Will Sommer

The journalism job market after the recession

After I went after Alvin Chang, I feel like I should point out I wasn't mad because he said the emperor has no clothes. The journalism industry is in for a shake-up, and I don't think there will ever be as many jobs as there are now. Before I say what I think it'll be like in a couple years, some assumptions: Journalism (especially the newspaper kind) operated on unrepeatable profit margins. That situation can never happen [+]

News site ads: drop display, move to e-mail and video

Oh f*ck Terry Heaton posited that the internet means advertising will never achieve equilibrium. It pointed the way for where news sites need to start looking to stay solvent (hint: not display ads). The most sobering part of Heaton's post was the above chart. For a while, I have been hanging my hopes on the LA Times, where online revenues are now enough to fund all of editorial. If a massive organization like the Times can fund [+]

Micropayments: bad for democracy

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="401" caption="Not worth my 99 cents"][/caption] Two weeks ago, bloggers and Twitterers got angry about the return of a pretty terrible idea: small payments for each newspaper article, or micropayments. Former TIME managing editor Walter Isaacson thought he had saved newspapers, Steven Brill agreed, and David Carr was all, "Let's make an iTunes for newspapers". The idea won't work for a variety of practical reasons, outlined best by Clay Shirky and Steve Outing. Basically, [+]

Laughs & Facts: My Reinventing Classifieds entry

Last month, I won the student contest at Reinventing Classifieds for new ideas to reinvigorate newspaper classifieds. The gist of my Soundslides audio slideshow (embedded below the fold), is that most newspaper classifieds are too boring and don't appeal to a broad enough section of newspaper readers. Because they're boring, they only attract people who are already committed to buying something. My idea--Laughs & Facts--offers incentives for sellers to create more entertaining ads, thereby creating more [+]