Newspapers start to rely on advertisement rather than content

By: Allison McNeal

Many newspapers have started to merge toward online advertisement.

The World Association of Newspapers stated at the world digital publishing conference that more than 800 U.S. newspapers have signed up for Google's online advertising, which is promoted through Google's AdWords Print Ad Systems.

Since this advancement, Google's advertising has gradually gained opposition by many industry leaders.

Moritz Wuttke, chief executive officer in Asia & China of the media sales company Publicitas, said that "it's time for newspapers to stop putting 'all their ads in one basket' and start challenging Google."

He also stated that it was unnecessary for Google to have so many companies join their network, because newspapers should work with other individual companies to expand their organizations.

Other companies, such as Comcast, Dell, and General Motors, are trying to gain more support and money through micro-blogging sites like Twitter.

Micro-blogging allows individuals faster access due to technology and is a common social networking site.

Online newspapers have invested heavily in micro-blogging sites, such as one Web site in China, which spends 80 percent on blogging compared to 20 percent on traditional advertising.

Even with the move toward blogging, "newspaper companies need to regain their advertising spending from other non-media companies," Wuttke said. "To overcome this competition newspapers need to copy Google and other online sites, by looking at the sales channel and [their] pricing model."

Will companies want to face the competition? Or will they align with Google and other large media corporations?

If companies want to gain revenue and become a media giant, online newspapers will start to move toward independent organizations.

This movement would showcase the content of newspapers, rather than placing emphasis on advertisements.

Micro-bloggers and other individuals will have to wait and see what online newspaper organizations will decide in the months to come.

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More problems for newspapers

By: Callie McBroom

Some newspaper companies are making decisions to drop news services provided by the Associated Press. This is related to AP's recent plans to change the rate structure for their services.

The newest newspaper to give notice of their plans to drop AP services is Tribune Company. This company owns 9 big daily newspapers, including Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. And before this, at least 4 others pledged to do the same.

The plan causing so much controversy would only provide some of the stories it is currently providing now for a lower price. The rest of the coverage would be available for an extra fee.

AP expected the plan, that will go into effect as of 2009, to save members money overall. However, many companies believe that this plan is not cost-effective for their operations. This has led to them giving the required 2 years notice to AP to drop services.

The question now is will these changes help or hurt the newspaper industry's major problems

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Getting it right

By: Kathryn Lisk

During class, we have often talked about how hard it can be to get a story right. Whether it's AP style, quoting sources, or simply understanding the topic, there are so many factors that can cause a journalist to get a story wrong.

In the presedential debates that took place Wednesday night, an article from the Washington Post was misleading about what Joe Biden's proposal for Iraq was and a blogger from Media Matters for America was quick to notice.

What was interesting was that Washington Post's Michael D. Shear didn't misquote anyone. He stated exactly what John McCain said in the debate. However, he didn't clarify that McCain's statement about Joe Biden's Iraq proposal was incorrect.

In the Media Matters blog post, the blogger states exactly what was said in Shear's article and then clarifies where Biden actually stands on the issue. This informed the blog's readers that both McCain and Shear had misinformed their audience regarding Biden's stance on Iraq.

I found this article interesting because it shows those learning about journalism just how hard it is to be accurate when writing a story, which is an important lesson to learn.

If any of us in Beginning Newswriting could learn this lesson from others' mistakes, we would surely save ourselves a headache as journalists in the future.

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