What I'm reading....

I regularly forward some articles I read to a former boss of mine. He asked where I get this stuff...and then wanted me to forward everything. So instead I guess I'll try --- once again --- to start posting some of the things I'm reading. We'll see.

1) "The newspaper industry has a devastating history of letting the future of media slip from its grasp." (Via Romenesko).
2) "In the coming year, expect a lot of papers to eliminate money-losing Monday, Tuesday and Saturday editions, dump their classified advertising sections and combine forces with rivals or outsource overseas." According to this post, all options are on the table. Too bad newspaper executives didn't a sense of urgency a few years ago.
3) What is it you do here again?

Abrams and the Kool-Aid

Lee Abrams has taken a beating recently in the newspaper-watching blog-o-sphere. A few Tribune watchers, like Tell Zell, are particularly angry (rightfully so, no doubt) with the leveraged buyout that has left the company saddled with massive debt amid declining revenues.

But Abrams seems like a decent guy. And I think he's trying. His MEMOS with random CAPITALIZATION, misspellings, and talk of 2x4s have made for comic relief in a time when the ax is hanging over our heads.

That being said, and maybe I'm drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, but it's tough not to agree with this.

"Trying something different, even if it seems nutty, is far preferable to stubbornly going down with the ship."

This blogger points toward another blogger, Bob Lefsetz, "a former industry executive who delights in pointing out how record companies, led by ossified management, have been totally eclipsed by the Internet and changing technology to the point where they're in danger of going out of business."

This guy's entry turns toward the newspaper industry.

"In other words, you can’t find the stories online. Steve Jobs’ mantra? Usability? It’s absent from each and every newspaper site except for the Wall Street Journal’s."

By the way, this has been a complaint of mine for a long time: I hate newspaper Web sites. I can't find anything. Ever. They're clouded with all kinds of nonsense. Sites make it miserably hard to find anything.

On that note, has anyone seen the redesigned Moonie Washington Times? Kind of an interesting approach.

I digress.

Anyways, this guy goes on:

"If those running the newspapers were so damn smart, they wouldn’t be in this predicament. Lee Abrams is looking to save their business. Whereas the Netizens are looking to kill it."

I think there's some valid points in what this guy has to say. But where I relate is how newspaper owners completely failed to adapt or change. For that matter, I think it sometimes applies to newsroom management, as well.

I can remember proposing blogs to a newsroom manager at another employer back in 2002, 2003 --- sometime in that era. I was laughed off with a variety of excuses of how it would blur the lines between news and opinion, etc.

"No one cares about blogs," an editor once told me.

Now I'm not proposing blogs were the end-all, be-all, by any means. Heck, half the blogs out there are just regurgitation of facts spilled out from a reporter's notebook with no personality. Doesn't make me want to read.

But my point?

We. Were. A. Monopoly. Who. Got. Our. Ass. Kicked. By. Sitting. Still. And. Pretending. Things. Would. Always. Be. The. Same.

And now, here are we. We're canning people left and right. And while it sucks that reporters are getting punished for the misdeeds of their owners (isn't it always the worker bees who get pummeled while the failed CEO trots off with millions?), maybe the owners are getting what they've long deserved --- welcome to competing.

It's time to sack up and innovate or go home, owners. What will you do?

Case for a JOA?

Interesting idea in this article here....don't know what to think about it.

"Any form of collaboration in south Florida would unhinge the proud staffs of the Herald and Sun-Sentinel, who have competed fiercely against each another forever. But things are getting so grim that there may be no other choice."

Talk about depressing...

So props to Danny Sanchez up in Orlando for giving us this great list of newspaper-related blogs.

But it's like a death watch. Especially here at Tribune Co.

One article is particularly scary.

It's tough to work when you're thinking about whether your company is going to pay its bills.

So it makes me wonder what's next? It's no secret the Sun-Sentinel is having layoffs, along with all our other Tribune papers. But what happens if we default on our loans? I'm no business lawyer, so it'd be nice to know what happens. Does that mean bankruptcy? Does it means we get the bankers to restructure the debt? What?

So could this only get worse?

The impending deals....

Great read from Reflections of a Newsosaur.

"In the last five decades, newspapers came to be run by bean counters and soothsayers whose idea of leadership was to do everything possible to ensure that the operating performance of their companies never varied from between 9.8 to 10.2 on a 10-point scale of predictability. For the most part, the top industry jobs came to be populated by people more skilled at managing than innovating – and who, despite their formidable analytical, administrative and public relations skills, had no more feel for newspapering than for running tire stores or meat-packing plants."

How many of you have had this conversation? I know I did in a past job.

Me: Why can't we do this?
Management: Because we've never done that here.
Me: But X paper did it and they flew off the racks.
Management: We don't do that here.
Me: Online clicks will skyrocket.
Management: But we don't do that here.
Me: Why?
Management: Because.

And what a good thing to see....

William Hartnett, CAR specialist at the Palm Beach Post, points out a fine follow-up to an earlier post of mine.

And it was right under my nose. A nod to him for doing my work for me.

The Sun-Sentinel is hunting a municipal reporter to cover Pompano Beach, where yours truly lives.

"Spanish skills as well as knowledge of computer-assisted reporting are preferred."

I like.

Even daily reporters need CAR....

Joey Senat, a media law and public affairs reporting professor at Oklahoma State University's journalism school, always told us to stay in a public records state of mind.

In today's world, we need to take it a step along. We need to also stay in a data state of mind.

Ziva Branstetter, projects editor at the Tulsa World, once told a panel I attended that the best ideas for investigations typically spring up from beat reporters. I think it's the same way with CAR stories.

I've always preached that all beat reporters need data skills.

When I first arrived at the Sun-Sentinel earlier this month, one of the first people who e-mailed me was Mc Nelly Torres, who I'd seen around at several IRE and/or NICAR conferences. Mc Nelly, a member of the consumer watchdog team here at the paper, had done some neat analysis of gas pump inspections in south Florida.

"In South Florida, 34 percent of the gas stations inspected in the past
three years had at least one gas pump that failed accuracy tests used to determine if the devices are giving consumers the correct amount of gas they pay for, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis found."

Mc Nelly produced a great Sunday p1 by requesting the data from the Florida agency with oversight. She knew not only how to get the data, but how to analyze it.

Newspapers across America are spending an awful lot of money training reporters how to get audio and video, and then how to edit it. But aren't newspapers missing the boat by forgetting about content? It doesn't matter what kind of equipment you have or how much audio/video is on the Web site if the content isn't there.

Isn't that what we dislike about TV? All flash but no content?

CAR skills aren't hard to pick up. It just takes time and some monetary commitment from organizations.

Steve Lackmeyer, one of the finest reporters around, is old school. He's a shoe leather guy. But Lackmeyer recognized CAR skills aren't a substitute for shoe leather reporting --- they show you how and where to do better shoe leather reporting.

Lackmeyer, a mentor of mine at The Oklahoman, went to NICAR with me in Denver. He went through some of the boot camp stuff on Access and Excel. He came out excited.

"I can do this!"

This after just a couple hours of training.

I hope the industry doesn't forget that content is the No. 1 issue. Without content, we have nothing.

And I can make a great case that CAR skills will pay off big for beat reporters and the content they produce.

Mc Nelly's story proves it.

What this place is about....

Apparently I don't have enough to do.

So today, I'm trying out a new blog. This is on top of my other site.

I wanted a place where I could talk about journalism.

Journalism Bull is a nod to the stock market. I'm not ready to hang up the cleats on journalism because of the Internet. A friend of mine, who admittedly is a lot smarter than me when it comes to these types of things, tells me he's a bear on the industry. But maybe we're talking Xs and Os.

He was talking about newspapers. I'm talking about journalism. Then again, I don't think the buzzards are circling around newspapers just yet, either.

But it won't take long if we aren't careful. Chalk it up to cheerleading, if you want.

As for journalism, I think the Internet is great for journalism. It provides us a medium to do things print couldn't --- and expand on topics that newspapers prevented because of space reasons.

You'll probably see me talk about data and its role in journalism a lot --- mainly because that's what I do.

So, at risk of rambling with no point and boring you, here we go....