The Baltimore Sun, like the Hartford Courant is a Tribune owned newspaper. And now it appears the Sun is shedding some light on what Courant newspaper readers can expect when the paper “reinvents” itself next month.

On June 25th I posted an email sent to all Courant employees that officially announced its looming layoffs. Those layoffs have now taken place. The second part of that email provided some insight on what the new dead tree Courant will look like when it relaunches in a few weeks. Cliff Teutsch, Courant Editor and VP wrote:

“The Courant will change…In general, we plan to build a more compact paper for weekdays, when readers are pressed for time. We will present information in short form whenever feasible and go in-depth for the most important, relevant stories. On Sunday, when many people spend more time reading, the paper will stay about the same size it is today. Daily and Sunday, we will add new content and new approaches. There will also be takeaways, and we will be as smart as we can about making them. The paper will be completely redesigned. We will fully integrate print and online, and increase interactivity with readers.”

This past Sunday, the Baltimore Sun unveiled its new look to readers. Based on what Sun Editor Tim Franklin says in a video posted to the Sun website, he and Teutsch got the same memo for change. So, I think its safe to assume the new Courant will resemble the new Sun. If you’re interested here’s a quick tour of the Sun’s redesign, and below that, Franklin’s video spin on his new, newspaper! For a better quality look, you can also go directly to the Sun’s web page to view this information.

A lot, and I mean a lot of print people hate my blog. Other people probably don’t like my blog either, but newspaper people really, really hate that I’m always talking about the bad times facing the newspaper industry. That’s okay, it’s hard to hurt my feelings. But sadly the economic facts continue to back me up; and this latest example of media financial uncertainty involving the Tribune Company has the very real potential to impact me directly. 

While I’m no longer a full time Tribune employee, I still get a regular check from them for my Rick’s RSS work at Tribune owned Fox 61. Well, I hope I still keep getting a check in the future, but after

  reading this article in    Editor&Publisher I’m a little  worried about what’s going  to happen next. And, at the  risk of pissing the  newspaper people off even  more, Tribune’s biggest  money woes are rooted in its  newspaper business unit.  Don’t believe me? Check out  this passage from the E&P  story.

Tribune Co. faces a “real possibility” of defaulting on its $13.4 billion of debt, Fitch Ratings said Friday in a report that cut its credit rating deep into junk territory — while warning a further downgrade is possible.

“Given the acceleration of declines in newspaper advertising revenue and cash flow at Tribune and no evidence from any participants in the industry regarding the prospects for current pressure relenting, Fitch believes Tribune’s credit profile is consistent with a ‘CCC’ rating,” Fitch said. Under Fitch’s ratings definition, default is a “real possibility.” 

So while basic business practices, accounting and balancing ledger sheets aren’t my strongest of strong points, I do know that business people who operate on the highest of highest levels of corporate America don’t like losing money by “default.”  

This is just one more example, an example that impacts me directly, why these efforts to revive the newspaper industry is a big waste of time. If people want to continue to publish these dead trees, fine, but newspapers can no longer be considered the driving economic force behind any media operation. 

The article ends on a fairly optimistic note. 

“Tribune management has met or exceeded Fitch’s expectations on the elements of its business over which it has more explicit control: expense containment, asset sales and exclusive dedication of cash flow toward debt repayment,” said the report. “Fitch believes TRB (Tribune) management has distinguished itself from other newspaper management teams by taking aggressive actions across various areas of the company to attempt to preserve the longer term health of the company: bringing in new leadership from outside the industry, communicating directly with staff about the challenges facing the industry, reducing headcount, re-tooling incentive compensation for sales teams, redesigning the product, exploring asset monetization/utilization opportunities, and experimenting with new revenue streams.”

 

I’m wondering what the reaction will be from journalists working at old school news organizations when they actually realize they are working side-by-side  at the Democratic Convention with people who are reporting for information outlets named MyLeftNutmeg and

CTNewsJunkie? I can almost guarantee that some point this week an article or new package will be produced by a legacy news organization that’s going to ask the question: “How did this happen?”

Pat on the Back

Because I’m trying to help keep my good friend and Hartford Courant Columnist Stan Simpson stay employed, I still pay for the daily home delivery of the Courant. However, I rarely read it. Today, I was given another example reason of why online journalism is better than print only journalism.

When I checked courant.com this morning I ran across this excellent story about the Obama Effect on local voters. The Courant interviewed several people from diverse backgrounds about Obama’s White House run. But the coolest thing was that you got to hear from those people directly via an audio slide show. The same story is in the paper. It’s well written, but the print version fell way short of the impact this story will have on readers who view it– and interact with it — online. Bottom line, print good, online better, nice job courant.com!

Slap on the Wrist
What’s up with the Courant and the iPhone? If you log onto courant.com via an iPhone, your are given an option to view the content via a special iPhone platform. A number of news and general interests websites have developed iPhone specific mobile viewing options. However, you can’t watch videos on the site, only text and photos. If you try and play a video you get nothing or instructions on how to download a Flash Video Player. The only problem is that the iPhone doesn’t play Flash Video. I guess that’s why they are calling it Beta. Not exactly sure of what’s going on, but since I’m the reporter here, I guess it will be up to me to find out the answer.

 

In a text message sent at 3:28 am EST to people who signed up for an advanced notice. Senator Barack Obama has selected Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be his VP running mate. While it was a great idea to use text messaging to make the annoucement, I do fault the Obama campaign for missing out on a great opportunity to maximize the buzz. Media coverage of all of these people getting the text would have been a great PR move. Essentially, Obama made a 3:30 a.m. booty call to his supporters.

Click Here For More Information

The dead tree people, better known as the newspaper industry, should be happy to learn I have a new love that I want to blog more often about. I no longer care as much that newspapers like the Hartford Courant or the New Haven Register want to reinvent themselves. Good luck!  Mobile media is my new girlfriend. In fact, I’ll be so bold as to predict that mobile media and the technology driving mobility will be the thing that makes — gasp — the web as we know it today, passé. Since I’m into year three of my 10 year newspaper deathwatch; I’m going to start a new deathwatch clock for the World Wide Web. I predict that in 15 years fewer than 50 percent of all people who access news and information digitally will do so from a desktop or laptop computer. Mobile phones, MP3 devices, video game consoles and mobile gadgets we haven’t even thought of yet will be how we gather, distribute and  consume content. Few media organizations understand this better  than ESPN. According to the AP, the World Wide Leader in sports just inked  a new digital deal with Major League Baseball that will  allow the sports  network “to put baseball content on  multiple platforms, including video  game consoles  and  portable players such as iPods.” This is the future  folks, heck ESPN has made it the now! 

 A frequent argument offered by old media folks is that they haven’t figured  out how to make money off the web. While web advertising revenues have increased steadily in recent years, the ad money flood gates haven’t really opened up on the web. The reality is that it may never happen. Why? Well, I think advertisers and marketers see the same thing that I see. The traditional web, the one you have to be in front of a computer to access, might not be in the long run the best financial investment.  

So you heard it here first. The end of the World — Wide Web — is closer than you think. 

We’ve heard of the terms citizen journalism and citizen journalists before, well, on Wednesday while conducting an interview for this weeks DoubleRDoubleS I was introduced to a new form of citizen participation, and boy did I walk away impressed. Very impressed! SeeClickFix is a New Haven based, connected-to-the community, Internet company. Basically it’s been able to take old fashioned citizen and civic involvement and turned it on its interactive digital head. What’s even crazier, in New Haven at least, it appears city government and the corporate community is supportive of this effort. That info comes from SeeClickFix co-founder, Ben Berkowitz who I interviewed. The story will air this Friday on Fox 61. SeeClickFix works like this: A resident notices a non-emergency problems in the community (See); the person logs onto the website, identifies the area of concern on an interactive map, and writes-up a virtual ticket for that problem (Click); and then the city or other public and private entities responsible for addressing the particular problem will, if not totally resolve the issue, (Fix) will at least have it on its radar screen — or in this case — computer monitor. As an aside, I mentioned in my last blog post that  I was going to track down more information about AT&T’s Fast Pitch mobile application development contest. Well, I got somebody from AT&T to talk to me about the contest. While waiting for the interview to begin I began talking to the AT&T PR guy about my interview with Ben from SeeClickFix. The AT&T rep said he was very familiar with the site because SeeClickFix helped AT&T quickly identify and clean-up outdoor U-Verse utility boxes that had been ht with unwanted graffiti.

UPDATE

Since I had the entire interview with Ben on my computer, I decided to post most of it here. Enjoy!

Since I think mobile is the current and the future in digital communications, AT&T is right in the game with its call to the bullpen asking software application developers to create new features for its wireless devices, (excluding the iPhone) . The company is calling its American Idol styled competition Fast-Pitch New England. Contestants/developers  are being asked to create programs in one of three areas: browsing, messaging, or downloads. Since I’m not a software developer, I have no idea if the $10,000 first prize is good or bad, but I do know the idea to create more mobile apps for wireless devices makes good business sense. I’m going to try and talk with someone from AT&T this week and I’ll run a part of the interview this Friday during Rick’s RSS. In the meantime here is a press release announcing the competition.  

Submissions will be accepted August 18, 2008 - September 30, 2008 through AT&T’s Fast-Pitch site. 

The very same day I blog about my positive experience with Apple’s beleaguered MobileMe subscription based Internet service, Apple sends out another email to its MobileMe users that basically says, despite Apple’s best efforts to improve it, MobileMe still kind of sucks. After the first mess up,  MobileMe users were given an additional 30 days added to their one year subscription. NOW, according to this email current MM users will receive ANOTHER 60 days, for free. Here is a link to Apple’s website explaining the 60 day extension in more detail. Here’s a scren shot of the email:

With so much attention being paid to MobileMe, I’m going to bet that it would be stupid to drop .Mac/MobileMe right now. It sounds like if, and that’s a big IF, Apple ever figures outs what wrong; I predict the new and improved Mobile me will make a grand and interesting exit from the she