Outside the News Box

TV Still Beats All other media for # hours watched.

I’ve been saying it. Television still can deliver emotion better than any other media.
New business models are needed, but the answer lies in creative and innovative content. That can’t be outsourced like other business functions.
So the headline in MEDIAWEEK came a no surprise. New Devices Impactful, But TV Still Rules.
Katy Bachman writes: The new media revolution may be coming, but it hasn’t quite taken over yet. For all the fuss over the plethora of digital media devices, the TV screen is still by far the most popular media source for all consumers, both young and old, according to a landmark study commissioned by Nielsen-backed Council for Research Excellence.

The CRE study reports, consumers, on average,  spend:

67%  of their media time with TV (including DVRs, DVDs and games

About 2 minutes a day watching video via the Internet

A fraction of a minute watching mobile video.

Even among 18-24-year-olds, the average amount of time spent watching live TV (209.9 minutes) surpassed the total amount of computer screen time (169.5 minutes).

Glimmer of Hope

“Increasingly our clients are frightened by the onset of the DVR. There’s been talk that the 30-second spot is dead and that young people don’t watch TV anymore,” said Shari Anne Brill, chair of CRE’s media consumption and engagement committee and senior vp, director of programming for Carat told Bachman. “We wanted to verify or dispel those myths.”

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Facebook’s re-design is getting some tweaking.
After a deluge of negative feedback and accusations the social media giant was trying to become more “twitter-like”, Facebook Product Director Christopher Cox unveiled the changes in his blog on Thursday.

The changes already in the works include:

Live Updating: You won’t have to refresh the page to see what’s new.

Photo tags: Facebook will add photos tagged with a person’s friends to her stream.

Applications: Users will have the ability to cut down on the application-related content that’s showing up in streams.

Highlights: This section in the right-hand column will update more frequently and show more content so it’ll be more like the old News Feed.

Requests: Friend requests and event invites will be moved to the top of the right-hand column so they’re more prominent.

Friends lists: Users will be able to create a new list of friends with which to filter their streams.

Not everyone thinks Facebook’s decision is the right one. Read the rest of this entry »

I love good health reporting. This year’s flu is now widespread. A great, relevant local news story. Here is the latest national map from Weather Channel & CDC.

RT @TerryMoran: Why I Got My DNA Tested for Alzheimer’s: http://tinyurl.com/cchc5s Great use of blog to share story background & tease to TV

Substitute “TV” for “Newspapers” and this Mashable.com post on Newspapers: 5 Ways to Avoid Extinction makes even more sense.

Embrace Chaos

Devise a new strategy that emphasizes alliances and collaboration

Find a strong technology partner

Create a Twitter taxonomy

Explore micropublishing solutions

Following these five business practices may not solve all the problems. Each newspaper (TV Station?) has its own personality, formed by the relationship between its journalists and readers, and governed by forces that extend beyond the marketplace. It’s up to each publisher to consider the options and make decisions. Doing nothing is not an option.

Outside The News Box Featured in RTNDA “Best Practices”
RTNDA picked up part of our series on covering the economy and featured it on their site.

Follow the dominoes
The recession has put lots of people out of work and the layoffs and firings have a ripple effect. For every job lost, there’s likely to be another. Tell the story by following the dominoes.
The suggestion comes from TV news manager Griff Potter…

Here are links to our story ideas for journalists:

OTNB IDEA: Covering the Economy
OTNB Story Idea: One Layoff Leads to Another
OTNB Story Idea: Tough Economy-Find Missing Money
Covering the Economy: Hoarding Gold and Ammo
OTNB Idea: Covering the Economy – “How to Haggle”
OTNB Idea: Covering the Economy – Schools

Missing Money (Missingmoney.com) was featured on CBS’s Early Show today.

Missingmoney.com helps you located your money, or a relative’s assets, that went missing and are now inside the $33 billion in unclaimed property on government books.

Yes, $33 billion of missing money.

Items include more than cash. They can include trust distributions, insurance payments, CDs, even the contents of safe deposit boxes. These can be yours or a relative’s that you are entitled to. Along with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators’ Web site, their website, endorsed by NAUPA, helps search the files for you easier.

To learn more about this, click HERE

So, is it safe? Here is more on that part of the story.

From Cory Bergman and Lost Remote:

The Seattle PI’s transition to the web this week has me thinking: what if a TV station did the same? After all, many in the industry now concede that some markets can only sustain two or three TV stations in the near future.

For those who can’t survive, what if they shut down the station and re-emerge as a lean-and-mean local media company with a focus on non-linear video? Clips would be published to the web, mobile and cable/satellite VOD.

First off, it’s probably not just news. You can imagine local vertical content, like lifestyle and music, intermingled with the day’s news. Some is franchised and personality-driven, other stuff is not. But everything is local and focused on the stories that everyone is talking about.
READ ENTIRE STORY AT LOSTREMOTE.COM

I predict this will go viral.  Powerfully and, with empathy, Jill Geisler states the case for hiring journalists for your business.

Dear Potential Employer:

Please accept this letter of recommendation for the journalist applying for your job opening. I know this is unorthodox — a generic reference letter. But permit me to explain. Thousands of men and women who made journalism their vocation have lost their jobs. For many, telling a community’s stories through words and images is the only career they’ve known.

They didn’t leave their jobs; their jobs left them. Many are still shell-shocked, wondering if potential employers in other fields will place any value on the things they do best.

That’s why I write this letter. I don’t pretend to know the individual who’s applying to you, and certainly, every journalist is unique. But as someone who has spent decades hiring and firing, coaching and mentoring journalists, I know a bit about their skills and values and what they could mean to your organization.

I also know that journalists may not be comfortable appearing to brag about what they do well; self-esteem can get downsized pretty easily these days.

So permit me to make their case to you. Here are 10 reasons you should hire a journalist.

1.  Journalists will improve the writing, photography or design in your organization. When journalists volunteer for church, school or civic organizations, they are inevitably asked to work on communications projects. Their writing is clear and succinct; their photography and design skills make whatever they’re working on look more polished and professional. They’re sticklers about copy editing and will raise the quality of even your internal memos.
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NOAA’s National Weather Service has issued a report that analyzes forecasting performance and public response during the second deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history. The report, Service Assessment of the Super Tuesday Tornado Outbreak of February 5-6, 2008, also addresses a key area of concern: why some people take cover while others ride out severe weather.

Here is the story from NOAA’s website:

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

Dubbed the “Super Tuesday” tornado outbreak due to the presidential primary elections held that day, 82 tornadoes raked nine states throughout the South, killing 57 people, injuring 350 others and causing $400 million in property damage.

Jack Hayes, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, included a researcher from the National Center for Atmospheric Research Societal Impacts Program on the assessment team to examine why many people did not take action to protect themselves.
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