The four most unintentionally dirty headlines of the year

"What's wrong with the newspaper?"

I'm viewing this on an iPad = irony x 2. 

For the past couple of years, I've kicked off my ad and PR classes by showing the above photo, from The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism, a report by Columbia Journalism School (click here for the full PDF).

The photo features the Miami Herald building with a giant iPad ad on the side.

"Why is this photo ironic?" I ask.

Student: "The newspaper business is advertising the thing that helped destroy it."

Perhaps it's even more ironic that I'm showing it to them on an iPad plugged into a digital projector in a program that teaches journalism.

The report rubs salt in the wound:

"At the end of March 2001, the stock market valued the Herald's parent company, Knight-Ridder, at almost the same amount as Apple: $3.8 billion. Ten years later, Apple's valuation is more than $300 billion. And Knight-Ridder no longer exists as an independent company."

It's an old discussion, but it's a subject worth considering for students who want to work in journalism, many of whom are too young to know what "traditional media" means.

Layoffs lead to hate, hate leads to suffering

Last week, that discussion hit Winnipeg the way any discussion usually does: 10 years after it hits everywhere else. The catalyst was the Winnipeg Free Press laying off seven employees, who were widely perceived as "the young ones" primarily concerned with social media and the Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe, the paper's noble experiment selling scones and news under one roof.

Among the layoffs were some grads from the program in which I teach. One of them was among the first students I ever saw in a classroom. She was and is "an awesome kid," and was doing awesome things for her newspaper. That they got rid of her was an enormous surprise. That they laid people off was not.

The Winnipeg Free Press then ran an opinion piece by one of my current students called, "What's wrong with the newspaper?"

I have no idea if the headline writer meant, "The writer is going to tell you what's wrong with the newspaper," "What's so bad about a newspaper?," or both. I asked my student how she perceives it, and she doesn't know either. Whatever the case, she's a convenient bogeyman for the newspaper industry to parade before its imagined audience of octogenarians: "Nooooo - not the young people on the Twitter!!"

The writing on the wall has been there for some time, so I was surprised when folks blamed "the kids," Twitter, and those greedy readers who refuse to pay for content. More irony: the debate was happening online.

(Read Free Press reporter Dan Lett's column: What did you think was going to happen).

The Elvis genie has left the barn

I hate to break it to ya, folks, but the horse has left the barn, the genie has left the bottle, and Elvis has left the building: we live in a digital world, and the old, traditional media model doesn't cut it anymore. You don't have to like it, but it's a fact: we're going digital and we're going there yesterday.

Like the Titanic slowly approaching the iceberg, we've seen no shortage of evidence that this is where our local newspapers are going (and other traditional-media journalism and media is right there with them).

There's also Newspaper Death Watch, which exists to mark the death of print and "the rebirth of journalism," and Wikipedia's "Future of Newspapers" entry. Adbusters wrote a story in 2007 with the optimistic headline, "The Death of Canadian Journalism."

I recall pulling out the latter article out on the first day of school in 2007 and joking, "You enroll in a course to be a journalist, and the entire profession dies - ain't life grand?" (It was, of course, only a joke).

I also wrote a blog post in 2009 in which I expressed frustration with the Free Press for choosing a Sunday tabloid format (On7!) over digital. I ended up getting an email from a Free Press reporter who was upset at my lack of belief in newspapers, but ultimately ended up agreeing with me that On7 was off in terms of the demographic it was trying to reach.

When the Free Press finally launched it's iPad app, it was also a dud. I wrote about it two years ago.  

What's up? Here's how the Columbia Journalism School report calls it in its conclusion: "Journalists just don't understand their business," says Randall Rothenberg, then-journalist and now-president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

The foot is on the other shoe

I do understand the frustration of the remaining staff at the Free Press. No one who has power and then loses it likes it. Just ask Saddam Hussein. Oh, yeah...

Rupert Murdoch weighs in on the issue in Mike Walsh's excellent book, Futuretainment:

"Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry - the editors, the chief executives, and let's face it, the proprietors. A generation of media consumers has arisen, demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it."

Right on, Rupe.

For the longest time, the gatekeeper-controlled media had it good. They controlled the info, and we paid for it, because we had no other choice. It could put out anything and do reasonably well. Traditional media gave us Knight Rider, and we had no choice but to watch it. Years later, traditional media tried to give us Knight Rider again and we refused to watch it, because we had some choices.

For traditional media, it's been a struggle to find a profit model. You can't charge as much for ads online. Some newspapers have put up a paywall only to realize that "popularity" is as much a currency these days as currency. You want your audience to link to your content, rate it, debate it, embed it, pass it along, mash it up, and talk about it. A paywall stops this from happening.

The proletariat has seized the means of production (just as Karl Marx once predicted in the Facebook Manifesto!). The former gatekeeper is now dependent on a loud audience network. Futuretainment: "Your only hope of ensuring distribution is ensuring that consumers are motivated enough to do it for you."

The solutions

I've offered my own starting point to a solution, which no journalist likes to hear: Journalism could use a little PR right about now. Hint: if you blame your readers for embracing online media, we might as well shut down the paper now.

The report I link to, above, does as nice a job as any at chronicling what's up and what's to be done about it. Spoiler: the jury is out. However, as a famous former CreComm instructor once told me (1,000 times in a row): "The Chinese symbol for crisis is opportunity." At press time, China has not returned this reporter's calls. 

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, we can agree: the journalist of the future won't be a gatekeeper, but an inventor. The revolution starts now.

The Greatest Story Ever Told (in a community newspaper)

The humanity! And that's just the sentence structure.

This awesome article is from a Canadian community newspaper, which shall remain nameless. Paragraph breaks are mine. We can blame the writer for everything else:

"God Picks No Favorites is what comes to mind when you see the damage done to the First United Church on 3rd. Ave. N.W.

"Saturday nights winds left approximately Forty to Fifty thousand dollars damage to the Church which houses many memories for the people that accompany it.

"Upon walking inside the church the first thing you see is 1/2 of the North wall lying on whats left of the Floor. The area where the choir stands as well as the Priest was destroyed from the falling brick, also causing damage to the basement below.

"Nobody new about the damage until Sunday mourning and luckily there was no-body inside the Church at the time.

"By luck the Organ which is situated against the centre of the inside north wall received only a scratch while everything around it was crushed. There is also considerable damage to the south wall from the wind. The large front window will have to be rebuilt due to it being pushed and bent from the large gusts of wind.

"One person at the church was commented as saying that the damage in one word was shocking. It would be safe to say that the public should stay well away from the North and South wall of the church since there is still chance of more bricks to fall.

"Sunday service will now be held in the large Auditorium for now and if anyone may have any other questions concerning services you may call (number)."

How I got the consumption on Reading Week

Reading week? They should call it "media consumption" week.

How I spent one glorious week of preparing for class by swallowing the media whole:

1. Movies

• All Together Now: the Beatles Love
• Best of Youth
• Client 9
• Copyright Criminals
• Jack Goes Boating
• Leaves of Grass
• The Maid
• Please Give
• A Prophet
• Waiting For Superman (trailer:)

• The White Ribbon

2. TV

• Amazing Race
• American Idol
• Big Love
• CNN (Mr. Blitzer and Spitzer go for a Spritzer)
• Colbert Report
• Dragon's Den
• Ebert Presents At the Movies
• Frontline
• An Idiot Abroad
• Jersey Shore
• Late Show with David Letterman
• NBC Nightly News
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• The Ricky Gervais Show
• Survivor
• ABC This Week

3. Magazines and newspapers

• Bloomberg Businessweek (actual magazine)
• Chicago Mag (iPad via the Zinio app)
• The Daily (iPad app)
• Fast Company (actual magazine)
• Globe and Mail (iPad app)
• Huffington Post (iPhone app)
• New Yorker (actual magazine)
• NY Times (iPad app)
• Q Magazine (actual magazine)
• Uncut Magazine (iPad via the Zinio app)
• USA Today (iPhone app)
• Winnipeg Headlines (iPhone app)
• Winnipeg Sun (iPhone app)
• WIRED Magazine (iPad app)

4. Books

• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
• Louis Riel by Chester Brown

5. Podcasts

• The Adam Carolla Show
• The iPad Show
• The Joe Rogan Podcast (great recent interview with Dave Foley)
• TedTalks
• This Week in iPad
• WTF

6. Assorted apps

• Ad Age
• Blastr
• Dexigner
• Echofon
• EW Must List
• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Seth Godin
• Kindle
• Live Nation
• Lynda.com
• NME
• PS Express
• QRANK
• TagReader
• Twitter
• U of M Newsroom
• Vanity Fair Hollywood
• Wallpaper

7. Music

• Beach House - Teen Dream
• British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall
• Candy Skins - Best of (burned by me)
• Elvis Costello - National Ransom
• Foals - Total Life Forever

Foals "This Orient" from Sub Pop Records.

• The Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts
• PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
• Wendy James - Racine 1 and 2
• Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can
• The Streets - Computers and Blues
• White Lies - Ritual

8. School

• Markin' first-year students' video storyboards with CreComm grad Jennifer Ryan
• Placin' second-year students on their last-ever work placements (sniff, sniff)
• Workin' the Open House with colleagues and students at Notre Dame Campus
• Attendin' Desiree Mendoza's Colours of Hope Independent Professional Project at Edge Art
• Readin' my mid-semester evaluations (thanks for the criticism!)
• Thinkin' about all of the great highs and lows that characterize every second semester of every year.
• Preparin' some good stuff for the rest o' the year.

9. Extravagances

• Innis and Gunn Highland Cask

• [yellow tail] premium wine
• Lilac Bakery
• Sleeping in
• Reading Twitter and Facebook feeds with care 
• Watching movies in the afternoon
• Bare-knuckle brawling down at the Alexander Docks

 Urp. See you on Monday!

The Freep lands on the iPad with a crash

The low-res "W" logo on the Freep iTunes page says it all.

App the presses!

The good news: after years of threatening to go mobile, the Winnipeg Free Press has finally hit the iPad.

The bad news: the app crashes so much, it makes a strong case for going back to newsprint.

I really want my hometown to have at least one media outlet with a kick-ass local news app, but I'm sad to say that a revolution in mobile media this app is not.

The final countdown

The first sign that the Free Press app is in trouble is that you launch it and can't actually see a clear rendering of the newspaper for a long, long time. And slow down, Magellan: if you dare try to click ahead before the app is ready, you're in for a long, frustrating, and crashy ride into iPad hell.

At the bottom of the app (to the right of the lower, black bar, below) there are three buttons I've never seen before on any app, which - I think - show that the app is "thinking," "rendering," or "downloading." Or all three?

Trouble is, the numbers that these buttons show "counting down" don't appear to mean anything - "0 T, 261-4, 107-4," anyone? And at least one of the buttons appears to never stop counting down - that is, until the app crashes, which it does - over and over and over.

The main selling point of any news app is that you can grab the headlines and breaking news on the fly. Sadly, this app is only a badly loading PDF when it could have been a clear and simple RSS feed, much like the Winnipeg Headlines iPhone app, so that the news is updated all day, every day with breaking news, not just a static document.

And the two one-star reviews (apart from mine) on the iTunes store back up that observation:

• Gunserotti: "The interface is very clunky and prone to crashes. It is also very slow. Overall a very poor interface and attempt."

• HollywoodOz: "Really weak news app. Hard to leaf through, crashes often, serves digital version of newspaperinstead of digital content on demand."

The forecast, like the page view, is hazy.

The best newspaper apps

By now, there are some great examples that show how to convert newspapers into awesome newspaper apps. They include:

• The New York Times app, the Cadillac of newspaper apps, recently changed its "Editors' Choice" app to include every article in every section of the paper for free (for now!). I've seen grown men break down and buy an iPad on the strength of this app alone. I would pay for this one.

• The Globe and Mail, a left-right, up-down news scroll that actually makes sense intuitively, looks clean and easy to read, and fits in comfortably with the Globe and Mail brand. 

• USA Today, with its auto-scrolling ticker at the top of the page and insanely fast, and constantly updated breaking news.

• Reuters, Fluent News, and Associated Press give us different setups with different levels of success, but none is even remotely close to what I'd call "a failure."

• For people who love their app papers to look like regular papers, PressReader aggregates over 1,500 newspapers from 90 countries in 47 languages. You download them for a buck each, or subscribe to all of them for just $30 a month. I wrote about this app here. 

• And online entities the Huffington Post and Slate prove that you don't have to be overly fancy to give readers an iPad-friendly version of the news.

• To get your favorite news sites into an easy-to-read iPad format, all you need to do is include the RSS feeds in Flipboard or Pulse app and - presto! - you've got a lovely and functional news ticker.

***

"The app is available free of charge for a trial period," says the blurb on the Winnipeg Free Press page on the iTunes Store, but I can't imagine that anyone would pay for the app in its present incarnation.

I really hope that this app is the start of something that will be constantly improved, and not the end of something that won't be.

Update:

John White writes about the Free Press app here and confirms the app is a "soft launch."

PressReader: the Holy Grail of newspaper apps

How do you do it, PressReader?

What would you say if I told you that you could subscribe to the full daily content from over 1,500 newspapers from 90 countries in 47 languages for just $30 a month?

Yes way! I have found the unicorn.

Believe it, Ripley, it's true.

How PressReader enables your addiction

PressReader lets you download a good chunk of the world's newspapers onto your iPad or iPhone in their original form - ads, classifieds, and all - for a monthly subscription fee that's less than what I was paying for the Globe and Mail and Sunday New York Times by themselves.

Like a drug dealer, the app gets you addicted by offering you seven free newspaper downloads. Just try to stop at seven, newspaper addict!

The newspapers are organized by country. Pick a country, any country, and prepare to be amazed by the selection. I tried "UK" first and found a newspaper for every man, woman, child, fish and chips order, and dead parrot in Britain.

This is just the first page of choices - if you want more, just keep on scrolling, Shakespeare.


With reckless abandon, I raced to view the US and Canada sections; again, most big-city newspapers are present and accounted for, including EVERY edition of the Globe and Mail (though Canadians know that every edition is the Toronto edition - snap!).

I downloaded my first three free papers - the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg Sun, and Washington Post - two shout-outs to my local peeps and one to Tom Shales, my favorite TV critic and newspaper writer.

The newspapers downloaded into the "My Library" section of the iPad app in about 30 seconds:


But the real revelation is seeing what these newspapers look like in digitized format: sparkling, crisp, and robust - like all of my favorite beers and precious few of my ex-girlfriends. Huh-huh, huh-huh.

Here's the Mad Men article from yesterday's Entertainment section. Who cares about the article - Don Draper, blah, blah - how about that Cirque du Soleil ad reaching out and grabbing you by the throat?

Once you go extra crispy, it's hard to go back.

Subscribing to PressReader

The app is free to download on your iPad or iPhone, though the iPad's larger screen is far superior for newspaper reading than the iPhone's.

After your seven, free newspaper downloads, you just go to the PressDisplay website and click on "sign in" at the top of the screen to subscribe.

• A free subscription gets you access to the front page and two articles from every issue, which you can read and store for up to 14 days.

• A $30/month subscription gives you unlimited access to every newspaper and 14 days of back issues.

• An unlimited corporate subscription for $99.95/month gets you all of that and a free iPad.

The only downside

The only complaint I can lodge at this kick-ass app is that it's missing the New York Times and the Boston Globe (same owner, both) and the Times of London.

The New York Times' Editor's Choice app, free on the iPad, kind of makes up for it, and the sad truth about the Boston Globe is that it will likely get rolled into the New York Times at some point in the near future.

The Times of London has its own iPad app, but it charges $17 a month for it; it never gets updated during the day and then rips you off of the Sunday Times for your pleasure. Booo.

I have no idea how the financial model works for the newspapers involved in PressReader - maybe Winnipeg Free Press Deputy Editor John White will tell me!

But from a newspaper addict's perspective - with a rebel yell - I say, "Mo! Mo! Mo!"

Minneapolis StarTribune doesn't want to be promoted

Stop the presses: the Minneapolis StarTribune doesn't want readers.

I recently posted a TV spot on YouTube that featured journalist Aimee Blanchette promoting the Minneapolis StarTribune, which I thought was an interesting promotional direction being taken by a newspaper to get readers in an age where they're hard to come by - especially for a bankrupt newspaper like the StarTribune.

So, today, I received this lovely email from the newspaper:

You are in violation of copyright law by uploading this video to YouTube; the video is copyrighted material owned by the Star Tribune. Remove it immediately.

We have also contacted You Tube regarding this violation.

Sandy Date
News Research
Star Tribune

So, let me get this straight: a spot being run for money on commercial TV in order to get readers isn't allowed to be broadcast by anyone on YouTube...for free. Now there's a really interesting promotional strategy!

OK, Sandy, I'll give you your wish: I'll never promote your newspaper ever again.

Love, Kenton
xoxo

Three new affronts to decency, good taste, and advertising everywhere

1. John Lennon for Citroën DS-3 (European TV spot):


"Baby you can't drive my car."

So, Lennon tells us we shouldn't look backward for inspiration and...the ad looks backward for inspiration? "How is that rock and roll?"


2. Solid Gold Winnipeg (Winnipeg Sun - thanks to Jeff for the tip!):

This clinches it: I'm having my next divorce party at Solid Gold Winnipeg! But do I first have to buy and wear these one-piece panties in order to party them off, like the ad suggests?











3. Alice in Wonderland on yesterday's front page of the Los Angeles Times:

Johnny Depp crashes the front page in typically, wacky fashion. Behind him: actual articles about health care and an Afghan insurgent. Tasteful!

Maybe "maybe" is good enough for tabloid J

TMZ, are you watching?

In what is being described by the New York Times as "maybe Journalism" and the "future of journalism, tabloid division," Hong Kong's Next Media gives us the animatronic version of what it looks like to see Tiger Woods' wife chasing him with a golf club, which is: surprisingly a lot like Grand Theft Auto!

Did it actually happen? Maybe. Good enough: to the animators!

The Times quotes CNBC host Keith Olbermann:

"I am awestruck by this. This will be done by somebody, in this country, in the next six months."

Reminds me of what Drew Friedman used to do in his regular "Private Lives of Public Figures" comic strips in Spy Magazine:

Another step lower for tabloid journalism, or the modern-day equivalent of Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People?

Dum-dum-dum-dee-dee dum: I'm a lawyer!

One week of Kindlin', makin' friends, and influencin' people

The Kindle, Winnipeg Transit, Barack Obama, and my left foot.

It's been one week since I got my Amazon Kindle in the mail, and it still makes me feel, as Madonna once sang, shiny and new.

For the unfamiliar, the Kindle works for books, magazines, and newspapers about the same way the iPod works for music: you download your literature on a wireless connection, then read it on an Etch a Sketch-like screen, only it's glare proof and thinner.

It's newly available from Canada, and ships from Amazon.com.

When you're reading the Kindle on the bus, it's impossible not to feel like you're Tom Cruise in Minority Report - minus the looks (but not the acting ability!).

But at the same time, I predict that within five years, I'll look upon this version of the device with disdain and think, "Whatta piece of junk," much like I do with my chunky-style iPod and its crazy, clicky wheel back from the early 1800s.

After one week of of Kindle use, here are my observations:

***

What Kindle is good for:

1. Making friends

Every time I've read the Kindle on the bus, a person or people have asked me, "What is that thing?" When I show them, they instantly want one.

So, listen up fellow creepy bus people: it instantly makes you more lovable to have a Kindle! Talk about social media.

2. Reading

Despite some reviewers kicking the crap out of the screen, I love it.

I still think it feels, looks, and reads like paper, and I've had no problem consuming books, magazines, and newspapers. Even the deeper reading required by book-larnin' works for me on the Kindle.

And the pictures still look fantastic - black and white, yes, but crystal clear.

So, why so many naysayers? Probably the same people who said that we'd always have to print the stuff we read on the Internet.

At first, it just seems "different" to be reading a book on the Kindle, but I've already overcome the screen factor, not to mention the "geek" hurdle of taking it out in public.

3. Wireless delivery

I've subscribed to the New York Times on Kindle for $27.99 a month, with the first 14 days free.

In the morning, I turn on the device and - blam - there it is. Not so much as one issue with what Amazon calls its "Whispernet" wireless service.

I've downloaded one book, Truth, Lies, and Advertising, and it took about 30 seconds to appear on my "home" screen.

4. Battery power

The power lasts and lasts and lasts.

I haven't deliberately tried to run it down, but at the end of the day, there's still usually over half or more of the battery power remaining; it seems to last a lot longer than the battery power in my iPhone which disappears quite quickly (especially when I'm shooting video or taking pictures).

5. Selection (for most things)

There are over 380,000 books. Lots!

The newspapers and magazines also have a good selection of titles, but...no Vanity Fair!? Entertainment Weekly?! Q Magazine!? Yeeellllpppp!

It would be particularly great to download overseas content, like Q and Uncut Magazines, but BusinessWeek, Time, Forbes, the Atlantic, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (no kidding!), etc., are a good start.

The other big missing piece is Canadian newspapers, though there are already more of them since last week. We currently have seven Canadian newspapers from which to choose, now including the Regina Leader-Post, the Windsor Star, and the Edmonton Journal.

6. Text to speech

Turn it on, and the voice - male or female - reads your text seamlessly.

Yes, at times the inflection comes off a bit robotic at times, but it's about a million times better than the old Winnipeg Transit telebus schedule. Anyone with a visual impairment would be well advised to buy the Kindle: it's a smooth listen, and the text can be enlarged once, and for all time, quite easily.

7. Portability

Light as a feather. Easier to carry around than a book, plain and simple.


What the Kindle is not good for:

1. Web surfing

It's no coincidence that you find the Web browser under "experimental" in the Kindle menu.

It doesn't look great, I'm only able to conjur up a bad-looking version of Wikipedia at this point, and navigating the browser with the joystick/keypad combo is irritating. More on that in a second.

2. Winnipeg newspapers

No Winnipeg Free Press and nothing from the Sun chain. Last one there is a rotten egg!

3. Backlighting

There's no backlighting, which - at night - makes it no more useful than a book and a lamp.

4. Syncing with your iPhone

There's an iPhone app in the U.S. that allows you to sync your Kindle with your iPhone, so you can start reading a book on one, and continue on another. Cool!

It's not available in Canada. Not cool!

5. Navigating

I hope that future editions of the Kindle have a touchscreen - I instinctively want to touch it to navigate around, but alas, I cannot.

The Kindle's joystick and "next page" button are fine for pure reading, but quite clunky for browsing online.

The iPhone touchscreen is better for navigating almost everything.

6. Color

There isn't any. But I suppose that will change in upcoming releases.

7. Showing off your good taste in books

The Kindle shows off your great taste in technology, but not books. So no one knows if you're reading Shakespeare or Sarah Palin. Then again, that might be a good thing...

***

As Jeff Jarvis suggested earlier this week, we may not be far away from having permanent screens on our desks, where books, movies, music - whatever - reach out for our attention as opposed to us having to look for it. No more hiding that cell phone under the desk!

Overall, I'm quite happy with the Kindle. But the mind races at what might be in store for this device - and our info-lovin' brains - in the years ahead.

A Kindler, gentler way to read?

I no longer need a newspaper for "kindling."

I got my Amazon Kindle in the mail a few hours ago; newly available in Canada, the device is supposed to change the very way we consume books, magazines, and newspapers by allowing us to download them digitally, the same way the iPod changed the way we listen to music.

Having shipped from the U.S. in a record three days, the Kindle cost me $259 U.S., plus the other $115 U.S. for the "It's Garry Shandling's Show" DVD box set I ordered along with it, for a grand total of $10 million.

The first thing that strikes you when you tear open the box is how compact and light it is. It's eight inches tall, five inches wide, and weighs just 10 ounces - lighter than a paperback, and way thinner.

Then, you simply plug it in, and turn it on. There, at the top of the screen, it said "Kenton's Kindle" - pre-registered and ready to roll through my Amazon account. Cool. If you get it for a gift, you just register when you get it and, presumably, the name changes (or you use it in perpetuity under the name "Aunt Bea," I guess).

The next thing you notice is the screen. It's downright bizarre: no glare or reflection on its surface whatsoever. It doesn't look like an iPhone screen or a page out of a book - more like an Etch A Sketch than anything.

Having weaned myself onto an iPhone earlier in the year, I can't stop myself from touching the Kindle screen, which feels very strangely like paper. When you do touch it...nothing happens, except you feel stupid for touching it.

Although the screen isn't in color - I'm sure that'll be a feature in the next edition - the resolution is pretty great, resembling more a painting than a pixelated image:


After marveling at the pretty pictures, I went through a short tutorial, which explains how to use the buttons, and headed straight to the newspapers - the topic of many a recent post (no, I don't really believe that bad spelling is a good idea, but I'll blame Socrates and his blasted "method").

Then, I headed straight to the newspaper downloads and found the New York Times. I downloaded today's edition for $1.99, and there it was, about a minute later.


A monthly subscription to the Times is a mere $27.99 a month - which is what I was paying just to get the Sunday issue delivered to my door a day late with the Globe and Mail.

I still haven't really figured out the best way to navigate the paper, but I had bigger fish to fry. Onward and upward!

Clicking on Canadian newspapers, I saw that I could only choose from four titles, though that might not be surprising, considering that the device is new in Canada. The titles: The Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Vancouver Sun, and the Montreal Gazette.

Sorry, no Winnipeg Free Press or Sun for now. The Globe is $15.99 a month, the Post $14.99, the Sun $13.99, and the Gazette $13.99.


On first blush, hours out of the box, the Kindle's picture kicks butt, but I'm not sure if I'll find it more convenient than the iPhone and its touch screen, apps, cameras, voice memos, access to Twitter, text message, Flickr, email, YouTube, and electric razor (not yet, but...mark my words!).

The controls seem to be a bit clunkier than the iPhone, but I'll see how easy they are to get used to in the weeks ahead. I'll get back to you to let you know what I think.

In the meantime, has anyone else bought one yet, or plan to buy one? Yes or no, do tell.

How I'd save the local news (not that anyone's asking me)

Billy Idol - White Wedding
It's a nice day to staaaaaaaaaaart agaaaaaaaaainnnnnnn!

I write these pieces about saving the local news from time to time, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself.

It's just that the CRTC hearings have got my heart all aflutter, and my post yesterday - about the MTS ads on the front page of both newspapers - leaves me open to the big question: well, then, what would you do to save local news, hot shot.

Why, thanks for asking, governor!

How I'd save the local news:

1. I'd get some of our favorite, local, traditional, media outlets to team up.

I'm not talking about one media outlet buying another, I'm talking about a cooperative news-sharing arrangement.

First, we need to stop sniping at each other about "who scooped who," since people who consume the news don't care. I've heard CJOB report news I first read in the Free Press, I've seen the Free Press tweet news I first read in the Sun.

You all secretly love each other, so let's consummate this marriage already: CJOB + Winnipeg Free Press + CTV = Powerhouse!

2. I'd support it with new (and social) media.

After awhile, the new media part would be the only part. More on that in a sec.

Traditional media outlets need young people to consume their news. Young people are sexy to advertisers (and each other, but that's another blog post), and they're the demographic that advertisers will pay good money to reach.

Right now, the only place it can be reached with any degree of certainty is online and on the phone.

The iPhone hasn't invaded Canada at the rate it's invaded the U.S., but it will. At Lollapalooza in Chicago last summer, every kid had an iPhone, and that means that you - or your kids - will have one soon too.

I'd get a big, local sponsor to support the app. Canad Inns? The Canadian Museum for Human Rights? Manitoba Hydro? Great-West Life? Investors Group?

I'd update that sucker all day, all the time. It's not the size of the story that matters in the digital age, it's the story's timeliness.

I'd pay good money for that app.

And, as of yesterday, my Kindle is in the mail. Is yours?

3. I'd encourage participation by "everyone" and get rid of editors altogether.

Journalism only becomes vibrant when "some idiot with a laptop" participates in the discussion. And, if we've learned one thing about reading online, "journalism" is better when it doesn't have an editor.

"But editors check stuff!" Yeah, and stories are still wrong. So, let's just open it up already. More heresy: Don't edit (it pains me to say) typo-laden rants, blogs, or articles. Proper spelling only dampens the passion.

Disclaimer: not in school assignments, puh-lease. **Update: then again, maybe the whole notion of "spelling" is outdated. At least, that's what my text messages tell me: "whtrudoing2nite?"

4. For now, I'd only produce printed versions of the newspaper on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Then, when the Great-West Life actuarial charts tell me that all the old people are about to die, no print at all.

5. Goodbye "objective journalism."

With participation comes subjective journalism with diverse voices - a network of blogs comes to mind, for some strange reason - and let's not just have professional writers posting articles and blogs and the masses providing feedback.

6. I'd make journalism fall in love with PR.

C'mon, journalists, I've seen your resumes pour in when I've posted a PR job. I know you want a little PR lovin' - and here's your big chance!

Despite the notion of being immune to PR, journalists themselves are already "brand ambassadors" for their newspapers.

I realize that the idea of an objective journalist is that he (mostly) doesn't wear a shirt and tie, comb his hair, or get along with others, but I'd make "PR skills" a prerequisite for my journalists. Who can sell a newspaper more than people out in the community, everyday, talking to people?

Now that's buzz worthy of a BzzAgent - every time you talk to your sources, sell them on the iPhone app. People will read and pay for the news if they're in it.

7. I'd partner the local news with local schools, colleges, and universities.

Let's turn students into contributors and, therefore, readers.

I've seen some very lame attempts at this in the past - most notably, the Regina Leader-Post's God-awful section written by kids.

How about this model instead?

Assign one "experienced" journalist to oversee and organize an army of student "citizen journalists," who would file hyper-local online reports from their community beats.

The students get free experience, the online newspaper gets free stories. I'm not going to say it's a "win-win," because that's a terrible PR cliche. So I won't. But it is.

Of course, this would - again - require a journalist with PR skills: you may say I'm a dreamer, etc.

And this would also free up old-school reporters to do the important work of "being a watchdog" and "conducting investigative journalism."

One of the biggest rallying cries of supporters of traditional media is "the demise of investigative journalism will screw us all!"

As I pointed out on this post, investigative, in-depth journalism is impossible for TV to do, and something that newspapers used to excel at doing, yet local newspapers have almost completely abandoned it, because it's so expensive and time consuming.

But this is the "public service" part of journalism that makes it so valuable and worth saving.

8. I'd go all hyper-local all the time.

A busted fence on Wardlaw? Stop the presses!

It may sound crass, but that's what people want to read. As the former editor of many a corporate newsletter, I can tell you that "births and marriages" is easily the most-read part of any newsletter, followed by "who got promoted."

$$$$$

Here's the big question: how do we make money off of this thing?

As any PR person knows, you get people to buy into your idea by showing what's in it for them, encouraging participation, making it easy to take action, and selling it as a concise idea that "makes sense."As any advertiser knows, you make money by getting eyeballs.

As I've said, I'd pay good money for a Winnipeg News iPhone app, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't a high-profile local advertiser willing to sponsor it, like FedEx does with the NY Times app.

There's some money right there!

And if I'm wrong, which I may very well be, I'll end with one more quote from Rosenberg's book, Say Everything.

"As the profession of journalism tries to rescue itself from the wreckage of print and rethink its digital future, this is where its most knowledgeable practitioners and most creative students are doing their hardest thinking."

So, would anyone like to tell me where I'm wrong? Or right? Or what we could do to add to this? Or comment on what those dancers are doing in the White Wedding video? Please do!

Breaking news: fun flaps with apps!

It's a great day for advertising in your hometown when the "front page" of both newspapers features the massive news that...MTS has "lots and lots of apps."

However, it's probably not as great a day for journalism.

It may be an even a worse news day when the real front page is about someone getting stabbed to death. But that would be underneath the fun flap with apps.

It was just last week that I received an email from a reader who wondered whether my anti-print comments weren't actually anti-traditional journalism.

I opened my response with this:

"I don't disdain traditional journalism; in fact, I love it and consume it with fervor everyday. I hope that journalism - especially local journalism - cannot only live, but thrive in a new-media environment.

"My fear is that it can only happen with new readers. As an ad and PR instructor, my main frustration with the state of the newspaper biz is how some of the marketing solutions aimed at "the youth market" don't harness the power of the online world, or hit the demographic where and when it consumes information."

I meant it.

It wasn't my intention to give the impression that I hate traditional journalism, but as a PR instructor, I know how it happened: there's only so much I can hear about journalism being "the objective truth" and PR being "spin" before I've run out of coffee to spew from my mouth in mock surprise.

My usual response: "PR is more honest about its dishonesty."

Not bad, eh? You can use it!

If the front page of both of our newspapers is for sale on the same day to the same advertiser, maybe it's time to ditch the notion of "objective journalism" altogether.

As I'm fond of noting, reporters didn't always aim to be "neutral observers." Says Scott Rosenberg in his excellent book, Say Everything:

"Etched into the journalism school curriculum, these values (of objectivity) were held out as timeless verities, but in fact they were of relatively recent vintage. They had been shaped by the specific business needs of the publishing and broadcasting industries.

"As they consolidated markets and sought to sell advertising that might reach vast agglomerations of consumers, the peddlers of news found they couldn’t afford to alienate partisan populations of any stripe; neutrality was a prerequisite for profits.

"Yet vibrant journalism had existed without the benefit of such values — for example, in the pamphlet culture of late seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century Britain and Colonial-era America, or in the raucous partisan newspaper competition of the late nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century urban United States. And vibrant journalism could plausibly survive their demise."

Lately, I've also been asking myself why I enjoy reading blogs written by amateurs more than reading "the real news" written by professionals.

It's tempting to quote the line often attributed to Wired's Chris Anderson, "A passionate amateur beats a bored pro," but to assume that all pro writers are bored isn't very nice.

Maybe its the inherent dispassion in traditional journalism that makes it a less vibrant ("boring?") read than the stuff by passionate people who are really riled up about something, and writing because they care about it.

So, if we free ourselves from the notion of objective journalism, and be upfront about where our biases lie, we can read exciting and passionate journalism everywhere.

Idea for the front page of tomorrow's Winnipeg Free Press: "MTS paid us a shitload of money yesterday to advertise on a flap over our front page."

USA Today sticks it to the NYT and WSJ in attempt to attract more Jesus ads

USA Today sticks it to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal in an ad in yesterday's edition.

Headlined, "The real No. 1 is USA Today and has been for 10 years," the ad is the latest shot in a battle pitting major American newspaper titans against one another as they compete for an ever-declining pool of ad dollars.

Jesus ad dollars! More on that in a second.

Citing the Sept. 30 ABC FAS-FAX Report in the ad's small print, USA Today says it's "No. 1 in daily print circulation" at about 1.9 million copies - "total paid circulation minus electronic editions."

Add electronic editions to the mix, and WSJ is at number one.

The bad news

USA Today leaves out the larger news in the same ABC report, as reported by Editor & Publisher, which is that the newspaper industry is up shite's creek:

"ABC reported that for the 379 newspapers filing with the organization, average daily circulation plunged 10.6% to 30,395,652 - one of the most severe drops in overall circulation. USA Today had earlier announced a 17% hit."

I've always liked USA Today - the short articles and colorful graphics always seemed like a perfect fit for online consumption, and its website was among the first to embrace the idea that a news site should be updated all of the time, even when people are sleeping.

All three newspapers have great online editions and ass-kicking iPhone apps, though the Wall Street Journal just started charging for its app, and the USA Today app - though available in Canada - can't find it in its heart to locate Winnipeg; sadly, its GPS-based weather function tells me that I'm living in Noyes, MN.

Calling all advertisers!

Apart from that, USA Today's ad is notable for drawing the reader - make that "the advertiser" - to its online media kit, where it makes its best pitch for advertising in the paper.

The media kit even makes public USA Today's rate card:

2009 Usa Today Rate Card

It's interesting to know that a full-page, national, color ad in USA Today costs: $231,000; you get a 26 per cent discount for buying $8 million worth of ads and up; and that USA Today's themeline is "We're all in this together."

In what? A declining industry?

Which makes it all the more interesting that the paper, in the same edition, features a quarter-page ad from JesusSoonReturn.com in its Travel section that explains, "Eight Compelling Reasons why: Christ is Coming Very Soon!," one of which is "Explosion of travel and education."

We're all in this together!

On the seventh day, the Free Press rested

I have seen the future of journalism, and it looks a lot like the Winnipeg Sun.

I've been holding off on writing a review of On7, the Winnipeg Free Press' new Sunday tabloid aimed at drawing young people, because I wanted to give it a chance before I unleashed my blind rage at the very idea that the paper is putting its long-term investment into a paper tabloid, and not a digital product, when its target audience doesn't give a rip about the paper.

Get it? Paper? Rip? Awww, forget it.

When I walked into PharmaPlus on Sunday at 8 p.m. to buy my copy of On7 - what's the rush when the news is a day old already? - I was a little worried that it might already be sold out, and I'd never get to see the first issue of the glorious Sunday experiment.

My fears instantly abated when I saw a pile of about 1,000 On7s stacked in the newspaper stand - a good sign for me, a bad sign for the tabloid, especially considering that they only expected to sell 35,000 copies in a city of 700,000 people.

The first thing you notice when you pick up On7 is that it looks and feels exactly like the Winnipeg Sun. Odd: kind of like Coke producing a beverage that tastes just like Pepsi.

Oh, that's right: Coke did produce a beverage that tastes just like Pepsi, and it was called "New Coke." It was such a smash that they discontinued it, and brought back the original Coke under the moniker "Coke Classic."

Can "Sunday Free Press classic" be far behind?

What time is it (hey buddy)?

Anyone who's been paying attention knows that:

1. In recent times, "the news" isn't the size of the story, but its timeliness - the instantaneous nature by which we can now follow (skim?) along and the idea that a "breaking" news story is one that's just been posted online or on our phones.

So, as I click on my Globe and Mail app right at this moment, I can tell you that the article called "How to protect your intellectual property" is 300 seconds old, and the one lower down called "How to buy in to Warren Buffett" is one hour old.

2. Newspapers are dying to the tune of three million papers a day (says Media Life). The ones that are surviving and thriving are ones like the Wall Street Journal, which:

• Offer value to a specific demographic;

• Are available online and via smartphone (there's an app for that!);

• People can get for free at work, but - get this - work pays for it!

3. Hyper-local is where it's at:

I'm not sure that the Free Press' days as a staple in every workplace in the city can or will ever come back; however, it's not too late for the Free Press to get young - which is to say "future" - readers by offering hyper-local content via a smartphone/online strategy.

This is what the L.A. Times is doing to survive, according to Sebastien Provencher's Praized Blog.

"The LA Times’ online strategy needs to be local as opposed to national as it will allow them to differentiate their offer versus other “national” newspapers like the New York Times. They’ve realized that local users are key to online revenues as they generate more monthly page views and twice the display revenue per page views.

"Their product approach is “we want to own Los Angeles”, i.e. be integral to life of Angelinos, be the source of news and information about Los Angeles to the world and be an information retailer by creating, aggregating and curating LA content."

What's hyper-local about On7?

Given that, what would be so wrong about the Free Press "wanting to own Winnipeg?"

Since there's no smartphone app to answer that question, let's have a look inside On7, shall we? Here's the breakdown of issue #1:

• A few articles by CreComm students - cheers to CreComm students! By definition, this means that the tabloid isn't all bad. Moving on:
  

• A very light article about the flu - nothing new in the article;
  

• A good article by Bartley Kives about Winnipeg's parking fetish (but I like Graham's article about the same thing at Progressive Winnipeg better);

• A brief, by-the-book community-support article about a Ronald McDonald House charity event;

• A list of seven things you probably missed this week because you weren't reading the Free Press;

• Wire copy and lots of it: The Canadian Press, Canwest News Service, The Associated Press, and a bonehead piece from the McClatchy-Tribune Information Services about a dude selling a big ball of rubber bands;

• Twenty-four pages about sporting events that happened yesterday;

• An article about the late-night talk shows by Aaron Barnhart, a writer from the Kansas City Star, who I quite like - even when I disagree with him. But you can read his website for free here;

• "Celebrity Scene," featuring a photo and one-paragraph "item" about some of your favorite local celebrities: Jude Law, Michelle Obama, 50 Cent, and Sarah Palin. Why anyone would need to get this stuff in the Free Press in the era of TMZ is beyond me;

• A photo of the week from the Associated Press: a woman crying under a poster of Michael Jackson. Never seen that before;

• Miss Lonelyhearts, for anyone who might really long for a classic Winnipeg Sun experience by reading her advice in tabloid form again;
  

• Movie listings and the NY Times crossword puzzle - two apps I have on my iPhone.

Might as well just add the Free Press Girl to the roster, and call it a day.

But it's for the kids!

I know, I know: I'm a grouchy, old guy.

So, yesterday, I asked my advertising majors what they thought of On7; at age 20 to 25, they're positioned at the sweet spot of the Free Press' desired demographic.

The ones who weren't stifling their yawns said, "What's this about the Free Press putting out a tabloid on Sunday?"

Is On7, offbase, offputting, and offtopic?

I won't rehash all of the great stuff that PolicyFrog says about the Winnipeg Free Press' new Sunday tabloid, On7.

That is, other than to say that "On7" sounds like some old guy's idea of a hip, Internet-sounding name to lure the 18 to 35 demographic to a tabloid on the Lord's Day.

As a college instructor, I can tell you that the Free Press has its finger on the pulse of this demographic, which is just itching for more news in paper format, not to mention the ability to finally have day-old sports scores at its fingertips.

"Screw these iPhone apps," they say in unison, "we want more paper, and we want it yesterday!"

Equally useful is that On7 will only be available at convenience stores and bright, orange vending boxes, the better to get us to look up from our car seats where we're already busy driving, listening to music, talking on the phone, texting, eating lunch, and crashing into other cars.

The main push behind this as opposed to, say, producing "nothing" on Sundays is that the Free Press clearly doesn't want to give the Winnipeg Sun an even bigger boost on a day when it's already the dominant paper.

But, as I said in my comment on PolicyFrog's blog - hey, fun to say "PolicyFrog's blog!" - the argument for and against the Free Press competing with the Sun is pretty academic, considering that there’s now even an app for lining your bird cage and wrapping fish.

That said, here's the new On7 media kit/rate card the Free Press is hoping to use to lure new advertisers "seeking a younger target market."

On7 Media Kit1

What do you think, younger target market? Are you going to buy this thing or what?