• Why? Because they say we can’t. The Japanese business newspaper is following the lead of a lot of newspapers worldwide by adding a paywall, but their paywall is way beyond that of, say, the Wall Street Journal. First, you have to submit a written application to link to the site (which we didn’t do). And second, they’ve gone and disabled the copy function on their site. Why? Because they’ve seen American papers open the floodgates and lose readership as a result. source

• “If you don’t have us around, we’ll break your leg.” Journalism is an interesting beast these days. There’s more of it going on than ever, but not nearly as much of the kind that is truly helpful to the community. But we can probably all agree that scare tactics won’t convince people to start reading the paper again. It’s journalism’s job to innovate, not the other way around.

• there’s a point here As poorly as this ad puts it, it does have a point. The nitty gritty of the journalism process is in severe danger of going away. The low-paid scab reporter who willingly covers boring but necessary city council meetings? There’s no equivalent of him or her in the blogosphere (at least not with a paycheck for their work). Local journalism is at a real turning point.
• proving its worth The problem, though, is local news outlets are generally really bad at explaining this point, and when they do, it’s really heavy-handed (see the subway ad above). So, what’s next? We’re guessing one of two things need to happen: One, it needs to be community-supported on a non-profit basis (see MinnPost), or two, it needs to truly innovate. Or both.
• will the iPad help? Tomorrow, many large papers, from USA Today to The New York Times, will release apps to coincide with the release of the iPad. From a outsider’s standpoint, they look great (especially the USA Today one). But really, we want to see what mid-sized dailies will do. USA Today won’t go away. The Kalamazoo Gazette might. And, honestly, we need it more. source

• £1 for a day of Times or Sunday Times of London; thank Rupert Murdoch
• £2 for a week of the same thing; oh yeah, you can try them out first for free or something source

• Were the job cuts needed? After a report came out yesterday on the unofficial Gannett Blog noting the executive pay of the company’s chief executives, there’s definitely some deserved anger due to the number of layoffs that the newspaper company had. Truth is, though, their salaries, while high, are only a dent in a much larger pie, and from one perspective, they did their jobs well.

Executive salaries vs. 2009 job cuts

• 6,000 number of jobs that were lost throughout the company in 2009 through cuts and layoffs; many workers were also furloughed
• $4.7M the amount Gannett’s chairman and CEO, Craig Dubow, made in 2009, up $1.6 million from 2008 (including a $1.5 million bonus)
• $4M the amount president and COO (and former CFO) Gracia Martore made in 2009, up $2.6 million from 2008 (with a $950,000 bonus)

Would lower executive pay help? Not really

• $240M the amount the laid-off workers’ collective salaries would be if they were each paid $40,000 per year, around average for journalists (though some are paid higher)
• $700 the amount each laid-off worker would get if that $4.2 million difference between 2008 and 2009 executive pay was spread out evenly amongst them

Where the cuts helped most: Stock prices

• 907% the increase in stock price since 2009

Uncomfortable reality

• » The business consideration: Truth of the matter is, from an investing and financial perspective, Craig Dubow and Gracia Martore look very smart for cutting off some of the dead wood, even if it screwed over thousands of journalists as a result.
• » The real problem? Same as many other newspaper conglomerates: Gannett’s simply too big. It holds jurisdiction over many markets large and small, and as a result of heavy debt burdens from the financial crisis, it and companies like it, including McClatchy and Tribune, have had to make some tough decisions to protect the whole beast. Seems like all these mergers and buyouts had the effect of damaging local newspapers and local journalism. Financial sense and editorial sense are two different senses. source

• We blame Lee Abrams, right. Our friends at the Newport News, Va. Daily Press got some awful news this week, when they found out that much of their paper’s copy-editing and design facilities would be outsourced to the Tribune Corp. mothership in Chicago. 10 percent of their newsroom staff will get laid off as a result of this. Lee Abrams, above, is responsible for starting something similar with the radio industry. So, here’s a brief explanation of what’s up with the Daily Press:

• Tribune is bankrupt The iconic media company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Hartford Courant and a ton of other major regional newspapers, is trying to cut costs whereever they can. So as a result, they’re trying to outsource where they can.
• slippery slope Tribune has already been down this road with many of their papers – they started doing a modular system for many of the inside pages of their papers last year. The result of what’s happening to the Daily Press is something of an extreme case of the process.
• Abrams is the point guy As the Chief Innovation Officer of Tribune, many of these changes happened due to his influence. He’s done this before. He invented the tools used to eventually turn radio into a soulless wasteland. Sure, he has XM under his belt, but his story’s already been written.

Turning news into Clear Channel

• This is a model that, particularly in smaller markets, although I can see it in larger markets as well, can change the economics of the newspaper business the same way Clear Channel changed the economics of … the radio business.
• Daily Press President and Chief Executive Digby Solomon • Regarding the changes, which are in the midst of taking hold. Many of the employees who followed Sam Zell to Tribune used to work for Clear Channel, which should give you an idea of what the company is trying to do. It’s everything you hate about radio, in newspaper form. Great. Hope you guys don’t succeed at sucking the life out of news. source

• Here he is at the height of his powers, and all anyone wants to talk about is this one quote. He finds that incredibly frustrating.
• A senior News Corp. exec • Regarding News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch and “this one quote” in a New York Times article about Fox News chief Roger Ailes (which we covered here). Murdoch had to do some major spin to stop that quote, from a son-in-law who doesn’t like Ailes’ politics. Murdoch was covered at length in a recent New York Magazine piece which is worth the read. Synopsis: He’s old. He’s powerful. He’s not going after his son-in-law. He’s going after The New York Times (with the Wall Street Journal). source

• Today, they ran a story about a mannequin in the HOV Lane. For most papers, they’d think, holy crap! Perfect viral news opportunity. But not the Cablevision-run Newsday. They’re trying to make the newspaper into the Web equivalent of a cable channel. It’s designed as if it’s a TV station’s Web site, not a newspaper. And in our week of subscribing, that was the prevailing message: We don’t understand the market. Here are some quick numbers.

• 18 number of e-mails we got from Newsday; two-thirds of those were “breaking” news
• 8 number of text messages we got from the service; seven of them had links to ads
• no it’s not worth the $5 a week, and no, we still haven’t been charged, either, guys source

• This photo turns Long Island into a cliche the way “Fargo” turned Minnesota into one. Can you guess what the story’s about? (Hint: It’s got to do with the kid.) Man, the only image more cliche than this we could think of is perhaps a picture of the Seaver family from Growing Pains – you know, before Kirk Cameron went off the deep end. Anyway, we’ve been with the site nearly a week, haven’t paid yet, and get the feeling that the paper is not offering anything close to the $5/week price tag, a price tag that’s supposed to be a deterrent to guys like us signing up outsides of the confines of Cablevision’s walled garden. Unimpressed. (Note: This article is behind a paywall, but maybe it’ll give you enough of a hint to tell you what it’s about.) 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