For today’s media roundup, we have some breaking news from AOL, who has decided to let their freelance writers go. Also in media employment news, a paper in Daytona Beach has decided to encourage the staff to pick up some sales duties. For those journos working the independent angle, we also have tips on how to get journalism grants and an analysis of how to engage your audiences as online publishers.
It’s all the news fit to blog at Ebyline’s Daily Dose:
IT’S OFFICIAL: AOL Fires Freelancers
A couple of weeks ago, AOL threw its freelance journalists into purgatory: They were supposed to sit tight and wait to hear from their editors on their roles in the post-merger Huffington Post Media Group. The freelancers, naturally, assumed that this meant they were about to get canned. And this suspicion, it appears, was correct.”
Daytona Beach paper rewards journalists for selling ads, subscriptions
“Daytona Beach News-Journal publisher Michael Redding has a deal for journalists and other staffers: Sell a three-month subscription to the paper and get a $25 bonus ($50 for a six-month subscription); sell $100 worth of advertising and get $50.”
The New York Times launches its first Tumblr blog
“More than eight months after media reporters first stumbled upon a URL that The New York Times had quietly registered with Tumblr, the paper of record has finally launched its inaugural editorial product on the influential blogging platform.”
Make ‘engagement’ your mantra as an online news publisher
“The Web publishing business is a bit more complex than “more traffic = more revenue.” While years have watching ABC circulation figures have trained many journalists to want the largest circulation possible, business-savvy journalists long have known that not all audiences generate the same revenue. But how do you reach the audience that will allow your publication to stay in business?”
Getting Started: Tips for funders on journalism and media grant making
““We don’t do media grants. Certainly not journalism grants.” For decades, that’s what you heard from many foundation leaders in the United States. But today, that’s changing, as the digital age upends traditional media economics, tossing roughly 15,000 American journalists out of work in the past few years. We might call them media grants, journalism grants or community information grants. Regardless of their name, community and other place-based foundations are doing more of these grants.”
