Like everyone else I’ve watched the print media world fall apart over the last few years. The poster child for that industry is the New York Times, of course, and their many missteps in recent memory have been well chronicled. In early 2008 Marc Andreessen started a New York Times Deathwatch, and the company’s financial performance has degraded since then.
I keep wondering what would happen if the top 10% of the writers at the NYTimes just…walked out. I know it’s crazy, but let’s just explore this a bit for the heck of it.
Today the company is worth just a little over $1 billion. As recently as five years ago it was worth nearly 5x that much. You have to go back to the early 1980s to see a lower stock price.
I certainly don’t think the NYTimes is going to be shutting down any time soon. The company still pulls in nearly $3 billion a year in revenue, down just 10% or so from 2005. But massive overhead, and more than 9,300 employees, make profitability an increasingly difficult goal for The Gray Lady. Her age is showing.
Journalism Isn’t Dead. Just The Old Business Part Of It.
A couple of weeks ago I met the Politico guys just before they taped their Charlie Rose segment. I watched them live from the green room at the show, and read Michael Wolff’s excellent Vanity Fair article on the young company. Their news room is 100 strong and they have more people in the White House Bureau than any other brand. They have roughly the same traffic as we do – 7 million monthly visitors – but they’ve been around just half the time. How did they do it? The site was founded by well known political journalists who bailed to start their own company. They took their personal brands and credentials with them, and the readers followed. Today they are profitable – largely because they launched a three-day-a-week print version of the site. Amazing. Print isn’t dead (yet). Just the overhead is.
And earlier today I got a glimpse at what AOL is up to – they are hiring all the journalists being fired and laid off by the newspapers and magazines. And they now have a news room 1,500 journalists and editors strong. Amazingly, failing old media is throwing away their most valuable assets. And AOL is eagerly picking those assets up for a song. Before anyone knows it, AOL may be the most powerful news outlet in the world.
Journalists still matter. A lot. Especially the good ones.
What if…
So that got me thinking about the NYTimes. $3 billion in revenue. 16 million monthly unique visitors and 124 million page views (Comscore worldwide, May 2009). 9,000+ employees. 1,200 news staff, and just 400 or so writers, critics, correspondents and columnists. I’m still waiting to hear how many editors the paper has on top of those 400, but it’s probably a total full time news staff of no more than 450 people.
I don’t really read the NYTImes beyond the technology section. But I’m guessing that the top performers in the news room, say the best 5%-10% of the writers and editors, produce 50% or more of the real value of the newspaper. The hungriest reporters. The best writers. The most competitive and aggressive editors.
What if that group, the most valuable assets that the NYTimes controls, simply walked out of the building and started their own company? What would that look like?
The New New York Times
The New New York Times, or NNYT, would have a writing staff of say 50 people. These are among the best journalists in the world, and let’s say they wanted to pay themselves $200,000/year, a top salary for a reporter of that stature. That’s just $10 million a year in payroll expenses. Call it $12 million with benefits. Plus, they all have stock options in the new company.
If TechCrunch is any indication, the amount of support staff (developers, office staff, sales people, admin) needed to run the company is at most 20%, or another ten people, particularly if they outsource a lot of that. Put everyone in the cheapest office possible, and you’re looking at additional payroll, benefits and office expenses of another $3-4 million per year.
Now lets just add another 50% on top of that for other expenses and a safety net, and round it up to $25 million per year in total expenses.
That’s $25 million/year to have a well paid staff of the best journalists on the planet. How long before they outstrip those 16 million monthly visitors and 124 million page views? 5 years? Less?
How many private equity funds would kill to put $100 million behind the NNYT to make sure the company had plenty of money until it reached profitability?
My guess is plenty. And Marc Andreeseen, who has already backed two blogs, may be the first in line to invest. And I know a couple of hedge funds that would be right there, too. I know this because they’ve pitched me on a vision not much different than this one.
Of course, none of this is going to happen. Those 50 top journalists aren’t going to be able to self select and organize themselves even if they had the inclination to do something like this. But the interesting thing is that I think something like this would work, really work, if anyone tried it. And the guys at Politico and AOL seem to be doing just that. Lean journalism, for the win.
Mike, is it a way to give the NYTimes staff some idea ? By the way, I love your writing and how you challenge the conventional wisdom
Out off everything Marc has said, this seems to be the most intelligent….
ps im not a big fan of you,but i like ur vision.
for ideas, NYT could see http://talktoht.com …
they can adopt a similar model too…and slowly move into the new realm.
If you start looking at the argument and instead of NYT take any big company that will hold true. Get the Top 50 or 100 guys from any big organisation and they can do wonders, anywhere.
The biggest issue in all these cases is leadership and how do these 50 people work together in a manner that everyone’s interest is taken care of. If these can happen maybe every batch of Harward, Stanford would just come together and start an enterprise of their own and they know they will do phenomenally well.
Yeah ideas is what print media today is looking at!! http://talktoht.com is what happened recently for another print media company…NYT should probably take a cue from India…:)
T Ramesh.
I bet there will be much break room conspiring going on within the next few weeks. I love it.
Most journalists like to have their name attached to a big name because it lends them more credibility with their peers, friends, family, etc. Most aren’t entrepreneurial enough to even want to work at a start-up that has to build reputation from scratch. So as you indicate, it’ll never ever happen.
I also wonder how much access these journalists get sometimes BECAUSE they write for The New York Times, the brand. I wonder if it’d effect the quality of their work – I assume it would for some of them – if they had to start going after stories saying ‘Hi, this is John Doe from NewCo’. Just don’t think it would have the same leverage at the very least for the first couple of years, and that’ll make lots of them throw in the towel before it could ever take off.
True many dont just work for the money but for the name and fame they would get since they are associated with the top brands!
Charlie Rose talks with the Politico guys about this at length. watch that video linked above. Once your sources are established, it doesn’t really matter where you work.
Robin, if the new company manages to market itself as the New NYT, under any other name, then they can get a lot of the leverage from day 1. The PR points could be:
- The cream of the NYT newsroom leaves to start a new venture.
- David vs. Goliath: Leaving the mother ship on a quest to overcome the great old media business.
I get that, I just don’t see 50 of the world’s best journalists writing for one of the biggest brands in news thinking that way.
please read the vanity fair article and watch the charlie rose interview. these guys came from the NYT, Washington Post and WSJ. And they talk about this exact point.
Here. Just jump to 5:50 and listen for a minute and a half.
http://www.char...interview/10498
…except that clip doesn’t specifically answer Robin’s question or address the issue. The politico guys were talking about the ability to run with a story rather than ‘access’. and ‘establishing sources’ is certainly harder to do when you work at the main st. observer rather than the new york times. although I do believe the gap is closing.
I work in the public communications shop for pretty big trade association in DC, and I watched the Politico piece on Charlie Rose very closely. The Politico is in many ways very similar to TechCrunch. It’s a relatively small operation, personality driven, opinionated, covering a very niche industry known for its “small town” politics.
Like TechCrunch, the Politico is finding some success within the confines of its narrow coverage. However I can say with authority that it simply does not carry the same respect as the larger newspapers. That is because everyone knows that only political nerds and insiders read it or recognize its brand. (Just like only tech nerds read TechCrunch.)
A member of Congress may read the Politico to keep tabs on the process stories of her industry, but she does not fear what her constituents might read there. And reporters and lobbyists know this. Basically it is a small trade publication for the DC-based political industry. It competes with Roll Call and CQ primarily, not the Washington Post or New York Times (even though that is where some of their staff came from).
here, making it painfully easy for you:
Mike, I think you should do it for them, as in being the Pied Piper of this idea.
I always think TechCrunch should have a political section that is somehow related to tech. Call it CrunchPoli, or whatever.
Ring up these hot-shot writers (not just from NY Times, but Wa Po, and all the name brands), and ask them to work for you.
I guarantee you, if TechCrunch has a political section, the view number would go through the roof.
@bean counter: First of all, I think Mike is great…but it’s probably going to take a journalism legend to grab up the best journalists in the world like that.
Mike is well known beyond the tech arena, as evidenced by his many appearances on Charlie Rose Show.
I am a believer that you can always find a tech angle in most of the political hot topics.
Scanning the headlines of the day, for instance, the Harvard Professor/Cop/Obama/Beer story could have a tech angle, as in “How does the White House communicate with these people and put a get-together so soon? Did they ‘tweet’ these guys? Do they use Evite?”
On the serious side, I’d like to know how technology plays in the Health Care Reform; I’d like to read about how Iranian expats keep in touch with their fellow countrymen inside Iran.
The day heavyweights like Howard Fineman and Rachel Maddow blog for TechCrunch is the day TechCrunch has reached the ultimate higher plane.
I see your point, but would argue that journalists are increasingly thinking different—assuming that they aren’t mired in the whoa is me camp. I freelanced for the NYT Sunday business section way back when and the callbacks were amazing. And the clips were nice too. But you know what? It wears off. Now that was more than a decade ago.
Today you have a bunch of top journalists that are doing most of the work, Mike is right on that front, in a newsroom that features a bunch of people that have scratched, clawed and worked their asses off to get to the NYT. Now they’re looking around and going “this is it?” All that Columbia J-School brainwashing that the NYT is the end all suddenly looks off kilter.
There are more and more folks asking “this is it?” Enter companies like Politico. They’re kicking ass, they’re doing good work and increasingly getting more attention than the others. You may not get 50 to walk out, but I wouldn’t rule out 25 in the not to distant future.
Mike is dead on – the issue here is cost. I moved my writing after spending two years trying to convince my print overlords to invest in the web. All they saw was the cost of buying computers. In fact, the Internet drives all the cost out of publishing. No newsprint, presses, trucks.
Leaner staffing is the future. Unfortunately, as illustrated by the AOL story, struggling print publications are exiling their most important assets through buyouts and layoffs.
The issue, as Mike has captured here, is whether anyone will jump in with both feet and invest in these journalists and their ability to build compelling online media brands. This was a huge missed opportunity for Yahoo, which gets huge traffic on its news pages and could have easily monetized the transition.
when i read the other article about the aol hirings i went, “what aol? no way,” because i don’t read any news on aol (although i have an aol email and head to the main website to access my email) BUT i DO read news on yahoo…so i agree with you on the yahoo front. good for aol. they now have some of my journalists.
i agree with larry’s comment about maybe 25 defectors, and i also agree with arrington because i followed politico when it first came out and they were getting a base. i followed politico because of the writers i use to read from the other print companies.
NNYT for the win. maybe they can get the nyt to get rid of it’s awful tv commercials.
Larry is absolutely right. We will see a lot of defectors over the next few years, and they’ll start their own companies and do great work for them. All the cost pressures on mainstream media eventually get to the writers/editors/reporters, too. If they see a better way, they’ll take it. Politico is just the beginning.
Excellent post. A newer leaner company is most definitely the correct direction.
I wrote something similar about a week ago entitled The New York Times Network
http://blumenre...es-network.html
Why are you talking about the new york times for?
Traveled on the Internet and came here. What a wonderful invention of mankind. With the help of a network communicate, learn, read … So you got acquainted..
In my opinion, seems that such a structure wouldn’t be able to produce the caliber of content that is required or enough of it.
NYT send journalists all across the country to source stories – not to mention the international journalists. I think what you propose Mike would work but its needs a much greater distributed element to it – that is, pay MORE for HIGH QUALITY stories.
Sure have a core staff base – and then have freelance journalists running stories all over the place and pay them a premium for such content. The New New York Times then can focus on a focused set of journalistic content while a bunch of freelance national and international journalists understand that they will grab a premium for submitting content that is compelling to the New New York Times.
Create a distributed tender system for content – throw it out in the open (add in some APIs for good measure) and journalists can then source work easily and get paid a premium depending on the type of the work and the “risk” factor.
Now instead of creating a proprietary or “closed” pool of top talent – you now have a pool of top talent and a distributed content system that can get the best content from all over the world and be adequately rewarded for it.
+1 to this
“The New New York Times then can focus on a focused set of journalistic content” and forget everything else. Other people are already doing the rest better and cheaper. Focus on the area and topics you do better than anyone else.
“a bunch of freelance national and international journalists understand that they will grab a premium for submitting content that is compelling”. Why does this have to go through the NNYT, when it’s already being done all over the net?
Stick to where you can bring value and original content. No need to repackage commodity news stories.
+1 to this to.
Saying that an organization with a writing staff of 50 could come up with something remotely like the New York Times is preposterous.
It could do a fine job for a limited scope of news, but you’d never get the breadth of content that the New York Times is offering. Get real…
I don’t think New York Times would die…
love the idea. but yea, somehow i don’t see a bunch of top journalists leaving the NYT in droves. as mentioned above by @robinwauters, i imagine a lot of hustling was involved in getting to see their name on a NYT business card.
This is a compelling idea, but it’s important to note the value of the larger news staff. The fact is, while much of the valuable content at the Times is produced by top writers, one of the strengths of the Times is having writers at hand in places and fields where news—big news—emerges. The result, ideally, is that you have someone who’s been watching it and that the brand can be home to expert (or specialist beat journalist) reporting is available on any major story of the day.
The best reporters are remarkably flexible when faced with spot news, but international issues, financial issues, intelligence and defense issues—these are fields that lay in waiting and require expertise when it hits the fan. Just as advertising, sports, entertainment, classifieds, etc., have subsidized the news budget of newspapers, so bread-and-butter top beats have subsidized depth in out of the way places.
I don’t argue with your sense of the business possibility. However, for those who are concerned with the survival or improvement of the public good we get from newspapers (and I’m not one to say it must come from a newspaper), it’s useful to remember that a center for public trust on a variety of issues still has value.
That breadth comes as a result of a sense of trust in a source’s ability to make sure its reporters are providing good information, whether by trusting their personal interpretations or fueling good editorial systems. Money and thrift aside, let’s remember the value of trustworthy information to society and decision makers all kinds.
yeah you’re talking about some mythical perfect newspaper that does all things for all people. I’m talking about a business that would kick ass and make a lot of money. Our two worlds are in different universes. Yours requires state support.
But most top reporters think more like Graham than like Michael Arrington. Most people who really want to be entrepreneurs, are entrepreneurs by the time they’re in the prime of their career. A top staff writer at a major paper is in that position because they want to be there. Like an academic researcher, they don’t want to be successful in business. They want to be insulated from business so they can focus on their investigations.
What “public trust,” Graham? People don’t trust journalists.
http://newsbust...tly-trust-media
http://www.harr...dex.asp?PID=688
http://www.repu...pub/85_view.htm
I think you underestimate the costs involved in reporting. Travel expenses to have the right person at the right place can be substantial. Keeping your international correspondents housed and out of jail also adds substantially to expenses.
Another element not covered in your equation is that the high value reporters subsidize very important reporting done by those who generate less revenue. Someone still has to report on what happens at the school board meetings.
clearly for worldwide breaking news, wars and stuff like that, there is going to be a big additional expense. But tech, politics, entertainment, sports, etc. just doesn’t have major additional expenses. So you either add a ton of expense to report on wars, or you leave that to the ONYT (old NYT).
Michael, what you don’t seem to understand is that politics is insanely MORE complex and with more spin than even tech.
Politico isn’t a news organization, it is a meme organization.
And remember, more people read NYT tech than read TechCrunch or any other online-only tech organization.
I’m not debating what politico is or isn’t. I think the NYT writers could continue to write the exact same content and style that they are now (I wouldn’t, but it’s a different argument) and they’d still be vastly more successful because they don’t have to support the less talented writers plus another 8,000 support staff and a huge building in midtown Manhattan.
+1 and they have an insane % of traffic from drudge–which says a lot about their model.
“But tech, politics, entertainment, sports, etc. just doesn’t have major additional expenses.”
Well, they don’t when you mainly report press conferences and recycle press releases, which is what many newspapers are being reduced to in the quest by their management for a “kick ass” business that would make a lot of money.
wrt school board meetings, I think that’s best left to the local communities. I don’t think the NYT does a lot of that anyway.
thats the ‘david simon’ argument
Mike is trying to counsel thinking differently. In the internet age, sending American journalists to Iraq is anachronistic. Instead, it makes sense to hire bright Iraqi journalists who know more about their country than any American ever will. And of course, there will be zero travel expenses.
Much of the cost of the old newspapers as Mike says, is from having old economy overhead. Global websites should have a global workforce.
http://www.amusis.com
“Instead, it makes sense to hire bright Iraqi journalists who know more about their country than any American ever will. And of course, there will be zero travel expenses.”
Of course, because Iraqi journalist work for free! Plus, we don’t have to provide security for them. This model is guaranteed to work.
Add a couple of million to the budget for travel, it still works
It’s sad that people like you don’t realize that Politico doesn’t aspire to be a news organization — but rather a meme-creating organization.
Politico may get a lot of visitors, but they are a gossip magazine that covers enough of the same things as legitimate organizations (like the NY Times, Washington Post and, hell, even the Washington Times) that their more provocative (and false) pieces have some sort of credence.
It’s like if People magazine merged with the Enquirer, really. They don’t care about confirming sources or creating rumors only for traffic.
Which is dangerous for any sort of news operation, from politics, to, well, tech.
yeah you didn’t read the article.
right.
“it’s like people mag merging with the enquirer”
-_-
well, for a giant to make the step into a brave new world? it takes courage, it takes confidence, and it takes 30 years.
Yea but do you want to know what I think about parasites? You are an insult to my people now go away
lol. but the nnyt isn’t trying to be the old nyt. their models and priorities are different. similar too, but different enough to be profitable and the potential to be an up and comer on the net.
i don’t read the print version of the nyt or the online version of the nyt and i’ve actually thought the same thing that arrington brought up. it’s not some idea that exists in a vacum or like how the people above are making sarcastic comments about outsourcing work. it’s not just politico that is doing this. something needs to change at the nyt. it would be better for them if they recognized this idea and try to do something with it and maybe have a spinoff company that they could still benefit from. they could split the company and make it more streamlined…but this is the nyt we’re talking about. the people who work there worked hard to get to the top and to get all the things robin mentioned in her comments. i don’t really care about the company though because i follow the writer and i follow what the news is.
Actually NY times are doing pretty good job in evolving into what would be the face of journalism in the social media era (http://blog.tho...s-industry.html). They have a strong presence over twitter, and a good online community around their webstie. I am sure that they would figure out how to translate that into more profit with time.
They also have an awesome R & D Department… have a look at:
http://www.yout...feature=related
yeah. i hope over time things works out from print, to online+print, to just online+incentives model.
It’s an interesting idea, but you move pretty quickly over the simple fact that the NY Times is not the NY Times with 50 writers. I take your point that 1,400 may be too many, but do you really think you can have the breath of coverage the NY Times does with 50? Of course if the idea is to cover Washington only that would certainly be possible. Or if you want to become a simple commentary site–but there are enough of those. So I’m not sure what you have after you’ve fired 1,350 journalists.
you’ve got 50 writers making a lot of money and with equity in a hugely valuable and profitable company.
I tend to think these things work as niche sites best. I read TechCrunch, DeadlineHollywoodDaily, Politico, HuffingtonPost and Taegan Goddard and the NY Times (and the LA Times when I have to). I find that I pick the best blogs on the topics that interest me with the bias that interests me and I go to those. I then go to the NY Times when I need a reality check on the bias of the other sites. My guess is a stodgy straight news site like the NNYT would have a problem being the “news website of record.” If I were the NYT or the NNYT I would hire 5 journalists from the largest media markets where those papers are failing. I would re-brand a “Local” website where you could get great local journalism, and I’d do a separate brand (maybe keep it the NYT) and have it be solely national and international news (which could span plenty of topics). Oh, I guess that’s exactly what HuffPo is doing.
sad how everything always revolves around money for you. You can be a profitable business but have something more noble as your mission, instead of just wanting to be “hugely profitable”.
I believe that’s what the New York Times is.
didn’t he already mention that although with a drop in profits the nyt is still a large profitable company…although not like the nyt of the past (which experienced both good and bad). i think the point being made is about reader loyalty, quality of print, and about the potential for employees working with larger well established employers to go off and start something that can be profitable, competitive or alongside said emplyer company, and not be hampered by a large staff base. unlike what someone said about 30 years…it’s not going to take 30 years for something like a nnyt or something of that ilk to be successful or profitable.
people will go where the news is, whether it is for the stodgy nyt like how lenny mentioned or for stodgy nnyt. i’m thinking everyone expects the new product to be more exciting, and that doesn’t have to be the case. the model is just different than the usual, and it works. i don’t understand why more people aren’t doing that. it’ll be good for the news business to go through something like this. it’s like the companies are afraid to put the power in the hands of the readers, but the power is already in the hands of readers. if your favourite journalist leaves a company you, (me probably, but i mean some people generally) would follow that journalist if they are still writing (even if it’s for another company or a rival company you despise) because you know they come up with the goods. it’s not always about the name of the company or the prestige or w/e bs people attribute to quality things. if the writer is credible, does a good job and is still writing albeit for a nother company, wouldn’t you follow him/her?
i understand brand loyalty and obviously the people at politico understand it too, because they are dependent on readers knowing that they are the best/primary source for news, but are you telling me you just read something just because it has “Times, Post, etc.” on it. there’s a lot of crap and good that can be found anywhere even if the company name/reputation is solid. the nnyt would be an alternative, even if covering the same subjects as the onyt. if my favourite jurnos left the nyt i would leave and follow them in a hot second. i guess i am not what you call a prime loyalty customer. yeah i would go wherever the news and communication is good, but i also have a bias and i know what i like and don’t like.
It’s a great idea. The only problem with it would be that a lot of people don’t read the NYTimes for the journalists. They read it because it’s the New York Times.
Getting a brand as big as that would take a lot of money. It’s not enough to just employ good writers.
If every business’s success depended on its quality, we’d be living in a different world.
+1
this is true. and you make the same point i was trying to make above but with less words. thanks!
the world would be very different if people used their brains.
124,000,000/1000 = 124,000 * $10 = $1,240,000/month
Am I screwing up my math (didn’t have coffee yet) but ads won’t pay their salaries.
Oh I forgot about the annual NYTcrunch 50 conference that will help on the revenue side.
Outstanding article. Regardless of the debate itself, isn’t it great to be having the debate?
The fact is there is one massive hurdle to overcome and that is the attachment to the physical paper, the attachment to the brand – both of which are a long way from being broken.
They are diluted by new and exciting sources of information and news, but are they the same? Not sure.
The future will only be written if we are creative and use imagination and ideas like this to test what we know today.
Well done Michael – there is something in this… Guess we’ll look back in x years and know what it was.. until then – we wait, we watch
why can’t the ONYT do the NNYT and split it’s staff plus actually benefit from the NNYT? why can’t they work together?
i think it’s good we’re talking about this too because i’m sure that not only 1 person is thinking about a new model, but a lot of people. i think the politico model, among others will be beneficial in the long run.
If I’m not mistaken, you’ve just described a slightly larger version of TheAwl.com, led by some folks who left Gawker (willingly and unwillingly). By and large, it’s more commentary than news, but it’s awfully fun to read.
For a more likely scenario of the NYT’s future, there’s this bit from the New York Observer: http://ow.ly/izkP. Personally, I like the second option — the pay as you can/donation option — which essentially turns the NYT into NPR. About time.
The AWL is indeed the bear
No one here seems to understand what’s really killing old media, heathcare, and the automobile industry:
Unions.
You’re hinting at what would happen in news if we did away with the deadweight, the left-overs of the industrial society, and created a company that was comprised of nothing but workers of the new information society.
Suddenly, people are paid for performance, and workers want to achieve because they have a stake in the company.
Hmm, sounds like every web company we’ve ever heard of. None of which are unionized.
Why is healthcare a problem? Because unions over-promised to their deadbeat pensioned former workers. Why did the auto industry collapse? Because unions browbeat management until the industry was losing money on each car produced.
Why is the stock price of the New York Times collapsing? Because the unions would rather see the company die than give up their perks. Did you notice the story about how the Boston Globe (a NYT company) was willing to shut down rather than pay off the union thugs? Look it up, it was just a few months ago.
The problems this country are going through today are the convulsions of the end of the industrial revolution. The untrained unionized workers are living off zombie companies like the New York Times, General Motors, the US Government, and more.
The revolution is here, and the unions don’t get it.
Go, Mike, help bring us into the future. Convince the knowledge workers to leave the dead unions behind, to create a non-unioned utopia. We’ll all be better off for it.
Unions gave us this mess, and it’s time for knowledge workers to stand up, walk out, leave them behind, showing them where the real value in the company resides. In our heads.
+1
The unions are a bunch of money suckers! Turning every industry to the ground.
i heard this old man on the radio railing against our mayor that the unions are what is killing this country. it was definately amazing. then he said to the mayor, “you’re there (in studio) to listen to callers, so hey you listen to me you idiot. unions are killing the country and i’m not voting for you in the next election.”
Slightly OT but you said ‘I don’t really read the NYTImes beyond the technology section.’
Where do you get your news about the health care plan or global warming or NJ corruption? Non-original point being on the internet the reader can self-select not only the section (horserace Washington politics) but also the style (shallow centrism) and get just what he wants in one place viz Politico. No one has come up with a model that allows readers to ‘discover’. AOL in going niche. PJM, Huffington, TechCrunch, et al. We are all moving into information ghettoes of our own choosing.
+100
true. so where do i go to actually get original and investigative journo? the nyt?
“We are all moving into information ghettoes of our own choosing.”
yeah but we get to choose right, and we also get to figure out what is credible or not. i think loyalty isn’t as strong as it was just like how news isn’t what it was. everything changes. ghettoes will always be there but so will some good quality. maybe people will start thinking further than “the brand”.
Correctly, because those ‘information ghettos’ suit my information needs (for free) way better than a normal newspaper, where maybe 30% of the whole content is of interest to me.
i like newspapers enough and occasionaly purchase them, but i agree with you. i read all the sections if i want to but most of the time i read maybe 75% of the entire paper…especially if it isn’t giving me novels then i can go through all the sections without wasting a whole day. but sometimes there are 60 ads on pages and pages of some of the newspapers. i never have to experience that when i’m online searching for news…and i read lots of news from many websites not just a couple. and most of the time i click links and end up wasting hours reading news…some even same topic reporting because i want to figure out bias’. there are ads on websites…but it’s not like the newspaper or magazine ads/display of adverts in print media.
Good to see a post not bashing “journalism” and throwing it in the “Old Media” garbage can. I wouldn’t mind seeing the NYT dumping their Monday-Thursday print editions all together.
Where do you get that $12 million number from? You can pull more accurate data from any number of sources. Try the US Department of Labor, benefits account anywhere from %30-%40 percent depending on your source, 30.3% from the DOL. you can say the low end puts you at 13+m and the high at 14m “big deal whats a million or two”
And why don’t you break that employee number down in more depth and provide context? Or are you assuming your readers have that information handy? Based on Arrington’s “painfully easy” comment (hilarious BTW) I wouldn’t make that assumption.
Maybe you should read the business columns of the NYTimes once in a while!
First, a media is more than a sum of journalists. Its quality and business effectiveness rely on a culture, an organization, processes, marcom expertise…
Those 50 best journalists may not be able to perform such a great job without these elements and their 400 standard colleagues. Besides, they probably belonged at first to the standard 400 and it’s because of the contact with better journalists and the training/experience they got within the NYT that they became great journalists – which is a profession and not a natural gift.
With the same thinking, let’s have the 50 best engineers and designers from Apple create the new IT success story…
Great idea to share with friends around a beer after work!
50 best engineers create the new IT success story. Happens all the time. Only it’s usually only two and they don’t have to be from Apple.
I give it points for being my favourite building in New York ( I am from the UK, sorry I did not read your article, may be later).
http://www.guar...sa.architecture
I look forward to innovation helping traditional media… take a look at what we are trying to accomplish with http://www.tapinko.com I would love to get the TC response… streamline the ad process, decrease costs and increase innovation. Think it can work?
big new building does not match the real world when one can write out of their bed room and get read.
Why do you think TechCrunch and Politco have all the answers? You guys have only been around for a few years and already you believe you have the perfect model? You’re right about the Times and other newspapers are bloated with too much staff, but if they smartly slimmed down, and continued their syndication deals with Web sites like VentureBeat (Wash. Post and TechCrunch) their brands will still carry them – remember, as you state, The Times still makes $3B a year in revenue. It’s just refining the business model. Also notice that Politico has syndication deals with various newspapers, so much of its revenue is dependent on these newspaper brands.
not to mention saving a few acres of rain forests
I don’t know if a general banding of NYT writers would take place. However, Mike, do you think a group of NYT writers/editors might be able to come together to form a Politico type venture in another category?
Actually, the existing business doesn’t look that bad. $3B in revenue from 9,300 employees is $323,000 in revenue per employee — which is not a bad metric
I completely agree with you that journalism isn’t dead. It’s just evolving. In my opinion, only the print medium and the business practices are dead.
As the video states above, the process of gathering information is still the same — whether you’re publishing on a website or through a newspaper.
The only good thing that can come out of all this is that it will get these large newspapers to really start thinking about their online business model and get them out of their comfort zone a bit. Could spawn some really creative and constructive thinking.
yeah and that’s the whole POINT.
+1 and many 0’s.
the onyt is still profitable, but the nnyt can be profitable and even more sustainable…and i think arrington hate is clouding some positive thinking that could serve the creative and constructive process to gaining a new model. no wonder the old dinos at all these companies have survived for so long and see fit to stay the way they are. i can’t even believe that our local-national paper at one point laughed at the idea of going online…and now they are online and more people go to their website than pay money to get their printed version. it’s sad. now they’re starting to offer all the crap incentives they had in the print version online…which is as it should be. i don’t mind.
Under “New New York Times”, first paragraph, s/comapny/company/
Whenever I read a post like this I’m reminded of why we have newspapers — to offer informed opinion and perspective. Arrington’s idea is provocative, but shows a complete ignorance of what it takes to cover the news. First, every writer needs an editor, and a copy editor (in fact, most of the posters on here would seem a lot smarter if they had a copy editor. it’s hard to believe some of these posters graduated from high school!). The best reporters sometimes, believe it or now, are the worst writers. I’ve spent hours in my days as a newspaper editor refashioning the mangled prose of a guy who went on to win a much-deserved Pulitzer. He could report, but he couldn’t write. Copy editors check the little stuff that matters. Is that 575 Lexington Ave, New York, NY the Lexington Avenue in Brooklyn or the one in Manhattan? Why don’t the numbers the prize political writer included in his story on the health care reform debate add up to the total he mentions in his lede? Copy editors keep reporters from looking stupid and getting sued.
And then there are the folks who are expert at booking flights to Mogadishu and the folks who are trained to read controversial stories for possible libel and who handle the health insurance company when it refuses to cover the emergency hospitalization in Sarajevo.
One of the first thing any good reporter also learns is that brand does matter. Sure Paul Krugman and Walter Mossberg are their own brands. But Adam Nagourney, one of the top political reporters at The Times isn’t his own brand. He gets the access he needs because he works at the NY Times. He didn’t get that kind of access when he worked at USA Today.
So life, and business, unfortunately isn’t that simple. But opiners on blogs like this sure are.
Great points (backed up by your typo: “believe it or now”).
Those of you without an historical or working knowledge of the newspaper industry don’t know how much time it takes to create great investigative journalism. Not just articles that cover the news, or opinion pieces, but true investigative journalism…
Like good R&D folks or inventors, investigative journalists need time to follow leads and see where they go. They won’t produce valid investigations if they’re on a beat with constant deadlines. And, sorry Michael, the government can’t subsidize organizations like these old time newspapers, as it is their job to keep the government in check.
Would the organization Michael is suggesting have time for investigative journalism? Or would it just re-purpose the news generated from the “Old” New York Times?
why can’t there be an online news source that also invests in good quality jurno/investigative journalism?
arrington’s point can go the way of the ghetto, like how one person above mentioned or it can go the way of politico or even better. why can’t these options be explored. it’s actually in the benefit for a company like the nyt to have a nnyt. something needs to change. the brand is strong and will probably continue that way for a long time.
i haven’t bought a newspaper in years. i don’t read the nyt but occasionaly. doesn’t mean i’m not getting good quality news or that the news i’m getting is not first source investigative journalism. hahaha i mean i would never go and read the nyt just because it is the nyt. i would go and read it for the quality the reporters provide…and if those reporters leave that doesn’t mean i will still be reading the nyt. it doesn’t mean that i have signed my life away from being objective…but i can have a couple of go to reporters i follow and still read the nyt. the nnyt definately can succeed. it’s just people need to allow for things like this to happen and i’m sure companies will do everything they can to block it or branding the other as invalid.
Oh, and one more point, for all those folks who argue that the end of print will save trees. Trees used for paper are raised, grown, cultivated, just like vegetables used for food. Arguing against using trees for paper to save the environment is like arguing against eating broccoli or tomatoes because that means harvesting them and killing the plants that produce them. Dumb!
i just can’t believe you are so cruel to innocent tomatoes and broccoli.
lol. what what about the soil and water.
anyways apparently computers are bad for the environment too, along with lots of tech products. get off the computers and stop going online to help print survive.
Print is NOT Dead. Just the ridiculous overhead these companies have is.
I <3 Print. The perfect vehicle to transition local business to the web.
It’s an intriguing idea, but have you factored in foreign bureau? Baghdad alone reportedly costs “more than $3 million a year”
http://www.vani...2/nytimes200812
In startup and VC circles, what you say makes so much sense it is like a beacon of obviousness. I hope it gets some people thinking there about their options and taking control of their destinies.
But, having worked in newspapers, what you might have overlooked is how the New York Times opens a lot of doors to sources and stories that a new web venture might not. It’s a good paper with a sign of quality and is still seen as the paper of record to many people. So writing for it is a status symbol.
The large organization with HR and lawyers and scads of editors offers security and the feeling that the newspaper industry is not dead and over yet. And if anything that’s what reporters — many of whom have been in the industry for years clawing their way up to a “secure” job, maybe exchanging years of boring business reporting, for a cushy media reporting job… well, no one’s gonna give that up for the great unknown until they have to.
But, having worked in newspapers, what you might have overlooked is how the New York Times opens a lot of doors to sources and stories that a new web venture might not. It’s a good paper with a sign of quality and is still seen as the paper of record to many people. So writing for it is a status symbol.
———————————-
because the nyt is established and can go off on various tangents w/o feeling a backlash in $ from their readers or investors. so that means that a new web venture has to have the experience the onyt has to be able to delve into various subject matters and bring quality to it’s reader? i’ve read more content from various websites (of different newsprint comapnies and others) that cover more content than the nyt or content the nyt will not explore. i actually like the online version of the nyt and i hope they can figure out a way to move away from print…but i also think that a nnyt would also be profitable especially if 50 (not likely. too many people would be afraid of failing…i don’t know why since writers are experienced with encountering problems) or more than 50 of it’s best employees jumped ship or started another company that is under the ownership umbrella of the nyt.
You’re still left with a bunch of journos seeking to justify paid content in an an environment that takes users’ money – lots of it – but applies it solely to use of the pipes, instead of passing a portion of it along to content creators. Until this basic imbalance is addressed, the costs of operating bureaus, infrastructure, travel, lunch, etc. will make the NNYT not so unlike the ONYT. More on this:
http://interimt...lution-and.html
I’m not sure if the 50% extra expenses are enough. First there are many things you tend to forget in such a calculation (social security, IT costs, etc.). And also you don’t get great journalism by sitting around – travel costs are pretty high.
Is the 50% number a wild guess or do you have any information if this is a viable number?
50% I think it was a wild guess. However, I think the calculation works (social security etc.). I agree that travel costs are pretty high and would consider it as the only cost position to be checked again. I guess the famous columnist down sleep at the HolidayInn… But it should work, since I know the travelling cost of several global companies. Might check with a travel manager of a larger news paper, though.
The AP is the leaner model that the NYT will, by necessity, one day become.
And the AP is a bastion of great journalism…
The NYT may have a bloated staff, but it also is the best newspaper in the country, and there’s a reason we shouldn’t all be championing a smaller newsroom just yet.
and there’s a reason we shouldn’t all be championing a smaller newsroom just yet.
—————————-
smaller newsrooms=local papers…no wonder lacal dalies are also dying.
Not a big fan of their new building.
Not a fan of their new building.
This is a good idea, even though it relies too much in my opinion on this old and outdated model of page views to generate revenues. Media suffers today from this model, and I was hoping you would raised this point. OK, put 50 top journalists together and let them create a new website. If this new site relies only on the pageview business model, in less than 2 or 3 years the problem will remain the same encountered by the NYTimes today.
Great point, but I think that the “leaner” companies would be able to evolve more quickly to changing business models than the bigger ones.
Great point, but I think that these “leaner” companies would evolve more quickly to changing business models that the big ones would.
Whoops—I didn’t think that went through the first time.
true. so what’s the new method of generating rev aside from page views…subscriptions?
or what’s that idea i hear people in print throwing around, pay per read?
I very much like this article. However, having the best writers on Earth would imply that they also write about great stories only. Short stories or local news might not be satisfying for them (I don’t know, it’s just a guess).
What I suppose is that the format of the output might change, similar to politico: a 3-days-per-week print issue on the really important stuff.
Or might the format turn out similar to the Economist or the German Spiegel?
yea.. blame it on the economy, iphone, internet, etc… bla bla bla
Screw NY Times.. how about blaming their financial failures on shitty reporting.. obama mania media.. and left wing propaganda bullshit.
That’s why people arent buying their damn newspaper.
lol. i agree about broken model part, although they continue to be a wealthy company…but people have stopped reading the print version of the nyt way before obama.
Mike
you need to blog one day about my novel idea to call reading on screens as “screening”……Erick doesn’t think it’s such a good idea, he told me to EFF OFF…….
The New YorkTimes: are you reading it or screening it these days?
”The miracle, though, is the printed Times that rattles and makes your head go up and down to take it all in. The hugeness of it. I’ll be very sad if that goes. The Times has never looked better as a printed object. ”
–Nicholas Baker
A top professor at PRINCETON told me this today: AND SEE HIS LAST SENTENCE!
“I think the answer depends on what kind of material you are talking about “reading”. The Kindle is targeted at traditional “text”, the kind of stuff that is designed for paper, including words and pictures and charts. Computer screens are designed more for dynamic content. That’s why web pages look good on computer screens, and not so good on Kindles. I do think there is a difference between reading web pages, which more and more include video and interactive elements, and reading static text/images. Maybe “viewing” is a better description of what happens when we look at web pages, but that term is passive, and web pages can be interactive. Maybe we need to invent a new term.”
i agree with the prof about the viewing term.
“That’s why web pages look good on computer screens, and not so good on Kindles.”
just because the kindles suck, the apple tablet is coming up with a better version of the kindle because the apple tablet will become the new mini entertainment unit/computer.
i don’t know why the kindle is so boring to me (maybe because of it’s aesthetics and the way i have to get around using that platform) because literature is far from boring. some books are just white pages and black text while others come with colour, images, neat paper, neat cover designs, etc…
i love print but i think news has to move away from everyday print. in my city they are releasing another free paper but it’ll be different from all the rest because it’ll be a “true” daily that prints news from the morning of the same say (giving an oppertunity to morning news instead of yesterday evening news), and i actually thought the guy who pitched this on the radio was likeable but i kept thinking what BS…i mean if i want same day stupid news i can go on the website of my local paper which employs jurnos to write more than one article a day and keep the content on the website constantly updated. now i can’t get that from print. i don’t know any local daily newspaper (free or otherwise) that reprints news or updates their news and prints a whole new paper edition on the same day. it doesn’t happen where i live. it has never happened. if it happens in your city let me know.
Great article Michael—it’s right on the money. I’d like to write for one of these companies.
Do we need a new word for the new-fangled kind of “reading” we do on screens?
by Danny Bloom
Are you reading this — or — are you screening this? How you answer
this question will determine whether you get to the bottom of this
column.
Alex Beam, writing in the Boston Globe on June 19, fired the first
volley in this now-national
discussion. “Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we
read on the
printed page?” Beam asked rhetorically. His column was headlined by a
savvy Globe copyeditor: “I screen, you screen, we all screen.”
The answer to Beam’s question is, of course, yes. From most of the
research that has come in so
far from academics in
North America and Europe, the answer is clear, although not everyone’s
in agreement with what it all means.
For me — as a veteran author, editor and now a daily blogger hunting
and pecking my way around the blogosphere — what the current research
means is that we need a new word for reading on plastic, pixelated
screens (PPS).
I have quietly suggested “screening”, as Mr. Beam quietly noted in his
column. Yes, screening has multiple meanings, as everyone and his
brother has pointed out to me in over 1000 emails this year since the
brouhaha began. We screen movies, we screen job candidates, we screen
patients for medical problems, we do a lot of “screening” in this
world of ours. And now, you will be hearing a lof about a new kind of
“screening” — so-called reading on plastic, pixelated screens.
I did some homework. I asked Dr. Anne Mangen at the
University of Stavanger in Norway what she thought about the word
“screening” for reading on a screen, she told me by email: “My first
impression is that the term ’screening’ is adequate in some
respects, but not in others. It’s adequate to the extent that it
points to certain differences in the reading mode which has to do with
the display nature, the central bias of a screen compared to a page of
print text (our gaze is naturally oriented towards the center), and
the image-like character of modalities (we tend to read a screen
spatially, in contrast to the page which we linearly).”
Dr Mangen, in a published academic paper published in Britain last
December, listed a few reasons that reading on paper
and reading on a screen are two very different animals.
* Reading on a screen is not as rewarding — or effective — as
reading printed words on paper.
* The process of reading on a screen involves so much physical
manipulation of the
computer that it interferes with our ability to focus on and
appreciate what we’re reading.
* Online text moves up and down the
screen and lacks physical dimension, robbing us of a feeling of
completeness.
* The visual happenings on a compter screen and our physical interaction
with the entire device and its set ip can be distracting. All of these things
tax human cognition and concentration in a way that a book or
newspaper or magazine does not.
* The experience of reading a book or a newspaper or a magazine is
both a story experience and a tactile one.
The jury’s still out on just how different reading on paper is
from reading on a screen, but the public discussions in the blogsphere
are getting interesting — and heated. But more and more, top experts
in the computer and Internet fields, as well as typeface designers and
readability gurus, are in agreement with me that we need a new word
for reading on screens, and that the word should be “screening.” For
now. A completely new word might come down the information highway in
the future and take the place of screening. But for now, you screen, I
screen, we all screen.
I asked Kevin Kelly, the well-respected maverick of Wired magazine,
what he felt about this
new word for reading on screens, he told me by email in one short sentence: “I
would be happy to see screening become a verb (for this).”
Mim Harrison, a book editor in New York, told me: “I find the
distinction between reading and screening to be intriguing, and it
certainly gives us all pause to consider just what it is we’re doing
with our eyeballs these days.”
“Screening, of course, is not a new term,” a top expert in predicting
the future told me in a recent email, but this might just be the
time that it catches on in the way you suggest. Screening is a clever
and useful term capturing the fact that the
experience of reading on a screen is fundamentally different from reading
on paper. Not a priori worse or better; just different.”
And then he added this important note: “It is the right word for the
moment in terms of drawing people’s attention to the vast literary
shift about to wash over us.”
Another Web philosopher told me: “Keep going in the direcetion you are
going. Eventually, people will listen to you. Of course, ’screening’
has multiple meanings already. But your new way of putting it …is
very interesting and it provokes thought. I assume that is your
intention.”
When I asked technology reporter John Markoff at the New York Times
about this idea, he replied in a one-word email note: “Hmmmmmmm.”
I asked David Pogue at the New York Times the same question, and he
said: “Very interesting.”
But when I asked a top technology editor at the Times if he could blog
about this issue, he replied: “You have a noble crusade, sir, but
we’ll will not be writing about this until ’screening’ is actually in
use. You cannot just go out and create a new meaning for an old word.
Who are you, anyways?”
I told the New York Times editor (Damon Darlin, if you want to know
his name: “I am just little old Danny Bloom, tilting at windmills.
Tufts 1971. A seasoned reader and writer. I’ve been reading the New
York Times on paper for over 50 years!”
Bill Hill, a former Microsoft typeface designer from Scotland who is
now based in the Seattle area, told me that one reason that “reading”
on screens is still a bit problematical is because “we are still
paying the price of an engineering shortcut taken sixteen years ago.”
I asked Mr Hill to explain this to me, and he replied: ” Sixteen
years ago, when the programmers at the NSCA were creating Mosaic, the
first Web browser, they made an engineering decision based on
expediency. They took an easy option –for which we’re all still
paying a huge price in terms of the readability of the Web.”
The engineers asked themselves:”How do we display content?”
They said: “Pagination’s hard. The easy way is to display it all in a
bottomless window, so the reader can scroll through it. Then it
doesn’t matter how much content there is on a Web page.”
But according to Mr Hill and most other Web readability experts,
scrolling is much less suited to the way humans read than paging
through content.
“The human visual system — the eyes, the muscles which control them,
the optic nerve and the brain — operates like a high-speed,
high-resolution scanning machine,” Mr Hill told me. “When reading, it
scans four targets per second, taking only 25ms to move from one
target to the next, each target about 5-7 characters wide.”
“Type, and layout, has evolved over the 5500 years since writing
systems first appeared,” Mr Hill continued, “and especially since the
widespread adoption of Gutenberg’s moveable metal type — to optimize
for the way human vision works. Sure, you can learn to make do with
scrolling to read, if there’s nothing better. And there’s no choice on
the Web today.
And that’s what we need to fix to make reading — and design –
first-class citizens on the Web.”
Mr Hill, who believes in the power of printed books and in a rosy
future for e-books as well, says fixing the Web’s readability won’t be
easy, but that it can be done.
“It’ll mean re-educating the design community in a new paradigm,” he
said. “But it’ll be worth it.”
So, Dear Reader, er, Dear Screener, if you have scrolled all the way
down to the bottom of this seemingly bottonless guest column, let me
ask you one more time (and your comments and feedback are very welcome
in the comments section below): Were you reading this commentary, or
were you screening it?
————————-
Danny Bloom is the author of over a dozen books
in English, Japanese and Chinese. A freelancer writer and blogger
based in Taiwan, he does not own a computer and has never even seen a
Kindle or BlackBerry or an iPhone.