Have citizen journalists demonetized the scoop?

If you deal in the currency of hand-wringing -- "Oh, woe is me, citizen journalism is stealing the mainstream media's business!" -- here is the other side of that coin.

The mainstream media are -- finally -- spending nary a dime on exclusives procured from citizen journalists.

Philip M. Stone, formerly of UPI and of Reuters, in Follow the Media:

[I]n the good old days when everyone didn’t have camera phones and a motorist happened to be passing with a camera and managed to shoot a few frames, a phone call to a Sigma or Magnum or even an international news agency could be worth big bucks. The photo agencies knew how to sell to magazine publishers exclusively in every country and would rake in the really big money with the photographer getting a split.

The unknowing photographer might sell the frames for a fixed price and no revenue share and that’s when the agency really made out like a bandit. Remember the Air France Concorde crash back in July, 2000 in Paris? A couple of East Europeans happened to be passing by in their car, had a 35mm camera, shot a few frames, and sold the roll to Reuters for a fixed price. The news agency put a couple of the frames on its international news pictures wire and the rest it started selling exclusively to magazines around the world. It did so well out of it that it actually paid the East Europeans more than it promised. Then a couple of days later the AP came upon, for a price, some video someone had shot and so the value of all the pictures came down, but for a couple of days at least Reuters did really well, not only financially but also with branding for everyone knew it had been the only agency with the crash pictures.

But it is doubtful anyone did financially well on that Turkish airliner crash [of February 25 in Amsterdam]. It was all up there on Twitter for the world to see instantly. No exclusivity and perhaps more important to the news organizations in these hard times, no payment.

Further, "the days of exclusives on breaking news may be near over, but it also means more than ever that an editor’s job is even more important." More Mr. Stone here.

Also see, Big media smells the salts, embraces citizen journalism

Bloggers killed the Rocky, avers Congressman Polis

Amusing exchange of the day:

Jared Schutz Polis, Colorado's wealthy U.S. Rep. (Dem.), quoted in today's Denver Post:

"Who killed the Rocky Mountain News? We're all part of it, for better or worse, and I argue it's mostly for the better. . . The media is dead and long live the new media."

The response from John Temple, former publisher and president of the Rocky Mountain News:

"It's just another example of the poor judgment of Jared Polis. . . The Rocky Mountain News was a pioneer in citizen journalism and is an award-winning Internet newspaper."

Also read: Did the Newspaper Preservation Act encourage papers to ignore the competition?
And: Why, oh why did the Rocky Mountain News die?
Update (March 3): Jared Polis apologizes

What will the future newspaper look like?

Nimble, limpid, cut-rate -- think Kindle 2 or BeBook, only a hundred times more willowy. Could such a lithe, customizable electronic reader be the medium of the future newspaper?

One citizen journalist's fantasy:

The optimum newspaper device will have a thin organic screen that can be folded or rolled just like a piece of laminated note book paper and have the life of a plasma television. It will be user operated by a touch screen and be able to display full color animation.

The organic screen will have to be bright enough so you can read it easily in daylight and all this technology will be operated by a thin printed low voltage power storage source that has the weight of less than a penny and a charge that can last up to 24-36 hours of continuous use.

It will have WIFI and Bluetooth built in so that it can update automatically wherever in the world you happen to be. It will sport a single or maybe a double page format that you can operate with your finger just like todays touch screens but be a feather weight device.

You will be able to subscribe to whatever content you like and you will most likely pay for that privilege on a subscription basis because advertising revenues alone will not be able to support the price it takes to produce the quality content needed to be as relevant as todays printed newspaper.

The cost of these appliances will have to be extremely inexpensive because they are going to be made for the masses. Like the personal computer or cell phone almost every single person on the planet will eventually own one of these gizmos.

Big media smells the salts, embraces citizen journalism

Jeff Bercovici sums it all up for business magazine Condé Nast Portfolio:

In the past week, Hearst Newspapers, The New York Times Co. and the Washington Times have all announced plans to harvest the reporting of non-professional volunteers. Hearst is partnering with Helium, an online freelance-writers' network; the New York Times is launching a string of local news sites with contributions from area residents; and the Washington Times will tap members of the military to cover the bases where they live.

There's a healthy dose of irony here, especially when it comes to Hearst, which also said last week that it plans to start charging for much of the content on its newspapers' websites. In essence, Hearst is saying to readers: Please start paying us for our content, and, while you're add it, please supply the content.

Also see: Jai Ho to America's newspaper of record

And: Broadcast stations enlist college students as citizen reporters

And: 3G technology promises more power to citizen journalists

Did the Newspaper Preservation Act encourage newspapers to ignore the competition?

The Rocky Mountain News' failure represents the fall also of the joint operating agreements (JOAs) enabled by the Nixon-era Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970.

Catherine Tsai writes for the AP:

The joint operating agreements that were meant to save dying publications in two-newspaper cities like Denver are themselves dying off.

What are the JOAs about? Is their impending death a tragedy? Consider:

1. The Newspaper Preservation Act allows an antitrust exemption if two competing newspapers, via JOAs, merge business/printing to stave off the failure of one of them. Questions to ponder: (a) Is two newspapers thus maximizing revenues by controlling price an affront to the free marketplace? (b) Does it potentially affect choices available to readers/advertisers? (c) Does it affect our expectation of the press as watchdog? (d) Does it create an uneven playing field for magazines and other journals in the market?
2. For approval of a JOA, the newspaper publishers must apply to the U.S. attorney general. Questions: (a) Is that akin to an 18th century printer applying to the British monarch for a license? (b) Does it contradict our understanding of the First Amendment in which starting the 1860s a lack of prior restraint -- discriminatory taxes, licenses, injunctions, whatever -- is a precept of the freedom of expression?
3. JOAs have killed many competing papers compared to the few benefited. Question: Did the Act defeat itself by catalyzing the very monopolies it was supposed to preempt?

Ms. Tsai further writes:

The [A]ct assumed that the costs of putting out a newspaper every day were so high that two newspapers wouldn't be able to survive in the same town, [Michigan State University journalism professor Stephen] Lacy said. But the real issue, he said, has been ad sales.

Advertisers tend to pour dollars into the paper that draws the most readers. The more popular paper would use its cash from advertisers to gain more readers, thereby drawing more advertisers in a spiral that eventually weakened the second newspaper.

So why are newspaper managements overwhelmingly in favor of the Newspaper Preservation Act? History offers a clue.

American newspapers' record of supporting expressive freedom may be overrated. John Lofton has found that newspapers tend to favor efforts to suppress deviations from political orthodoxy over any right to dissent -- except when their own freedom is at stake. In The Press as Guardian of the First Amendment, his provocative tome of 1980, Mr. Lofton writes, "In the matter of war and political ideology the press has been reluctant to defend freedom of expression when the challenged material offended the dominant views of its own constituency" (p. 281).

With their bottom line on the line, accepting the protection of the law must seem like a no-brainer. The Newspaper Preservation Act offers the newspapers a mirage of security, but it probably makes them take their eyes off the ball -- the multimedia competition.

Look where that has got them.

We will miss you, Rocky.

Also read: Why, oh why did the Rocky Mountain News die?

Can selling news via the Web save the newspapers?

Should selling news on the Web be the grail of America's newspapers?

Less than a month after Aspen president Walter Isaacson called on media organizations to stop giving away content via the Web, Michael Hoyt of the Columbia Journalism School expresses confidence that "the recession won't last forever."

Mr. Hoyt, who edits the Columbia Journalism Review, as quoted by CBS:

A complicating factor is papers offering their content on their Web sites — content they might want to charge for, but that people are used to getting for free. "About ten years ago," Hoyt says, "newspapers around the country made what amounts to an historic mistake. They believed it would be wrong to charge extra for online customers, and thought they could rely on advertisers for all their revenue.”

Now, he adds, the consensus is shifting. “You can sort of feel it moving toward, ‘Maybe we should sell our content.’ It’s an unknown (whether that could work). Content’s gotta be good enough to buy.”

The New York Times had been charging for online access to its columnists, but has stopped that, for now at least. Newsday is reportedly readying to charge readers for online content. If it catches on, it would create a model. But the jury's still out on whether people will pay for something they're used to getting for free. In the meantime, they have to hope the money will come from more traditional sources.

Also read, "Stop giving away content via Web"

Broadcast stations cope by enlisting college students as citizen reporters

New York's WPIX-TV, which beams into 10 million homes, is the latest broadcast station to enlist journalism students as (unpaid) citizen reporters.

WPIX, which is owned by the CW Network, has offered Stony Brook University's pupils 18 new video cameras. WPIX news director Karen Scott says, "It helps to have more eyes and ears around the area."

Students of a few other area universities, including Rutgers, Fordham, and NYU have already received a similar benefit, as have students in other states. From an AP report today:

ABC News last fall began a partnership with Arizona State, Syracuse, Florida, North Carolina and Texas universities to set up news bureaus where students can be trained and contribute content. They've already done a lot of work online, and student contributions were used for "Good Morning America" stories on innovative ways students are cheating and how the economy is affecting colleges.

This month ABC expanded it with a "roving reporter" initiative online, allowing college students anywhere to pitch and potentially do stories under the network's guidance.

Clearly it's a great deal for the journalism students -- or is it? Is it sucking up the very jobs those students are training to get? Which comes first, layoffs or citizen journalism? And should viewers worry about individuals "who are less than qualified journalists" (words of Jim Joyce, an official of a broadcast technicians union) gathering news and making editorial decisions?

Old questions for us at CCJIG, but never more relevant.