Jay Rosen's naive, idealistic cororavirus coverage ideas

Rosen may make a great prof, but as I've noted before, he's not in the trenches, and ideas before coming from him have shown that he doesn't fully get the trenches.

Ditto on his five ideas for coronavirus media coverage.

Idea No. 1 would require upsetting editorial as well as corporate mindsets. It would also probably, if done on a big enough scale, require the DOJ suspending antitrust laws during at least the "new normal." Funny that Rosen doesn't consider any of this.

Flip side? Jay, imagine this thing called the "Associated Press." But yet, larger dailies and daily chains want to do their own stories even though, via the AP and some collaboration with it, what you propose already exists.

Idea No. 1, problem 2? Rosen wanting to call in big philanthropic organizations. Seeing the Texas Trib upfront at its 10-year anniversary, Jay, I can tell you that, maybe that will help, but probably not as much as you think, and not without problems itself.

Idea No. 2? It's called data-driven journalism or similar, and it's being done as we speak. Weekly, if not daily, updates on testing, along with cases and fatalities. Really, Jay?

Idea No. 3? This is at best about semi-iffy news analysis. A lot of independent websites have noted we may NEVER fully go back to the old normal. And if we do get there, nobody has a good idea of when.

Idea No. 4? Some teevee outlets have cut away from Trump pressers in medias res. So, this is to some degree happening there. Print folks? As the likes of Lakoff know, never printing a lie in the first place, rather than printing it and doing news analysis, is the best way to refute it.

BUT ... there's this thing called the Interwebz, Jay. If readers of, say, the librul San Francisco Chronicle want to read the blow-by-blow from Trump's latest Rose Garden speech, they'll go to the AP. (Speaking of, insert paywalls observation here.)

Idea No. 5? It would be nice, but where do you get people to do that???? Actually, Muck Rack may do it for you.

Jay Rosen isn't the biggest idiot among Gnu Media gurus. That would be Clay Shirky and Jeff Jarvis tied for first, and the two of them have a big lead on the pomposity.

But Rosen and Mathew Ingram would be leaders of the second tier.

More than a decade ago, Rosen opposed paywalls. Dunno his current stance, but I don't think he's ever admitted he was even partially wrong. (All four of these biggies opposed them, for that matter, and AFAIK, none have fessed up to being even partially wrong.)

Of direct relevance to his Item 1? Also more than a decade ago, Rosen proclaimed the end of media atomization. If it were only true, you wouldn't be writing about Idea 1, amirite?

Nearly a decade ago, CJR took Rosen (and even more, Shirky, Jarvis and a few others) to the cleaners, and over other things besides just opposition to paywalls. This too is directly relevant to the new round of drivel from Rosen.

I quote:

The irony, though, is that in the second decade of the twenty-first century—thanks in no small part to FON thinkers, including, sad to say, Rosen—journalism is now enslaved to a new system of production. Publishing is now possible all the time and in limitless amounts, forever and ever, amen. And, given the market system, and the way the world is, that which is possible has quickly become imperative. Suddenly, the “god” of the old twenty-four-hour news cycle looks like lovely Aphrodite compared to the remorseless Ares that is the web “production routine.” And this new enslavement—trust me here—hurts readers far more even than it does the reporters who must do the blogging, tweeting, podcasting, commenting, and word-cloud formation until all hours of the day and night. This is why, IMHO, journalism is great these days at incremental news, not so good at stepping back and grabbing hold of the narrative. In some circles, this is frowned upon. 

And, of course, since then, the push for video and other things has only made this worse. Lots to apologize for there, Rosen.

One of the biggest? Rosen's idea of network-driven news has been imploded by the biggest "network" for fake news, aka Twitter.

Finally, and also pretty directly relevant? A little over two years ago, in fellating Yascha Mounk, Rosen had a boatload of mistakes, starting with calling an op-ed column a news story. He's right about avoiding the he said-she said model of journalism, but that doesn't mean calling opinion columns news stories.

Speaking of he said-she said, I don't think Rosen has really stepped wider than the two traditional American political parties on that issue. The fellating of Mounk would also support that.

The New York Times has stopped being COVIDIOTs

No, I'm not talking about some of the Old Gray Mare's he-said, she-said on Trump pressers as late as last week.

I'm talking business side.

They've stopped publishing Sunday sports and travel sections for the duration.

And it took it this long WHY to make that call?

And even this isn't that big of a deal.

Most daily papers aren't even publishing sports PAGES, let alone sections.

The Dallas Snooze had, last week Thursday, one, maybe two pages as a lead-up to the NFL Draft. This is DALLAS, home of Jethro Jerry Jones and his Cowgirls.

And, travel? What was the Slimes running the last couple of weeks, excursions from the Lower East Side to Staten Island? Upper East Side to Harlem? Seeing if New Yorkers were welcome in Connecticut

Dean Baquet kind of asleep at the wheel, unless Punch Sulzberger was forcing this stuff to still print.

That said, per H.L. Mencken, nobody ever went broke overestimating the pomposity of the Times.

Jack Shafer: Don't have a gummint bailout of newspapers

Know something? He's right.

Why should the government subsidize sports coverage, for example, when sports comes back? Or the funny pages?

Second, how do you write language to keep vulture capitalists from getting any of this? (I disagree with Shafer's quasi-libertarian attitude toward vulture capitalists in general, but that's another story.)

Third, how do you keep the gummint from meddling once it gives you money?

None of these are easily addressed, and given Washington's coronavirus bailout bills so far, none of them will be addressed if such a bill passes.

A lot of this applies more to daily than non-daily papers, and more to corporately than non-corporate ones. But, in a lot of rural counties, a nondaily paper owned either by a "family" publisher or a small chain, may be the only paper there is. If they get bailout money, will they be told not to criticize the local Extension agent? Or not worry about the Soil Conservation Service's old impoundment dam?

And, to go beyond Shafter, there's a reason local papers didn't get more money already, per The Hill. It's the way they're incorporated. Blame the ownership for that. As I've written before, your local newspaper is incorporated in a way your local State Farm office is, namely, so that the ownership reaps the benefits first, but the local staff shoulders the blame first.

A number of years ago, Ben Carden proposed giving all newspapers nonprofit status. But again, how do you keep the vulture capitalists from a big tax writeoff with that?

McClatchy: On the clock and on the block

Chatham Assess Management has made an official bid for McClatchy as it currently sits in bankruptcy court.

Of interest here in Texas is that McC owns the Fort Worth StartleGram, which has looked primed to move closer and closer to an informal, if not formal, JOA with the Dallas Snooze for some time.

The big sticking point has been, in my guesstimate, that Belo owns nothing but the Snooze, a few Dallas print spinoffs and that's that. Basically, a JOA for these two papers means the end of Belo as an independent company. Yes, it's also got that digital marketing biz, but ...

It's unclear if and when McC will get sold and to whom. Per Chatham's bid, it's also unclear if it will be accepted and on what terms, or even officially let into the mix as a stalking horse bid.

But I would be seriously surprised if the Metromess proper (excluding Little D in Denton) has more than 1 independent daily paper by Jan. 1, 2021.

As I wrote on Tuesday, the Snooze probably should be snoozing print days.

The next step closer to a formal JOA, or something like that, would be it and the StartleGram deciding, between days other than Wednesday and Sunday, who's doing a print version and who's not, since they have a certain amount of distribution overlap beyond Dallas and Tarrant counties and the inner ring of suburbs.

The Morning News and the COVID demise of regional dailies: Why isn't the Snooze snoozing some days?

A couple of weeks ago, the St. Petersburg aka Tampa Bay Times announced it was cutting back to just two days a week in print. My take here.

Having looked at last Thursday's Dallas Morning News, I can't understand why it isn't doing the same.

First, the paper was less than 30 pages. I remember it wasn't too awfully long ago that Mondays crashed the sub-30 barrier. Thursday isn't a huge day, but it used to be decent, in part because some stores wanted to get a jump on weekend sales.

Second, I do understand that that includes not having sports, because there is no sports to cover. That said, that's a good reason why more regional dailies should be scrapping some print days, anyway. (Not to mention that sports pages long had near-zero advertising on them.)

OK, even without sports pages as a lead anchor on the ad percentage, and counting obits as part of the adhole, as I long have done with any paper from a decent semiweekly up that I know charges more than a nominal rate on obits? It was still less than 3 1/2 pages of adhole. About 13 percent.

You can't do that.

Plus, Belo doesn't have wiggle room. Its digital marketing services may make more than the Snooze, but remember, the Snooze and affiliated print products in the Metroplex are all the Belo owns, other than its digital marketing, which for a variety of reasons, investors and others don't totally like.

TINA, per Thatcher.

Not understanding CNHI requirements for its papers

In my area of Texas, I've seen multiple small dailies owned by CNHI, the chain of craptacularly managed papers that even the vulture capitalists want no part of.

At both a small five-day daily that probably should be a nondaily, and a six-day daily that could possibly be trimmed, one head-scratcher is what has to be a corporate-mandated two pages of classifieds. (That five-day daily, due to coronavirus, has been forced to triweekly in print, and to do some of these other changes. But what took so long, and the coronavirus prod, corporate?)

At that five-day daily, most the time, you could run all the classys on one page. At the six-day, you could on occasion, and on most days, you'd need no more than 1.5 pages, which means putting one of those CHNI house ads for Mobile tourism or Bama golf courses on the other half.

Next, those house ads. Yes, the average reader may not be fully aware they're house ads, but surely they're not dumb enough to think this is totally like normal advertising. I mean, when you can play all sorts of ritzy golf courses in the Metromess, others in East Texas, or across the river with the Indians at Winstar and other casinos, who the hell from North Texas is booking a trip to a Bammy golf course?

Tighten the classys and kill the house ads and you can run two fewer pages an issue in many cases.

I also don't get them running print TV guide pages any more. NOBODY under the age of 60, and the average newspaper readership, while in its 50s, is still below 60, reads those. Half of people aged 60-70 probably don't. And even a fair amount of true seniors, breaking stereotypes, can find all the entertainment verschnizzle they want on their smartphones.

Yes, there are a few small dailies that still run them, but they do so as parts of entertainment special sections, into which they sell ads. Running teevee pages without ads in today's world of getting advertisers to sponsor everything is laughable, especially at a penny pincher like CNHI.

Even with the pittance rate places like the company in Grand Prairie pay for TV pages paginators, they're not THAT cheap, are they? (Maybe that's a CNHI spinoff?) Plus there's the printing costs of running those extra pages.

Add this all up, and you could make the five-day daily a triweekly.*

* Unfortunately, while it's a triweekly in print, it still has CNHI stupidity. When it trimmed pages 2-3 weeks ago, it cut to one page of classys. It's now running two again, though the April16 issue only needed one. And it's running TV guide pages still. A 12-page paper that could have been eight.

==

That said, if you do that, unless you want to piss off a BUNCH of customers, you need to tweak subscription rates.

I have personal familiarity with CNHI not doing this, which is why I've laughed at them scornfully for 20 years.

They bought a five-day where I'd once worked. Cut it to semi-weekly without trying the triweekly route. Refused to adjust subscription rates. Remember, this is 20 years ago. Lots of small papers didn't even have websites.

Refused to adjust subscription rates.

Lotsa people complained. CNHI and local publisher, under corporate directive, mouthed platitudes, did nothing.

Lotsa people cancelled.

So many that CNHI wound up closing the paper. In a town of almost 10,000.

The Gainesville Daily Register is no longer daily

At least not in its print version.

Starting today, the former five-day daily has moved to triweekly.

On the surface, it's a coronavirus ding, but realistically, at a minimum, it had needed to trim two pages a day even at continued five-day daily existence.

Fluffing one classy page into two? Derp.

Running non-emergency press releases on the front page, one a staff of editor, staff writer and sports guy and that's it? No bueno.

Sulphur Springs, where I was at before, in a city 95 percent the size of Gainesville and county 85 percent the size, went from six-day to triweekly 18 months ago. It probably could have stepped down to five-day daily first; as I've said before, I think making the smallest stepdown in print publication as needed is always the best choice. But it had as good or better an ad percentage as Gainesville.

Before that, and largely due to publishing screw-ups by former owner Granite, Mount Pleasant went from five-day to semiweekly. Mount Pleasant the same size as Sulphur Springs, though in a county a full 20 percent smaller than Hood County.

Its closest sister CNHI paper, the Greenville Herald Banner, sliced from six days down to five a while back. It was some time after I left Sulphur Springs, but pre-coronavirus, I believe.

I know this is a coronavirus move, but I'm sure it will be permanent. Per all that I've said above, I think a lot of area readers are surprised it still has been a five-day.

But, it is a CNHI paper. While Craphouse and others are overreactive to their vulture capitalist overlords, CNHI, besides the long-ago quarterly furloughs, has appeared content to drift. In the case of Gainesville, with a fair sized six-day daily to the east only 30 miles, a six-day daily not much further north than that in Oklahoma, and a seven-day daily to the south, their only real room for expansive coverage was west, but they only did a lot of that on sports.*

* Unfortunately, while it's a triweekly in print, it still has CNHI stupidity. When it trimmed pages 2-3 weeks ago, it cut to one page of classys. It's now running two again, though the April 16 issue only needed one. And it's running TV guide pages still. A 12-page paper that could have been eight.

April 21 Tuesday? NO non-house ads (counting CNHI-connected Alabama golf course ads as "house") and NO non-public service ads (Texas Press Association 1st Amendment ad) in the paper, and 1.25 pages of classys that could have been shrunk or something, on a 10-pager.

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I take no joy in their cutbacks at the local level. Nor do I take joy in CNHI's administration of most of its newspapers.

That said, as I noted months ago, in the most recent round of acquisitions Twister, nobody wanted CNHI. I presume that the Alabama pension system obligations as a boat anchor are part of the reason. Well, nobody is really going to want CNHI now. Many of its non-dailies are likely to just close in the next six months, I guess.

Coronavirus: Texas Trib likely to be less of a success in Year 11

I recently blogged about the Texas Tribune turning 10 and how Evan Smith nearly dislocated his shoulder from the vigor of patting himself on the back.

I also looked at the realities of the Trib versus the turd-polishing.

One reality is that 18 percent of Evan's haul for the Trib comes from events. At the time, I was condemnatory based on the fact that other places that once did "events," like Atlantic and the pre-Bezos Post, had generally dropped them.

But now, there's something besides an ethical conundrum.

The market for events has cratered with the coronavirus. As Nieman reports, O'Reilly Media has left the events biz entirely. Surely, more and more TEX Talks (better than TED Talks, cuz Evan) are being cancelled as we speak. Contributions from foundations and website sponsorships may also crater if the founders of the foundations, or the companies sponsoring the website, are in COVID-vulnerable businesses.

Like oil companies headquartered in Texas. Like two major airlines headquartered in Texas, with Southwest also having other problems to the MAX with Boeing. (Yes, most its fleet is not 737 MAX 8, but it's all 737s.)

Remember, Evan said he got lucky with Wendy Davis and her pink tennis shoes in 2013. There's only one statewide race this year, and many Dems aren't enthused about either M.J. Hegar or Royce West.

In addition, per this E and P piece, even as Gov. Greg Abbott could stand criticism for, among other things, not calling a special session of the Lege, it's doubtful Evan and the gang will do that. They didn't write about Cornyn's Corona beer jokes, after all.

And, of course, the Trib doesn't do traditional op-ed columns, let alone full-on house editorials.

McClatchy tightens coronavirus paywalls back up

I totally agree that "move the ball forward" reporting, not breaking news, on coronavirus stuff, should remain paywalled. I've already said so on Twitter, using 9/11 as an analogy.

Per Stewart Brand's "Information wants to be free," which he was apparently using in the "gratis" sense, not "libre," newspapers who put too much out there for free aren't recruiting new subscribers at all; they're just increasing the number of drive-by readers and the likelihood they remain drive-by.

Other papers will have to make similar choices; some already are.

That said, material about halfway through this Nieman Lab piece reflects what I've said for years. Per the mindset behind Brand, and how long it's been out there, many people today simply aren't going to pay.

A former Denver Post and Media Snooze honcho agrees with me, in a Poynter piece. And, his reasoning is the same.

Bad strategy on blocking digital ads next to coronavirus stories?

As everybody who tracks the news biz knows, more and more digital advertisers are insisting their ads not be placed next to coronavirus stories. Now, on a national digital-only product like Vox, that's understandable.

But the digital (or even print, if such insistence is there, too) versions of regional and local daily papers? At least in certain cases, I think it's stupid, especially if there's no A/B testing to see if such placement is a bust, a n othingburger, or maybe even a boon.

Boon?

Maybe it could be.

Let's say you're a restaurant in an area or a state on mandatory restrictions on dine-in eating. Maybe, like daily specials for dine-in eating, you'd like to offer daily take-out specials, and advertise them. OR, make an offer to donate 1 percent of each meal purchase price to the local food bank.

Maybe it could be a boon.

News Media Alliance (former Newspaper Association of America) prez David Chavern decries the practice. Of course, this is the same guy who said four years ago that adblocking was a threat to democracy.

Yes, I remember Demosthenes telling Athens that if Alexander came, he was bringing adblockers with him.

The between-the-lines gist of the piece is that Chavern hates paywalls.

Will the Tampa Bay Times survive COVID?

In the form it had before this week, the answer increasingly appears to be "no."

Tuesday, the paper announced it was cutting to just two days a week in print version, so dire was its dropoff in advertising.

At the same time, it announced one puzzler and one grasping at straws that I've called out before.

The puzzler? It's going to produce a non-printed print edition every day. In other words, the copy desks will be building a regular old newspaper, it just won't be printed. The only reason to justify this is that the Times may have multiple online subscription models and that one of them is based specifically on a PDF-ed e-edition.

It announced it was placing some people on furlough and reducing work hours for others. Why wouldn't you do even more of this with the copy desk, as painful as it would be to them?

The grasping at straws? It's going to put a weekly puzzle book in the Sunday edition.

Nope, nope, nope. Won't help you. At least, unlike the Dallas Snooze, the once-known-as St. Petersburg Times is doing it on a weekly basis, not monthly.

As for the post-COVID world?

My guess is that it will never get back to a full seven-day print version. One option would be going down the road of Advance's papers, and selling only those Wednesday and Sunday papers in stores, while making both like the old "bulldog" weekender editions. Print subscribers would still get the full seven days, but stores just those two.

Another option, of course, is canning the Monday edition for everybody in print. That said, sports fans might miss weekend wrap-ups. Alternative? Can Tuesday. Or Tuesday and Thursday, even.

That said? Since the puzzle books won't save you, you — and other regional seven-days — as you get the increased online subscriptions, will have to at some point raise subscription rates if you never go back to your previous print schedule.

As for this particular paper? Can it and the Tampa Tribune survive as two papers in the Florida Bay Area much longer???

Related question: How symptomatic is this of other regional seven-days? If we consider the whole Florida Bay to be one media market, Fort Wayne and Salt Lake City still have dueling print papers. I'm excluding NYC and LA. Is Dallas-Fort Worth one market? Could the likelihood of something getting at least closer to a JOA betwen the Snooze and StartleGram be closer?