All entries tagged: dean singleton
This Week in Review: The New York Times’ paywall plans, and what’s behind MediaNews’ bankruptcy
[Every Friday, Mark Coddington sums up the week’s news about the future of news and the debates that grew up around them. —Josh]
The Times’ paywall proposal: No question about media and journalism’s biggest story this week: The New York Times announced it plans to begin charging readers for access to its website in 2011. Here’s how it’ll work: you can view an as-yet-unidentified number of articles for free each month before the Times requires you to pay a flat, unlimited-access fee to see more; this is known as a metered system. (If you subscribe to the print edition, it’ll be free.) Two Times execs answered questions about the plan, including whether you can still email and link to articles (you can) and why it’s different from TimesSelect, the abandoned paid-content experiment it tried from 2005-07. Gabriel Sherman of New York’s Daily Intel, who broke the rumor on Sunday, has some details of the paywall debate within the Times.
There’s been a ton of reaction to the Times’ plan online, so I’ll tackle it in three parts: First, the essential reading, then some other worthwhile opinions, and finally the interesting ephemera.
Four must-reads: It makes sense to start with New York Times media critic David Carr’s take on the plan, because it’s the most the thorough, cogent defense of the Times’ paywall you’ll find. He argues that Times execs “have installed a dial on the huge, heaving content machine of The New York Times,” giving the site another flexible revenue stream outside of advertising. If you’re up for a little algebra, Reuters’ Felix Salmon has a sharp economic analysis of the paywall, arguing that the value of each article will become much greater for subscribers than nonsubscribers. For the more theoretical-minded, CUNY prof C.W. Anderson has some fascinating thoughts here at the Lab on how the paywall turns the Times into a niche product and what it means for our concept of the “public.” And as usual, Ken Doctor thoughtfully answers many of the practical questions you’re asking right now. Keep reading »
Singleton’s next chapter: Can he steer MediaNews to a digital future?
[Our regular contributor Martin Langeveld spent 13 years as a publisher in MediaNews Group. That gives him an inside perspective on the company's bankruptcy filing, which he shares with us here. —Ed.]
In August 2006, as part of a deal that netted MediaNews Group the Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Hearst Corporation agreed to make a $300 million equity investment in MediaNews. At that point, the peak of MediaNews’ company’s expansion and with revenue and cash flow at an all-time high, the holdings of the principal stockholders — the Singleton and Scudder families — net of debt, were arguably worth more than $500 million each.
But last Friday, whatever was left of that equity, as well as Hearst’s stake (not finalized until a year later), evaporated as part of an announced plan to file a “prepackaged” Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For Hearst, it’s a hefty writeoff of a bad investment. For the Scudders, it’s a bitter payoff after nearly 25 years of active participation in MediaNews management. For MediaNews CEO William Dean Singleton and his financial wizard, company president Joseph (Jody) L. Lodovic IV, it’s a fresh start (which includes a 20 percent equity stake for the duo, and retained control of the company).
Could readers of the company’s papers now see new investment in its newsgathering capabilities, long hammered by budget reductions? For MediaNews employees, could this be an opportunity to participate in the transformation of the company into a truly digital enterprise? Both answers depend on what kind of vision is shared by Singleton, Lodovic, and the former bondholders who are now their equity partners. Keep reading »
Who, really, is The Associated Press accusing of copyright infringement?
The Associated Press document we posted yesterday is in line with the consortium’s most bellicose rhetoric on copyright. It begins, “The evidence is everywhere: original news content is being scraped, syndicated and monetized without fair compensation to those who produce, report and verify it.”
Because we obtained the document, the AP put me on the line with its general counsel, Srinandan Kasi, who spoke for an hour about various issues, including his office’s view of copyright, fair use, and the republication of AP material. Mostly, he tried to avoid any fine lines, but I still learned a lot, and you might be interested as well. This is obviously a crucial issue in the future of news, so I hope the following discussion adds a little bit of information — if not clarity — to how one major news organization is approaching copyright on the Internet.
Headlines and ledes
Tom Curley, president and chief executive of the AP, raised a ruckus last month when he seemed to tell The New York Times that using an AP headline that linked to the original article would require a copyright license. Among the more entertaining responses to that position was a blog whipped up by developer Andy Baio, who used the AP’s own RSS feeds to republish headlines, ledes, and URLs in the style to which Curley appeared to object. Baio called the simple act of protest Associated Repress.
I described the site to Kasi, who told me: “I think that the person doing that: wonderful. We celebrate free speech.” But what if that site carried ads? Could the use of AP headlines and ledes ever amount to copyright infringement? “At some point,” Kasi said, “the variables start to come together that, absolutely, it would be actionable.” We were getting somewhere: Although Kasi didn’t want to lay out a rubric for the AP’s legal strategy, the most important variables appear to be frequency of use and whether that use constitutes a significant, competing, commercial business. So, no, Baio probably wouldn’t get a cease-and-desist letter for his barely read site, even if it were littered with ads, but a more prominent aggregator could.
