DEAD-TREE REVENUE FEARS

According to onlinejournalism.com, newspaper execs are expressing fears about losing revenue to on-line publications and what that will do to financing for newsgathering.

While PANPA [Pacific Area Newspapers Publishers' association] president Ken Steinke said the year had been a fruitful one for newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, former editor-in-chief of The Herald and Weekly Times, Eric Beecher, warned that the Internet was a serious threat to newspapers. "It's going to have a devastating effect on the kind of journalism those newspapers can support in the future," he warned.

Newspaper classified advertising started to take a hit years ago with the emergence of alternate print publications (such as Buy & Sell). Internet operations like craigslist continue (and will accelerate) the trend. And marketers and advertisers are increasingly exploring alternatives to traditional advertising vehicles, many of them on-line.

The trends are potentially bad news for journalism as it is currently practiced: fewer ad dollars, fewer resources available for newsroom operations. As much as mutlimedia and Internet delivery are driving innovation in news delivery, it could be basic economics that force the big changes in newspapers in the short-term future,

9:37:35 PM    

FREELANCE LEADS

Looking for places to sell your work? Anne Wayman at about.com runs a regularly updated column on Freelance Writing and Editing Jobs. The Sept. 5 issue, for instance, tips would-be writers to opportunities to contribute to "Girls gone stupid &mdash Dumb things smart women do" and for experienced freelancers for unnamed online entertainment publication.

SOURCE: Contentious.

8:13:23 PM