Techdirt. Stories filed under "npr"

Techdirt. Stories filed under "npr" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "npr"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:59:48 PST Can Someone Explain How Sponsoring NASCAR Is A Good Use Of Taxpayer Funds, If Funding Sesame Street Is Not? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110221/03540213188/can-someone-explain-how-sponsoring-nascar-is-good-use-taxpayer-funds-if-funding-sesame-street-is-not.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110221/03540213188/can-someone-explain-how-sponsoring-nascar-is-good-use-taxpayer-funds-if-funding-sesame-street-is-not.shtml stop funding NPR and PBS are so vehemently in favor of sponsoring NASCAR? Frankly, as a fan of both NPR and PBS, but not a fan of governments overspending, I actually think the complaints against pulling the funding from both are a bit overblown. I think there are some creative things that both NPR and PBS could do to make up the difference if they lost federal funding. However, if we are going to cut public broadcasting, then it seems only reasonable to cut sponsoring NASCAR as well, doesn't it? I'm curious how folks who claim to support smaller government are defending such sponsorship of a private, for-profit operation with taxpayer funding?

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]]> just-curious-which-standard-to-use http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110221/03540213188 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:48:00 PDT Financial Podcast Buys A Toxic Asset To See How It Works Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100312/1638188543.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100312/1638188543.shtml past how wonderful NPR's Planet Money podcast is. During the "dark days" of the financial crisis, it was one of the true beacons of light explaining in easy-to-understand detail what was happening, and exploring aspects of the story that the mainstream press glossed over completely. In the process, they broke some stories, highlighted some key aspects of the debate, and really brought a lot more people into the discussion about how we deal with the economic situation of the day. I still listen to every episode on the day it comes out, but in the last few months there really hasn't been that much going on in the economy that needed a really thorough breakdown.

Given that, it seems like the Planet Money crew has hit on a rather brilliant idea. Back when this whole thing started, of course, much of the focus was on the so-called "toxic assets," the derivatives made up of slices of mortgages that had been packaged and repackaged together in creative ways -- in theory to minimize the risk, but in reality, often putting all of the risk in one big basket made to look artificially safe. The focus on toxic assets has mostly fallen off the mainstream press radar, but the folks at Planet Money decided to check in on those toxic assets and dig into what a toxic asset really means. But they were having trouble getting their heads around what a toxic asset really is, how it functions and how to best explain it to their audience.

So they bought a toxic asset.

Literally, the four reporters on the team, along with their producer, each pooled about $200 of their own money, in order to buy $1,000 worth of toxic asset. They'll be tracking whether or not they make their money back, and if they make anything on top of that as well (any profits will be donated to charity). The podcast itself is fascinating, as two of the reporters spend a couple days with a company called Mission Peak Capital, based out in Kansas, which has been analyzing and buying up toxic assets. They go through the whole process of analyzing and bidding on a few of these things until they find the one they wanted. Mission Peak bought the whole asset for $36,000, marked down from $2.7 million, and then sold a $1,000 sliver to the team at Planet Money.

The Planet Money folks have set up a detailed interactive website that goes into great detail about what's in the asset -- probably a lot more detail than most previous owners of the asset knew about themselves -- as well as how much they've made and how long they have until the asset runs out for them (as more of the houses whose mortgages are included in the asset get sold, they get closer and closer to being kicked out of getting any of the remaining revenue).

The story itself is fascinating, but what really drew me to it is what a great example of modern reporting this is. This goes way beyond what we normally think of as reporting, and breaks down that mythical "impartial reporter" barrier in a very effective and useful way. Some people have suggested that the reason why journalism may be struggling these days is that people can go directly to sources themselves (or sources can broadcast themselves) without needing an intermediary to "write the story." Of course, that doesn't mean the role of a journalist goes away, but it changes drastically. In this case, the team at Planet Money has realized that in order to "report" on this story, they need to become the source themselves, and open that up wide to their audience. It's a fascinating and incredibly effective modern form of journalism, and I can't wait to see where they take it. They're already planning to try to track down some of the mortgage holders whose mortgages are in the asset, as well as homeowners and former holders of the asset. Even if you're not that interested in the details of a toxic asset, it's hard not to find the whole thing incredibly compelling. It's useful and educational interactive storytelling at its finest, which is what true journalism should be.

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]]> reporting-by-getting-your-hands-dirty http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100312/1638188543 Wed, 2 Sep 2009 09:44:00 PDT NPR Recognizes It Makes Business Sense To Give Up Content Cash Cow And Go Free Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090901/0301526069.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090901/0301526069.shtml interview with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, who only recently joined the organization, after leaving the NY Times. The interview showed that Schiller totally understands the problems and issues facing journalism today. She's embracing better web interaction, recognizing that NPR isn't a "radio" operation, but a news operation, that NPR has strong advantages in terms of having local reporters on the ground around the country -- and, perhaps most interesting of all, that "free" is not a bad thing:

While employed by The New York Times, you helped the newspaper stop charging for online content. Now it's reconsidering. Generally, why do you oppose paying for content?
I am a staunch believer that people will not in large numbers pay for news content online. It's almost like there's mass delusion going on in the industry--They're saying we really really need it, that we didn't put up a pay wall 15 years ago, so let's do it now. In other words, they think that wanting it so badly will automatically actually change the behavior of the audience. The world doesn't work that way. Frankly, if all the news organizations locked pinkies, and said we're all going to put up a big fat pay wall, you know what, more traffic for us. News is a commodity; I'm sorry to say.

But the Times did get people to pay, right?
We far exceeded our expectation--225,000 subscribers paid $50 a year, in addition to the home delivery subscribers, who got all of the Web for free. But guess what, that's $10 million. Instead of 225,000 who pay the $50, let's say it's one million subscribers. OK. That's $50 million a year. That's not going to save any newspaper. It's going to kill your advertising base. The numbers don't work.

It appears that she's putting this realization to work in other ways, a bunch of readers have been submitting an NPR blog post explaining why it has stopped charging for transcripts of programs, and started offering them for free on its website. Despite being something of a cash cow for NPR, the organization realized that it was short-sighted to lock up the content, and went against what people wanted:

Why did we give up this revenue stream? First and foremost, the users expect to be able to come to our site and read the story they heard on the air. As rich as the radio stories are, reading is faster than listening, our users told us. Although we were writing Web versions of many radio stories, a number of stories still didn't have much text. Making transcripts free solved that.

But a bigger realization was recognizing the basic trendlines. Paying for transcripts is a shrinking business. Getting more people to the website and making money in other ways? That's an opportunity:

There are solid business reasons for making transcripts free. Sales have been dropping over the years. As people search for, discover and share content, offering free transcripts will boost the traffic to NPR.org, traffic that can be monetized with sponsorship. Finally, search engines like text. Many of our stories could not be found by the search engines because they did not have enough text. Now it will be easier for the search engines -- and ultimately the users -- to find and enjoy NPR's stories.

Now, of course, as a partially gov't supported non-profit, NPR has some different issues in how it operates, but those differences aren't nearly as big as many people might think. The gov't support only goes so far (hence the annoying pledge drives and pushes for corporate sponsorship). It'll be interesting to see what other business model ideas NPR and its new leadership comes up with in the future, and it'll be fun to see if the big newspapers put up paywalls, allowing NPR to increase its traffic, as planned.

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]]> good-for-them http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090901/0301526069 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:29:07 PST All Streisand Effects Considered Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080229/143915387.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080229/143915387.shtml Streisand Effect is getting a bit more coverage these days. After the Associated Press mentioned it the other day, I got to sit down and talk with Robert Siegel for today's "All Things Considered" where we discussed The Streisand Effect starting with the Wikileaks case and moving on to some other cases where the Effect clearly made an appearance. If this keeps up, maybe we can look forward to a day when lawyers think twice about trying to force perfectly legitimate content offline.

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