journalism

Timing is everything

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A couple of weeks ago, Editor & Publisher posted statistics from its sister company, Nielsen Online, showing the average time-on-site for the top 30 newspaper sites in the USA. These numbers compare June 2008 with June 2009. Go ahead and take a look.

Some news sites like NYTimes.com experienced a 50% drop, whereas the Boston Globe’s Boston.com enjoyed a 300% increase. With only four exceptions, all the news web sites had numbers far below the average time a reader spends with a daily newspaper. According to the 2008 Readership Institute Study, the average American newspaper reader spends 27 minutes with a paper.

What does this show, if anything?
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Fortress Journalism

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Three weeks ago, the BBC College of Journalism released a 92-page document titled “The Future of Journalism”. The information in the report is the result of a journalism conference held in London in late 2008:

Today, as technology changes the lives of both journalists and their customers, assumptions about what journalism is and how it is practiced are being re-examined.

The eight chapters include:

  • The End of Fortress Journalism
  • Introducing Multimedia to the Newsroom
  • Multimedia Reporting in the Field
  • Dealing with User-Generated Content: is it Worth it?
  • Video Games: a New Medium for Journalism
  • The Audience and the News
  • Delivering Multiplatform Journalism to the Mainstream
  • Death of the Story

If you are a journalist, this might be of interest to you. Although, ironically, much of it is old news so the report might serve as reminder.

If you’re a corporate photographer, this document might be worth reading or at least skimming. Your business clients have news and information they want to get out to the public and the news media. So perhaps there’s something to be learned from this report.

 

Canadian Freelance Union

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If you are an “independent media worker”, which is a terrible, politically-correct-sounding phrase, then this may be of interest.

The Canadian Freelance Union (CFU) (CEP Local 2040) is starting up with the support of  the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP).

The CFU is a child of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union. The CEP is one of Canada’s largest unions, with over 160,000 members across the country. The CEP is also Canada’s largest media union, with over 25,000 workers already part of the organization. It is this existing strength that the CFU hopes to build on.

There are some freelance unions in Europe. In Canada, there is the Canadian Media Guild (CMG) which includes CBC freelancers. The CMG has negotiated freelance issues into the CBC collective agreement.

While I think the CFU will be accepted by a couple of larger media outlets, in these economic times, I wonder if this will be a case of too little, too late.

Had this union started 20 years ago, when times were good, then it would be in a good position today. It’s always a tough slog trying to build a shelter during the storm.

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