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Journalism professors are adapting to the realities of a historically tough job market. Their graduates are struggling to find stable work in an industry whose biggest players have been cutting staff for a decade. So universities are teaching new skills -- multimedia production, community management, data management and visualization, among others -- as well as the traditional reporting, writing, and audivisual production skills. They are also finding new business models . While the traditional media companies are hamstrung by mountains of debt and declining revenue, universities are stepping up to innovate and create new forms of journalism for the digital age. A Facebook group for those interested in teaching media innovation and entrepreneurship has reached 800 members . And the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism is about to hold its third summit for educators in this growing field on July 15. Jeff Jarvis and Jeremy Caplan have been leaders in thi...

In our search for the next big thing, we often overlook some of the steady innovators who grow organically without millionaire investors or crushing debt loads. Alfonso Vara-Miguel of UNAV One such example is El Confidencial of Spain (their slogan: "The preferred daily of influential readers"). This is a digital news publication whose value proposition for 15 years has been to offer quality news exclusives "that other media cover up or don't publish because of their overlapping political and business interests," according to researcher Alfonso Vara-Miguel, professor at the University of Navarra (in Innovaci�n y desarrollo de los cibermedios en Espa�a , 2016, Eunsa, Pamplona, pp. 166-77). Spanish news consumers are more skeptical of their news media than most (more on that below), so this independent-spirited publication, with a philosophy of spending no more than it takes in, has racked up some impressive numbers: advertising revenue exceeded US $9.9 million i...

Renaissance maps showed monsters, hazards to avoid. The future of journalism is increasingly digital, mobile, and in flux. It is unexplored territory. Like the explorers and navigators of the Renaissance, various organizations � governments, NGOs, journalism groups, and universities, among others � have been trying to map the most promising routes to sustainability in the new media ecosystem. It's not just about making money; it's about providing news and information crucial to a democratic society. Versi�n en espa�ol (At left, a map from Chet Van Duzer's book Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps . Click to enlarge.) As traditional news media organizations have lost revenues, laid off employees, and reduced coverage, new digital media have emerged as important players in providing public-service journalism, especially on the local level. Databases and promising routes Researchers from a variety of organizations have created databases of thousands of new...

NEW YORK -- The big mystery in the newspaper industry has been how to get digital readers to pay for a product they have been getting free for years. Denise Warren The industry has struggled because subscription operations were always loss leaders that didn't pay for themselves. Executives had no idea how to run a profitable subscription operation and have been learning how to do it for the first time, said Denise Warren , who played a major role in the New York Times 's transition to paid digital subscriptions. She spoke May 3 to an audience of professors and industry representatives at the World Media Economics and Management Conference held at Fordham University. Many publishers make the mistake of marketing their digital products on the basis of price and discounts, Warren said, when they should be promoting the unique value proposition of news and information that readers cannot get anywhere else. Read more �

Kinsey Wilson. Photo by Mary Kang/Knight Center AUSTIN, Texas -- One of the dirty little secrets in digital media is that the big numbers of page views and unique users touted by publishers are misleading at best . They overstate a publication's audience size and impact. Most visitors to a publisher's content are fly-bys : They stay for only a few seconds. And even if they stay longer than that, the vast majority come to a publisher's website only once or twice a month . These are not loyal users devoted to a brand. What is more interesting and meaningful, especially for publishers of serious news and information, is that the smaller number of loyal users -- who come frequently, linger, and read many pages -- is willing to pay for the content and other products. They identify strongly with the brand. Kinsey Wilson , editor of innovation and strategy at the New York Times , brought the point home last week at the International Symposium on Online Journalism when he mentio...

Investigative journalists have achieved a new level of sophistication and collaboration as shown by this explosive investigation of offshore tax havens used by the wealthy and powerful. The investigation by 109 media organizations from 76 countries has shaken government leaders from China to Russia to Great Britain . It has led to the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland, who used a tax haven to avoid paying taxes on 3.5 million euros. The 376 journalists on the Panama Papers team overcame many obstacles, not the least of which was their own competitiveness. All of these journalists and news organizations agreed not to publish any of their findings until the agreed upon time on Sunday April 3. Versi�n en espa�ol These journalists, who are accustomed to work like lone wolves and jealously keep their sources and information to themselves, had to "radically share" information with each other and overcome differences in language, culture, and practice. Read more �

Amid all the bad news about business models for high-quality journalism, eldiario.es ("The Daily") in Spain shows that good journalism can be good business. Escolar: "Journalism is a public service that has to be profitable" Its founder and CEO, Ignacio Escolar , just announced that the publication finished 2015 with revenues of US$ 2.6 million, up 33% on the year, and a profit after taxes of US$ 235,000. Although the digital publication is free, its 14,500 "partners" ( socios ) pay at least US$ 66 a year to get access to the news a few hours ahead of everyone else as well as ad-free pages, discounts, and invitations to events. Those partners brought in about a third of eldiario.es's revenues , "And they allow us to remain independent," Escolar said in his announcement. Although advertising brings in more than the partner revenue, no single advertiser comes close to bringing in what the partners do, so none has enough leverage to influence ...