Persona-waldman

RAW NOTES LISTENING TO STEVE WALDMAN'S FEB. 28 TALK IN MIAMI AT A KNIGHT FOUNDATION GATHERING FOR COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS 

http://www.informationneeds.org/video-fccs-steven-waldman-speech-on-the-news-ecosystem-at-the-2011-media-learning-seminar

from 2006 to 2009 annual newsroom editorial spending by newspapers dropped $1.6B per year -- by about a third.

-- newspaper advertising dropped by 43%. 

-- newspaper staffs down by 25% on average. Often cut in half. they are to their levels they were at pre-Watergate. 

-- TV network news staffs half. News magaizne correspondent staffs down by half during the same period. 

-- All news radio stations down to 28 cities; used to be 50. number of local cable news channels covers about 25% of the population. 

-- 2006-2009 in Philly; available news about public affairs has dramatically diminished by many measures. 

-- James Hamilton Nando -- 240 to 130 reporters. eliminate ccourts, schools, legal affairs, agriculture, environment and state education. 

--- 

"When you think about the cost of a $50K a year reporter, probably could hsave saved the citizens of Bell $5 to $6M a year during that period." 

State spending up 50%, coverage down 35%. Membership in Investigative Reporters in 2003 was 5,300, now it is 4,000. Submissions to  public service category of Pulitzer 1984 to 2010 dropped 43%. SEnvj had 450 reporters in 2004 now have 244. reporting on national policy -- papers with bureaus dropped by a half since the mid-1980s. Kaiser Family Foundation says output of news articles increase, but depth has decreased. same thing reportered for education, religion. "The central role that information plays in achieving other goals." 

"And, no, they don't have business models but they don't need to because in many ways these are civic functions. These are volunteers. They are civic functions and it is really having positive effects." 

"As of now, the Internet has not filled the gap." 

Difference between increase in voices, outlets and distribution and a decrease in journalism at the same time. 

"Now the bundle has broken apart." 

"And we are laid bear, with actually having to choose, if we want civic important coverage we actually have to pay for it." 

Advertising unbundled. Downward pressure on ad rates. 

From 2005-2009 newsppaer page views went from 1.6B to 3.0B. During that peirod online advertiisng grew $716 million. But during the same period, print revenue dropped by $22 billion. Print dollars replace by digital dimes "it was more like digital pennies." 

$756 for 100,000 pageviews at his old blog. 

Proliferation of new local news websites. Numbers not all that encouraging. Quality of work encouraging. Business models still struggling. Looked at 66 local news websites, half reported annual incomes of less than $50K; three quarters less than $100K. "These are not hte entities that at least in their current form are going to be replacing 10s of thousands of newspaper reporters that have gone away." 

Patch: "By their own reckoning have not set up to do long-form investigative journalism." 
"This is likely to be a period where the federal government is going to rise up and serve local journalism. .... the government's not going to step in to fund this." 

"What this seemes to point to is there's gotta be a bigger role for non-profit media."  not just public TV and radio. It is also non-profit websites, community media centers, public access channels, state CSPANs, low-power FM, journalism schools and it is these entities working with each other and increasingly with the commercial sector. 

"The commercial sector is outsourcing broccoli journalism to the non-profit sector .... I htink that can work." 

"The problems are not mostly national they are local .... the community foundations really need to play a key role in this. Frankly I'm not actually sure who will if the community foudnations don't. I think the community foundations are that central to solving this problem." 

It's a mix of public education, topics about media. A relative small percentage a minority of it is going to fund journalism itself. 

"Unofficial, my personal opinion, not the FCC's, it's really important to be looking at how foundations can directly help with the business model problem of jouranlism which has to do with really figuring out the ways how to fund the journalism." 

if we can figure out a way of solving this nut, we will actually have the best media system that we have ever had. Becaues when you combine all of the ways that the new media enables participation ... combine that with some of the nuts and bolts, bodies on the group .... they magnificy each others power, tremendously."   "Full time reporter works better when you have an active community."   

"You are trying to convert a situation that could be disasaterous, but has the potential to be something fantastic, very exciting." 

Q&A: 

Perfect tracking of stories. "That leads to a whole dynamic being unleashed whihc is every piece of content has an ROI, every piece of content has a budget and every piece of ocntent has to be profitble, and often that is the way it happens .... its' absolutely inevitable you get to the idea that the bottom five things are unprofitable -- well, you are a business, don't do them anymore. You knock off hte unprofitable parts. And part of the problem is a lot of the civically important stuff is not necessarily the stuff that gets the most pageviews. This is an issue that was concealed by the old newspaper bundle." 

I really do think that part of the key is going to be a whole new way of thinking about parrtnerships between the commercial and nonprofit sectors. This is really anathema to most commercial entities .. these are differnet worlds, different cultures, both sides think the other's quality is inferior and there are really some commecial gaps that have to be broken down.

iPad get people to pay: "I think there is a decent chance it won't." 

partnerships between commercial and non-commercial. 

Bill Maul, runs San Antonio foundation and the public TV station. Facing loss of spectrum.