Archive for the ‘Newsday’ Category
Daily News’ Miracle on the Hudson Wins Headliner Award
The staff of the Daily News in New York won the National Headliner Award for Spot News for its coverage of Miracle on the Hudson. Bruno Bourachdene of the Daily News also won the photography prize.
My former employer, Newsday, won first place in the environmental category for Fallout: The Legacy of Brookhaven Lab in the Pacific, Thomas Maier and John Paraskevas.
Newsday’s Union to Examine Paper’s Finances
Newsday union leaders will meet with management Tuesday afternoon to examine the paper’s financial status in preparation for talks aimed at procuring fair terms for the workers who report, photograph, edit, produce and deliver the Long Island paper every day, Local 406 GCC/IBT announced in a news release this morning.
George Tedeschi, the president of the Graphic Communications Conference of the Teamsters Union, will lead talks for Local 406 GCC/IBT. Bruce Lambert, a former Newsday reporter who helped launch the editorial unit of Local 406 in 1976 and was a union vice president for more than two decades, will assist him, the union said. Others who are expected to participate in the talks are Joe Molinero, director of the Teamsters Newspaper, Magazine, and Electronic Media Workers Division, and Jim Kimball, director of the Teamsters Economics and Contracts Department.
On Jan. 23, Local 406 overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to reduce salaries by 10 percent to 15 percent, cut vacations, and lengthen the workweek.
After the 473-10 vote, Local 406 members have been displaying solidarity by wearing the same color on chosen days. The group expects the spontaneous color events to continue through the talks.
The news release said that union leaders are ready to help Newsday management, which says the paper is financially troubled. A union accountant is ready to examine Newsday’s financial statements when the paper agrees to release them. There are 550 reporters, photographers, editors, press operators, plate makers, electronic pre-press workers, truck drivers and building and maintenance workers represented by the unit.
Note: I was a member of the union for more than a decade.
Newsday Web Traffic Down 21 Percent Since Paywall Was Built
In other Newsday news ..
Its web traffic dropped 21 percent in November, the first full month since it erected a paywall on its site.
Nielsen data shows that Newsday.com drew 1.7 million unique visitors in November, well below the 2.1 million total for October. Page views were down to 18.6 million in November, which is a 34 percent drop from the previous month.
The year-to-year comparison showed a 43 percent decline in unique visitors in November.
Newsday is the first major newspaper in the United States to construct such a pay wall charging $5 a week for unlimited access to its site. The charge equals a weekly subscription for the paper. Newsday print subscribers and Optimum customers have total free access to the website.
In October I questioned whether outside readers would accept that structure. While I enjoyed keeping up with my former colleagues’ work, I’m not going to pay $260 a year to do so in a tough economy. Visitors from outside Long Island will get their news elsewhere. And those visitors could represent a sizeable number of people who came to the site (maybe 21 percent?)
A reduction in pape views and unique visitors will result in loss revenues from advertising, and that’s bad news for any newspaper.
The first month was rough for the website, and management can only make decisions on the paywall with more data. It will be interesting to see what now editor Debby Krenek will do with it if the ratings continue to fall.
Mancini Quits as Editor of Newsday; Krenek Takes Top Post
John Mancini had stepped down after five years as Newsday’s editor, and Debby Krenek had taken his place.
Krenek also becomes executive vice president of digital media with oversight of Newsday.com. She was managing editor and senior vice president of digital media.
Krenek started with Newsday in 2001 as associate editor for special projects after serving as editor of the Daily News.
Here is the memo from Publisher Terry Jimenez:
Dear fellow Newsday employees,
After five years as our editor and 20 years with our company, John Mancini has informed us of his decision to leave Newsday. John’s tenure here has been marked by many distinguished achievements, as he has skillfully guided our newsroom through one of the most challenging times in the history of the newspaper industry. He will be missed.
John has been responsible for leading a team that has delivered outstanding news products. With both our print and interactive media, his innovations in design and presentation, his courage and insight with regard to special coverage, and his overall leadership of our news team, day in and day out, have been exceptional. He has kept Newsday focused on what matters most to Long Islanders with coverage of issues such as the wasteful abuses of the state pension system and special taxing districts; the impact of Alzheimer’s on Long Island families and the Long Island Railroad gap, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
In addition to overseeing some of Newsday’s best journalism, John also helped us to adapt to a swiftly changing media landscape. The paper’s home delivery circulation growth and strong readership penetration are testaments not only to his abilities as an editor, but also as a thoughtful, skilled executive. John has agreed to stay on as a consultant to assist me with a number of special projects.
Debby joined Newsday in 2001 as associate editor for special projects, following a successful career at New York Daily News, which included a 3-year run as editor in chief. During the past eight years, she has worked her way through Newsday’s ranks and was most recently responsible for leading the development and launch of newsday.com’s pioneering Web model.
I know each of you will join me in thanking John for his many contributions, and in applauding Debby on her exciting new role.
A letter from John to his staff and a press release announcing Debby’s appointment are attached.
Sincerely,
Terry
Here’s Mancini’s note to staff:
TO: Newsroom staff
FROM: John Mancini
It has been an honor and a privilege to work with you over the past five years as editor.
Now, I have decided to leave Newsday to pursue new opportunities.
Please accept my deepest thanks for your dedication, support and friendship over the many years I have been lucky enough to work at the paper.
One of the editorial staff’s great strengths is resilience. The challenges are daily, your goals are ambitious and the product of your labor is vital to our readers. You have yet to fail them.
I ask that you continue to aim high and do all you can to help the newsroom’s leaders in the coming weeks and months.
I leave Newsday with hope for the future but also much sadness.
It is no exaggeration to say you have meant the world to each of us who had the great good fortune to occupy the editor’s chair.
Newsday Will Tweak Web Paywall as Conditions Warrant
Newsday will alter what’s free and what isn’t on its website after it unveils a new subscriber requirement next week, Debby Krenek, managing editor and senior vice president/digital media, tells Editor & Publisher’s Joe Strupp.
Krenek, who has overseen the Web site since 2001, told E&P nothing is set in stone — and the site may well make some paid items free, and vice versa, as time goes on.
“The Web is a moving, breathing thing. We are going to be able to watch and see what people do,” said Krenek. “We are going to be tweaking based on what [readers] have to say. One of the great things about the Web is that you get immediate feedback on what your users are coming to you for.”
For example, if a big story breaks that editors feel should require free access, they will allow it. “If there is something that is of critical need for Long Islanders to be aware, we would give them access,” she said. “Some major disaster in the area, some health scare, anything we feel would be critical.
“We think it is going to be successful and a real value for Long Islanders,” said Krenek, a former editor of New York’s Daily News. “We have a unique opportunity to do it.”
Newsday print subscribers and Optimum customers will have total access to the website while other customers will be charged $5 per week.
Jennifer Saba of Editor & Publisher talked to some media analysts who sai it’s not as risky of a venture as it would seem at first glance:
Alan Mutter, a newspaper observer and author of Reflections of a Newsosaur. “It’s not nearly as bold as an experiment as it appears to be,” he said. Since Cablevision already reaches 75% of Long Island, there is a “much smaller risk of losing online traffic than the typical newspaper would.”
Newsday can take such gamble thanks to Cablevision’s online subscribers. If Newsday were to go this alone and not offer free access to Optimum Online users it would reach much less of its core market. According to Newsday’s most recent Audit Bureau of Circulations Audit Report for the year ending September 2008, Newsday’s average daily circulation covered 38% of Suffolk County and 36% of Nassau County.
Noted Ken Doctor, an affiliate analyst at Outsell Research and author of Content Bridges: “I think this is a one-off because of the unique nature of a cable company that owns a newspaper. I don’t see it as a model that applies to anybody else.”
What is interesting, said Doctor, is that Cablevision is essentially charging for access, not content. And it’s using a model that is already very familiar to the newspaper industry: bundling.
Newsday to Charge $260 Annually to Access Website
[CORRECTION: Newsday will charge $5 a week. The original version of this post had incorrectly said $5 a month.]
If I want to read my old newspaper online, I’ll have to pay $260 a year to do so.
Newsday announced today that it will charge that amount to access its content on Newsday.com. The subscriber model is effective next Wednesday.
“We are excited about this model because in addition to a unique ability to immediately reach about 75 percent of Long Island households, we believe the hyper-local approach is right for Long Island,” said Debby Krenek, Newsday managing editor and senior vice president/digital, said on its website.
The $260-a-year price point represents $5 a week, which equals the paper’s seven-day home subscription plan. The newspaper said most content of Newsday.com will be accessible only to those who subscribe to the print newspaper or Optimum Online, or those who are willing to pay the fee.
Some online content that will remain free includes the home page, weather, obituaries, classified ads, entertainment listings and school closings.
Newsday is the first major newspaper to take this step. Every newspaper in the country has been struggling with lost revenues in print advertising, citing the fact that more people are going to their websites to access news and information than paying for a print version. Other newspapers, most notably The New York Times, are considering some type of pay structure for their websites.
The announcement comes the same week that Editor & Publisher released its monthly website rankings in which Newsday registered a 25 percent drop in traffic from the previous month.
The argument against a move such as this is that consumers will probably become more selective in the websites they choose to read, especially during difficult economic times. Very few people will be willing to pay hundreds of dollars a year to read more than one or two newspapers online. This would reduce the traffic to all newspapers overall.
For instance, typically I visit Newsday, The New York Times, The Washington Post, POLITICO, my local paper and about four or five others each day. If each started to charge $260 a year for access, I only pick one to read (which one I don’t know).
The other argument is that a paywall could reduce nation exposure and limit links to your site. This is not so much a concern for Newsday as it has for years placed its primary focus on local reporting.
What will be interesting to see is how the public reacts to pay news sites. No one knows if consumers will accept it at a level that makes it a success for media outlets, or if consumers will — after years of free access — equate it to paying to bring your luggage along on a plane trip.
Newsday Plans to Charge Fee for Its Online Content
Bucking the national trend in a time of economic crisis, Newsday plans to charge viewers to access its online content, Cablevision chief operating officer Tom Rutledge revealed yesterday.
Cablevision bought the Long Island newspaper in a $650 million deal last May. It wrote down Newsday’s value by $402 million on Thursday, pushing its fourth-quarter results to a loss.
“Our goal was and is to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed,” Rutledge said on a conference call with analysts. “We plan to end the distribution of free Web content.”
Consultant Ken Doctor says it best:
Want to know how likely it is that Cablevision’s new charge-for-Newsday-online will work? A few rational arguments to follow, but consider this number: The average unique visitor on Newsday.com spends four minutes, 25 seconds per month on the site. Ouch. That number can sub for lots of focus groups, price elasticity testing and the like. Newsday’s would-be digital audience has voted with its fingertips. That number is up almost one minute from a year earlier, here courtesy of E and P’s monthly Nielsen rankings, but still ranks Newsday as having the lowest online engagement of the top 30 newspaper sites.
Confronted with having to pay for a site you may use less than five minutes a month, you think you are going to pay for it? Wrong site. Wrong year. Wrong metro area
.
Newsday Plans to Charge Readers for Its Online Content
Bucking the national trend in a time of economic crisis, Newsday plans to charge viewers to access its online content, Cablevision chief operating officer Tom Rutledge revealed yesterday.
Cablevision bought the Long Island newspaper in a $650 million deal last May. It wrote down Newsday’s value by $402 million on Thursday, pushing its fourth-quarter results to a loss.
“Our goal was and is to use our electronic network assets and subscriber relationships to transform the way news is distributed,” Rutledge said on a conference call with analysts. “We plan to end the distribution of free Web content.”
Consultant Ken Doctor says it best:
Want to know how likely it is that Cablevision’s new charge-for-Newsday-online will work? A few rational arguments to follow, but consider this number: The average unique visitor on Newsday.com spends four minutes, 25 seconds per month on the site. Ouch. That number can sub for lots of focus groups, price elasticity testing and the like. Newsday’s would-be digital audience has voted with its fingertips. That number is up almost one minute from a year earlier, here courtesy of E and P’s monthly Nielsen rankings, but still ranks Newsday as having the lowest online engagement of the top 30 newspaper sites.
Confronted with having to pay for a site you may use less than five minutes a month, you think you are going to pay for it? Wrong site. Wrong year. Wrong metro area
.
Peddie, Laikin of Newsday Honored for Corruption Series
Sandra Peddie and Eden Laikin of Long Island’s Newsday have won the 2009 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting from School of Journalism at USC Annenberg. Their articles exposed widespread corruption and systemic failures in local special government districts.
The $35,000 award honors the year’s outstanding work in investigative journalism that led to direct results.
“In more than 100 stories over a year, the Newsday reporters uncovered and documented pervasive pension abuses, double-dipping by retirees and lavish spending by employees and retained lawyers of the little-noticed special districts that spend many millions of taxpayers’ money to provide services like water hookups and trash collection,” the judges wrote in their commendation, citing the breadth of the revelations and the resulting reforms.
“From story to story and one special district to another, their investigation grew organically to include statewide laws and practices,” the judges wrote. “Within months, the New York state legislature unanimously passed a pension-reform package and other legislation to address the abuses uncovered by Newsday. State government departments also changed rules and stepped up enforcement to end specific instances of corruption.”
“Rooting out corruption requires tenacity and dedication, and the team from Newsday exhibited those traits in abundance,” said Geneva Overholser, director of USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism. “Their work and the many other worthy entries show that investigative reporting — so critically important to our nation — continues strongly in cities across the country. We cannot assume that this will always be true. We are delighted that the Selden Ring Award serves to support and encourage this vital work.”
Peddie, Laikin of Newsday Honored for Corruption Series
Sandra Peddie and Eden Laikin of Long Island’s Newsday have won the 2009 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting from School of Journalism at USC Annenberg. Their articles exposed widespread corruption and systemic failures in local special government districts.
The $35,000 award honors the year’s outstanding work in investigative journalism that led to direct results.
“In more than 100 stories over a year, the Newsday reporters uncovered and documented pervasive pension abuses, double-dipping by retirees and lavish spending by employees and retained lawyers of the little-noticed special districts that spend many millions of taxpayers’ money to provide services like water hookups and trash collection,” the judges wrote in their commendation, citing the breadth of the revelations and the resulting reforms.
“From story to story and one special district to another, their investigation grew organically to include statewide laws and practices,” the judges wrote. “Within months, the New York state legislature unanimously passed a pension-reform package and other legislation to address the abuses uncovered by Newsday. State government departments also changed rules and stepped up enforcement to end specific instances of corruption.”
“Rooting out corruption requires tenacity and dedication, and the team from Newsday exhibited those traits in abundance,” said Geneva Overholser, director of USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism. “Their work and the many other worthy entries show that investigative reporting — so critically important to our nation — continues strongly in cities across the country. We cannot assume that this will always be true. We are delighted that the Selden Ring Award serves to support and encourage this vital work.”
News Cycle 