I am so proud for my old friend and partner, the Inverted Pyramid. Thanks to him I and others in my profession have been able, for more than a hundred years, to construct news stories that let readers become their own editors. The whole story may be 100 paragraphs long, but with the Inverted Pyramid, readers can stop after the fifth or sixth paragraph, and know they have the most important information in the story.
The I.P. never got a dime for his work. He has been open-source technology from the beginning, in the 1850s. But today, he showed his worth. Yahoo bought an app called Summly for a reported $30 million.
Right away, Summly will be coming to your mobile device with short summaries of stories you may not have otherwise wanted to read on the small screen. If the summaries feel familiar to you, it's probably because it's the same self-editing you've been doing all these years with the I.P., who never got any credit for it.
He should now receive credit. I suggest a smidgen of the $30 million be used to fund a display at the Newseum, celebrating the I.P.'s power, since 1850, to summarize the lengthiest stories in five paragraphs.
That's all. The app's creator, announcing the Yahoo deal on his Website today, began: "In true Summly fashion, I will keep this short and sweet." That's the spirit.
March 26, 2013
March 11, 2013
Coming to your city soon: "The Big One"
We had an ominous earthquake here this morning, at 9:55 (I checked my watch by habit). A bookcase to my left creaked suddenly, and the floor rolled very gently beneath my chair for about five seconds.
The epicenter popped up almost immediately on the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Website, which is bookmarked by many Southern Californians. It showed the epicenter to be 12 miles east-southeast of Anza, a high-plateau hamlet 65 miles northeast of San Diego, where we live. There were numerous aftershocks.
Authorities said the activity was on the San Jacinto Fault, "one of the most active faults in California, and often called the western branch of perhaps the most well-known fault in the United States, the San Andreas."
In fact the San Andreas is only a few miles east of the epicenter. This is the kind of quake which would occur in the first five minutes of an end-of-the-world movie about what we in California call "The Big One."
Toward the middle of the movie – scripted to be three or four days from now – The Big One will hit, most likely an 8.5 or 9. When it does, a monstrous fissure will open up the spine of California, from the Mexican border through the Salton Sea and Palm Springs north into the San Joaquin Valley and central and northern California.
We in San Diego will get a hell of a shaking. Almost immediately thereafter, all of the United States east of the fissure will break off and slide into the Atlantic. You guys should go ahead and prepare.
The epicenter popped up almost immediately on the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program Website, which is bookmarked by many Southern Californians. It showed the epicenter to be 12 miles east-southeast of Anza, a high-plateau hamlet 65 miles northeast of San Diego, where we live. There were numerous aftershocks.
Authorities said the activity was on the San Jacinto Fault, "one of the most active faults in California, and often called the western branch of perhaps the most well-known fault in the United States, the San Andreas."
In fact the San Andreas is only a few miles east of the epicenter. This is the kind of quake which would occur in the first five minutes of an end-of-the-world movie about what we in California call "The Big One."
Toward the middle of the movie – scripted to be three or four days from now – The Big One will hit, most likely an 8.5 or 9. When it does, a monstrous fissure will open up the spine of California, from the Mexican border through the Salton Sea and Palm Springs north into the San Joaquin Valley and central and northern California.
We in San Diego will get a hell of a shaking. Almost immediately thereafter, all of the United States east of the fissure will break off and slide into the Atlantic. You guys should go ahead and prepare.
March 10, 2013
The truth about journalism and change
I must have entered a zone where untruths about my profession pop up before me and demand correcting. Here's the first paragraph from a review in this week's New York Times Book Review:
"A novelist once told me that he had given up writing journalism on the side because 'in journalism they only let you tell one story: Something Has Changed.'"
That is not true. In writing journalism, they let you tell two stories:
1. Something Has Changed.
2. There is a Threat that Something Will Change.
Take politics. Late last Nov. 6, something changed. A presidential candidate was elected. Many "change" stories were written about the event. They would have filled a couple of scrapbooks.
At least as far back as January, 2011, stories were already appearing regularly that something would change. A president would be elected in November, 2012. Those threat stories would fill a couple of thousand scrapbooks and, by and large, were more closely read, for meaning and for hints at resolution.
Take sports. Sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry based on the question, who will win? For the Super Bowl, the premier event in American sports, journalists had two weeks to write the threat stories, and a day or two to write the change stories. Which do you suppose would fill up more scrapbooks?
Take weather. What will the weather be? Every newspaper has a weather page, every local broadcast station has two or more reporters, and national television has celebrity reporters and at least one 24-hour channel, covering something that hasn't happened yet.
Take the pope. Global television showed the installation of the plain metal chimney being installed on the Sistine Chapel roof, which millions of people will be watching daily for the white smoke signaling change, as they read hundreds of stories about who the new pope might be.
Take Congress. There is no threat of any change there in the foreseeable future. But don't we wish there was, and we could read about it?
"A novelist once told me that he had given up writing journalism on the side because 'in journalism they only let you tell one story: Something Has Changed.'"
That is not true. In writing journalism, they let you tell two stories:
1. Something Has Changed.
2. There is a Threat that Something Will Change.
Take politics. Late last Nov. 6, something changed. A presidential candidate was elected. Many "change" stories were written about the event. They would have filled a couple of scrapbooks.
At least as far back as January, 2011, stories were already appearing regularly that something would change. A president would be elected in November, 2012. Those threat stories would fill a couple of thousand scrapbooks and, by and large, were more closely read, for meaning and for hints at resolution.
Take sports. Sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry based on the question, who will win? For the Super Bowl, the premier event in American sports, journalists had two weeks to write the threat stories, and a day or two to write the change stories. Which do you suppose would fill up more scrapbooks?
Take weather. What will the weather be? Every newspaper has a weather page, every local broadcast station has two or more reporters, and national television has celebrity reporters and at least one 24-hour channel, covering something that hasn't happened yet.
Take the pope. Global television showed the installation of the plain metal chimney being installed on the Sistine Chapel roof, which millions of people will be watching daily for the white smoke signaling change, as they read hundreds of stories about who the new pope might be.
Take Congress. There is no threat of any change there in the foreseeable future. But don't we wish there was, and we could read about it?
Preserving something valuable in our culture
In this morning's New York Times, Maureen Dowd wrote a timely column about the news that Time Magazine has met its demise. Toward the end, she wrote this:
"It will be good if this moment provokes a reckoning about what really needs to be preserved in the culture, about what is valuable.
"Many content providers and managers — formerly known as reporters and editors — have stopped believing in their own value and necessity. But the gatekeepers in the content class have to understand the world in which we’re living and wield their judgment.
"Digital platforms are worthless without content. They’re shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they’re empty sacks.
"It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you’re reading. It is about what you’re reading."
Speaking for myself, Maureen is very wrong, and she is very right.
She is wrong when she says, "It is not about pixels versus print." It is very much about pixels versus print. The print business model was very simple. Hundreds of years ago, advertisers, seeing newspapers starting to spew out of the new print technology introduced by Gutenberg, quickly seized on the idea of riding the backs of newspapers through a family's front door and into their living room.
Publishers loved it too, because they quickly seized on the idea of charging advertisers for space in their newspapers. By the mid-20th century, hundreds of newspapers were being published in the United States, and getting through the front door into millions of homes. Publishers and advertisers could agree on affordable ad rates because the ads would be seen by so many people. There was a multiplier effect.
Newspaper publishers learned they could get very rich by establishing a 60-40 business model: 60 percent of every newspaper would contain ads, and the other 40 percent would be reader content. If you've ever wondered how publishers decided on the number of pages in any given edition, it was determined by ad sales. When the ad deadline was reached, publishers calculated the newsprint space the ads would require, then added 40 percent, and that total space determined the number of pages in that paper.
When pixels showed up, that very solid, mutually satisfactory and long-lived business model went blooey. Advertisers learned they could get into homes with very inexpensive but flashy digital productions, and a url. They didn't need newspapers any more. Newspapers became a bit player in advertisers' multi-media purchasing schemes.
There is an obvious fix, easy to initiate but difficult to propagate. In the old print business model, advertising revenue carried the load, and subscribers contributed a trickle. In the new pixel business model, they just need to be reversed: advertisers provide the trickle, and subscriber revenue carries the load. It will work because, again, there is a multiplier effect.
Speaking for myself, no blog should go over 500 words. So I'll stop here, and take this up again tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.
"It will be good if this moment provokes a reckoning about what really needs to be preserved in the culture, about what is valuable.
"Many content providers and managers — formerly known as reporters and editors — have stopped believing in their own value and necessity. But the gatekeepers in the content class have to understand the world in which we’re living and wield their judgment.
"Digital platforms are worthless without content. They’re shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they’re empty sacks.
"It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you’re reading. It is about what you’re reading."
Speaking for myself, Maureen is very wrong, and she is very right.
She is wrong when she says, "It is not about pixels versus print." It is very much about pixels versus print. The print business model was very simple. Hundreds of years ago, advertisers, seeing newspapers starting to spew out of the new print technology introduced by Gutenberg, quickly seized on the idea of riding the backs of newspapers through a family's front door and into their living room.
Publishers loved it too, because they quickly seized on the idea of charging advertisers for space in their newspapers. By the mid-20th century, hundreds of newspapers were being published in the United States, and getting through the front door into millions of homes. Publishers and advertisers could agree on affordable ad rates because the ads would be seen by so many people. There was a multiplier effect.
Newspaper publishers learned they could get very rich by establishing a 60-40 business model: 60 percent of every newspaper would contain ads, and the other 40 percent would be reader content. If you've ever wondered how publishers decided on the number of pages in any given edition, it was determined by ad sales. When the ad deadline was reached, publishers calculated the newsprint space the ads would require, then added 40 percent, and that total space determined the number of pages in that paper.
When pixels showed up, that very solid, mutually satisfactory and long-lived business model went blooey. Advertisers learned they could get into homes with very inexpensive but flashy digital productions, and a url. They didn't need newspapers any more. Newspapers became a bit player in advertisers' multi-media purchasing schemes.
There is an obvious fix, easy to initiate but difficult to propagate. In the old print business model, advertising revenue carried the load, and subscribers contributed a trickle. In the new pixel business model, they just need to be reversed: advertisers provide the trickle, and subscriber revenue carries the load. It will work because, again, there is a multiplier effect.
Speaking for myself, no blog should go over 500 words. So I'll stop here, and take this up again tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.
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