As U.S. newspapers scramble to cut costs in the face of falling advertising, a handful have announced plans to outsource copyediting and page layout to editorial services firms in India. This has sparked a tremendous debate within the newspaper business. While one side argues that there’s no way something as connected to local language, geography, […]
Around the Web: LA Times layoffs, favorite magazines, fewer analysts
Tidbits on the news and publishing business from the past week: Life after layoffs – The Los Angeles Times announced last week it is cutting 150 newsroom jobs. It didn’t take long for lists of who’s leaving to appear on news industry blogs, including Tell Zell, and Ricochet, Chrys Wu’s blog for online news practitioners. […]
Can ProPublica be the public interest watchdog of online news?
While newspapers and magazines continue to lose some of their best writers to downsizing and other cutbacks, one news organization has been building up staff with the hope of becoming the preeminent investigative news source online. The organization is ProPublica, a privately-funded public-interest news Website that opened for business earlier this summer. ProPublica aims to […]
Good reads on changes in online news business
To start the week, here’s a round up of recent stories about happenings in the online news business: CJR on NY Times’ online holdings – The cover story of the July/August issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, Sulzberger at the Barricades: Can Arthur Sulzberger Jr. transform The New York Times for the digital age? reveals […]
Top 10 things writers want from PR people
It’s popular for writers to look down on PR people. The stereotypical media relations representative is inexperienced, doesn’t know one publication from another, hasn’t a clue about how the news business works, and actually makes it harder to get through to a source. While that’s an exaggeration, it’s still true that in many cases the […]
Newspaper industry: worst of times, or best?
To paraphrase Dickens, it is the best of times and the worst of times for the newspapers business. The worst of times: layoffs, more every day including downsizing at some of the country’s biggest papers. Just yesterday, the Los Angeles Times said it was cutting 250 jobs, including 150 in the newsroom, bringing its total […]