Zombie Journalism

The court case of Anthony Kirkland is showing us that while Twitter and live blogs and all that are great tools for enhancing the way readers get news, it’s tough to replace the know-how of an experienced beat reporter.

Cincinnati Enquirer editor Tom Callinan has a column in Sunday’s paper (online now) about the Enquirer’s evolving First in Print initiative.
He also gives a shout-out to ZJ and its commenters. Check it out.

With limited staff resources, newspapers can’t chase every new social media idea that comes along – and that’s OK.

Recently, The Cincinnati Enquirer has been making some stories print-only with the intent of boosting single-copy sales of the Sunday newspaper. Will it work?

The New York Times announced today that beginning in 2011, it will begin charging online readers for unlimited access to articles. While it’s not a bad idea to try out, Times execs will need to readjust their expectations for their online readership stats and change their online content when they go forward with this plan.

While a new study finds that most Americans still read newspapers, another indicates that the people in charge of the newspaper industry don’t have a clue how those readers use their product and don’t know what they want.

A roundup on the latest news in efforts to save newspapers and make money in journalism, including a look at legislation, micropayments vs. subscriptions and research for hire.

These are my recommended links for August 28th through September 3rd:

Membership has its meaning « BuzzMachine – Jeff Jarvis and several commenters outline how a membership – as opposed to a subscription – could be the ticket to a future business model for news. The problem is – membership needs to be worth it – [...]

Online comments are a gigantic albatross for newspaper sites, but I believe we need them. Instead of panicking, we need to ride out these early days of commenting and learn to become better community managers.

I’m putting together a program in Cincinnati on the future of news. Do you have an idea or theory on how news will be reported, produced, consumed or paid for in the future? You should join us.