• When we read yesterday that Newsday had a total of 35 subscribers to its paywall-riddled Web site, we wondered how this could be. How could only 35 people who weren’t subscribed to Cablevision or the print product say, “I’m paying Newsday $5 a week for some of the best damn journalism to be found on Long Island!” So, we decided to find out why. ShortFormBlog is now Customer No. 36.

Subscription notes:

• one They don’t bill you right away or ask for your credit card. Instead, Newsday.com staff contacts you afterwards. This is stupid.
• two You have to give them your phone number. And the registration thing is written as if you live in New York state. We live in D.C., dudes.
• three Newsday gives you a huge list of ways you can receive news from them. This includes e-mail and SMS alerts. We signed up; hey, we paid for it!

Review of Newsday’s signup process:

• C- it clearly doesn’t understand how online commerce works source

• $635M the amount Cablevision paid for Newsday, the first newspaper the company’s ever owned
• three the number of months Newsday has been behind a strict $5-a-week paywall
• 35 the number of subscribers the site has; hahahahahahahah wtf these guys suck source

• Too often, conservative sites have failed to distinguish between solid scoops and feverish conspiracy theories, between methodical reporting and harassment, thereby damaging their credibility.
• Daily Beast columnist Benjamin Sarlin • Regarding the James O’Keefe arrest in the grander scheme of things. Which is to say that many conservative Web sites excel at opinion but completely fail at credible reporting. O’Keefe’s take on gonzo journalism is interesting, but definitely not ethical. And other conservative Web icons – including Powerline (which broke the Rathergate saga) and Michelle Malkin – have had shining moments but inconsistent results. BigGovernment.com, which paid O’Keefe, may now be headed down that road. Sarlin gives credit to Tucker Carlson of the just-launched Daily Caller for trying to raise the standards to the likes of The Huffington Post. Will it work? We’ll see. source

• one Five journalists will be locked away in a farmhouse in rural France for five days next month.
• two The journos will not have access to any form of mainstream media but Twitter and Facebook.
• three Among the sources banned: TV, radio, newspapers, smartphones and other Web sites.
• four The goal? To report what they see on social media, and to test the quality of the info. source

• The gray lady’s change from free to pay makes sense. Simply put, if there’s one newspaper in the U.S. that can blaze the trail for online pay walls and get it right, it’s the New York Times. Here’s why:

• one They’re big enough to take the kind of risks that smaller papers can’t.
• two They understand the Web better than most papers – there’s no tired cynicism here.
• three They get the sharing nature of the Web, and so does their planned model.
• four They’ve had a long history of online innovation already, such as Times Skimmer.
• five They have content that’s good enough that people will pay for it. Duh. source

• Our history Before we worked on ShortFormBlog, we worked at this great little publication called Bluffton Today (disclosure: we started this Wikipedia article), a pretty innovative small-town newspaper. The owner, Morris Publishing Group, has been very supportive of the idea, despite their recent financial struggles.
• Their troubles Morris, another victim of the recession, had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday. It’s a reorganization of debt – one that reportedly takes $278.5 million off the table – that they say will not affect their papers, employees or advertisers. They’d still remain on the hook for about $100 million in debt.
• fingers crossed While it’s likely Morris will survive this change in their corporate standing mostly unscathed, we do worry about Morris missing opportunities to do innovative things like Bluffton Today – or with their larger publications in Jacksonville, Fla. or Augusta, Ga. We have our fingers crossed for them – and our friends. source

• We need to make an important point here. (Note the graphic video.) Anderson Cooper saved a young boy’s life here. And this past weekend, Sanjay Gupta kept a hospital afloat. Other doctors and reporters are getting their hands dirty in helping out with one of the worst natural disasters in history. And yet, some media critics are giving them crap for daring to help. We need to clarify this to our readers here, as fellow journalists:

• one Being a journalist does not instantly mean that you stop caring about other human beings.
• two It’s easy to remain impartial when you’re not in a disaster zone like Cooper was.
• three Life and death is not the point where one brings up an ethical fight. It’s unavoidable.
• four CNN’s editors may be exploiting it, but we’d rather see reporters help out. source

• We’re in a megatransition. It hasn’t ever felt like anyone has the answer. My macro feeling is that I’m glad I had this job at this time. It was great working at the paper when it was on dead trees and could pay for itself.
• New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman • Discussing whether he feels new technology has shown a next path for journalism. It’s something his bosses are currently feeling significant pressure about. According to New York Magazine, the plan seems to be a change from free to pay, using a so-called “metered” system that requests payment based on usage. It’s akin to what the Financial Times does – read a few articles, and a pay wall finally comes up. Since we post a lot about the Times, for example, and think it’s a high-quality publication, we’d probably get a subscription. source

• Today’s a big day for ideological parity. Five years after Arianna Huffington launched “The Huffington Post,” Tucker Carlson‘s got his own toy, “The Daily Caller.” And we want to see it succeed, because we like Tucker (even when we dispute his politics). That said, bro, we have a few thoughts for you as you go forward. Let us know what you think.

• The design = meh We think that The Daily Caller has a lot of potential, but the font usage – Arial for the logo and typography, and the usage of Hobo here – leaves a lot to be desired. HuffPo’s design isn’t great either, but at least her serifs don’t anger the natives.
• We like S.E. Cupp In terms of conservative columnists, we’d pick Cupp any day of the week over Ann Coulter. More acerbic, but in the right ways. More fun, too. We’ll probably disagree with her, too, but she doesn’t make us want to destroy things like Coulter.
• Ideological smarts OK, we don’t buy the whole “conservative response to HuffPo” thing, but we do like the fact that you clearly aren’t afraid to show your biases. We need our journalism to be ideologically honest. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s definitely a good start.

• one Newspapers are wasting their time covering time-sensitive information long after it happened.
• two Websites should do some of their own reporting instead of relying on newspapers to do it for them.
• three Both sides should stop being angry at each other and find some freaking common ground. source