There’s an old saying that freedom of the press is limited to those who have one. Today, of course, practically everybody does have one, or can if he or she wants it. Wordpress is free; web sites are cheap. There’s no need to spend millions on offset printers and paper. Indeed, reporters who’ve lost their mainstream newspaper jobs are working happily — if not always prosperously — in web-based media.

Jack Shafer, in Slate Magazine (a web publication that’s figured it out) has an excellent story suggesting that this could actually turn out to be a good thing. I’m not convinced, but it’s worth reading. Click the headline for the full story.

Thanks to technology, we may be entering a golden age of journalism. – By Jack Shafer – Slate Magazine

If the downside of the battered-down barriers to entry is less pay and lower status, the potential upside is that a flood of new entrants into the field could portend a journalistic renaissance … journalism has generally benefited by increases in the number of competitors.

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After already cutting more than 10,000 jobs in the past two years, Gannett is preparing to cut at least 1,400 more. That’s what Division President Bob Dickey told employees in a memo published on the independent Gannett Blog. Dickey says most cuts will take place before July 9, and sources have been telling media like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that the chain’s two biggest papers — USA Today and Detroit Free Press — will be spared.

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Journalism Online, which is promoting its new payment system for online news, has signed a deal with ITZ Publishing to help it market its services to small- and medium-sized newspapers around the country. According to the announcement from the two companies, ITZ will track online audience usage patterns of its clients’ papers, and help them decide which Journalism Online pay strategies might work best.

It’s interesting that one of ITZ’s clients is the Dallas Morning News, which rebuffed Amazon’s bid to put the newspaper’s content on Kindle. (The Morning News felt the terms, with Amazon taking 70%, were unfavorable.)

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I haven’t seen the numbers yet, but there’s no doubt that the death of Michael Jackson has trumped the struggle for a fair election in Iran, as well as the global swine flu pandemic. I usually avoid discussing content, but I couldn’t resist in this case, because it has been years since we have made such a choice between the titillating and the important. What are the public policy implications of Jackson’s death? I can’t think of a single one.

The event has exposed all the weakness of 24-hour cable news, as the cable networks virtually abandoned regular programming to cover the non-story. That, of course, meant “reporting” on every rumor and tidbit with no sense of perspective or concern for accuracy.

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This one is called Journalism Online, and one plus is that readers could pay for multi-publication subscriptions based on specific types of content. For example, those interested in politics could buy a package that might include content from the Washington Post, New York Times and others. (I’m making that up. There are no specifics yet, probably because they’re just starting to talk to publishers.)

Of course, the whole business model calls for the entire industry adopting Journalism Online as the gateway to media. Don’t hold your breath. You can read about it at www.journalismonline.com.

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Editor & Publisher reports that the Associated Press has compiled a list of newspapers that have stopped printing at least one day per week in the last year. The number? Some 100 publications in 32 states, with a dozen in Ohio alone.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that The New York Times is considering a plan to charge for access from mobile devices, such as Blackberries and iPhones. We’ve been talking for a while about the potential for charging for Kindle subscriptions, which the NYT has been selling for a while.  Of all the plans for selling news, the ones that focus on handhelds (including Kindle and other e-readers) make the most sense. One justification (do they need one?) is that mobile sites offer fewer advertising opportunities, so they’re giving away the news without advertisers to pay the freight.

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Just days after slashing its domestic payroll, MySpace announced approximately 300 layoffs outside the United States, bringing the total workforce from 1,950 to 1,150. The company has seen advertising revenues drop sharply as more users have moved to Facebook, which has positioned itself as the dominant site for personal and business networking.

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Editor & Publisher reports that the amount of time people spend on newspaper web sites is “stuck in neutral if not reverse.” Of the 30 top newspaper sites, the average time spent at 17 of them declined in May 2009 vs. May 2008. Most of the declines were modest — some just a few seconds. For example, the New York Times time online went from 28:52 to 27.34, and USA Today went from 13 minutes to 12 minutes and 11 seconds. Time spent at the Washington Post dropped more significantly, from 16:04 to 10:58. But let’s remember that last May, we were in the middle of a heated presidential election, and The Washington Post is a top destination for political news. And some were up considerably, including the San Francisco Chronicle.

The most interesting result to me was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which saw user time drop by about half even though the print version was no longer available in May 2009. Is that a signal that the print product supports the online version?

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I don’t do causes, but because of www.overcoffeemedia.com’s focus on media, I cannot avoid encouraging solidarity with the people in Iran who are seeking to communicate with each other and the world about what is happening in their country.

We must never forget that open communication within a society always supports freedom in the long run, whereas suppression serves tyranny. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians are protesting peacefully to demand that their votes be properly counted. In response, the government has shut down foreign reporting and sought to block access to networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. CNN Story.

There is, of course, precious little we can do. But one step I am taking is changing my time zone on Twitter and other social networks to GMT+03:30 (to match the Tehran time zone). What’s the point? One way the Iranian government hackers are seeking to block Iranians’ communications via Twitter, Facebook and other social networks is by searching for users that appear to be inside of Iran, and the time zone is a major tool they are using.

Do I think it will help? Not really, but some smart people believe that doing so may help provide “cover” for Iranians using the Internet to communicate with each other and to smuggle accounts, photos and videos to the world. If nothing else, I’ll be letting them know they have one more friend. Think of it as an online equivalent to the wonderful scene from the movie, V for Vendetta, when the masses don masks to make the hero impossible to identify.

Finally, there is one other step we can take on Twitter. When you see a credible tweet pointing to an information feed from Iran, consider retweeting it. Yes, I know it’ll use bandwidth and annoy some people. And of course, it could result in some of my own Internet communications being blocked for a while. But hopefully it’s just for a few days, and it just might help keep the information flowing.

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We haven’t heard a lot from the magazines lately, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that they’re getting thinner. And Newsweek says it will skip an issue in August. Since the magazine has traditionally skipped an issue in August anyway, that’ll make it a biweekly for the month.

Meanwhile, how does one explain the remarkable success of The Economist? According to Michael Hirschorn’s excellent article in the current Atlantic, The Economist’s ad revenues rose 25 percent in 2008, while Newsweek’s fell by 27 percent and Time’s fell by 14 percent. Most amazing of all is that The Economist has focused almost entirely on its print product, with a clumsy and disorganized web presence. Continue Reading »

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