Taste of Home. Unless you are a cooking fanatic, you might not be familiar with the brand. Still, this popular magazine has an audience of over 3 million readers and produces a slew of cookbooks each year.

The Taste of Home cooking school arrived in Beloit on Tuesday for a show, and I had the opportunity to play photographer for a day. It didn’t take me long to realize it has been years since I handled a digital (or even regular) SLR camera. I decided to use the strategy ‘if you can’t shoot good photos, shoot lots of photos.’ I was actually quite pleased with how most of the images turned out, and received my first print photo credit in BDN yesterday.

Here is a Soundslide gallery of the better shots. Read more…

Origionally published on BDN Blogs.

The Internet changes everything. Newspapers and other media companies are learning they can provide informations to consumers in new and interesting ways. Some are slow to grasp the potential of the web, while others lead the way.

James Lileks, columnist for the Minneapolis – St. Paul Star Tribune gets it.

Last week a colleague sent me a link to a video Lileks did called “More tales from the scary front lines of flu defense.” Go watch it now, it is quite brilliant. The video is funny, cleaver and informative. More importantly – it was done by a newspaper.
Read more…

Good Magazine is the latest entity to try the pay-what-you-want approach for distribution.  The magazine posted on its site blog today that the normal $20 a year subscription rate would be waved, and new subscribers could pay what they want, with a minimum payment of $1 – with all proceeds going to charity.

From the website:

Our goal is to create a collaborative community of individuals, businesses, and non-profits. We feel that the content is the invitation into this community and we didn’t want to make the invitation too expensive. We thought about what we like and respect, and we decided that what Radiohead did meshed with where our heads are  at. So meet the new model for GOOD.

Publicity stunt – maybe, but it was enough to get me to cough up $10 for a subscription to the magazine.

Read more…

Can the e-reader save the “printed” word?

Plastic Logic yesterday announced their new product, known currently as the reader.  Similar to Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader, the unnamed reader uses E Ink technology, which provides a digital display with a similar look and feel as a book.  From Plastic Logic’s Web site:

Differentiated by a stunning form factor (the size of 8.5 x 11-inch paper), the Plastic Logic reader features a big readable display. Yet it’s thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals, and offers a high-quality reading experience – better than alternatives of paper or other electronic readers on the market today.

The reader will be released in spring of 2009.  The question is what – if any impact will this have on the newspaper industry?

Read more…

From the Chicago Tribune:

In a bid to offset slumping ad sales and rising costs, The Daily Telegram in Superior, Wis., said Thursday it will publish the majority of its 118-year-old paper on the Internet starting this fall.

The afternoon paper, which has a circulation of about 6,000, will print only two issues a week, down from its current six. It wasn’t clear yet which days the paper will print, said Ron Brochu, executive editor.

The Superior/Duluth area provides a similar example to Madison – an area with two dailies basically in the same town.  I wish the paper luck, and plan to watch closely as changes take place at The Daily Telegram.

With changes to the local media landscape in Madison, Thursday is the epicenter for publication releases. Within 24 hours, The Cap Times, Onion, Isthmus, and 77 Square are released into the Madison wild. This week we caught our first glimpse of the two CapTimes.com weeklies. Here are thoughts on each paper for this week.

The Onion. Wow, with the headlines in the Onion, it seems they never left Madison. The “Dying Newspaper Trend” article is ripped right from local media (including this site), while the “‘Get the fuck outta the road’ program” should be directed towards the students at the UW. The Onion also provided a great summer movie preview, that helps me hate Hollywood even more.

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“Change is inevitable. Change is constant,” — Benjamin Disraeli

Change is all around in Madison. Drive by where University Square was once located, past the Chazen Art Museum and the addition to Granger Hall.

Change is not limited to campus. Downtown is in a constant state of flux. The west side continues to grow. Even the suburbs seldom remain the same.

For those not from Madison, change is noticeable when you visit your hometown. A favorite clothing store is replaced by Target; the local drug store is now a Walgreen’s.
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This is one of a number of articles I wrote about the changes at The Capital Times shortly after the announcement was made they would move to the web. Rob Zaleski is a writer that took the buyout, and Friday was his last day. I have not talked to him since, but I wish him the best in future endeavors. Read his CapTimes.com porfile here.

……..

“The times have changed so dramatically since I got into this business,” says Rob Zaleski, a columnist for The Capital Times as he paces before a room of aspiring journalists.

“You might think twice about going into the newspaper business,” says Zaleski, admitting it is the first time he has ever said this.

Read more…

Congratulations to reporter Dave Umhoefer and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for winning the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.

The Pulitzer is the most prestigious award a news writer can win. Umhoefer won the award for an investigation published last summer detailing pension deals for county workers.

This is the first Pulitzer for the Journal Sentinel, and I congratulate Umhoefer on the honor.

Read more at JSOnline.com

I came across the extra-geeky list “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains” via Lifehacker. My personal favorite (althought #3 is also good with some gender reversal):

2. Always shoot first. Every good leader should be willing to do what he or she asks of her team. One of the reasons for the loyalty of the ragtag crew of Serenity, the ship Malcolm Reynolds captains in Firefly, is that Mal will throw himself into battle to protect his team. Whenever he has a crazy scheme or rescue mission in mind, he takes the first plunge. Lesson learned? Show your crew that you’re willing to take a bullet for them, and they’ll do the same for you.

Complete list can be viewed here.

On Thursday, The Capital Times newspaper announced it would cease operation as a print publication at the end of April. Published since 1917, the paper is one of two in Madison, joined by the Wisconsin State Journal. The Capital Times stated it planned to focus on online journalism and become the premier website for news and commentary for the area.

Reaction has been mixed. Most agree the lost of a newspaper is disappointing, but think the company might be better served by the move. Ben Broeren, a former contributor to the Capital Times wrote:

From my own experience, online readership of the Cap Times is hardly waning. As an intern, I read responses to my articles (hate mail and otherwise) from NY, UK, CA…A story jointly written by city editor Chris Murphy and I on one of Sen. Feingold’s listen sessions caught tens of thousands of hits online within a couple of days.

In an article for Dane101.com, I stated this is a good move for the Capital Times if done right. News is changing, and those that embrace and use the Internet as their primary source of distribution now will be better positioned later. All newspapers will eventually vanish, which will among other things make moving more difficult.

To see just how much the face of news has changed, I conducted an informal survey among friends of mine throught the state and country. Of the ten people that responded, all but one use the Internet as their primary source of news. Most read a local and national site (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Cnn.com). When these people do purchase the paper, it is usually the Sunday paper, and often for add and coupons. As one respondent says, “We haven’t had a newspaper delivery in years. We get everything online.”

Only time will tell if this is the fist step towards the Capital Times being the Internet leader in Madison, or the deathblow to another American newspaper.

The website Valleywag has an editorial piece on why magazines should stop covering gadgets.  They state that magazines will always be behind the curve because they need to produce articles months before the magazine is published.  By the time articles run, gadgets have been thoroughly dissected and reviewed on the web.  They use the example of Entrepreneur Magazine, which ran a review of the Palm Foleo.  The problem was the device that was discontinued by the time the review was published.

While Valleywag makes a strong argument, there are two reasons why gadgets need to be covered by magazines.
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If you wanted to read an editorial piece by Thomas Friedman published by the NY Times on the Internet, you had to subscribe to their service. That all changes today.

The Times dumped their “TimesSelect” service, which would charge users $7.95 per month for the opportunity to read editorial pieces. This move was rumored for a while, and the change is welcomed by the Internet community. In a letter sent to subscribers, Vivian Schiller, Senior Vice President & General Manager of NYTimes.com states:

Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion – as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it.

I subscribe to the print version of the times, and there is often commentary worth blogging about. However, if I can’t link to an article so that readers can view it, I am not going to discuss it. This s a smart move by the Times. I believe the ad revenue over time will make them significantly more then if they kept it a pay service, plus the exposure by bloggers will hep their view rate thrive.

Visit TimesSelect for free starting today. Thanks to James for the update.