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The Business of Digital Journalism

The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism

A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism (PDF) Introduction Chapter One News From... More

Introduction

The story so far: what we know about the business of digital journalism

Few news organizations can match the setting of The Miami Herald. The paper’s headquarters is perched on the edge... More

Chapter One: News From Everywhere

The economics of digital journalism

In early 2005, a researcher at the Poynter Institute published a column that was instantaneously read and—by many—misunderstood. Rick... More

Chapter Two: Traffic Patterns

Why big audiences aren’t always profitable

At first glance, the numbers don’t seem to add up: The New York Times has more than 30 million... More

Chapter Three: Local and Niche Sites

The advantages of being small

TBD.com went out with a whimper, not a bang. In February 2011, just six months after going live, the... More

Chapter Four: The New New Media

Mobile, video, and other emerging platforms

News organizations can be forgiven for feeling that they’re in an endless cycle of Whac-A-Mole. They’ve had fifteen years... More

Chapter Five: Paywalls

The price tag for information

Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has... More

Chapter Six: Aggregation

‘Shameless’—and essential

A group of middle school students at Brooklyn’s Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters got a special treat... More

Chapter Seven: Dollars and Dimes

The new costs of doing business

Journalism is expensive and good journalism especially so, but the newsroom usually is not the costliest part of running... More

Chapter Eight: New Users, New Revenue

Alternative ways to make money

“The basic point about the Web is that it is not an advertising medium, the Web is not a... More

Chapter Nine: Managing Digital

Audience, data, and dollars

Although all digital news organizations live in a brutally competitive environment, some companies do much better than others because... More

Conclusion

Lessons, takeaways, and bullet points

"Here’s the problem: Journalists just don’t understand their business.” That’s the diagnosis from Randall Rothenberg, a former New York Times... More

Executive Summary

Chapter One News From Everywhere: The Economics of Digital Journalism Large-scale competitive and economic forces are confronting news organizations, old... More

Acknowledgements and Credits

For “The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism”

Acknowledgements We owe a great debt to many people who contributed to this report. While we can’t name them all... More

How Smaller Gets Bigger

"The future of journalism will be a tale of smaller and smaller organizations making a bigger and bigger impact," asserts... More

Barack Obama: ‘those old times aren’t coming back’

“It used to be there were local newspapers everywhere. If you wanted to be a journalist, you could really make a good living working for your hometown paper”

The Guardian’s editor opens up on Reddit

Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, answered questions in an Ask Me Anything

The (almost) lost speech of Justice Anthony Kennedy

How his insightful remarks about the Constitution inadvertently make the case for a Supreme Court “media pool”

Fox News sues TVEyes for copyright infringement

Says subscription service sells access to its content without permission nor compensation

Beijing subway at rush hour

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Who Owns What

The Business of Digital Journalism

A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Study Guides

Questions and exercises for journalism students.