Do Not Disturb

by Peter Merchlewitz

I remember growing up in Winona, MN where I had to help my sister collect dues for her paper route. House after house, I was received with unwelcoming glares and rolled eyes, with some people who would even be on the phone, asking me to come back at a later time to collect the money.

But with the new trend of Internet news becoming so popular, and newspaper subscriptions becoming more scarce, it seems the city of Alexandria, VA might just cut the middleman all together.

Apparently, Alexandria legislation could pass a bill that would create a local "Do Not Deliver" list to help stop unwanted newspaper, Editor and Publisher reports.

Similar to the famous "Do Not Call" list with telemarketers, newspaper circulation managers are likely to be irked by the proposed "Do Not Deliver" list where residents can "make their desires official," and would institute fines for violators.

On the bright side, the bill will help reduce blown away newspaper litter created by most unwanted subscriptions.

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Gannett layoffs

By: Callie McBroom

Amy Gahran from PoynterOnline reports that Jim Hopkins, a former Gannett reporter and editor, is publishing a blog about the recent layoffs at Gannett.

Hopkins is asking Gannett employees for information about how many layoffs are taking place at specific Gannett papers across the country. He is keeping a running tally of the number of layoffs and the number of papers that are doing the layoffs.

There are some concerns about this process, however. It is not completely accurate as some of the comments that have been posted contradict the numbers that have already been reported.

Most of the employees' information is submitted anonymously so Gahran is concerned about the anonymity harming the credibilty of the numbers as well.

Still, Gahran calls this project "a powerful window on a difficult situation."

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It's Just My Type

by Peter Merchlewitz

The Baltimore Sun's Jay Hancock posted in his blog on November 25 that there is an HTML program called Typealyzer, which scans the text of a blog page, and analyzes the dominant words in the blog with a specific brain activity resulting in in learning styles, preferences and thought-processes of individual people.

Here's the analysis of my favorite blog, You Don"t Say:

The logical and analytical type. They are especially [sic] attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

And here's what it says about The News About The News:

ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

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Follow the links

By: Callie McBroom

Daniel Luzer from the Columbia Journalism Review is Linked Out. He recently decided to follow the hyperlinks in various stories for a whole day.

Luzer was interested to see if hyperlinks are an incidental addition to news, or actually changing the way people consume information. He began his experiment on Oct. 15, the day after the last presidential debate.

He felt that hyperlinking made it very hard to finish reading any articles. Also, the parts of different articles he did read were distracting and didn't really relate.

Luzer discovered that different media organizations have different strategies for hyperlinking. Many use corporate media hyperlinks, which link the reader to other pages within the site. He points out that these links avoided distracting the reader, which ended up boring the reader.

Even though Luzer felt that he knew what was going on, he stressed that he didn't really understand what was going on. He also felt overwhelmed with keeping up with the news.

In the end, Luzer found that many of the articles he read just weren't that good. He says, "If journalists don’t really know anything, they can’t link their way around the problem."

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Politico brings in new members

By: Allison McNeal

Content sharing networks are forming at rapid speeds and signing new members as they are starting up.

Politico has recently signed up more than 100 clients, including 67 newspapers.

Among those are all 27 advance publication daily papers, including The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, The Indianapolis Star, and The Des Moines Register.

The linking of these companies are creating a positive buzz, which could produce more companies to join in the near future.

"The more people who hear about it, the more they come to us," said Jim Vandehei, Politico's executive editor. "We have government news, analysis, and they get the content they like and share the revenue."

Politico's success is in part of The Associated Press's lack of consumers.

Newspapers that have associated themselves with the AP are now pulling their companies from this organization.

Even broadcast outlets are now creating other means of getting information to the public.

CNN, for example, meanwhile, created its own new wire service called CNN Wire, which can release national and international news, as well as local news.

According to EditorandPublisher.com, "newspapers and broadcast outlets utilize the content for their Web sites in exchange for placing advertisements provided by Politico, with revenue shared by both."

Beth Frerking, an assistant management editor for Politico, said different content packages are available that provide between five and 15 Politico items per week. The more content the client uses, the less their share of the ad revenue.

"We sell ads for the entire network and the revenue is based on how much you use, either 50%, 40% or 30%," she said. "Rather than charging you for it, it works like this."

With more newspapers joining Politico, this company will have the opportunity to expand and increase content sharing networks in the future.

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Retirement

By; Sarah Keller

Retirement, it is so far away for college students, why should we start thinking about it now, we have plenty of time to worry about it later… right? Wrong! It is always smart to start planning early for your golden years, and it is never too early. Think how rich you will be if you start saving now. With these helpful tips from an article from Walletpop.com it is easy to find ways to start saving now.

First start putting money aside for retirement. Cut back on take-out or going out to dinner. Join an IRA, be creative on how to save money for daily basis needs, have stocks and funds. Join target gate funds, seek professional advice, make a withdrawal plan, and make retirement plan documents. Also doing as little as staying healthy is a big thing so you do not have to worry about as many medical bills later in life.

This article was a great way to find out how to save money. These were things that I had never thought of before to save money for when I am retired. The article was full of great reporting ideas that can really help people out.

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Tis the season to give

By; Sarah Keller

I love helping others out. Giving to charities are a great way to help others out, but with the way the economy is these days it is hard to find the money to give to a charity, and even harder to figure out a charity that will put your money to good use.

According to an article from wallet pop it tells you how to safely give money to a good cause that will be using at least 75% of proceeds to support the actual program. The first tip it talks about is to research your charity at charitynavigator.org, which tells how efficiently individual charities “spread the wealth”.

The article talks about how you can deduct your donation from your federal income tax. A lot of charities are looking for things that you may have right at home such as old clothes and canned food so you do not have to fork out cash. You can even donate an old cell phone or other electronics that you are not using. The article also talks about how you can simply donate your time and energy, which is what I like to do.

The article goes on to talk about how there is a scam on the internet right now about people trying to get money from you by sending an e-mail out acting like they are a big name charity such as Salvation Army, beware of these e-mails.

This article gives many great tips on how to give for the holiday season, and helps you to know how to avoid scam artists. It is well worth the time to read. I think it was well reported, I love helping others out so this article was very important to me.

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CNN reaches a larger audience

By: Allison McNeal

As some newspapers are feeling the effects of lack of readership and layoffs, CNN is pitching a new alternative to newspapers.

Their new tactic is to release a CNN Wire, which can cover large national and international events, as well as local ones.

With its CNN Wire, the company is going up against the largest news-gathering operation in the world: The Associated Press.

One strategy that CNN is currently pitching is to convince editors that it can offer something outside of their broadcast spectrum.

"The reality is we don’t have a lot of relationships with newspapers,” said Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide. “We have relationships with TV stations around the world.”

This announcement has come at a time where many newspapers are unhappy with the cost of the AP. Some newspapers have even given notice that they intend to leave this organization.

Newspapers such as The Columbus Dispatch, for example, paid more than $800,000 a year. Others, including The Star Tribune of Minneapolis and the Tribune Company, one of the largest newspaper chains, have also given notice that they plan to drop out of the service.

In response, the AP announced that it would reduce prices, which could result in saving $30 million annually for its member newspapers.

According to the New York Times, "CNN amounts to another expansion of its operations at a time of severe cutbacks across the media industry, especially at newspapers, which are facing the wrenching circumstances of both a faltering economy and the continuing flight of advertising dollars out of print and onto the Internet."

A disadvantage to this new medium is that a number of newspaper editors say the component of the AP service that would be hardest to replace is still photography. CNN said it did not plan to offer photography but would offer streaming Web video for newspapers’ sites.

Even during financial cutbacks and the slump in the economy, CNN has shown that citizens want another medium to receive information. If newspapers are not willing to pay the expansive sum the AP requires, CNN can give people information they deserve.

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