As he notes, the rise of cable TV in the early 1980s meant that a channel or programmer no longer had to capture an audience of 20 million to earn a profit.  Instead, niche programming appealing to audiences as small as 1 million could still generate revenue.  This model allows a network such as Fox or MSNBC to adhere to one ideological segment of viewers over another, creating the incentive to brand themselves in terms of ideology rather than news.  The 24 hour news cycle, the need to limit costs, and the need to arouse emotion to keep audiences locked in, also led to cable networks preferring a talk and commentary format over hard news (which requires teams of reporters, bureaus, and in Wolf’s terms tends to be too earnest and bland.)

Hamilton, his book written before the widespread emergence of blogs, notes also the influence of the Internet on cable news.  In particular—and especially in today’s world of blog dominance—the internet shapes mainstream news organizations by putting a premium on commentary while also promoting the spread of misinformation, rumors, and falsehoods, now a staple of programming at both Fox and MSNBC.

» via Big Think

On Monday morning, Mike Wise, a sports columnist at The Washington Post, published to his Twitter account that the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would be suspended for five games.

Now Mr. Wise himself is suspended.

» via The New York Times

Google and the Associated Press have resolved an impasse over extending their licensing deal, paving the way for AP content to start flooding Google News once again.

A hosting deal that allowed Google News to carry AP news stories on Google Web pages expired earlier this year, and it took almost six months to move beyond a temporary deal to something that appears more permanent, according to a post on the Google News blog. Google and the AP had agreed in February to keep older AP content on Google’s site, but Google stopped adding new content in January, until an extension of their deal could be finalized.

» via CNET news

Previously, he said, employees were spending about 90 percent of their time working on the printed newspaper and 10 percent on the online version. Like other small-town newspapers with limited resources, Fredrikstad Blad had found it hard to grow on the Web.

Since that meeting, the paper has transformed its operations, demanding that reporters, advertising representatives and the rest of its 64 employees devote equal time to the print edition, which has a circulation of 21,000, and the Web. Journalists had to reapply for new, hybrid jobs. Ad reps were required to sell across both media.

The Web site was enhanced with faster, more thorough coverage of local events. A social networking area of the site was developed, and the paper solicits articles from its members — about their clubs, church groups and other Fredrikstad institutions, for example.

» via The New York Times

To increase the low newspaper readership in Italy, President of the Communication Regulatory Agency (Agcom) Corrado Calabrò proposed on Tuesday “a governmental bonus for students who subscribe to a newspaper website,” the news agency Apcom reported.

» via Shaping the Future of the Newspaper

Just a day after Google and Twitter called the legal concept of “hot news” obsolete, the major news heavyweights have collectively thrown their hat into the ring in support of the nebulous restriction. 

The Associated Press, New York Times, Time, Washington Post, Agence France-Presse, Advance Publications, and others submitted their own amicus brief in the ongoing legal case between theflyonthewall.com and Barclays Capita. They aren’t taking a side in the dispute, but they do want the ability to tell others not to re-report “their” facts.

According to the brief, the news orgs believe the hot news doctrine provides “limited but vital protection” for those who put elbow grease into publishing the news. They argue that they’re the ones spending time and money doing the research on a piece of news, and that they should get full control over who can republish the facts while the news is still considered timely. (Facts generally are not protected by copyright.)

» via ars technica

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering several ways to help the struggling newspaper industry, but Americans strongly reject several proposed taxes to keep privately-owned newspapers going.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 84% oppose a three percent (3%) tax on monthly cell phone bills to help newspapers and traditional journalism.

Similarly, 76% oppose a proposed five percent tax on the purchase of consumer electronic items such as computers, iPads and Kindles to help support newspapers and traditional journalism. Seventy-four percent (74%) oppose the proposal to tax web sites like the Drudge Report to help the newspapers they draw their headlines from.

Each of these ideas was suggested for consideration in a recent FTC report.

» via Rasumussen Reports

Chuck Myron thinks newspapers might have lost their mojo. The last time he saw it was in 2006 somewhere around Fort Myers, Fla.

That was the year Gannett began field-testing their mobile journalism project at a handful of papers around the country. Myron and a dozen of his colleagues at the Fort Myers News-Press were given laptops, cameras and wireless Internet cards and told to go forth and report from on-the-road around the paper’s 811-square mile coverage area.

Myron’s summation of the project and of the industry since then is brief and to the point: “I think there has been too great an emphasis on technology and not enough on journalism.”

» via Poynter Online

If “Good Morning America” or “World News” look any different in the coming weeks, it might be because ABC News is employing nearly 400 fewer people.

Earlier this week, ABC News, a unit of the Walt Disney Company, largely completed one of the most drastic rounds of budget cutbacks at a television news operation in decades, affecting roughly a quarter of the staff. The cutbacks promise to change ABC both on- and off-camera.

For some employees, like the longtime Los Angeles correspondent Brian Rooney, Friday was their last day. Mr. Rooney said his contract expired at “exactly the moment when they needed to shed an enormous amount from the payroll.” In an e-mail message, he compared it to “standing looking straight up when the bomb dropped.

» via The New York Times

Over the last year, we’ve seen the rapid development of the real-time Web, incorporating the spread of news, status updates and the entertainment we share and consume. It’s as if the idea of “going viral” has, well, gone viral itself.

A case in point: when Michael Jackson died last year, it took only minutes for traffic to spike worldwide on NYTimes.com. AOL’s instant messenger service almost crashed as people tried to share the information of his death as quickly as possible and Twitter saw strains as the news unfurled.

» via The New York Times