THINKing

Twitter: Time Waster Or Cool Tool?

Liberal newspaper columnist, Leonard Pitts, today says he won’t Twitter. Ever. Works for me. The only thing Pitts and I agree on in this particular case is in his column’s last line:

I will never Twitter you. In the first place, you have better things to do. In the second, I am not that interesting.

The Land Of The Free

America, digital America in particular, has become the land of the free. So many online services are offered at no charge that now it is hard to get anyone to pay for anything online. Newspapers are circling the drain because of this phenomenon.

A MediaPost article addresses this problem,

Newspapers Are Circling The Drain

Yes, that was the toilet you heard flushing on newspapers. We’ve talked about this topic often here at THINKing. Newspapers are in deep trouble. A handful of smart ones will survive. But most are either on their way out or they will morph into something different. eMarketer reports on the outlook for the newspaper industry. Based on eMarketer’s review, it’s time to call the funeral home,

Top 10 Posts of 2008

THINKing’s top stories of the past year are listed below. Our blog tends to be an eclectic mix of advertising, PR and social media stories, and our top 10 posts reflect that. We might be on to something.

#10 – Know Your Media – Newspapers

Our Top 5

In case you missed them, here are the 5 most popular blog postings from THINKing.
Newspapers: Dig The Grave
Top 10 Story Starter Tips For Blocked Bloggers
A Bigger Logo Necessitates A Smaller Idea
Twittering Journalists
Great Employees = Happy Consumers

Ethics in Journalism: An Oxymoron?

The Society of Professional Journalists has a code of ethics. Shocked? Having been a journalist in another era, I knew about the code but had forgotten about it until I stumbled upon it again recently. Here are a few key items from the code for your review and comment.

MSM Ain’t What It Used To Be

The mainstream media (MSM) continues to suffer through bad times. And it is not just the print media that is in a freefall. TV News also is having it’s problems, according to David Zeeck of the Tacoma News Tribune. His contention is that newspapers aren’t dying. Here I disagree with Mr. Zeeck. Newspapers are dying, but they are doing slightly better than TV news is.

Media Bias?

OK, by now you know that I believe the media is biased beyond belief and that is a primary reason that print journalism is in the tank from a circulation perspective. The last time I brought this up, the liberals came out of the woodwork to skewer me. That’s OK. I’m a big boy. But don’t just take it from me.

Blame Weak Marketers Not Economy

OK, we have yet another story about an abysmal showing for newspapers. Circulation, according to USA Today, is down 4.6 percent for US newspapers overall. Says the national newspaper,

Circulation and advertising have been dropping at newspapers as readers continue to migrate to the Internet. Ad revenue began to decline more steeply this summer as the weak economy prompted advertisers to pull back on spending.

Newspapers’ Online Revenues Now Declining

In our last post, we talked about newspapers’ decline. Today, the industry moved into ICU. Despite recent economic challenges, online ad revenues have remained fairly stable. According to TechCrunch, online ad revenues are now in the toilet, too,