What can be done to stop the free-fall in classifieds?

Steve Outing, of E&P and, more recently, Reinventing Classifieds, is asking for your help, and he's offering $500 as an incentive:

WHAT CAN THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY DO TO 1) BRING BACK CLASSIFIEDS CUSTOMERS (BUYERS AND SELLERS) THAT HAVE BEEN LOST TO ONLINE COMPETITORS, 2) ATTRACT NEW CUSTOMERS WHO HAVE NOT USED NEWSPAPER CLASSIFIEDS BEFORE, AND 3) RETAIN ITS REMAINING CLASSIFIEDS CUSTOMERS?

Good questions.

But to back up a little, Step One in solving any crisis it to define the crisis. We've all seen the numbers, watched them slip year-over-year. But sometimes the numbers aren't enough. You need a picture. Here's what the biggest slice of the classified picture, help-wanted, looks like in 2008:



(2008 estimated based on first-half performance. All data from NAA.)

You don't have to be a draftsman or Photoshop guru to visualize that trend line's forward direction if nothing changes. It hits zero in mid-2010.

Zero.

You can look at the chart two ways. The first, is that we've got $2.6 billion at risk that we have to do everything in our power to save. That's been the approach of the newspaper business so far. We said the same thing when we had $5.1 billion at risk. And $4.7 billion. And $3.8 billion. And still the slide continues.

Or, we could take another approach. We could say that in 2011 dollars, we have nothing at risk. Because if we don't do something dramatic, that's exactly what we'll have. Nothing.

Next: a modest proposal to help stem the tide and relieve Steve of his $500.

Hint for where this is going: Look at the chart above and remember that Craig Newmark started his expansion in 2000.

The online news solution, simple and easy version

What's the one thing that news organizations could do to increase their readership and, by extension, their bottom line?

Link out.

UPDATE: The Washington Post creates a new feature that's all about linking out, called Political Browser. All they need now is an RSS feed.

Manhunt: The Wire meets Our American Cousin?

Episode One: The ground-level investigators have good ideas on how to catch the assassin, but they're hamstrung by idiot superiors who keep insisting that they follow stupid leads for political reasons, all the while cutting the investigatory budget. And everyone curses like sailors.

David Simon is back on HBO:

HBO announced today a mini series based on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln called Manhunt. That news would be interesting enough because the series will deal with the 12 days after Lincoln was shot when the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was on the run. However, the guys that HBO have tapped to work on Manhunt are two of the best in television -- David Simon and Tom Fontana.

Jay Rosen on why bloggers have already written the rulebook on ethical blogging

I really like NYU professor Jay Rosen's mantra-like tweets and posts, which more often than not, contain obvious truth that he somehow is the first to articulate.

Like this one on the pressure to create ethical rules for bloggers:

If “ethics” are the codification in rules of the practices that lead to trust on the platform where the users actually are… then journalists have their ethics and bloggers have theirs.

• Good bloggers observe the ethic of the link.

• They correct themselves early, easily and often.

• They don’t claim neutrality but they do practice transparency.

• They aren’t remote, they converse.

• They give you their site, but also other sites as a frame of reference.

• When they grab on to something they don’t let go but “track” it.

In all these ways they build up trust with a base of users online. And over time, the practices that lead to trust on the platform where the users actually are… become their ethic, their rules.

People in journalism who want to bring ethics to blogging ought to start with why people trust bloggers, not with an ethics template made for a prior platform that was a closed system in a one-to-many world.

That’s why I say: if bloggers had no ethics blogging would have failed. Of course it didn’t. Now you have a clue.

Blue-screening the Microsoft campaign

I will eat a plate of crow if I'm wrong on this, but I'm not buying a word of Microsoft's story that they planned all along to stop the trippy, confusing, amusing and mildly offensive  story of Bill and Jerry on the road just two episodes in. With no payoff. Not even an emerging narrative arc.

Yes sir, I believe that.

No, these ads were all set-up. Like the two protagonists, they were going somewhere, eventually. And given Crispin Porter & Bogusky's track-record, I'd bet they were building to something epic. Now we'll never know (until some creative blogs it).

And next? The campaign reportedly will shift gears to bring on a John-Hodgman-as-PC lookalike. Can you say "The campaign's bombing, let's go with that other concept"?

And I was just beginning to enjoy the picaresque story of, as the pizza guy says, "two leaders in their respective fields" walking around, talking about nothing.

Best in Baltimore

I don't work there anymore, but I put a quarter of my life into it, so this makes me smile:

baltimoresun.com was just named Best Baltimore-Related Web Site by The Baltimore City Paper.

Poke around Baltimoresun.com for an hour and you'll find the mark of the city, its moods twisting like so many threads of anonymous rants. You'll find good web-only content, such as the documentary videos that sometimes accompany stories, and a blog lineup that doesn't cast too wide a net.

To me, this is better than a nod from NAA or ONA or E&P or any other navel-gazing journo-award, because cp.com is a whole lot more representative of Baltimore and its readers.

Congratulations to the team at baltimoresun.com.

Turning reporters into curators to improve journalism

A conversation started this week by Scott Karp and carried forward by Terry Heaton has me thinking about why news organizations are so skittish about linking out from their web sites.

It's as if they think that creating a cul de sac will make readers forget they've got a Back button on the browser.

And when you layer that conversation onto Chris Anderson's pith about amateurs noted below, you come to one of my favorite topics: journalists as curators.

It's simple: Journalists need to stop thinking exclusively like content creators and start acting also as content curators.

Even today, years after the arrival of the social web, the internet might as well not exist to most news organizations, except as a broadcast medium for a one-way conversation.

But what if we took a step back and acknowledged that, in 2008, not only is pretty much everyone capable of being a journalist , many of them are already doing it. They maintain blogs. They post photos and videos online. They build and host popular and active discussion boards. They ask questions and they get answers.

Honestly, this isn't a revelation, but you'd think it was based on most metro news web sites.

It’s no longer sufficient for a reporter to remain plugged into the happenings in his beat but report only the most significant. The reporter as curator takes on the role of the the most plugged-in guy in the room about a particular area of interest and uses that knowledge in multiple ways:

• Report, of course


• Blog on their beat. All beat reporters should maintain a blog that becomes the most reliable source for information and discussion around their topic area.


• Be an active participant in communities of interest, online and off. This means real-name participation in blogs, user groups and discussion threads online and participation in real-world organizations and events.


• Build, maintain and grow a real-name social network on at least one of the major platforms, involving peers, readers, experts, etc., around the  beat topic(s).  Learning from and model the successes  of Jay Rosen’s BeatBlogging project.


• Point readers to the best of the rest. As good as our reporters are, they’re not able to cover everything. Linking frequently to other coverage of their beat is essential, as is asking readers to share their recommended links.


• Ask questions of readers. Chances are, many readers know a whole lot about the topic area, too.


• Embrace crowdsourcing as a reporting tool.


• Participate in the conversation. Every story that’s published has a comments thread. This is an opportunity to connect better with the audience and to cement our roles as the go-to source on the topic.


• Maintain an “about me” page that lists all recent articles and blog posts and relevant background and links out to related areas of interest.

This requires an investment in time, but the payoff in reader engagement will be worth it.

(Thanks to Scott Anderson who contributed much to this list back when we both worked for Tribune.)