Our guest for this week’s Media Bullseye Radio Roundtable was Doug Haslam of Topaz Partners PR. He joined regular participants Jen Zingsheim and Sarah Wurrey from CustomScoop, and we discussed a variety of topics, with a real focus this week on the intersection of traditional and new media.
(Click here to listen to the 20 minute discussion.)
WSJ.com Stays Paid
The first topic the Roundtable tackled was the announcement in Davos, Switzerland this week by Rupert Murdoch that WSJ.com would remain largely subscription-based. While some content will be made freely available, “The really special things will still be a subscription service, and, sorry to tell you, probably more expensive,” he said. Specifically, the cost appears to be set to rise from $99 per year to $119 annually.
The Roundtable discussed whether this was a good idea, and what it meant for the rest of the online content community.
MSM Getting Scooped by Blogs?
Some have speculated that a blog report forced the New York Times to break with tradition yesterday by releasing their presidential primary endorsements in advance of the Sunday paper. Historically, major endorsements have always appeared on Sunday for the venerable newspaper, and a web site reportedly published those decisions yesterday. For its part, the publication insists it was not forced into action by a blog, with the decision more a result of the compressed schedule for the primaries and the upcoming voting in South Carolina on Saturday.
The Roundtable explored the issue and discussed pressures that the new media environment brings on traditional reporting.
AFP Bans Use of Facebook/Wikipedia
In the wake of an embarrassing mistake that resulted in Agence France Presse reporting on a fictitious Facebook entry, the prominent news agency has told its reporters it cannot use sites like Facebook or Wikipedia as sources for news stories. The Roundtable discussed the credibility challenge posed by the explosion in online news and information sources.
