Churnalism Invades The US And UK Press
July 5, 2013
For those who cannot tell by the nifty combination of churn and journalism, churnalism refers to reporters “churning” out pieces that regurgitate press releases and other prior existing content into a news story. The problem with churnalism is that it only pulls from one resource, which is contrary to good journalism that requires research and fact checking. MakeUseOf.com focuses on churnalism in the US and across the pond in the United Kingdom in the article, “Churnalism: Find Out When Reporters Re-Print Press Releases.”
There are two ways to figure out if an article has been “churnaled” or not. There are two search engines that churn articles (one for each country) and matches results against press releases. The databases only check a few databases by default, but more can be added based on the user’s preference. Also there are web browser extensions to check articles as you surf the web.
Keep in mind, however, that even though too much churnalism is bad that does not mean all articles are unoriginal:
“Churnalism warning you about an article doesn’t mean it’s “bad” – much of the time the only thing you’ll see in an article is a quote from the release. This probably means the reporter didn’t talk to the people in question, but it’s up to you to determine whether this matters.”
Remember to use the one feature developers have not been able to program yet: human judgment. Only an inquiring mind can decipher schlock from gems.
Whitney Grace, July 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
PRatronizer Alert: Have Info for ArnoldIT? Proceed with Caution
July 4, 2013
I am not a journalist. My academic training is in medieval poetry in Latin. I was lucky to get out of high school, college, and a couple of graduate programs. Few people embraced my interest in indexing medieval Latin manuscripts. Among those who made the most fun of my interests were those in journalism school, electrical engineers, and people studying to be middle school teachers.
In graduate school, the mathematics majors found my work interesting and offered grudging respect because one of my relatives was Vladimir Ivanovich Arnold, a co-worker with that so-so math guy, the long distance hiker Andrey Kolmogorov.
I have, therefore, some deep seated skepticism about “real” journalists, folks who carry around soldering irons, and the aforementioned middle school teachers.
Last week I received a semi-snarky email about one of my articles. The person writing me shall remain nameless. I have assembled some thoughts designed to address his question, “Why did you not mention [company A] and [company B] in your article about desktop search. I think this was a for fee column which appeared in KMWorld, but I can’t be sure. My team and I produce a number of “articles” every day, and I am not a librarian, another group granted an exemption from my anti journalist, anti EE, and anti middle school stance.
Let me highlight the points which are important to me. I understand that you, gentle reader, probably do not have much interest. But this is my blog and I am not a journalist.
First, each of my for fee columns which run in four different publications focus on something “sort of” connected to search, online, analytics, knowledge management (whatever that means), and the even more indefinable content processing. I write about topics which my team suggests might be interesting to people younger and smarter than I. In short, PR people stay away. I pay professionals to identify topics for me. I don’t need help from you. I don’t need the PR attitude which I call “PRantronizing.” Is this clear enough? Do not spam me with crazy “news” releases. Do not call me and pretend we are pals. When a call came in yesterday, I was in a meeting with a law librarian. I put the call on the speaker phone and told the caller to know whom she buzzes before she pretends we are pals. The PRatronizer was annoyed. The law librarian said, “None of us on your team are that friendly to you. Heck, I don’t think you are my friend after four years of daily work.” My reaction, “That’s why you are sitting here with me and the PRatronizer is dealing with a firm, ‘Get lost.’”
E Know Joins Thomson Reuters Elite Alliance Program
July 2, 2013
I suppose this seems logical in today’s world—a top publisher has embraced law firm management. Ah, diversification! Noodls reports, “Thomson Reuters Elite Announces Alliance Partnership with E-know.net Limited.” Reuter’s Elite division was formed to serve legal- and professional-services firms. About its Alliance Program, the press release tells us:
“The Thomson Reuters Elite Global Strategic Alliance Program provides a one-stop global marketplace that fosters cooperation, streamlines the buy-sell cycle and helps all involved achieve a competitive edge. Elite partners are experienced technology, services and consulting organizations ready to innovate, collaborate and help our clients solve their most pressing business challenges.”
New program member e-know, founded in 1998, now hosts more than 80 applications for its legal clients in its Telford, UK-based data centers. The write-up quotes e-know’s director, Nigel Redwood:
“e-know.net has an unrivalled track record in the UK legal industry, meeting the needs of our clients for more than 12 years. By outsourcing IT to e-know.net, Thomson Reuters Elite clients can focus entirely on managing their businesses. Our secure and flexible IT management is proven to improve organizational performance and ensure business continuity.”
May the new partnership be beneficial to both parties.
Cynthia Murrell, July 02, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Publishing Consolidation in the Good Old Summertime
July 1, 2013
The world of ink-on-paper publishing no longer makes my heart race. When I was younger and the traditional publishing sector more robust, I did like the thrill of doing the dead-tree thing. I recall the aroma of just-printed annual reports, for example. I look back fondly on days spent at Case-Hoyt in Rochester, New York, where I watched the world’s largest pocket calendar being printed for a very, very wealthy client located in distant climes.
I read on the ABC news site a short item which seems to have originated from the Associated Press. You can dip into the original on the ABC Web site for a short time. The write up asserts that the Hachette Book Group is going to acquire Hyperion. What’s interesting is that Disney, the company which owns some darned interesting information companies, is willing to let content for old people go. Young person content remains in the seven dwarfs’ cabin along with Snow White I believe.
I heard that in the near future a couple of other giant publishing outfits are going to get hitched. Pearson, Bertelsmann, and Random House will doing one of those business gene splicing things. The resulting intellectual protein structure with binding hydrogen atoms will, I assume, lead to soaring revenues, larger profits, and better books and related knowledge outputs.
Smaller publishers may benefit from massive consolidation. I recently purchased a textbook on bioengineering from a company in Singapore which was unfamiliar to me. I was, however, familiar with the price — hundreds of dollars. I assume that high-cost, narrowly-focused print books will continue to sell in the low hundreds.
Will a roll up of niche smaller publishers follow the consolidation of North American and Western European publishing companies? Will new start up print publishing companies gain greater traction in niche markets?
Margins in publishing have been under pressure for years. The cost of paper is an issue. The potential for environmental backlash exists. Traditional books are selling for writing superstars. For less sparkly wordsmiths, sales are less robust.
With Amazon and Apple in the game, it is a fascinating times for traditional publishers. But my heart is beating normally. My hunch is that publishers’ senior management experience a bit of heart flutter when quarterly financials are prepared every 12 weeks.
It is summertime. Beach books sales should be warming in the sun.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Interests Begat Quantity and Quality of Information
June 17, 2013
Making the transition from print to web, there is no question that journalism has evolved much over the last several years. Fast Company Labs has looked into another major questions in journalism: do people want short or long articles? The article, ”This is What Happens When Publishers Invest in Long Stories,” sheds some light on longer pieces akin to “slow live blogging.”
These “slow live blogging” articles take a mindful approach that information does note always develop in real time and stories can be built upon over time. These super-long articles start out being posted initially as stub stories.
The article tells us more about the processing for developing a stub story into something more grandiose:
“But when more news breaks, you go back to the article, insert an update at the top, and change the headline and subheadline (known in our business as the “hed” and “dek”) to reflect the update. Our system updates the story “slug” when the headline changes–check the URL of this story, and you’ll see words from the headline in the URL: /this-is-what-happens-when-publishers-invest-in-long-stories. But the number preceding the slug–on this article, it’s 3009577–is a unique node ID which never changes. So essentially, every time we update an article, we get a fresh URL with a fresh headline, but pointing back to the same (newly updated) article. So, it’s like having many URLs and many headlines which lead back to the same big, multi-faceted article. We called these “Tracking” stories.”
The article delves into a longer sub-section on the motivation behind these long stories. As one might guess, quality and depth of information are at the forefront and Fast Company has seen a spike in average visit duration numbers. Short content or length — where there is an interest, there will be an information source.
Megan Feil, June 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
OMICS Publishing Group Threatens Billion Dollar Suit Over Slanderous Blog Post
June 14, 2013
The article on the Chronicle of Higher Education titled Publisher Threatens to Sue Blogger for One Billion tells the story of Jeffrey Beall, who runs the blog Scholarly Open Access. The blog has a list of predatory or questionable publishers and journals. One of these publishers, OMICS Publishing Group from India, wants to sue Beall, and put him in jail.
“The OMICS Group’s practices have received particular attention from Mr. Beall and some publications, including The Chronicle. In 2012, The Chronicle found that the group was listing 200 journals, but only about 60 percent had actually published anything… On his blog, Mr. Beall accuses OMICS of spamming scholars with invitations to publish, quickly accepting their papers, then charging them a nearly $3,000 publishing fee after a paper has been accepted.”
The letter sent to Beall accused him of racial discrimination as well as unprofessionalism. Whether the suit is a publicity stunt or sparked by legitimate outrage is unclear, but in India it is against the law to publish “menacing” information online under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act. Is pay to play content really such a contentious concept? The academics desperate to be published in legitimate journals who follow Beall’s blog would certainly say yes.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 14, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Thomson Reuters Embraces the Economist Approach
May 30, 2013
One of my two or three readers sent me a link to “Thomson Reuters Hires Economist Group Chief to Head news Agency Arm.” One of the characteristics of large, traditional publishing companies is that when one executive is needed, the go-to source for a qualified person is another traditional publishing company. Thomson Reuters has returned somewhat lackluster revenue growth in the last few years. Will the Economist approach change the course of the aircraft carrier?
According to the write up:
Rashbass, a former managing director of Economist.com who became chief executive in 2008, said that Reuters was well positioned to drive commercial growth.
We agree. Now the task is to deliver revenues, not magazines. Lord Thomson of Fleet is probably watching and hoping for greater success for his outfit.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
Useful Source of Open Books
May 10, 2013
The good folks at O’Reilly Media offer a roster of Open Books for your inner programmer. O’Reilly has not only navigated the open license landscape to offer these publications, but also got them digitized into e-books so they can be available to anyone with an Internet connection. Though the publisher has offered books under various open copyrights for years, it now has a concerted focus in this area.
The write-up makes sure to give credit where credit is due:
“We’re happy to have partnered with two innovative nonprofits, Creative Commons and the Internet Archive, to solve the licensing and digitizing challenges involved in bringing Open Books to readers.
“While the books listed here use various open licenses, since 2003 we’ve focused on using the licenses created by Creative Commons. O’Reilly has adopted the Creative Commons Founders’ Copyright, which we’re applying to hundreds of out-of-print and current titles, pending author approval.
“Through its Open Library project, the Internet Archive is scanning and hosting PDF versions of our open books. We posted the first book, the original edition of The Whole Internet User’s Guide & Catalog in October of 2005, as part of the launch of the Open Content Alliance (we and the Internet Archive are among the founding members of the alliance).”
O’Reilly expresses gratitude to Creative Commons and the Internet Archive, and suggests users consider donating to these initiatives. (We concur.) Check out the generous list—you might just pick up some crucial information for free.
Cynthia Murrell, May 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Loan, Own, Bankrupt Model for Publishing
April 27, 2013
Author’s Note: I was not going to make a big deal about the death of my father. He had a long, productive life. He was a pal to some heavy hitters in Illinois politics. He had a couple of good jobs. He worked hard. My family, lawyers, and advisors made the tasks associated with this life event less burdensome. There was one problem, however. The Peoria Journal Star failed to publish my father’s obituary on time. I was not going to discuss this procedural failure on the part of GateHouse Media’s newspaper until I read the article in the Wall Street Journal about companies which allegedly loan themselves money and then own the company to which the money was loaned. When the company in the loan-own mode gets into trouble, some financial tap dancing is in order. After reading the Wall Street Journal story, I decided to capture some thoughts. What’s this have to do with search? Two things: Try to find an obituary when it is not in a system is tough. Second, the modern approach to management often leaves the customer adrift. In my opinion, this is not good. Feel free to skip the write up.
Part I: The Financialing
On most days, I don’t think too much about textbook publishing, newspaper publishing, or loaning myself money and then declaring myself bankrupt. Publishing once was an interesting business, but putting ink on paper seems a bit retro for me. Isn’t digital where it is at?
A publisher who hits upon the clever idea of loaning oneself money, spending it, and then going broke is very 2013ish. The notion strikes me as an idea crafted by a couple of MBAs, a handful of attorneys, and a person suffering from sleep deprivation. I thought publishers published. Not now if the Wall Street Journal’s story is any where near accurate.
I read “Buyout Firm Gathers Cengage Debt” in the April 27, 2013 Wall Street Journal, page B2. If you are a savvy MBA you may be able to locate the story at this link. If not, be prepared to pay up. I did. (No, gentle reader of my personal blog, I do not update links in order to curry favor with the Google. You want good links, go elsewhere, please.)
The main point of the story is that an investment/financial type of firm is “both an owner and senior creditor of Cengage.” If you know your history of professional publishing and its wheeling and dealing, Cengage was once a separate firm and then once a chunk of the Thomson Reuters’ outfit. Thomson Reuters is interesting because it has run a number of senior managers though its executive suites and maintained flat revenues and modest profits for several years.
I think the way this owner and creditor thing works is that one part of a big investment/financial outfit buys a stake in something and another part of the big investment/financial outfit loans the recipient of the money some cash. In short, the big investment/financial outfit both owns the recipient of the money and is a creditor who wants money back.
Got that. I sort of do.
Part II: The Unveilingness
But what’s fascinating to me is a series of comments in the original write up and a reference to a publishing company with which I did business on April 9, 2013. Let’s look at these two blips on my aging radar screen.
Here are the quotes I marked in my dead tree copy of the venerable Wall Street Journal, which I think was or is a Rupert Murdoch property:
- “[APAX] the private equity-firm’s potentially conflicting roles as an owner and creditor”. I like the potentially conflicting, don’t you?
- “Some lawyers say wearing both owner and creditor hats can undercut the goals of bankruptcy law.” What are those goals, by the way? Undercut is an interesting word too.
- “By tacking on a debt investment, a private-equity owner can keep control of a company while sometimes using bankruptcy or other means to cut jobs, cancel contracts, or offload pensions and other obligations.” Seems reasonable to take these steps. Hey, it’s just business in 2013.
On April 9, 2013, I arranged for a mortuary to place an obituary for my father in a company mentioned in this April 27, 2013, Wall Street Journal story. The Peoria Journal Star is owned by GateHouse Media, Inc. GateHouse I learned is one of the outfits which may be both a creditor and an owner of properties which are facing financial headwinds. GateHouse Media’s tag line on its Web site says, “We can.”
Well, maybe the company can be listed in the owner-creditor story in the Wall Street Journal. The company may be able to chop staff. And, for sure, the company can mishandle an obituary like nobody’s business.
The Wall Street Journal article pointed out that some firms use various methods to lessen the financial pain. One of them, cited above, is dumping employees. The elegant phrase is “cutting jobs.”
Part III: The Pay Downing
How does this work out in real life?
Well, the Peoria Journal Star’s obituary desk is staffed on what struck me as somewhat loose hours. One person whom I finally reached by calling the City Desk at the Peoria Journal Star said, “I think someone will come in around 9 am.” Another person told me, “There have been many staff reductions at the paper. Most people wear two or three hats.” A bit of Web surfing revealed that the Peoria Journal Star’s obituary “desk” is actually part of the advertising department and that members of the family could not submit obituaries. As it turns out, a member of the family wondering why the obituary did not appear on April 22, 2013, was published only after the mortuary contacted the Peoria Journal Star’s obituary desk a second time on Monday, April 22.
Advice for Barnes and Noble
April 10, 2013
Amid the barrage of challenges faced by today’s publishers, The Motley Fool asserts that “Barnes & Nobles Need to Quickly Change Course.” Writer Peter Pham points to Barnes & Noble’s disappointing quarterly results, revealed in January, which were pulled down in part by the Nook‘s lackluster performance. He then expresses surprise at the company’s recent announcement: They have made a series of licensing deals with some major studios, like Lionsgate, Disney, and HBO to name just a few, to supply content for the beleaguered tablet. Pham states:
“There is clearly a disconnect here. B&N is caught between being a traditional bookseller and a technology startup, and the transition is clearly not working as intended. The plan was to transition its retail customers towards Nook while posting organic growth as well, and neither of the two has happened. The company is now planning a major overhaul of Nook through a hardware redesign, trimming down expenditures and increasing e-book sales.”
If that is the wrong direction, what should the company be doing instead? Well, the article suggests, it would help if Microsoft would get around to completing their 7″-tablet-form-factor version of Windows 8. Beyond that, Barnes & Noble should work to get Bing Shopping integrated into the OS and make the Windows app store available. The key, though, may be to tap emerging markets with a focus on cloud-based education functionality. Interesting advice.
Cynthia Murrell, April 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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