David Johnson
Ted Koppel heading to the Beeb
Koppel, who’s been making in-depth documentaries for Discovery Channel since he left ABC News in 2005, will appear on both BBC America and BBC World News as a contributing analyst on international stories and the 2008 presidential election race. Cheerio!
Welcome back Interactive Narratives
Now partnered with ONA, Interactive Narratives has re-opened for business. The business is the same: pushing the envelope in multimedia storytelling and showing off the cutting edge in new content. But, the new version is a community-driven post-and-rate site rather than the old group blog. NYT multimedia editor and the man behind the site, Andrew [...]
Games are getting more serious
I had the honor of being a respondent on an extraordinary panel yesterday at SILVERDOCS, the AFI/Discovery independent documentary festival and conference. The title of the session was “It’s Not Just a Game: Storytelling in the Virtual Space,” and moderator Denise DiIanni of WGBH Labs led this fantastic lineup: Trisha Creekmore, Executive Director, Discovery.com Nonny [...]
Fostering investigative journalism
Chuck Lewis and Wendell Cochran, two of my colleagues on the faculty at American University’s School of Communication, have launched the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Mark Glaser talks to Chuck on Mediashift about the peril facing investigative reporting in today’s media marketplace and how IRW is designed to not only save the craft, but push forward [...]
Cable still strongarms customers who keep shelling out
With all that we talk about online video disruption, the MSOs (that’s cable companies to you and me) are still making bank. The New York Times reports that cable prices have risen 77 percent since 1996, roughly double the rate of inflation. The average customer is now shelling out $60 a month for a cable [...]
2008 Knight News Challenge winners announced
Congratulations to the sixteen winners who split $5.5. million on various projects that advance communicating news and information in the public interest using open-source digital technology focused on geographic community. The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, received a grant to address issues surrounding sourcing and accuracy online. The 2008 awards were [...]
Newspapers guide to online video
The NAA has released this big ol’ report today: Zooming In on Online Video – Newspaper Association of America: Advancing Newspaper Media for the 21st Century Video viewing numbers are on the major upswing, with comscore reporting 11.5 billion viewed in March. So everyone needs to jump on, right? With the pack mentality, does this [...]
Webby winners announced: Colbert is Webby Person of the Year
Stephen Colbert picked up a special award for innovative use of the Web to engage fans. The New York Times, The Onion, National Geographic and PostSecret were also big winners (full list here). HBO Voyeur and the Discovery Channel’s UK videogame site got the nods in the Television category. As usual, congratulations to all.
Game over: Grand Theft Auto IV sales and reviews are in overdrive
The predictions that the latest installment of the popular GTA franchise would break Halo 3′s first-week sales figures appear to be true based on the release-day rush. At a time when media and entertainment spending is way down, GTAIV is set to pull in $400 million. It is also getting rave reviews as a “brutal [...]
Must reads at Advertising Age’s MediaWorks
Advertising Age’s MediaWorks section has a slew of articles that are worth your attention: The End of Network News as We Know It? Decreases in Ads and Viewers Mean Change Is in the Air for Big Three The Newspaper Death Watch: Tumultuous Week Highlights Industry’s Many Challenges What Recession? Online Giants Rake in Ad Bucks: [...]
A new world of print 2.0
The New York Observer’s John Kolbin writes on how the Web is having a negative impact on print journalism. Sure, sure… heard it all before right? But this one has some pretty interesting stuff in it. Essentially, weaker stories with little or no new information are getting stronger play in print by editors who don’t [...]
Is dusk falling on the nightly news?
4-in-10 national journalists agree, the network nightly news has roughly a decade left before it signs off for good, according to a recent Pew survey. The respondents were less gloomy about newspapers, only 17% say the presses will stop a decade from now.
2008 is the year of gaming
C|Net’s Tech news blog has declared that 2008 is the year of gaming. While it may seem a little early for declarations, and these diggers don’t seem to be overly impressed, the sales numbers on games and gaming gear in the first quarter alone are impressive: The indicators already suggest that this year will be [...]
Video mass market closer to cell phones
Here’s a little LATimes story with a Vegas dateline for all you NABbers: With 89% of U.S. adults signed up for cellphone service, carriers are trying to boost revenue by getting customers to receive more data on their phones — and nothing contains as much data as video. The big carriers have done little to [...]
Online video traffic down, but time spent increases
Hitwise has the new numbers on U.S. online video traffic. Overall, visits in the online video category were down 7 percent, but the time spent per user went up 7 percent. The category leader, YouTube, went up 32 percent, but other sites, like MySpaceTV and Google Video, were big losers. The new Hulu.com gained ground [...]
Newsroom employment lowest in three decades
When we talk about newspaper sites doing video, comments always come in that newspapers have way more resources than broadcasters. There’s a wide gulf, sure, but that gap is getting smaller. According to Editor and Publisher: U.S. daily newspapers shrank their newsrooms by 2,400 journalists in the past year. a 4.4% workforce decrease that’s the [...]
Gawker spins off Wonkette and other blogs
Anticipating the slowing online ad market, Nick Denton’s Gawker Media is selling off three of its blogs. Music blog Idolator is being sold to the music community Buzznet and the urban travel guide Gridskipper is being taken over by the Curbed Network. Perhaps the biggest surprise though, is the sale of Wonkette, one of the [...]
Federated Media gets $50 million in venture funding
Federated Media Publishing has snagged $50 million in an investment round led by Oak Investment Partners. Federated Media publishes a number of very popular blogs, and provides ads to many others, including Lost Remote. “People have been speculating about it for months, but the real news is that this is the deal, and it’s closed,” [...]
ASNE and NAA meetings in DC
While the broadcasting world is confabbing in fabulous Vegas at the fabulous NAB, the stodgy old newspaper business is holding their mega-meeting in the stodgy old beltway. The Newspaper Association of American and American Society of News Editors have converged on the Washington Convention Center for Capital Conference ’08. All three presidential hopefuls are scheduled [...]
Hedge fund targets Media General’s board
Harbinger Capital Partners, the same hedge fund that forced its way on to the board of the New York Times, is now gunning for struggling Media General. The shareholders will have to decide between trusting current leadership or electing three new directors nominated by the fund.
