5 myths about journalism (Tom Rosenstiel)

Journalist/author Tom Rosenstiel wrote an item for The Washington Post titled "Five myths about the future of journalism."

1. The traditional news media are losing their audience.

2. Online news will be fine as soon as the advertising revenue catches up.

3. Content will always be king.

4. Newspapers around the world are on the decline.

5. The solution is to focus on local news.

Here's a link to the story, which isn't too long and makes some interesting points.

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Fun use of QR Code

April 7, 2011

Below is an item from Pennsylvania about how the Regional Visitors Bureau used a QR (quick response) code on the cover of its visitor guide.

QR codes soon will become ubiquitous in print advertising, including newspapers. Using a smartphone, a reader can scan these codes and be taken to content on the web, including video -- news, advertising, instructional, general info, etc, etc.

How could you use QR codes at your newspaper? Here's an idea I shared a few months back.

In a special section -- say your annual "Guide To Our Town" -- put QR codes in the sponsors' advertisements. Explain to the sponsors that the codes will take readers to a place on the newspaper's or the advertisers' websites where special deals of the week (or month) are offered. The deals change regularly, which gives the "Guide" almost endless shelf life in the readers' homes. Ads like that could be sold for a truly "special edition" rate, and they would be well worth it.

That's just one way QR codes could be used by newspapers. If you have ideas, consider sharing them.

Kent Ford, Editor

Missouri Press Association

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New Visitors Guide Gets Smart with Smartphone Users

Limited edition cover uses functional 8x8 QR Code to tout guide’s use of technology inside

 Harrisburg, PA (2011) – The Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau (HHRVB) unveiled a special edition of the region’s 2011 Visitors Guide with a unique cover that touts the guide’s use of Smartphone technology inside.  The entire cover is a functional 8x8-inch QR Code (quick response) with a color logo and copy within the design.

Smartphone users scan the cover to access a hidden page on the region’s official tourism Web site VisitHersheyHarrisburg.org. The secret page includes a chance to win a new iPad 2 and download 2011’s Top 20 Travel Applications for free until Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 11 pm. 

The innovative cover design incorporating a color logo and copy within the QR Code was developed in-house by HHRVB and the bureau has been unable to identify any other visitors guide or magazine in the country with a functional QR Code of this kind on the cover.   

Q&A with Mary Smith - President of HHRVB

On the 2011 Visitors Guide QR Cover and Marketing to the Smartphone Traveler

Tell us about your 2011 Visitors Guide cover.

This year 1,000 of the 350,000 Annual Visitors Guides we publish have a large 8x8-inch functioning color QR Code that interacts with today’s Smartphones. Scanning the QR Code cover accesses a secret page on the bureau’s Web site VisitHersheyHarrisburg.org with exclusive free downloads of 2011’s Top 20 Travel Apps and a chance to win an iPad 2 (32GB, Wifi + 3G).

Why did the bureau decide to put this QR Code on the cover of the new Visitors Guides?

This limited edition cover was a fun way to highlight the Smartphone technology we are using in this year’s guide. The guide features 11 QR Codes inside linking Smartphone users to corresponding pages on VisitHersheyHarrisburg.org or promotional videos on our YouTube channel Youtube.com/HersheyHarrisburg.

This is my response to a story by CBS-TV about a list of 10 declining industries, which included newspapers.


Interesting this CBS-TV list didn't include broadcast television. Have you noticed how people are fleeing the broadcast networks? They did great in 2010, an election year. All that political advertising made them temporarily flush. Cable, satellite, computer, mobile TV and the spectacular fragmentation of the audience that go along with them are eating broadcast TV's lunch.

Full disclosure. I'm the editor at the Missouri Press Association, the newspaper trade group in the state. While the bad economy has hit newspapers like a sledge -- just like other businesses -- you'll have a difficult time convincing 250 community newspaper publishers in Missouri that the newspaper industry is "on the verge of extinction." Is just isn't so. I wish digital snobs would quit saying it, and I wish newspapers would quit printing stories about them saying it.

Newspaper's strength -- audience concentration

A recent posting on Reflections of a Newsosaur mentioned a study on advertising. This study concluded that the amount of time a typical consumer spends reading a newspaper each day does not justify the percentage of advertiser money spent on newspaper advertising.

The average consumer spends much more time on the internet relative to the amount spent on online advertising, the study said, so more advertising money should be shifted from newspaper advertising to online advertising. 

This is not a logical comparison or conclusion.

Don't forget fragmentation of the TV, radio and online audiences compared to the concentration of the newspaper audience. 

Chances are, the person reading the newspaper is reading a local newspaper -- THE local newspaper. Those people watching TV and surfing could be on any of hundreds of channels and thousands of websites. Where would you advertise? In THAT newspaper, or on one or a hundred of those TV stations or websites?

This is the strength of the printed newspaper -- audience concentration -- especially if it is complemented with a compelling website.

Constant, continual fragmentation is the weakness of television, radio, internet and mobile media. (That's why the digital behemoths are trying to monopolize access to those mediums or at least become gatekeepers or subscription brokers.)