHouse had tried to block Boston.com links with internal site codes, but Boston.com evaded that and kept linking–and then ignored a cease and desist letter from GateHouse. That's probably less than kosher, although the Times Co., at some point, at least, thought it was in the right and probably couldn't figure out what GateHouse was complaining about. (Update: The Times Co. denies that it intentionally evaded GateHouse link blockers, and notes that GateHouse dropped that allegation in an amended version of the complaint.) The settlement says GateHouse can reinstate those automated link-blockers–and Boston.com will honor them. 

There's plenty of good analysis of the settlement over at the NiemanJournalismLab blog, and it's worth reading, here, here and here. Especially the comments on that last one, which is rightly titled "GateHouse-NYT Co. deal: a bad precedent for the web." 

It's a bad precedent indeed, even though technically it isn't a legal precedent, just a one-off settlement. Still, the next judge to face a linking case–and it will happen soon enough, as old-school print people get increasingly scared about the expanding world of aggregation–may wonder just why a heretofore strong company like the New York Times would settle rather than fight. Alas, that may just be a sign of financially troubled times, or, um, Times. With its finances precarious, the Times Co. may not have had the appetite it once had for a strong, protracted legal fight. How sad. (Not that GateHouse, with its 6-cent-a-share stock price, is exactly deep-pocketed, either.)

I can't help but thinking that the root of this ridiculous and potentially extremely damaging dispute was a good old-fashioned newspaper war: GateHouse's desire try to derail the expansion efforts of a rival–a rival that happens to have hired away Kempf, one of GateHouse' brighter digital minds, a couple years ago. Hmm. Payback can be a bitch. GateHouse this wins this battle because making it impossible to automate links to GateHouse sites will greatly slow down Boston.com's efforts to build dozens of hyperlocal aggregation sites.

The problem is, in waging an old-fashioned kind of newspaper war, GateHouse brought an antique blunderbuss to bear on a fight over a high-tech mosquito. Yeah, it may have gotten its way in the settlement, but it risked endangering the entire concept of Web linking. And the Times Co., by rolling over rather than fighting back with its traditional vigor, has left that issue very much open. 

GateHouse v. Times has been tawdry from start to finish, and it all seems so unnecessary–it's just not clear at all why GateHouse would have turned away the additive traffic from Boston.com's links in the first place. And the conflicting signals from both companies over the settlement have just made things more confusing. Here's what GateHouse President and CEO Kirk Davis had to say to NiemanJournalismLab today about the coverage of the case: "You’d see comments like, ‘GateHouse is against linking.’ You’ve got to be kidding me. What do you think, we’re stupid? Of course we like linking and of course we support linking.”

Gee, you could have fooled me. But it may have been The New York Times Co., by failing to vigorously defend linking the way it previously defended important journalism principles and practices, that was the most stupid.

Update: Newspaper Death Watch has a very good analysis.

GateHouseGate: Settled

GateHouse and The New York Times Co. have settled GateHouse's inane suit against NYT's Boston.com over linking to GateHouse stories in the Boston suburbs. Details remain to be seen, but my guess is that the linking will continue. Nice to see everybody come to their senses.

They Never Learn

A few months ago, after U.S. News & World Report announced that it was going to end its weekly (er, bi-weekly) print edition and move to a Web-first publishing model, accompanied by monthly print special editions, I had coffee with a couple of the magazine's top editors to talk about their new strategy. They seemed to be totally committed to Web publishing, and even spoke about how liberating it was going to be to not have to worry about print deadlines anymore (an important psychological and cost-saving factor that I think a lot of print people fail to appreciate). I came away thinking that U.S. News had a chance to be a real pioneer in the post-print world of news and analysis.

So the magazine's announcement that it's going to supplement its very good Web site by publishing a weekly PDF edition, for a $19.95 annual subscription fee, is a real head-scratcher. And I'm not the only one who's bewildered by it. 

Look, PDF publications DON'T WORK, either as a reader experience, for advertisers or as a business. U.S. readers have rejected them over and over. (Don't tell me about PDF successes in other countries–those are different markets with different cultures and tastes, and I'm not sure those "successes" have been all that successful anyway. The two Canadian PDF editions covered in this breathless story from 2006, for instance, appear to be history). 

PDF products are beloved solely by printie publishers and editors who think readers want to read the news in a print-like layout, and don't understand that a) electronic delivery is a completely different format than print and b) readers really don't want to have to print out their own magazine or newspaper. 

Every PDF or "electronic edition" newspaper/magazine facsimile started in the U.S. with great enthusiasm on the part of the publisher has stalled out at a few hundred or a couple thousand customers, even at the biggest publications. There's no market there, and the time and resources are much better spent on figuring out the optimal version of a Web-based product, mobile versions, etc.

Given my conversation with the U.S. News folks, and the Web savvy they showed at the time, I suspect something else is going on here: I wonder if the PDF edition provides U.S. News a way to avoid legal problems by fulfilling long-term commitments to subscribers who paid for the print magazine but are about to be disenfranchised. Instead, they'll get the PDF version. (Tellingly, it's free to current subscribers.) That's about the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, U.S. News, after showing indications of some real Web savviness, is getting back on the road to oblivion.

GateHouseGate: A Smoking Gun?

A lot of us have wondered why the estimable Howard Owens, who runs the digital side of GateHouse Media, has been so quiet about his company's ridiculous copyright suit against The New York Times Co. over the excerpting and linking to GateHouse stories by Boston.com's hyperlocal/local aggregation site, YourTown. Howard's once-active blog has been all but dormant lately, and his silence on the issue has been deafening–especially since he's the brains behind GateHouse's own hyperlocal/aggregation site, The Batavian.

Well, maybe we now know why Howard has been keeping quiet: He's smart enough to know that GateHouse' suit makes no sense. The Times Co., in responding to GateHouse' suit, has unearthed an internal e-mail written by Owens last fall that seems to support the exact sort of linking that GateHouse is trying to block.

In the e-mail, writing about links to GateHouse content from another site, Owens wrote:

Note that [a] headline, a few graphs and a link back to our site isn't a Creative Commons issue, but a fair use issue, and they would probably win on that one.

Compare what we do with thebatavian.com.

Ouch–if you're one of GateHouse' lawyers. Of course, Owens isn't a top officer of the company, and his e-mail could be dismissed as the personal opinion of someone without real authority to make corporate policy. But Owens is one of the top digital thinkers in the news business, so his opinion on this matter should carry a lot of weight. 

Moreover, at least one other e-mail from October obtained by the Times Co. shows another GateHouse digital executive telling the operator of Famboogle, another site aggregating GateHouse content, "We have no objection to Famboogle–or any other website–posting a headline and a line or two of text from a GateHouse story, so long as it is properly credited and links back to our site for the complete story." That, of course, was exactly what Boston.com was doing.

The e-mails in the Times's legal filings seem to support the supposition that there's internal division within GateHouse–possibly between the digital folks and the more traditional print executives–over this business of linking to and from other sites on the Internets. You know, the basic building block of the Web. The GateHouse printies don't seem to understand that this evil linking actually increases their traffic (and ad revenue), rather than stealing anything from them. 

I also have a feeling that GateHouse's legal action is, at its heart, an old-fashioned attempt to screw with a competitor, rather than a true attempt to establish some sort of legal precedent–though that may be an unfortunate outcome of the case. Interestingly, The New York Times Co. has countersued GateHouse, alleging that The Batavian has done the same thing with New York Times content, but that seems to be a defensive move designed to try to checkmate GateHouse. 

The case goes to trial soon; it probably would be preferable for the two sides to reach a face-saving settlement that allows linking, so that Howard Owens and the rest of us can go on trying to build the future, rather than stupidly trying to defend the past.

PS: The Nieman Journalism Lab and the Citizen Media Law Project have excellent overviews of the case.

Bargain Basement

Stat of the day, from Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson on FT.com:

The $5.6bn Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp paid in 2007 for Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal and several local papers, would now be sufficient to buy Gannett, the New York Times, McClatchy, Media General, Belo and Lee Enterprises, even at twice their current share prices.

Inside a Breaking-News Blog

Good piece here by my pal Chris Krewson, the Philadelphia Inquirer's executive editor-online, about how the Inky–and Philly.com–have found success with a local breaking-news blog. It's a good primer about how to do something simple and smart that readers love.