Disqus - Latest Comments for jbenton

Re: Should the government use Section 230 to force the tech giants into paying for the news?

Joshua Benton — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:08:02 -0000

Stay tuned for Part 2! :)

Re: Tested: TextSniper is a great Mac utility for converting graphics to text

Joshua Benton — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 17:00:30 -0000

FWIW, I keep open a BBEdit window where a text factory (or just search and replace "\r" for " ") will do it all at once.

Re: It continues to be very good to be The New York Times

Joshua Benton — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 12:54:08 -0000

You did miss it: "Ad dollars were down an astonishing 43.9 percent in Q2; that included drops of 31.9 percent in digital and 55 percent in print." And no, more money from readers is the winning model in the long haul.

Re: Want to read a local newspaper on a Monday morning in Wyoming? The last one still printing is about to stop

Joshua Benton — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 17:03:13 -0000

Indeed, which is why I said "state," an entity which didn't exist here until 1776 or 1789, depending on your definition. There was of course a multi-billion-year stretch back to Pangaea in which no newspapers were to be found. :)

Re: Want to read a local newspaper on a Monday morning in Wyoming? The last one still printing is about to stop

Joshua Benton — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 16:59:43 -0000

I've got no problem with it as a product! And I bet it makes good money. I just have this crazy idea that if you have no local stories, as it does today, and no original stories, as it does today, it's hard to call yourself a real local newspaper in the same category as the others mentioned.

Re: Windows PCs will have to follow Apple’s switch to ARM, says former Mac chief

Joshua Benton — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 11:42:15 -0000

I have very fond memories of my Power Computing tower...

Re: Windows PCs will have to follow Apple’s switch to ARM, says former Mac chief

Joshua Benton — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 11:18:28 -0000

Gassée didn't really prevent Mac OS licensing — just delay it. The first clones launched a few years after he left.

Re: The uncanny melancholy of empty photographs in the time of coronavirus

Joshua Benton — Sun, 05 Apr 2020 13:48:46 -0000

Yes and no — his plate was mirror image, so this is actually what he saw that day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Re: “Total annihilation”: Coronavirus may just be the end for many alt-weeklies

Joshua Benton — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 17:13:56 -0000

Hi John — Sorry to only quote directly from 20+ AAN members. If anything in this piece is incorrect, I'd love to hear about it. Otherwise, best of luck to you and your publication. I'm rooting for all of you — but that doesn't mean ignoring reality, and reality for alt-weeklies this week is a lot worse than a "re-adjustment."

Re: An old FCC rule is being used to justify shrinking the Dayton “Daily” News to three days a week

Joshua Benton — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:02:08 -0000

Hey Richard — a belated reply. :) I am certainly aware of the push towards day-cutting, especially in markets like Dayton (see: Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Toledo). It's entirely possible that Dayton would want to cut days without all this. But I think the point is that, even if they wanted to, now they *have* to.

Most papers that have cut days since the Advance cuts all those years ago have done so relatively slowly — kill Saturdays, then kill Mondays, then maybe Thursday, etc. Dayton is cutting straight to three; that happens to be the level that qualifies it as a non-daily paper. And the same rule would apply even if it a benevolent billionaire who was buying a local paper and station from a grandfathered company.

Re: People might not trust local news that much after all — and the way to improve it increases the risk

Joshua Benton — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 16:30:24 -0000

There are some of us who enjoy politics and policy — for whom it is something like a sport in terms of our level of interest. We are a distinct minority. Availability ≠ interest. And we all have lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of blindspots.

Re: People might not trust local news that much after all — and the way to improve it increases the risk

Joshua Benton — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 15:41:19 -0000

I'm curious: Do you think many people actually do attend or stream every local government meeting — city council, county commission, school board, water board, zoning board, housing commission, ad infinitum? Or that they read the Congressional Record on every policy issue of importance? Or watch every committee meeting on every policy issue of importance (or at least the ones that C-SPAN broadcasts, which is of course a limited subset of all of them)?

Re: The New York Times is on pace to earn more than $600 million in digital this year, halfway to its ambitious goal

Joshua Benton — Sun, 12 May 2019 16:27:42 -0000

That's a remarkably fact-free comment. I'm not confusing the company and the newspaper; if you include the crosswords and other digital subs, the total is 3.36 million. The sale/leaseback didn't happen last year, it happens in 2009 and the company is buying back the building later this year. There was one buyout offer last year, not two, and it was limited to part of the Metro staff. It did not "run a majority of fake news" in 2016, and it's owner (you mean publisher, the company is publicly traded and thus has no single owner) said no such thing; feel free to drop a link to it here if you think I'm wrong.

Re: The New York Times is on pace to earn more than $600 million in digital this year, halfway to its ambitious goal

Joshua Benton — Sun, 12 May 2019 10:19:25 -0000

No, actually, those are made up numbers. It had more than 2.7 million news subscriptions in digital alone at the end of 2018.

https://investors.nytco.com...

Re: The Salt Lake Tribune wants to go nonprofit in a new and unproven way, and now the IRS will have its say

Joshua Benton — Thu, 09 May 2019 15:25:40 -0000

You sure about that? "This organization’s exempt status was automatically revoked by the IRS on May 15, 2011 for failure to file a Form 990/990EZ/990N/990PF for 3 consecutive years."

https://www.guidestar.org/p...

Re: Your favorite way to get around The New York Times paywall might be about to go away

Joshua Benton — Sun, 17 Mar 2019 09:23:44 -0000

https://www.thebalancecaree...

Re: That Politico article on “news deserts” doesn’t really show what it claims to show

Joshua Benton — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:21:18 -0000

They certainly could! Or they could be places where the popular local newspaper doesn't report its circulation to AAM.

Re: That Politico article on “news deserts” doesn’t really show what it claims to show

Joshua Benton — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:20:17 -0000

Oh, I don't disagree that local newspapers are absolutely critical and more important for news generation than other forms of media. I'm a former local newspaper reporter myself. I'm just saying that the one (very often inaccurate) number Politico is using doesn't take TV or radio or anything else into account — and note that its definition isn't about whether or not there's a newspaper in your town, it's about a generic subscriber rate.

Re: WATCH: On Script; Caravan Coverage; Laura Ingraham Controversy; Rants & Raves

Joshua Benton — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 20:55:38 -0000

That's not true, and I think you probably know that deep in your heart. https://www.snopes.com/fact...

Re: iPad Pro: Smart Keyboard vs Magic Keyboard – which one should you choose? [Video]

Joshua Benton — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 12:25:45 -0000

I bought this little Arteck keyboard with my 10.5" and it's been great. I carry it in my bag and connect it to my iPad whenever I need it. It's flat rather than wedge-shaped so it slides into my bag easily, and they keys are totally fine. And it's 19 bucks. Also lets me use a more attractive cover for the iPad. https://www.amazon.com/gp/p... https://www.amazon.com/gp/p...

Re: The game of concentration: The Internet is pushing the American news business to New York and the coasts

Joshua Benton — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 12:45:30 -0000

The magazine business has always been heavily concentrated in New York (because it used the postal system for distribution to subscribers, which worked anywhere), and the TV network news operations were always centered there. But the vast, vast, vast majority of American newspaper and TV reporters have always worked outside NYC — just because there were 1,400+ daily newspapers and 1,400+ commercial TV stations in this country and only a handful of each were in NYC.

Re: The game of concentration: The Internet is pushing the American news business to New York and the coasts

Joshua Benton — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 12:43:00 -0000

Right, but (a) the institution and the people in charge are still generally in the metropole, and (b) the placement of the remote workers is generally driven by their own lifestyle convenience (where a spouse works, where their mortgage is, etc.) rather than a desire to place people in proximity to news events/topics elsewhere.

Re: Facebook Instant Articles will open up to all publishers in April

Joshua Benton — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 14:17:54 -0000

Yeah, you're misunderstanding it. You can sell ads on your Instant Articles just as you can sell ads on your own website. (There are some guidelines about how many ads you can have on the page and such, but you can sell them and keep all the money you make.) Or you have Facebook sell the ads for you if you'd like, and keep 70% of the money. Publishers don't pay anything in either scenario.

Re: Facebook Instant Articles will open up to all publishers in April

Joshua Benton — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:25:05 -0000

You can sell ads that are placesdin your publication's Instant Articles and keep all the money. Or you can have Facebook sell the ads for you and keep ~70% of the money.

Re: This is what it’s like to launch a journalism school from scratch

Joshua Benton — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 09:56:27 -0000

I think the distinction is that there are only those few who have a separate journalism/communications school, rather than only a journalism/communications department within a school. For instance, both the Delaware State and Norfolk State programs are departments within other colleges (College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences and College of Liberal Arts, respectively).