Reflections of a Newsosaur: Strapped publishers skip NAA dues

"Chinese-Language Paper in New York to Close" - NYTimes.com

"When news is free, there will be no news" - TheChronicleHerald.ca

"WAN, the world's largest newspaper forum, falls victim to economic slump" - guardian.co.uk

"Google Halting Print Ad Program With Newspapers"

"USA Today to stop publishing international edition" - Yahoo! Finance

"The Media Equation - Will Someone Please Invent iTunes for News?" - NYTimes.com

Good idea!

"Washington News Bureaus Are Shrinking" - NYTimes.com

"Worldwide, Employment on a Sharp Decline" - NYTimes.com

This is a very informative and chilling story about unemployment trends here and around the world in both the manufacturing and service sectors.

Despite everything that has happened in web-based services, and specifically on the nytimes.com site, there is NOTHING here that in anyway helps a reader/customer who would like to see next month's (if that is when it comes) update of this chart. Why cannot the NYTimes offer either a link to the place where it will appear or at least promise to send me an e-mail if and when the Times chooses to publish an update on this story? Instead, the person reading this story in the paper and/or viewing it here comes up against a deadend. That, increasingly, seems to me to be incredibly short-sighted when it so relatively easily can be fixed with great value delivered to all in the process.

"No Papers in Certain Cities by 2010?"

"Survey of teens reveals entrenched habits of dishonesty — stealing, lying, and cheating rates climb to alarming rates" - Josephson Institute

"Presto - Send email and photos to people who don't have a computer"

This service continues to intrigue me, but I think it is just too expensive to be a viable substitute for home newspaper delivery unless heavily supported by advertisers, but why not? Imagine if a newspaper stops printing and distributing the Monday paper, for example - a real possibility, and offers one of these printers in its place at no cost; all you have to do is pay for the paper and ink? There is some value in thinking of having 8-10 pages printed out next to the breakfast coffee in the morning. Many newspapers tried this with faxed editions but they did not work out all that well. The difference here could be the quality of the color printing and a tailoring of the content in those 8-10 pages BOTH in terms of advertising and news.

Hundreds Feared Dead in Riots in Nigeria - NYTimes.com

I hope that this story will merit equal attention to that given to the tragedy in Mumbai. Why shouldn't it? If, indeed, 300 people turn out to be dead in Nigeria, is that not worth twice the coverage given to 170 murdered in Mumbai?

If this does not get the same attention, we have a lot of questions to ask ourselves about news judgments, news priorities, technology, and strategic interests.

At the end of the day, it is horrific when anyone dies in any of these incidents and as human beings we are obliged to divide our attention span - whether measured in minutes or nanoseconds among all of them.

Each death is exactly equal to every other death whether the person carries an Indian, Nigerian or, yes, even a US passport.

If anything less than equality, we all bear and bare the shame.

"Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death by Customers" - NYTimes.com

This is not tolerable in our society. We need to grieve for the person who died and work with friends and neighbors to convince them that such animal behavior is simply not acceptable to us or anyone else. Walmart has an obligation to provide crowd control, and they could have prevented this based on this report, but the crux of the problem and the cause of this calamity is greedy people losing touch with humanity over some ultimately stupid purchase. Everyone who pushed anyone in that crowd - every one of them - shares full responsibility for this death, and I hope they each suffer a lifetime sentence of extreme guilt for what their negligence caused.

"Remembering Tom Gish, A Voice Of Appalachia" - NPR

I sure hope we will continue to have, to support, and to celebrate the Tom and Pat GISH's of the world, however endangered their species has always been and continues to be.

"Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal comes to rescue of Citigroup" - guardian.co.uk

The Prince may still be the largest single shareholder in Citigroup. It is curious, given the amount of control that even 4-5% of ownership can wield, that this is not mentioned in any news report I have seen today on the US actions to bailout the company. Surely, the Prince stands to gain considerably by this move, and I think we all need to know this. And we should all know more, too, about who are the other owners of Citigroup. How many employees at Citigroup make more than, say, 150,000(USD)/year? Given how badly the company has been managed, shouldn't "we" who are giving them all this money insist as a condition of the action insist that no employee earn more than 150,000/year? Those who are unhappy with that cap can seek employment elsewhere. Imagine explaining to the bulk of Americans why 150,000/year is not enough?

"Amanpour to Lead Daily Show on CNN" - NYTimes.com

This is, of course, very positive news. Let's just hope that apparent increased interest in news from outside the US continues strong for US viewers.

"A Rewired Bully Pulpit - Big, Bold and Unproven" - NYTimes.com

Whether it be for the White House and the Presidency or for any company in the US or the world, or any person, the free technology at our disposal allows us to create vast empires of the interconnected. We know it is cheap and we know that it works. What we do not know very well is how to manage it. I think the world is about to start climbing a steep learning curve of how to use all these tools constructively. It is far more than simply imposing rules on usage, etc; it is a fundamentally different way of looking at how we make the best use of vast groups of people to whom we are instantaneously connected, with whom we may agree or disagree, but whom we cannot ultimately control. I am not sure that the communications and media worlds, let alone US Presidents, have ever been confronted with such an immense challenge.

"Associated Press staff to shrink 10 pct, CEO says" - Yahoo! Finance

In our interent world today, can we say that we are better informed than we used to be, and are we ready to replace the Associated Press with sifted and unsifted words read by people using the internet?

"Out of kilter: Stock slide hits NYT activists" - Reflections of a Newsosaur

Will we look back on the first decade of the 21st century and see it as the years when we lost The New York Times and replaced it with something or some other things? It increasingly is looking that way.