Planet Abell

Among the harsh criticism heaped on the New York Times for having the audacity to introduce a digital subscription model is that the pricing tiers are confusing, or self-defeating because they leave gaping holes for readers to game the system and thus make anyone who doesn't feel like an idiot. I'm normally sympathetic to this kind of argument. It's why I avoid roll-your-own fixed priced restaurant menus, convinced I will get screwed because I won't be able to reel in the best value from that sea of possibilities. In other words: Complex pricing blocks the road to assessing value. Daring Fireball's always insightful John Gruber puts it this way : One thing many companies — in any industry — can learn from Apple is the importance of simple pricing. If you make it easy for people to understand how much they’re paying, and what they’re paying for, it is more likely that they’ll buy it. Or perhaps this is driven more by the converse: if people are confused...

For all the talk about whether apps could be the salvation for newspapers, one little question has been glossed over: Are apps actually a disservice to readers of what, for lack of a better description, we still call newspapers? The key advantage of the Internet over radio or TV is immediacy. Stories fly straight from pocket-sized devices to a great discussion in the sky with no friction being heard. Short bursts of information — as much or even less data than traders on the exchange floor use to make snap, million-dollar decisions — are what drive the conversation now. Newspapers all have, or could have, vibrant web sites. Web sites are exciting because they are immediate, hamstrung only buy the stupidity of servers, how much traffic they can handle and how fast the Internet is working today. You share a story, and BOOM, there it is: Waiting to be discovered by random travelers, spotlighted by RSS, Tweets, Facebook updates and shared by a geometrical progres...

Reuters waded into the waters of opinion and analysis against a very strong tide: An iron-clad policy of doing nothing that could conceivably open the 150-year-old news agency to the charge it was not absolutely free from bias. In the not-yet three years since Reuters columnists began taking sides on stories Reuters reporters were covering, a breakthrough I called " Reuters Opinion 1.0 ," its global reporting power has only grown. But Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer seemed to complicate the question of institutional ambivalence with a post on his personal blog in which he inveighed against a "rush to judgment" concerning financial giant Goldman Sachs and a civil complaint by the SEC which accuses the Wall Street behemoth of fraud. Glocer states an obvious fact: Goldman is guilty of nothing until the company is found guilty of something, or agrees that it broke a rule or regulation. But now comes an object lesson into why this may not have been the best...

Deborah Howell, a pioneering journalist who served in the sadly shrinking ranks of newspaper ombuds during a three-year tenure at the Washington Post, died in a road accident while vacationing in New Zealand . Howell, 68, worked for both Minneapolis newspapers, ran one of them as it won two Pulitzer Prizes, and then became the Washington bureau chief for the Newhouse Newspaper Group and editor of Newhouse News Service — where her staff also won a Pulitzer. (Newshouse News is owned by Advance Publications, which is also the parent company of Condé Nast Digital, my employer). "I don't think I've ever met anyone with as much passion for news and as much creativity and as much of a feeling for what it takes to be a great editor," Steve Newhouse said in an interview with Minneapolis Public Radio . We never met, but I knew of Deborah Howell professionally; when she wrote an amusingly scathing piece about a WaPo opinion column which argued that women may actually be weaker a...

True confession: I don't really read magazines. Haven't for ages. Well, that isn't entirely true. I do read, or rather look, at magazines when they are hand-me-downs, or when there is a copy available for free at the office (that office being Condé Nast). But it has been ages since I subscribed to a periodical, and ages more since I bought one on the newsstand; my last clear memory of doing so was four years ago, well before even the possibility of working for wired.com was real, when I bought my daughter a copy of Wired . Something on the cover grabbed her. I was horrified that the single-copy price was nearly the same as a 12-copy subscription. I mentally hemmed-and-hawed (being out of work, and all) but I didn't want to stifle her interest, so we took a copy home. More recently I intercepted (*thanks, @MarketingVeep :) a list of magazine dreams my wife had intended to mail to Santa. And working through that list I realized that the traditional magazine fulfillment ...

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer publishes its last dead-tree edition Tuesday, the latest newspaper to succumb to the harsh realities of an internet economy where delivering bits is an increasingly inefficient way of delivering the news. News of the P-I's decision to publish online only was telegraphed for weeks , and it follows the decision of the Rocky Mountain News to shutter completely, the Christian Science Monitor to publish online only starting next month and deep concessions by staff at another Hearst newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, to keep that newspaper afloat. The owners put the newspaper up for sale on Jan. 9 and said they would shut it down if a buyer did not step forward. With a daily circulation of 117,000 the Seattle P-I is the largest daily to cease paper publication. The Christian Science Monitor is in 50k territory. "Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," editor and publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroo...

There's going to be plenty of pushback on Alan Carr's NYT piece about how to save the newspaper , so I'll keep this short and sweet: Any industry which says it can only be saved by collusion is suspect on its face. Any decent journalist would scream bloody murder if that was suggested by, say, the financial services industry or the airlines or — closer to home — a Starbucks/Caribou cartel. The excellent examples of fee-based online services Carr cites cover niche topics, not geographical communities (except for The Arkansas Gazette, which gives away aggregator-length snippets). Odd argument, since these publications are doing exactly what newspapers aren't doing, by organizing around subjects rather than territory and not making me subsidize sports coverage I don't want. (Carr left out the Financial Times , which charges more than any of his examples and has an even more narrowly-defined clientelle.) Google doesn't need you. Repeat: Google doesn't need y...

The Pulitzer Board has decided to open up qualifying publications to include some web sites , which is a step in the right direction. But it continues to exclude magazines, broadcasters and their respective websites -- which seems painfully quaint. The Pulitzer Prizes are meant to celebrate journalism — well, U.S. journalism, but that’s another story. When they were created newspapers were arguably the best gene pool of quality journalism. They were also a major source of slipshod, opinionated, careless writing — which does nothing to explain the Pulitzer Board's current Two Internets policy. The term "Yellow Journalism" was coined during Joseph Pulitzer's New York City newspaper war with William Randolf Hearst, for heaven's sake, an era which saw tabloidy excess that would make today's least conscientious blogger shudder. But — and it seems almost ludicrous to argue what seems so obvious — newspapers are no longer the exclusive or even main conduit for qualit...

In a bid for stability over reinvention NBC has tapped former nightly news anchor Tom Brokaw to take over hosting duties for "Meet the Press," the Sunday public affairs program whose long-time moderator, Tim Russert, died unexpectedly 10 days ago. NBC said Brokaw would moderate MTP through the 2008 presidential election. The choice of gravitas over what might otherwise be seen as an attempt to attract another -- or at least an additional -- demographic is significant because NBC has an unusually deep bench of seasoned on-air political interviewers and commentators who ply their chair-bound trade nightly on MSNBC -- unlike any of the other networks, who do not have cable counterparts. Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog.

T he AP probably had no idea it would create such a firestorm in the blogging community by telling the (aptly named) Drudge Retort to remove seven headlines and story briefs from its site. Media commentator Jeff Jarvis tried to mediate, and then lost his temper. Michael Arrington urged a boycott of the AP (wonder how that went over at AP member the Washington Post). The AP says it plans to meet with the Media Bloggers Association this week to find a way through this thicket. I'm sure this skirmish over links and intellectual property will sort itself out after the requisite level of shouting, breast-beating, and expressions of indignation. And nothing important will have been resolved. Let's turn this flame war into a teaching moment. Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog

Y eah, I love this debate. I wrote at the Committee of Concerned Journalists on the naughty word controversy ( What the $%*&#! Did He Say ) and how newspapers perpetuate a silly standard of keeping foul language off their pages even if the foul language is the story (btw,the clip doesn't make clear what prompted Sam Zell to curse; it was the reporter who asked the question walking off before he had finished talking). But the merit of the question is fundamental. And I don't think there is an easy answer. Unlike, say, the Big Three automakers it is too easy to blame newspaper executives for failed strategies that have left their businesses struggling; while Detroit is similarly saddled with legacy issues that new players were fortunate to be able to avoid, it is also true that US carmakers missed and dissed trends that invited nimble competitors to flourish. But people still buy cars, so at least the automakers don’t have to start making bicycles, gyrocopters -- or frozen pi...

Joust Originally uploaded by _mpd_ L ots of humility today from pundits and pollsters about how wrong the New Hampshire polls were on the Democratic side -- from Chris Matthews soulfully telling Clinton's communications director "I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton again" to John Zogby 's instant analysis that "We seem to have missed the huge turnout of older women that apparently put Clinton over the top." In an interesting little item on the Huffington Post a commenter observes: "No one is talking about how the polls actually nailed Obama's number. Obama didn't lose this election. He stayed steady and Hillary surged ahead." Many narratives will be challenged in the coming days and will be replaced by other convenient narratives. Among the most curious, and none-too-subtle, is that the bulk of spot reporting appears to assert that Clinton's victory was a "surprise." This, even though there is no evidence that Clinton ...

D on Imus is back on the air. Has it been six months already? Did I miss the national conversation about race while I was out at Starbucks? As a very smart friend told me during that frenzied week that saw Imus outed, ousted and banished, this was "Bonfires of the Vanities II." Sadly, sequels are almost never better than the original. But if George Steinbrenner got back to running the Yankees a couple of years after being banned for life , I guess Imus doing morning drive time before Spring's leaves even change color is nothing. Imus's trajectory is immaterial to me . I wasn't a fan so I wasn't sad to see him go. But I did hope that this time, at least, something would somehow justify yet another pagan dance around the bonfire. Instead, Imus looks wronged and he's been paid off for his trouble. What a Difference 150 Days Make "Imus in the Morning" and the MSNBC simulcast was canceled in April after Imus referred to the mostly black Rutgers ...

R euters last week quietly ended a 156-year tradition which, more than any other, defined its character. The walls did not come tumbling down. And while for some the change might have come sooner, and for others not at all, I think it could not have come at a better time. In a blog entry Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger announced that Reuters had begun publishing commentary written by editorial staff (Reuters also announced this change with an obligatory but quaint wire advisory). The ubiquity of "debating" partisans on cable news networks and the vitriole in what is still sadly called "the blogosphere" may make this change seem less than revolutionary. Or, for that matter, not even particularly newsworthy. But for Reuters, whose dedication to the principle of unbiased reporting stems from its desire to be an honest broker of news from every boardroom and battlefield, this is big news. It comes despite an unambiguous editorial policy about the sanctity of im...

Here's a takeway for all you journalism students trying to make sense of Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit against CBS: Don't lie. Especially on the air. I'm not referring to the story about President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, the flashpoint which led to Rather's ignominious departure from his journalistic home of 44 years. That may or may not have been a properly vetted story but it is clear that Rather believed in it at the time — and his lawsuit suggests that he still does. Being wrong isn't a capital offense in journalism. Being wrong and knowing in advance that you were wrong absolutely is one, without possibility of appeal. Ask Jayson Blair or Janet Cooke . Here is what you do when you are "instructed" to report something you don't think is true: You quit on the spot. Period. You never allow the business side to make editorial decisions. Period. You go down to the bar, order a stiff one, contact Howard Kurtz , The Col...

Apparently the presidential election is over and the Iraq War has ended. Rejoice one and all! OJ is a criminal defendant on cable TV news again! But a funny thing happened on the way to the docket: All that pre-hearing blather about a battle royale between an over-zealous prosecutor and the famously cocky unconvicted criminal failed to materialize. Despite kidnapping and armed robbery charges that could potentially land Simpson in jail for life, the D.A and Simpson's attorneys got together and made nice and have nothing but sweet praise for each other. So OJ got bail. Bail that I could make. Bail that I would lend him — but only if he promised to skip out on it. OJ's gotta take it on the lam again. And this time he has to mean it. OK — OJ has to turn over his passport, so leaving the county would be a little problematic and that Mexican equivalent of Miami Beach might be a bit out of reach (note to self: check out CNN B Roll footage for video of holes in the fence). Bu...

T he New York Times' decision to stop charging for content that had been behind the "TimesSelect" firewall is good news for fans of Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and 21 of their columnist colleagues. And it is more compelling evidence that charging the customer directly for online content is not a winning strategy. TimesSelect was generating about $10 million a year, the newspaper reports, “But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com . Even television, the epitome of an ad-supported medium, found ways to charge for some content, even things that had once been free. But TV spread like kudzu only because it was all free all the time Couple that with the announcement yesterday that AOL was moving its senior managers from Dulles, VA to New York to be closer to the ad industry -- to say nothing of its new strategy of te...

J eff Jarvis makes note of the new AOL news , now in beta, which takes on a blog format. Not a big deal, he says. Not news. "Can we stipulate that the blog tool is just a publishing too and it's not news when somebody uses it," he says. Before we get too excited, or not excited enough, remember that the purpose of a news site is to inform, not to make sure we all get along or participate in some kind of social experiment about equality. Seconds before this writing AOL News fills its page with the news — from just after midnight, though updated 20 minutes ago — that Paris Hilton has been released from jail. It assures me about the importance of this event by placing it under a banner that says: “Top Stories Right Now” (I digress, but isn’t the “Right Now” part redundant, This is news, and it isn’t good a little shout of unneeded emphasis that tries to convince me of something we both know isn’t true?) And yes, I see on AOL the tiny list of “latest headlines” to the right ...

T he New York Times' Bill Carter has done some amazing reporting in the past few days on the fits, starts and apparent dead stop of ABC and NBC to get the first post-jail interview with Paris Hilton. The Hilton family has been portrayed as prostituting their celebutante daughter (imagine that), with a hefty cash offer from network #1 only emboldening them to squeeze network #2 for more. This one jumped off the rails quickly. The $100,000 ABC was reportedly willing to pay was used to try to negotiate a much larger payday from NBC, which even gave the potential Paris interview a code name -- Rome -- to thwart enemy code-breakers. But even some insiders have had enough: TV Newser has a picture of a very professional sign displayed at the Today/GMA softball game that said: "For $1 million, we'll let you win!" (Today beat GMA 8-7, and there are no reports of money changing hands apart, perhaps, from a few side bets or victory rounds at the bar). This is an moment-in-tim...

W hat a shame that Tony Blair picked the same week as OJ Simpson (and Paris Hilton , for that matter) to lecture "the media" about its priorities. Dan Rather is now sounding almost sage-like as he decries the “dumbing down” and “tarting up” of his old network’s evening news broadcast — but it's a dead heat in the sore loser department. The truth of the matter is that reporters and publishers these days are more restrained and more inclined to let facts get in the way of a good story than they were even a few generations ago. The age of yellow journalism -- when only newspapers mattered and they really were concentrated in the hands of a powerful few -- was replete with slash and burn and lies and pandering, with no transparency or empowered crowd to see right through it all. We have short memories. We are led to believe the Internet has whipped a malleable public into lowering their standards of what is news when, in my mother’s day, there were dozens of cheap, cheesy ...