The grainy photo to the left shows you a brave last stand.
It was taken on a recent morning in my Manhattan apartment hallway, with a cellphone camera (hence the bad lighting, poor depth of field, etc.). It shows home-delivered newspapers outside all seven apartments, including two outside mine, the one on the far left corner.
At a time of plummeting newspaper circulation (it fell 2.6 percent during the six months ending in September, even as online readership of newspaper sites rose 11 percent, more than triple the growth rate of the Internet as a whole), I like to think my neighbors and I are, without ever talking about it, fighting the good fight.
But what makes it a good fight? Are newspapers worth saving? Why do I, Web guy, pay for two sets of printed newspapers every morning?
These questions were on my mind as I organized a panel earlier this month at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism called “The Changing Media Landscape, 2005.” Presented with the Hearst Foundation as part of the Columbia Journalism Dialogues program, the idea was to gather journalists and media influencers and take stock of the revolution around us.
We brought together four veteran journalists — Len Apcar, editor in chief, NYTimes.com; Andrea Panciera, editor, ProJo.com; Jeff Gralnick, NBC News special consultant; James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com — and someone whose popular creation causes endless panic among some journalists: Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.
You can read a text report by Miki Johnson on Editor & Publisher‘s Web site or see video from the Columbia site, but to give you a better feel for the conversation and to see some intriguing presentation techniques, I turned to Poynter’s Larry Larsen. Working with an audio recording and photos by student Rebecca Castillo, Larry made some of his usual magic.
The results include:
- A Flash-based version of the discussion. In addition to listening to the conversation, you can see photos and a guide to its major sections.
- An MP3 file you can download to your portable device. Think of it as a one-time podcast.
- A PocketMod of the discussion’s sections. What’s a PocketMod? It’s a neat, free way to generate printed material you want to take with you. It folds up in book form and is roughly the same size as an iPod. See PocketMod.com for details.
Of course, many of you are familiar with these techniques. But for the rest of you, this might be a good opportunity to experience some of the new technology while learning about a topic you should care about.
An amusing new/old media moment happened while I was moderating the panel. I got a question from former student and ABCNews.com producer Jen Brown via text message. I then, bravely, gave out my cellphone number to the whole audience, asking them to “text me” their questions. It worked too well. I got so caught up in asking questions from the cell, that I ignored for too long the questioners who were standing patiently by the audience mics.
The media revolution is also something under close scrutiny in the Newspaper Next project at the American Press Institute, a task force on which I am about to serve. It’s a $2 million initiative to test new business models for newspapers. In response to its announcement, a comment on the always interesting BuzzMachine.com blog caught my eye: “The analogy I always return to is the failure of railroad companies to realize that they could have been in the transportation business, rather than the railroad business.”
As journalists, if we can figure out what business we are really in — the newspaper business, the TV news business, the magazine business, or the-getting-people-news-and-information-in-all-kinds-of-formats business — we might just survive this revolution.
Please send me your feedback to anything above or to anything you hear on the panel discussion via poynter@sree.net or by posting your comments here.
NOTE: WEB TIPS FRAPPR PROJECT — One new-ish trend that’s part of the revolution is the collaborative gathering and display of information. I had been wanting to do a Web Tip on this, but didn’t have a good way to show how this works. Now I do. Please go to http://www.frappr.com/poynterwebtips and help us do an exercise in collaborative media.
On the right, click on “add yourself.”
If you live in the U.S., put in your name and zip code. Attach a photo (if you wish — optional!). Remove the “Create a Frappr Account for me” (if you don’t want one) by clicking on checkbox. Hit “Add Me.”
If you live outside the U.S., put in your name, then click on “Not in the U.S.? Click Here.” Start typing your city and a menu with your city should show up. Attach a photo (if you wish — optional!). Remove the “Create a Frappr Account for me” (if you don’t want one) by clicking on checkbox. Hit “Add Me.”
We can watch this little project grow in the months ahead. Meanwhile, I am still working on my follow-up column about Social Networking for Journalists and looking to connect with readers at LinkedIn.com.
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