‘Our PDX’ Category

New post on OurPDX: The fate of the little guy

March 26th, 2009

Over at OurPDX I’ve written a piece about the fate of niche publications in light of the larger crisis in the newspaper industry. I use Just Out, Portland’s leading gay and lesbian newspaper, as an example of the difficulties niche papers face, and how a digital future is a scary place:

justout_march20The problem is, print media is tragically unable to find online ad dollars. Tom Corbett, an analyst with Morningstar, estimates that in 2008, print publishers made 1.7 cents in online ad revenue for every dollar they lost.  That’s like walking 1.7 feet forward only to turn around and sprint 100 feet in the other direction. Niche publications can barely stand to lose inches, much less feet. Those with viable digital revenue models are … I don’t know. I haven’t seen any.

Read the rest at OurPDX.

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New post on OurPDX: Sam Adams, transparency and Twitter

January 30th, 2009

What Twitter could have given Sam, and Portland

-By abrahamhyatt on
-January 29th, 2009

Late last month, when the whole Gov. Blagovich indictment situation was threatening to taint Barack Obama’s transition, two writers at the Politico put together a list of “five rules of scandal response” that the president-to-be had intentionally, or unintentionally, imposed on his staff. Rule No. 1 was simple: “Be transparent, to an extent.”

Sam Adams didn’t get that memo. As the opening days of the Breedlove scandal unfolded, Adams hid. He hid from the press, from his critics and from his city. And it’s too bad, because whether you support the mayor or not, he had an incredible communications tool at his fingertips: his Twitter account.

Continue reading…

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