Here's the stuff I found interesting and noteworthy over past 12 months. It's kind-of, sort-of in order. But right now, I'm building it as a stream-of-consciousness thang. Consider it a work in progress.
1. Conrad Black gets convicted
Lord Black of Non-Competes dodges nine bullets, gets hit with four, and pronounces that they're only flesh wounds.
At the time of the trial, I thought the California deal would be a problem for him, as would be the obstruction charge. Turned out I was right (even stopped clocks ...)
He gets a 78-month sentence, likely in a Florida prison. By my calculation, that's equivalent to a 13.75-year sentence in Canada -- and there's no way he would have gotten anywhere near that severe a sentence in this country.
2. The public-interest test comes to Canadian libel law
In Cusson vs. Ottawa Citizen et al, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that if a news outlet was acting in according with the standards of responsible journalism, it has a defence in a libel or defamation action even if it got some of its facts wrong.
This doesn't go as far as the Sullivan v. NYT ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, which established an "absence of malice" test, but it is a big step forward and should lead to more robust investigative reporting in Canada, if other province courts of appeal follow the decision.
3. Loophole opened for foreign investment in Canadian broadcasting companies
CanWest's $1.5-billion takeover of Alliance Atlantis was sanctioned by the CRTC, despite the fact it is mostly financed by Goldman Sachs, a U.S. investment bank. CanWest is only putting up $262 million. Goldman Sachs and debt financing accounted for the rest.
According to a Dec. 21 Globe and Mail story, foreign interests aren't allowed to hold more than a one-third stake in a holding company that controls a Canadian broadcaster. From that story:
"We are satisfied that this transaction meets the requirements for Canadian control both in law and fact," CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said in a statement.
"In examining the application, we wanted to be certain that this transaction is consistent with the policies set out in the Broadcasting Act."
4. Collapsing paywalls
In January, I noticed globeandmail.com started allowing five- and six-days-per-week newspaper subscribers to see opinion content on the Web site -- how nice of them, considering those individuals had already paid to read the same content in the paper and were being asked to pony up seven bucks per month for the privilege of reading them online.
The bomb really went off when nytimes.com dropped its Times Select program altogether.
Rupert Murdoch, new owner of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, hinted that wsj.com might lose its paywall.
Globe and Mail editor Edward Greenspon hinted this fall that his organization may yet move in that direction.
5. The incredible shrinking U.S. newspaper business
In 2007, news about newspapers shedding journalism jobs became depressingly routine. Revenues dropped, ostensibly because of advertisers shifting to the Web, but then came the depressing news this fall that newspapers' online ops weren't necessarily seeing a revenue bump.
I don't think Canadian newsrooms saw the same carnage, but sadly, it could yet come.
To finish the year off, here's an excerpt from a Dec. 28 Seattle Times story: (h/t to Romenesko)
The Seattle Times faces "the most difficult and painful downsizing" in its history next year as millions of advertising dollars continue shifting to the Web, Times Publisher Frank Blethen told employees Thursday in an unusually blunt internal memo. ...
The options are selling the paper, closing its doors or transforming the business "to a smaller, more focused organization. ... "
"For better or worse, my family has chosen door number three," he wrote.
6. CanWest moves to centralize newspaper page production
CanWest announced plans this fall to have some page layout work done centrally at a non-union CanWest Editorial Services shop in Hamilton, Ont. This was expected to reduce the combined Vancouver Sun-Province newsroom headcount by 30, or slightly more than 10 per cent.
From a Nov. 8 Tyee article:
Enthusing about the future of the Sun on various cyber "platforms," (editor-in-chief Patricia) Graham told her staff, "This is no longer a newspaper. It's a newsroom."
7. The sometimes zany world of user-generated content
KFTY-TV, a tiny station in Santa Rosa, Calif., gasses its newsroom and launches an experiment to cover the news with user-generated content.
Robert Niles of Online Journalism Review wrote the following on Jan. 8:
One might think that thousands of failed newspaper dot-com discussion boards from the 1990s would have taught the everyone in the industry that "if you build it, and don't staff it, at best, a few wackos will show." But some managers and investors continue to cling to a new media business model that reads like something written by the "South Park" underpants gnomes:
Step 1. Install discussion/blog software.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!
One operation that collapsed was backfence, a "hyperlocal" citizen journalism venture. Writing in OJR, Tom Grubisich argued that such operations could well succeed. However, he made the heretical recommendation that citizen contributors be paid.
What kind of friggin' business model is that? :^)
If Adam Smith and Ricardo were even half right, compensation is also likely to produce higher value content, especially if experienced, passionate editors and experienced, passionate contributors are working in sync finding out what makes their community tick, what makes it proud but also sometimes angry about various pieces of the hometown mosaic.
In his otherwise unpersuasive apologia, Backfence co-founder Mark Potts made the excellent suggestion that entrepreneurial grassroots sites try to hook up with major media companies. Newspapers, struggling to find their place in the Web world, are plunging into hyperlocal, but the results so far are journalistic Velveeta. The missing flavor – the tang – will not be delivered by the creators of Scripps' YourHub, Tribune's TribLocal or even the Washington Post's snazzy new LoudounExtra, but by journalistic entrepreneurs who have the right instinct for connecting with the inner being of communities.
On July 17, Pegasus News, the hyperlocal that covers more than 120 neighborhoods in Dallas/Fort Worth with a sassy brand of "pro-am" user-tailored content, announced it had been acquired by the Seattle-based Fisher Communications, which owns 19 TV and eight radio stations in the Pacific Northwest. With his hands-on editorial strategy, Pegasus founder Mike Orren is 180-degrees opposite what Potts and his let-the-community-decide team stood for – a lesson, perhaps, for would-be hyperlocal entrepreneurs.
8. Offshoring journalism jobs
Firing your staff and having locals do free reporting for you isn't the only way to cut costs. Reuters had Indian journalists covering some basic U.S. financial stories.
From a Feb. 2 BBC story:
These Indian financial journalists can be employed by Reuters for a fraction of the cost of employing a journalist at their New York office.
Reuters Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger, says that the move meant that they could broaden their coverage of US companies without incurring crippling costs.
He was able to hire 100 new journalists in Bangalore without in any way reducing the size of his New York office.*
* Note: I've seen some say that Reuters started experimenting with offshoring in 2004.
The World Association of Newspapers says get used to such offshoring.
Many American newspapers, facing severe cost pressures, are looking to outsource many of their key functions to India.
Recent moves have included:
- Columbus Dispatch: Ohio newspaper outsourced 90 jobs in advertising design to Affinity Express in Pune, India
- Dallas Morning News: IT computer support outsourced to India
- Knight Ridder Group: Considered outsourcing its copy editing to India in 2006, before being taken over by McClatchy
According to the World Association of Newspapers, the trend is gathering strength.
In a report published last year, the organisation said that "whatever the risks and benefits, outsourcing is here to stay".
"The newspaper industry has only taken tentative steps into outsourcing what was once considered core competencies such as editorial, advertising, and circulation. But the trend is gaining momentum," it added.
But, back to the absurd for a moment. PasadenaNow wanted to have Indian reporters cover city council meetings in Pasadena by monitoring webcasts and whatnot.
Mark Glaser of PBS's MediaShift wrote about this and offered some reasons why it wouldn't work. He also cited this bon mot from writer Barbara Ehrenreich, who said that what PasadenaNow was proposing isn't that different from “what New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was fired for -- pretending to report from sites around the country while he was actually holed up in his Brooklyn apartment.”