Working the night desk
Margaret Simons has been all over the Michael Backman incident at The Age this week. Her column in Crikey today discussing how the paper could publish a piece like that in error reminded me of the...
View ArticleOnline news in 1981
All eight newspaper sites, publishing via dial up, were only weeks old at the time. It took over two hours to receive the full text of the paper over the phone line ... at $5 per hour!"This is an...
View ArticleAnother US newspaper closes
Denver, Colorado: The Rocky Mountain News ceased production Friday February 27.
View ArticleCustomisation and news sites
In early March Fairfax Media relaunched www.stuff.co.nz incorporating a degree of user enabled customisation previously not seen in New Zealand news sites. Below is a few thoughts about personalised...
View ArticleResuming transmission ... and changing direction
I finished up at APN yesterday after three and a half years. It has been a great ride, and very productive. I feel I am leaving a business quite different from the one I joined.Digitally it is well...
View ArticleThe app is not the savior of news
The iPad is now one Christmas old and with the benefit of more devices in more hands publishers are readjusting their projections and re-evaluating the success metrics. The weight of expectation of a...
View ArticleChris Lilley is neither Jesus nor the anti-Christ
Chris Lilley polarizes opinion, but as an artist he has more in common with David Williamson than Austen Tayshus or the team at Working Dog.In today's Sunday Age Bruce Guthrie is indignant about Chris...
View ArticleWorking for Rupert
In 2005 I was appointed editor of www.news.com.au. In November that year I was invited to attend the News Ltd editors conference in Adelaide, where I was briefly introduced to Rupert Murdoch. It was...
View ArticleWhat's your Facebook strategy?
Most news organisations have Facebook pages that correlate with their brands. These pages may have tens of thousands of friends. Which is all well and good, but how much traffic is this delivering to...
View ArticleModern media: Necessary evil or saviour of democracy?
I sat in on the Media Inquiry in Melbourne this afternoon, and listened to the ever thoughtful Paul Chadwick.It was an absorbing session, and whilst it is probably clear that the most likely outcome is...
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APN: Can closing papers be offset by digital?
The closure of APN regional papers in NSW and SE Qld comes as no surprise. Nevertheless, it is a sad indication of the ongoing shrinkage of regional media choices. The fact is, that current indicators...
View ArticleFacebook apps: News brands beware
Facebook's "social news" strategy is just another way of sucking the remaining life out of news brands.I posted some comments on the new Facebook apps recently. At the time these apps were so new there...
View ArticleWhat's in the digital store for 2012?
It’s been a horror couple of years for media businesses in the ANZ markets, and on the revenue side things don’t look like getting much better any time soon.Despite some optimistic predictions by...
View ArticleA senior editor
John Clarke and Bryan Dawe's sketch from last night's 7.30 Report. "Instead of analysing the news, and encouraging people to think deeply about what's going on in their world, we are going to try and...
View ArticleThe Guardian's Three Little Pigs
Just caught up with this brilliant piece of brand advertising from The Guardian.
View ArticleState of the News Media 2012
New devices and platforms spur more news consumption ... but at the end of the day it's all about mobile.The Pew Centre's latest report on American journalism.
View ArticleNews culture eats strategy for breakfast
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast" is one of those throwaway lines loved by PowerPoint jockeys and business motivational speakers (with apologies to Peter Drucker). But in the case of newspaper...
View ArticleIs the media reinventing influence?
Darren Burden and Catherine Lumby discuss the changing nature of news delivery and its impact on journalism.
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