Thursday, October 30, 2008
VCU employees donate mostly to Obama
This article was published in the Commonwealth Times: VCU employees donate mostly to Obama - News
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Future of media
By: Samantha Downing
This piece was published in the VCU Mass Comm Week blog.
RICHMOND - Many VCU students get a large part of their news from the Internet. “I think putting the news online gets students to check out what is going on more, said Sierra Heath, a creative advertising sophomore.
As part of VCU’s Mass Comm Week, Heath and more than 100 other students gathered on Tuesday afternoon to hear representatives of several media companies address how the Internet affects traditional forms of media.
“Without an informed society, democracy is weakened,” said Daniel Finnegan, senior editor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
He said that the newspaper is in the process of moving to the Internet, but he didn’t know if the newspaper would ever be Internet-only. Finnegan said that, though the number of paid subscriptions has dropped recently, the Times-Dispatch still has 175,000 subscribers.
Finnegan was not concerned about blogs impacting the newspaper because they are usually full of opinions and important only to a few people. He did mention using Facebook as a tool to reach people, adding that in the future, people might be able to monitor their Facebook profiles from the newspaper’s Web site.
As far as a future in the media industry for students, Finnegan said, “I think it’s going to be there in some shape or form.”
Jean McNair, news editor at the Associated Press, said that the world's largest news organization is adjusting to the changes, too. She said that the AP is working on new ways of getting news to people, including through cell phones.
“One advantage the AP has is that we’ve kind of always been a business model that works well on the Internet,” she said. “The cliché was we had a deadline every minute.”
People have an appetite for news, McNair said, and they want to be able to follow stories as they progress.
The publisher of Virginia Business, Bernie Niemeier, said that money is the biggest factor. He said that the Virginia Business Web site does not get enough “click-throughs” – visitors clicking on ads on the site, which generates money for the magazine – to make a significant amount of money.
“If you think about what it costs to put all this content here,” he said, “it can’t be supported by the revenue that’s being generated online.”
The challenge is “monetizing the eyeballs,” which is difficult because it is hard to monitor who visits the site, Niemeier said.
Kym Grinnage, general sales manager at NBC12, said that people need to create a “menu for their life” listing the things that are important to them and the sites they will visit for their news.
He said that it is important to read the newspaper because it contains so much more information than television.
“TV is the tease to get your attention,” Grinnage said.
Grinnage said that students now can design their own careers better than they ever could before.
“You guys have the best opportunity you could have in the world,” he said. “You have the World Wide Web.”
The panel of speakers didn’t think that print media would fade.
“Print is not as dead as you may have heard,” Niemeier said.
Finnegan said, “Newspapers still are, at least right now, your best mass marketing tool.”
Grinnage advised students in the mass communications field to remain "very curious about everything."
When asked how students could support local media, Finnegan laughed and said, “Buy the newspaper.”
# # #
This piece was published in the VCU Mass Comm Week blog.
Media professionals share advice with VCU mass communications students during Mass Comm Week.
RICHMOND - Many VCU students get a large part of their news from the Internet. “I think putting the news online gets students to check out what is going on more, said Sierra Heath, a creative advertising sophomore.
As part of VCU’s Mass Comm Week, Heath and more than 100 other students gathered on Tuesday afternoon to hear representatives of several media companies address how the Internet affects traditional forms of media.
“Without an informed society, democracy is weakened,” said Daniel Finnegan, senior editor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
He said that the newspaper is in the process of moving to the Internet, but he didn’t know if the newspaper would ever be Internet-only. Finnegan said that, though the number of paid subscriptions has dropped recently, the Times-Dispatch still has 175,000 subscribers.
Finnegan was not concerned about blogs impacting the newspaper because they are usually full of opinions and important only to a few people. He did mention using Facebook as a tool to reach people, adding that in the future, people might be able to monitor their Facebook profiles from the newspaper’s Web site.
As far as a future in the media industry for students, Finnegan said, “I think it’s going to be there in some shape or form.”
Jean McNair, news editor at the Associated Press, said that the world's largest news organization is adjusting to the changes, too. She said that the AP is working on new ways of getting news to people, including through cell phones.
“One advantage the AP has is that we’ve kind of always been a business model that works well on the Internet,” she said. “The cliché was we had a deadline every minute.”
People have an appetite for news, McNair said, and they want to be able to follow stories as they progress.
The publisher of Virginia Business, Bernie Niemeier, said that money is the biggest factor. He said that the Virginia Business Web site does not get enough “click-throughs” – visitors clicking on ads on the site, which generates money for the magazine – to make a significant amount of money.
“If you think about what it costs to put all this content here,” he said, “it can’t be supported by the revenue that’s being generated online.”
The challenge is “monetizing the eyeballs,” which is difficult because it is hard to monitor who visits the site, Niemeier said.
Kym Grinnage, general sales manager at NBC12, said that people need to create a “menu for their life” listing the things that are important to them and the sites they will visit for their news.
He said that it is important to read the newspaper because it contains so much more information than television.
“TV is the tease to get your attention,” Grinnage said.
Grinnage said that students now can design their own careers better than they ever could before.
“You guys have the best opportunity you could have in the world,” he said. “You have the World Wide Web.”
The panel of speakers didn’t think that print media would fade.
“Print is not as dead as you may have heard,” Niemeier said.
Finnegan said, “Newspapers still are, at least right now, your best mass marketing tool.”
Grinnage advised students in the mass communications field to remain "very curious about everything."
When asked how students could support local media, Finnegan laughed and said, “Buy the newspaper.”
# # #
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