:: LNR Journalism ::

Fort Foundation and Los Angeles Times: Is philanthropy print journalism's last hope?

The Atlantic :: It was startling to read last week that the Ford Foundation was awarding a two-year grant of $1.04 million to the Los Angeles Times for the hiring of reporters. The money will be used for coverage of immigration issues, including the Korean and Vietnamese communities, the California prison system, and the border region with Mexico, and to staff a bureau in Brazil. Ford has long been a supporter of journalism, with an emphasis on public broadcasting and nonprofit enterprises. But this grant represents a different approach: support for a newspaper currently in bankruptcy that has endured years of cutbacks in its resources and revenues.

"Hope?" - Continue to read Peter Osnos, www.theatlantic.com

HT: Raju Narisetti, here:

Sounds like desperation than salvation or a good biz model MT@senaytweets Is philanthropy print journalism's last hope? theatln.tc/JNH6Df

— Raju Narisetti (@rajunarisetti) May 30, 2012

David Simon, creator of The Wire and Treme: Put all news behind a paywall

Note: The author of this piece David Simon refers to the recent Times-Picayune cuts. I post a teasure and link to the source for further discussion - and as always to refer you to interesting content on the Internet. It doesn't say, that I share his opinion.

Columbia Journalism Review :: It’s grievous what is happening to regional newspapers, especially. But the whole industry will continue to collapse until everyone swallows hard and goes behind a paywall. The New York Times has shown us the end of the beginning; they’ve embraced the paywall and they are seeing significant revenue. The Washington Post, LA Times, others have to follow. Once the content of the larger papers is no longer available to aggregators, then regional papers can safely take that same path and, maybe, there is an online revenue stream that will allow high-end journalism to survive.

HT: Mathew Ingram, GigaOM:

I know that everybody loves David Simon because he created The Wire, but he's still wrong about paywalls: bit.ly/LkWlGi

— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) May 26, 2012

Continue to read DAvid Simon, www.cjr.org

Huawei’s MediaPad tablet tested by Tribune Co. as news reader

Bloomberg :: Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest maker of phone equipment, said its MediaPad tablet computers are being tested by Tribune Co. as news readers. The Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times are conducting trials of the tablets through the end of this month, and the devices may be rolled out nationwide once those tests are complete.

Reported by - Continue to read Edmond Lococo | Mark Milian, www.bloomberg.com

LA Times kills the Sunday magazine again

LA Observed :: Admittedly, many Los Angeles Times print subscribers didn't know the Times still printed a magazine every month. Even some high-income zip codes didn't receive it with any regularity — we've never understood why. But now the magazine is gone again

Continue to read Kevin Roderick, www.laobserved.com

Ben Welsh's PastPages: First page screenshots day by day (a Kickstarter campaign)

Wall Street Journal :: Newspaper front pages are considered such an important mirror of American culture that they get their own rotating daily museum exhibit at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. But there has never been an equivalent archive for the more ephemeral – but equally important – newspaper website home page.

Ben Welsh, a 29-year-old developer at the Los Angeles Times, is setting out to change that. This week, he is launching a campaign on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to fund PastPages, an online archive that hourly takes screenshots of dozens of newspaper home pages and other online news sites and makes them searchable by date and time.

HT: Josh Stearns, here

First major daily paper to use Kickstarter? RT @romenesko: LAT developer launches Kickstarter campaign. on.wsj.com/JpdXA4

— Josh Stearns (@jcstearns) May 8, 2012

Continue to read Keach Hagey, blogs.wsj.com

Ryan Thornburg: Pay walls and social media could shift the public agenda

Mediashift | IdeaLab :: If conversations around digital journalism have been dominated by anything in the first quarter of 2012, it's probably been about subscriptions, also known as pay walls. Walls are going up at the L.A. Times and Gannett papers, and getting higher at The New York Times. And the editor of The Guardian asked his readers, "What would you give the Guardian? Money, time or data?"  The conversation all this time has been focused on whether the shift toward digital subscriptions will save the news business. But the more interesting and important question is whether and how it will change the news content and public discourse.

Continue to read Ryan Thornburg, www.pbs.org

LA Times to put up a paywall beginning in March

FishbowlLA :: Beginning on March 5, visiting latimes.com will no longer be free. Today, the LA Times announced plans for a new online subscription service, joining the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, among several other other major papers, in putting its website behind a paywall. Full access to latimes.com will initially cost readers 99 cents for four weeks. Those who don’t subscribe will be allowed to access 15 stories each 30 day period for free.

Continue to read Matthew Fleischer, www.mediabistro.com

Digital video sports syndicator Perform adds AOL, LA Times to lineup

Beet.TV :: Digital sports media property Perform has added new syndication partners for its video player including Los Angeles Times, Sporting News on AOL, New York Newsday, and others, and those additions will help keep the now-public company on pace for more growth in 2012, the company's Juan Delgado, Managing Director of Americas, told Beet.TV during a recent interview.

Continue to read Andy Plesser, www.beet.tv

L.A. Times, Dec 2011 - What it feels like if you jump into an icy cold pool of water

Frying Pan News :: Ed Padgett was driving in the rain to a union meeting when the L.A. Times called to tell him he was fired. The pressman, a third-generation Times employee, listened in shock last December to an HR woman’s voice explain he was being dismissed for “safety violations, dishonesty and suspicion of sabotage.” That last charge had a bittersweet irony. Padgett had been at the paper for more than 39 years and had done everything he could to help it prosper – even as members of the corporate wrecking crew that drove the paper into bankruptcy were still counting their money.

[Ed Padgett:] It was similar to jumping into an icy cold pool of water. I felt like crying because I’d been there so damn long, but I soon got over it.

L.A. Times, December 2011 - Continue to read Steven Mikulan, fryingpannews.org