Gig 'em Ags!!


/>

Texas Press Association MidWinter Trade Show Jan 17-19 ...

Live from the event ... Reporting ByTexas Publisher D. Lance Lunsford ...
-Coming soon ... While a bit of a dinosaur convention, a few new, young minds are knocking it around in Dallas for the event as young leaders of the next generation of newspapers where online will likely dominate the future.

A few young bucks are engaging to online video, and word here is that many are trying it in their local marketplace to certain varying degrees of success. While just coming around to selling ads for the online product --- much less the online video product --- younger minds here are trying to figure out what they want to do next.

Check out www.ByTexas.com for the answer where people are coming around to our way of thinking.

Jeff Jarvis Find:"A shocking lack of optimism and imagination ... No kidding.


"There are incredibly more opportunities than before. there are many more business models to explore." Jarvis hits the nail on the head. Too many people are espousing themselves as business-minded analytics by merely barking about the death of newspapers.

People forget: consumers have demanded newsprint (the style ... not just the physical product) for 300 years. Therefore, we have to look at how to evolve and shoe-horn what we know how to do as print reporters into a new medium. Thanks, Jarvis.

Thanks, Reuters. These good kids put together a good piece of video news (someone show the AP how), and analyzed the future of newspaper without the doom and gloom.

Benjamin Harris's newspaper didn't see online video coming ... not too many publishers or corporate vice presidents today see beyond where he did ... but Harris died in the early 1700s.

Harris's newspaper, Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick, published just once in Boston in 1690. That newspaper business plan lasted for 300 years, requiring little evolution. Little had to occur in the business plan from town to town, where newspapers could pop up with the same scheme for operation that they did in thousands of other towns. Over 300 years, that kind of business does little to attract uniquely minded future thinkers.

Today, though, we are demanding a business to evolve over a 300-year period in the 12 years that Internet has been dominating the world.

I spoke with a vice president for a major corporation for small community market newspapers in Texas, who actually said the words: "I'm not sold on this whole online video thing."

Nice.

A couple things immediately popped into my mind as scenes suddenly in rapid succession like the last few moments of one's life flashing before his or her eyes at the moment of death: Bush 41 looking at his watch in that 1992 debate, an 80 year-old woman starring blankly at the "Interweb," this near-retarded friend of mine who once claimed, "I'm not much of a reader, but I is smarter than yu theenk."

I can think of a few editors who, in 1998, said the same thing about online newspapers that this guy did about online video: "I'm not sold ..."

Since then, the world has been left to those we trusted as leaders of our editorial universe. It's not the audience that is killing the newspaper business. It's the leaders. It's the leaders and their narrow focus on the five years they have to retirement in hopes that they can hang on tight as this roller coaster comes off the rails. Luckily for them, they get off safely with a retirement parachute, leaving us to take the controls and somehow get the roller coaster back on the rails.

I'm not sold on this whole roller coaster thing yet.

From yet another simpleton who won't see that the online video is part of a broader scheme to generate audience and revenue, Henry Blodget makes several good points, but points to a real problem with online video: lack of a definitive quality style.

For newspapers to develop quality media, it will take more than reporers "blabbing into cameras." Instead, it is going to take real journalists, who want to deliver the same quality that print brings --- just in the online video realm. This narrow-sighted approach to online video is exactly why newspapers have yet to define the future of online video.

No, Online Video Will Not Save Newspapers
Henry Blodget August 28, 2007 8:54 AM
Undertone Networks CEO Mike Cassidy argues in a MediaPost editorial that producing more online video is critical if newspapers like the New York Times (NYT) are to save themselves. For two reasons, we think he's wrong.

1. Few newspaper readers want to watch newspaper videos. We haven't seen detailed traffic stats yet (if you have some, please send along), but our sense is that users just aren't that interested in watching print reporters blab into cameras, especially when they've just read the more convenient, more comprehensive text story nearby. Once in a while, for a story in which a picture is worth a thousand words? Sure. All the time? No way.

2. Online video production, hosting, and streaming costs a lot of money relative to the revenue it produces, even when done on the cheap. Want to know the deep, dark secret of online video? It's a lot more expensive than you think. Sure, dancing-cat videos don't cost much to shoot, but the hosting and streaming costs add up. And if you want to produce a video that someone actually wants to watch? Well, that costs real money in terms of editing, writing, and reporting time. Not as much as high-quality TV production, but real money.

Online revenue at newspaper sites amounts to only 7% of overall industry revenue. Even dozens of new newspaper-produced videos a day won't move this needle much. What the newspapers really need from their online operations, moreover, is profit, not revenue, and as far as online video is concerned, profit will likely be even more elusive.
Mike's Undertone Networks may be a great business (we haven't taken a close look yet), but publishing newspapers online just isn't. And more embedded videos aren't going to change that. (Have any data or anecdotes about newspaper video traffic? Please send to hblodget@alleyinsider.com).

BACK TO REPORTING BYTEXAS:
The seven percent, Blodget mentions, is even at this early date only due to the lack of forward-thinking business minds running online newspaper businesses. Anyone know of a MBA working in a newspaper? The industry has not attracted business-minded entrepreneurs as it once did, diminishing its potential more and exponentially exacerbating the problem of slipping audience.

Newspapers are figuring their way into the online video wilderness ... although some a little begrudgingly ... I remember those newspaper leaders who reluctantly came into the wilderness not too long ago, but it was well past the prime for entry and major portals had already taken advantage of the turf newspapers left behind. So far, newspapers continue falling back. But the tide might be flowing.

Newspapers Find Online Video Niche
Dailies stake out Web territory with broadband newscasts. But can they make money?
By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/11/2007

In the race to capitalize on the popularity of broadband video, newspapers are continuing to take a page from TV stations’ playbooks by producing increasingly sophisticated newscasts and other Web programs. And although the newscasts may not pose a threat to stations’ ratings, newspaper executives are hoping they will help secure their lead over broadcasters in the battle for local ad revenues on the Web. MORE

News Spotting

Posted by the ByTexas.com Editorial Board

Early each week, Reporting ByTexas will highlight a few Texas stories that caught our eye as the “Weekend’s Best.”

We’re going to use the Columbus Day Holiday as an excuse for not posting this Monday.

This story, about a gorge opened by floodwaters near Canyon Lake in 2002, comes from The Herald-Zeitung. Versions were also carried by The Associated Press, as this was the first weekend the public was invited to tour the gorge.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal had a story about a former Texas Tech football player who now defends Gitmo detainees.

And The Dallas Morning News wrote a piece on friends and family who say Cowboy “Tank” Johnson’s not such a bad guy after all.

A Black Hole Where His Heart Should Be

But then what pumps the ice water through his veins?

By Tom Collins

"Time out, go, time out," said Bills head coach Dick Jauron, with a stoic exterior. He smiled inside.

Like this.















How smarmy.

He thought he could put rookie kicker Nick Folk on ice, on a national stage. What he didn't realize is that Nick Folk is a machine.

A machine that seemed to be oblivious to the fact that, outside of the last two minutes, he was participating in a game that seemed to be going against his Cowboys in every facet.

He disregarded the fact that he is a rookie and that there were roughly 10 billion people watching him.

He laughed at Jauron's ploy to throw him off of his game and proceeded split the uprights from 53 yards. Twice.

For anyone who doesn't know what in the hell I'm talking about, yesterday on Monday Night Football the Cowboys, down 24-22 to the Bills. lined up to kick a 53 yard field goal with 2 seconds left in regulation. Moments before the snap Dick Jauron calls for a time out to try to ice kicker Nick Folk. Unaware of the time out, the play continues and Folk hits it perfectly, but it doesn't count. After much bickering about the fairness of the time out between Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski, the Cowboys line up and try again. Successfully, it would turn out.

My point in all this is that Nick Folk doesn't care what you think. He doesn't care what you do. If you throw five interceptions, he's more than happy to bail you out.

Twice.

Posted by D. Lance Lunsford
Publisher, ByTexas.com

Mike Gundy who?

After blowing a 17-point lead maybe Gundy can throw another hissy fit that plagued broadband lines across the nation two weeks ago.

Maybe rather than planning a second-half strategy during halftime, perhaps he was writing a post-game rant that would sound spontaneous and unrehearsed. Or maybe he was trying to figure out which reporter he wanted to throw under a bus (and cheaply damage a reporter's reputation) just to salvage his own standing with his team.

Or then again, perhaps he'll recall that players should take whatever criticism might be doled out considering their presence on the field is only at the hands of the taxpayer who affords their education (even if it does occur in Oklahoma.)


Next time a coach wants to accuse a reporter of incorrect statements in an article, he should address those corrections with the reporter when the reporter asks for them.

Tyler Etheridge is Better Than You
At Football

Undeniable Proof

The story is a bit old, but it bears repeating. When Tyler Etheridge threw the 186th touchdown pass of his high school career, Chris Leak died a little inside. Sure, Leak won a national title at Florida and is on a professional roster (behind Rex Grossman on the depth chart, though), but this guy just broke his record! It isn't really a record per se, though, as Leak played against eleven defenders compared to Etheridge's six, but that's all semantics. To tell the truth, I was a little surprised that the eleven-man record was higher than the six-man record. If you've never seen a six-man game, suffice to say that they are not defensive struggles. Rather the opposite. But I'm glad to see this record reside in the high school football state, where it belongs (Leak went to high school in Virginia), regardless of how many players are on the field.

Mike Gundy is a Man!
and an angry one, at that.


Disclaimer: I am a student at Texas Tech

Mike Gundy was upset Saturday. Most people, including Gundy, claim it was because he was agitated about an article in The Oklahoman, but I offer a different take on it. If I had just allowed 650 yards and five scores through the air (even if I won this hypothetical game), I probably wouldn't want to talk about it. In fact, I would have such an aversion to discussing it, I might take some minute thing that rubbed me the wrong way and totally blow it out of proportion, and then maybe yell at someone for 3 minutes. That's just me though.

In all seriousness, Gundy took this a bit too far. While he may have have had some good points (the best points are often delivered with a scream), this was a matter that would have been best handled in private, with a lower aggregate blood pressure. I'm actually kind of glad it wasn't though. There are very few things in this world that can cheer me up like a coach absolutely losing his mind at a press conference. Whether they're reminding us why we play the game, telling us what not to talk about, or simply letting someone off the hook, in my book it doesn't get much better than watching an authority figure lose it on a room full of people whose job it is to form opinions about him. For pure yelling endurance (those other videos hovered around a minute, Gundy's was over three), Gundy has to take tops on this mountain of unchecked fury.

Stick by your guns, Mike. I certainly appreciate it.