Partial Ear Mea Culpa and Other News Media Odds and Ends

Last week I mentioned that the Alaska Ear had used a graphic from the AlaskaReport without permission even though the ADN has sent notices to at least two bloggers that they had to pay $100 or take down ADN photos. Well, today the Ear apologized for mispelling the AlaskaReport link, but nothing about the use of the graphic.

And I remembered an instance where the ADN posted a video I'd taken of John Henry Browne, Vic Kohring's attorney before Vic's money ran out. But in that case, Lisa Demer had asked permission to use it and I said sure. And they linked back here.

Also, while I was working on the second Pruitt post, I didn't find much while seeking info on whether Gary Pruitt had been a journalism major or even worked as a reporter. But Printing and New Media Marketing was much different from most of the official sites that popped up. It's headline: "How Is It That McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt Is Still Employed?" The blogger, Metapriner, had just learned that Gary Pruitt had been named the Chairman of the Newspaper Association of America.

A $100 stake in MNI [McClatchy] purchased on April 23, 2005 would today be worth $12.40. This represents an 87.6% decline in shareholder value. Here is how other newspaper publishers have fared during that same time span:

He then lists the better, if still dismal, records of eight other publishers (the two worst were -77%, the best, the NY Times, was -40%).

From [1996] until 2005 he increased shareholder value almost 600% But the times have changed. The paradigm has shifted. McClatchy needs a new LEADER not a lawyer to lead and inspire in this new media landscape. For him to be the choice for NAA Chairman speaks volumes about how out of touch and lost that organization has become.

So, today I looked at Metablogger's most recent post which led me to this Wall Street Journal article about the Washington Post's experiment with a hyperlocal website

For believers in the power of rigorous local coverage to help save newspapers, the Washington Post's launch of LoudounExtra.com last July was a potentially industry-defining event. It paired a journalistic powerhouse with a dream team of Internet geeks to build a virtual town square for one of Virginia's and the nation's most-affluent and fastest-growing counties...(go to the link for the rest)

and a blog response by the architect of the Post experiment, LoudounExtra.com, Robert Curley.

From the second I was contacted by the Wall Street Journal for the story, I knew exactly what I wanted to say in the interview, which was to point out that I thought the two biggest problems with LoudounExtra.com were poor integration of the site with washingtonpost.com and not enough outreach into the community … ala basically me speaking with every community group that would have me.

And that both of those problems were my fault. Completely.

And, more importantly, I had learned from those problems and wouldn’t make those mistakes in Las Vegas, especially since I planned to make entirely new mistakes in Las Vegas. :) (go to the link for the rest)

Curley's website is probably one I need to check more often:

My name is Rob Curley. I'm an Internet nerd from Kansas who is in love with local news and the evolution of traditional media.

An interest in the evolution of the traditional media is the reason I've been posting a lot on the ADN.

BTW, I never put in a label for the Anchorage Daily News because most of the times I had ADN in a post, it was not about the ADN, but just a citation. But since the ADN has become a more regular topic, I've started to use a label to make those posts easier to find. I went back and updated some old posts, but I'm sure I didn't get them all.