Google – AFP, Rob Lever (AFP), 23 March 2014
 |
Journalist
Katie Couric speaks during a keynote address by Yahoo! President
and CEO
Marissa Mayer at the 2014 International CES on January 7, 2014
in Las Vegas,
Nevada (Getty/AFP/File, Ethan Miller)
|
Washington
— The news media is generating some big news of its own, as a growing number of
star US journalists move online, bringing followers and financial backers with
them.
Online news
sites have been around for years, but in recent months the trend has gained
momentum, defying predictions of a troubled media industry.
The latest
was the relaunch of FiveThirtyEight, headed by Nate Silver, a statistician and
journalist who made his own headlines with his accurate prediction of the 2012
presidential election.
 |
Yahoo! Vice
President of Editorial David
Pogue speaks during a keynote address by
Yahoo!
President and CEO Marissa Mayer
at the 2014 International CES on January
7, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada (Getty/
AFP/File, Ethan Miller)
|
Also
joining the fray was The Intercept, a news site backed by tech entrepreneur
Pierre Omidyar with an editorial team led by Glenn Greenwald, the former
Guardian reporter who broke news with documents leaked by former National
Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Omidyar has
pledged to invest $250 million in his First Look Media, which includes a
not-for-profit news operation and a separate technology arm for new media.
The
Washington Post's popular "Wonkblog" columnist Ezra Klein meanwhile
left the newspaper to start a news website backed by Vox Media.
Yahoo wooed
television news star Katie Couric and former New York Times tech writer David
Pogue. And journalists at The Wall Street Journal-backed tech blog AllThingsD
broke off in January to create Re/code, a separate website with support from
Comcast's NBCUniversal.
The new
energy in Internet news comes as the entrenched news industry faces deepening
financial woes, and the model for online profits remains unclear.
Dying or
reviving?
So is the
news business dying or being reborn?
Alan
Mutter, a former Chicago newspaper editor who consults for journalism and
technology ventures, said that while traditional newspapers are withering,
online news sites may be working.
But the
digital news business is likely to be "vertical," covering a segment
such as technology, sports or politics, unlike a newspaper, which aims to cover
all sectors. Online news can get money from subscriptions, premium content or
links to shopping, for example.
"The
future of digital publishing is the antithesis of traditional publishing,"
Mutter told AFP.
Newspapers
try to get a broad audience by offering comics, coupons and recipes, while
covering news ranging from local crime to politics to walks on the moon, and
online sites are changing that model.
 |
Journalist
Ezra Klein speaks
during the opening plenary
session of Families USA's
Health
Action 2014 conference
January 23, 2014 in
Washington, DC (Getty/
AFP/File, Alex
Wong)
|
The shift
is similar to what happened in retailing, with multi-sector department stores
hammered by specialty apparel, housewares or electronics stores.
"Newspapers
are basically following a publishing-model mindset that is locked in
1958," Mutter said.
"They
take the same content and put it on a website or put it on mobile and they say
they have a digital strategy."
Low cost
of entry
Ken Doctor,
a media analyst with Outsell who writes the Newsonomics blog, said it has
become easier to launch news sites.
"The
technology has gotten much better and cheaper in the past few years,"
Doctor said.
"And
once you create the content, the social world is able to find new audiences at
practically no incremental cost."
News
startups can expand internationally and gain a far larger audience than they
would with a local or even national US newspaper, he noted.
"You
can ramp up one of these businesses and create a national or international
brand for $5 million to $10 million," Doctor said.
Without the
legacy costs of newspapers like printing, distribution and longstanding
pensions, websites can become profitable relatively quickly.
While not
all ventures will succeed, they are attracting venture capital because
"you could double or triple your money if you pick a winner," Doctor
said.
The
startups are often personality driven -- Klein has 441,000 Twitter followers
and Silver 680,000. Former Daily Beast journalist Andrew Sullivan got 35,000
paid subscribers for his "The Dish" blog.
'Golden
age of journalism'?
One of
Silicon Valley's most prominent venture capitalists, Marc Andreessen, sees huge
potential.
 |
Glenn
Greenwald testifies in Brasilia on
October 9, 2013 before the investigative
committee of the Senate that examines
charges of espionage by the United States
(AFP/File, Evaristo Sa)
|
"Maybe
we are entering into a new golden age of journalism, and we just haven't
recognized it yet."
Andreessen
said the news business is breaking free of the "monopolies and
oligopolies" that controled it for much of the post-World War II era and
that the Internet is allowing new businesses to get to a scale where they can
support high-quality journalism.
"On
the Internet, there is no limitation to the number of outlets or voices in the
news chorus," he said.
The
economics of online news has allowed some sites to move beyond the practice of
"aggregation," and into more in-depth reporting traditionally seen as
the domain for newspapers.
But
analysts point out that while Internet news outlets which can gain readers
nationally and internationally can thrive, the same is not true for local news
organizations, which many Americans rely on for coverage of their communities.
"It's
a tale of two worlds," Doctor said. "Local newspapers are still in a
death spiral, with layoff after layoff."
"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)
“…6 - The News
Number six. I'll be brief. Watch for your news to change. It has to. When the media realizes that Human Beings are changing their watching habits, they're going to start changing what they produce for you to watch. Eventually, there's going to be something called "The Good News Channel," and it will be very attractive indeed. For it will be real and offset the drama of what is today's attraction. This is what families at night, sitting around the table, will wish to watch. They'll have something where the whole picture of a situation is shown and not just the dramatic parts. You will hear about what's happening on the planet that no one is telling you now, and when that occurs [we have no clock, dear one], it's going to compete strongly with the drama. I keep telling you this. Human nature itself is starting to be in color instead of black and white. Watch for it. And that was number six ….”
"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)
“… Government
Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.
Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.. …”
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