Versión en español aquí.
Who would have thought that a small-town newspaper could discover a new revenue source worth $100,000 by repackaging some of its content?
As the Wall Street Journal reports, a local best-selling book in a Montana town is "We Don't Make This Stuff Up: The Very Best of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle Police Reports."
Editors have always known of the public's interest in police news and the human dramas and comedies that law enforcement officers witness on a daily basis. But the Daily Chronicle decided to go a step beyond publishing the daily news and compile the most interesting items into a book.
Showing posts with label Robert Niles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Niles. Show all posts
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
In praise of engineers and scientists: their failures are learning experiences
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| Apollo 13 engineers celebrate safe splashdown. NASA photo, April 1970. NBC News via AP |
Journalists who are starting their own digital media should learn to think more like engineers and scientists. For them, solving a problem involves repeated trial and error. They view each step not as a failure but as a learning experience.
Engineers and scientists were the heroes of "Apollo 13," both in the movie and in real life. They searched frantically against the clock to find ways to keep the damaged spacecraft's crew alive and return them safely to Earth.
They had to improvise solutions with the imperfect tools on board the spacecraft and experiment with processes they had never tried before. They had a goal but they weren't sure how to get there. So they tried and failed and kept trying.
There's never enough time or money
Like them, journalists working in a startup will not have the ideal tools at hand nor all the money and time in the world to perfect their web project. Many of the answers they need can be found only by getting their product into the hands of the intended audience. Test it on the audience. On the web, a new product is always in Beta.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Review: How to Make Money Publishing Community News Online
Hundreds of websites are popping up to replace the community news coverage lost as daily newspapers cut staff and publish less frequently.
Many of them are started by the very reporters who have just been laid off or community organizers who want to hold public institutions accountable.
What these new media entrepreneurs have is a passion for news and community service. But most will not survive long-term because they have no clue about how to run a business or to find the financial resources to make the operation sustainable.
They might have a better chance, however, if they spent some time with Robert Niles's book How to Make Money Publishing Community News Online.
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