Our favorite Washington Globe reporter!

via washingtonglobenews.com

USA Network’s limited run miniseries nighttime almost soap “Political Animals” puts up a site from The Washington Globe — The Washington Post’s doppelgänger (DUH!) in the show.

Susan Berg (Carla Gugino), one of the characters, is the hotshot reporters going after THE story , any story really.

While most real-world mainstream newspapers wouldn’t go out on the limb with a staff photo like this now, I’m betting that it’s just going to be a short few years when newspapers will try this sort of “sex sells” approach.

Another one bites the dust: Weekly Reader gets axed.

Scholastic has owned Weekly Reader, a magazine aimed at children and what can only be described as a grammar school must-read, for about six months and today they’ve announced that they’re shutting the 110-year-old publication down. …  More specifically, sources told Kosman and Kelly, “subscribers to each of the most popular editions, which cost as little as $4.99 a year, have fallen from 1 million in 1990 to less than two-thirds of that figure, according to sources.”

What happens now, as Kosman and Kelly explain, is that Scholastic will fold Weekly Reader into Scholastic news and will only retain five of the Weekly Reader’s 60 employees.

via theatlanticwire.com

Newspaper owners: Why don’t you step up and subsidize this for all school kiddies?

Don’t you want future newspaper readers?

I guess not.

That’s too bad.

Chalk this up to another sign of the ongoing newspaper apocalypse.

Papers ‘n’ kids: I hope this is the start of a trend

via washingtonpost.com

Trends meaning kids reading the newspaper, not kids pretending to read so it’s a cute photo.

OK, she’s only 2 years old and probably isn’t “reading” the Washington Post (yet), but it would be nice to think that parents are encouraging their kids to pick up the local rag.

File this under “any monkey with a _______ can…..”

via laobserved.com

I want one of these cameras that magically turns reporters into photojournalists!

Looks like the management mentality is that anyone with a camera can be a photojournalist.

Well, NO!

A reporter may get lucky and get a serviceable shot, but they’re not likely trained to be photographers. Ever heard of composition and lighting? Just because there are millions of pretty landscapes on the Internets does not mean someone with a point and shoot can do a photojournalist’s job.

Much like most photojournalists leave the writing to reporters, reporters should not be thought of a s one-for-one replacement for photojournalists.

Maybe the next step is had reporters a dictionary and fire the copy editors. Oh, wait. Newspapers are already doing that.

And they wonder why the industry is going downhill so fast.

Fifth graders fact check Washington Post, send ‘Titanic’ letter correcting mistakes

via huffingtonpost.com

Nothing like a little old school red penning to put a newspaper in a place. Worse yet, it’s silly mistake. Even worse is when you get called out by fifth graders who know how to look up facts and then school you by sending you a giant “get it right” letter!

Newspapers as embroidered art

via laurendicioccio.com

Artist Lauren DiCioccio takes an old issue of The New York Times, wraps it in muslin and then hand-embroiders on the front of the fabric. Viola! It’s not a newspaper, it’s ART!

I have very vague recollections of doing something like this back in junior high school art class — except, of course, not as sophisticated.

Hit the link to see more of Lauren’s work.

Farm It, Milk It, Feed It — Which newspaper do you work for?

Farm It – Keep doing what you do today as well as you can in the hopes of optimizing the existing franchise for as long as possible. This presumes that (a) the company will operate in a reasonably hospitable and predictable market environment and (b) management is sufficiently skillful to execute smartly with the available resources. 

∷ Milk It – Accept the inevitable decline and fall of the traditional newspaper model and then whack costs to extract the most profits from the decaying business for as long as possible. On the day you no longer can turn a profit, throw the keys on the table and call it quits. 

∷ Feed It – Determine that even the most proficient management cannot overcome the fundamental changes in the marketplace that have been cutting readership and revenues since the Internet arrived two decades ago. Instead of retreating, however, you leverage the waning strengths of the legacy business and invest aggressively in new digital products to reposition it for the future. 

via newsosaur.blogspot.com

My good friend the Newsosaur outlines three newspaper models. Which approach is your local newspaper taking?

Hit the link to read more.

Letter of the moment: ‘Our city wants a daily printed paper’

via jimromenesko.com

Some big guns in New Orleans implore the Newhouse family to keep The Times-Picayune a DAILY daily newspaper. Archie Manning signed it, among others. I mean, come on Newhouses. How you gonna refuse Archie?

I have a feeling that this is not the last time that we are going to be reading about this sort of thing. But, as one commenter wrote, the best way to save the printer newspaper is to BUY the printed newspaper!

Newspaper basket made of, what else but, newspapers

 

I saw this on my friend Sue Cleere’s Facebook Wall. No info on if it’s a DIY or if she bought it somewhere, but it’s yet another example of newspapers having a functional purpose other than what we think.

 

Sign the petition to stop the deportation of newspaperman Mario Guevara

via change.org

Mudo Hispanico (Atlanta) reporter Mario Guevara is facing deportation after his asylum request was rejected. Please sign the petition:

Mario Guevara’s political asylum was denied on June 21, 2012. He is supposed to leave the country by August 20th; of the current year. The judge also requested a bail of $1,500.00.

Mario came in March of 2004, he has plenty of media samples to proof the attacks that he suffered in El Salvador; yet all of them were not taken into account. In addition the judge stated that it is safe now for him to return.

Mario and his wife Miriam E. Saenz, and their children have made a home in the United States. To take them to a country where apparently there are no political problems is not wise to do so. We fear that if he goes back something may happen to him or to his family. Mario happens to be great at his work.

He works for the most important Hispanic newspaper in Georgia, Mundo Hispanico, and a part of The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Please sign the petition so the Guevara family may stay in this country.