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New York Times

The New and Glossy People of Blogland

by Elena on April 1, 2010

Death of Print

Have you canceled your magazine subscriptions?  Are magazines starting to send you their glossy pages for free?  I smell anxiety, but this is no surprise to many people in the publishing world.  I seem to rattle on about the subject quite a bit, but as a writer I can’t help but obsess about every article that comes out on the subject.

Yesterday The New York Times featured an article on its front page about The Rising Stars of Gossip Blogs.  When people hear gossip writing, many raise their noses in the air, like they once did, or still do, about blogging.  But these same haughty nosed people may beg, steal, or borrow to have the type of success some of these gossip bloggers have had.  The article’s author Alex Williams comments on the tipping point when bloggers went from people airing their dirty laundry on the web, to people pursuing a real writing career.

The lines between “reporter” and “blogger,” “gossip” and “news” have blurred almost beyond distinction. No longer is blogging something that marginalized editorial wannabes do from home, in a bathrobe, because they haven’t found a “real” job. Blogging now is a career path in its own right, offering visibility, influence and an actual paycheck.

The elusive paycheck, however isn’t what drives many a blogger, especially in this new and shiny blogland where a lot of online magazines and blogs don’t have the money to pay writers for their work.  On the other hand, the online landscape is opening up lots of other doors for people to be innovative and create opportunities for themselves.  Like a lot of other careers it takes a mix of talent and luck, with the scales tipping to one side more than the other depending on the person.

Although the article focuses on gossip blogs, the same can be said about all types of blogs.  Bloggers and blogging sites have changed publishing in ways that makes even The New York Times suffer.  Remember when The Times decided that it will start to charge it’s readers?  Now they feature on their online frontpage, an article about the very people who have severely cramped traditional media’s style.  Isn’t it ironic, in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word, that many of these nontraditional writers/bloggers rise to success without so much as stepping in a newsroom?

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Will You Pay for Your News? The New York Times Is Counting on It

by Elena on January 23, 2010

New York Times Building in ManhattanWe are a spoiled bunch.  With just the punch of the enter button on your keyboard you are seconds away from the answer to any question you may have.  How much does it cost to buy a condo in Long Island City?  How many calories are in kumquats? What the heck is ROI? Online users are accustomed to unlimited access to free information on the web.  With social networking sites like Twitter, it is possible to get updates on the latest news events, in 140 characters or less.  This is a small part of the reason why the New York Times’ new business plan is causing such a stir.  The New York Times plans to charge its most loyal readers, readers who will not doubt go over the set amount of free articles each month.  Don’t worry just yet; the plan won’t kick in until 2011.

From a purely business standpoint it makes sense that a newspaper of the Times’ size would charge people to read its content, but as we know, the online world works differently than the print world.  If you want the print version sent to your door everyday, you expect to pay for it; however if you want to read the online version every morning before you check your email, you expect it to be free.  I mean why not?  Most everything else is free online.

The prevalent business model for online media has generally been to offer free content to readers and to rely on advertising dollars in order to stay afloat.  This has put some strain on well-established and new publications alike.  Staff writers get cut and freelance writers make less money, hence the reason most writers are turning to unconventional methods to support themselves.  There is no doubt that media is changing, as it has many times before, people just have to figure out a way to change with it.  The question is, how do we do it?

While publications are suffering in general, The New York Times is of course very different than your small local paper or your daily blog reads.  It is much more costly to run such a huge operation, with reporters all over the world, as well as writers, editors, line editors, deliverymen, and distributors.  As Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research states, Google ads can’t pay for everything:

The notion that the enormous cost of real news-gathering might be supported by the ad load of display advertising down the side of the page, or by the revenue share from having a Google search box in the corner of the page, or even by a 15-second teaser from Geico prior to a news clip, is idiotic on its face.

He is right.  It is crazy to think that the high cost of maintaining such an operation can be covered by advertising, and if it can’t, how else can it support its daily operation?  David Firestone, a deputy national news editor elaborates this point.  “As painful as it will be at the beginning, we have to get rid of the notion that high-quality news comes free.”

The New York Times is worried about many things.  Their biggest worry is simply whether or not people are willing to pay for their news.  The changes won’t affect the occasional reader who stumbles upon an article after searching Google News, but rather the avid readers of the Times who return day after day.  Will these readers turn their back on the publication?  Another worry is of course ad dollars.  If the paper loses some of its audience, it will inevitably lose some advertising dollars.  It is risky, but with revenues down, they have to do something.

Some publications have found success in charging their readers.  Cook’s Illustrated charges its readers for unlimited access to their database of recipes.  If you check out their website you will notice something very strange.  There is absolutely no outside advertising, yet they were able to grow 30% in 2008.  This strategy works well for niche markets, but the Times is not for a niche market with its breadth of topics and news stories.  The Times will have to find a balance between subscribers and advertising.

Now this begs the question, would you pay for high quality news or other high profile news sources like the New York Times?  Sure people may say that they will pay, but when the time comes will they really pay up, or will they be looking elsewhere to get their news fix?  Other papers currently use the paywall method, such as the Wall Street Journal and Newsday.  The Times has tried to charge its online readers in the past, without much success.  From 2005 to 2007 the newspaper started TimesSelect which charged for its editorials and columns.  Columnists such as Maureen Dowd and Tom Friedman began to complain about their drop in readership.  Friedman noted that reader’s abroad, in particular readers from China and India, stopped reading his content because it became too expensive, especially for a country where $50 is a huge investment.

On a personal level I can relate to both sides of the argument.  Out of pure selfishness, I understand the draw of free content.  Times are rough and I want as much free information as the next guy.  As a writer who has been in contact with many publications that are having a hard time paying its contributors, I understand the importance of paying for high quality content.  I also believe that if a product is remarkable, then people will pay for it.  You may lose some consumers here and there, but it seems absurd to continue offering free products forever.

One thing that is certain in our information saturated world, industries are changing and little good has come from freaking out.  The music industry didn’t gain much from trying to sue every person that downloaded music illegally, and while it’s true that the music industry is struggling, products such as iTunes and Pandora has managed to keep people paying for their music.  We can stream free movies online, but that hasn’t stopped people from going to see movies on the big screen (Avatar already topped 500 million in the US).  Late night television has suffered in the ratings (such as Conan) because of its ever fickle audience; however other shows (even some non reality shows) have managed to gain large popularity by breaking the mold, such as Fox’s Glee.  What companies need to do is figure out new ways to reach consumers and hold their attention, which may be easier said than done, what with all the options we have to chose from.  Despite the blogs and new sites popping up, there is still space for a respected and high quality news outlet like the Times, where reporters are at the scene and are expected to exemplify a certain quality of excellence, even though they too make mistakes.  I don’t see this type of reporting changing anytime soon.

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The Fall and Rise of Media

by Elena on December 1, 2009

New Media Tag CloudMedia and print journalism traditionally are difficult industries to enter.  Most prospective employees have numerous unpaid internships under their belt.  They work countless hours each day, often for very little compensation.  The stereotype of the lowly intern getting coffee for the reporters in the newsroom has been true for some time.  He pushes through piles of paperwork before getting a single word he’s written printed anywhere.  Times are a changing however, and the media world is changing as well, bringing new obstacles that bright eyed college graduates can anticipate.

David Carr of The New York Times recently wrote an inspiring article about the changes affecting the media landscape.  Any writer and editor knows the tribulations that print media is encountering.  More and more magazines fold each month, revenues are down, spending is down, and each magazine seem slimmer than the previous year.  Postings on ed2010.com have gone from lots of promising jobs at glossy mags, to the current array of dubious positions at new online magazines.  The reason: glossy mags aren’t hiring anymore, and when you do come across the open positions, the competition is fierce.

While these changes may seem difficult at first, they are just the progression of a malleable medium.  Media has always changed and grown.  What Carr recognizes is that people are finding other ways to find success in this industry.

For every kid that I bump into who is wandering the media industry looking for an entrance that closed some time ago, I come across another who is a bundle of ideas, energy and technological mastery. The next wave is not just knocking on doors, but seeking to knock them down.

Somewhere down in the Flatiron, out in Brooklyn, over in Queens or up in Harlem, cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful. They are jaded in the way youth requires, but have the confidence that is a gift of their age as well.

It is no longer a privilege of the few in the industry.  People with something to say can do so rather easily.  The question is how do they get people to listen?

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