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Using in-depth interviews, newsroom observation, and internal documents, this case study presents and analyses changes that have taken place at Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat since it stopped printing on 28 December 2007 to focus exclusively on digital delivery via the Web, email, and mobile. It reveals the savings that can be achieved when a newspaper no longer prints and distributes a physical product; but also the revenue lost from subscriptions and print advertising. The consequences of a newspaper's decision to go online-only are examined as they relate to its business model, website traffic, and editorial practice. The findings illustrate the extent to which the medium rather than the content it carries determines news consumption patterns, show the differing attention a newspaper and its online substitute command, and reveal the changes to working patterns journalists can expect in the online-only environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the communist period Estonian media, especially cultural media, played an important political role by serving as a forum for fairly open discussion of political issues. With the regaining of independence the role of the media has changed, but they have been flexible and quick to adapt to market conditions and Western professional standards. As in other post-communist countries, liberation from censorship and state control was followed by an enormous expansion of the press market and then a contraction after a few years. Many papers now have lower circulation and/or lower frequency than in the past. The author documents the many changes in Estonian newspaper publishing with statistics drawn from obligatory deposit and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Western Spy, a weekly newspaper published by Joseph Carpenter, first appeared in Cincinnati in 1799, four years before Ohio became a state. This article examines the Spy's coverage of Northwest Territory politics and the statehood movement from May 1799 through the Ohio General Assembly's first meeting in March 1803. The study found: the paper's political coverage largely consisted of the publication of raw data without an editorial narrative; the isolation of the Northwest Territory caused delays in the reporting of news, which influenced the Spy's news-gathering, sourcing, and publication schedule; and the paper's reliance on official documents for news often caused it to overlook underlying stories. But most importantly, the Spy exercised the power of the press in an impartial manner, making Carpenter a journalistic pioneer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of newspaper groups in the U.S. have been one of the dominant trends in the industry during the twentieth century. As groups have purchased more newspapers, some critics and scholars have become more concerned about the effects of group ownership on newspaper content. This article aims to determine whether group newspapers differ from independent newspapers in content. It also aims to examine whether size of group affects content. A discussion is presented on the relationship of ownership and management goals and the relationship between ownership and content of newspapers.

This article presents a partial model that will describe how economic and newsroom-related variables can interact to affect balance and fairness in newspaper articles. It uses economic, newsroom, and content variables in examining the connection. Findings of the study revealed the direct effect of the economic variables on story fairness. It may be that newspapers in competitive markets “specialize” in sources involved in controversy. The findings emphasize the relationship of story load to extensiveness of source use.

Research has established that sources have the power to influence the news agenda of the media and that media can under certain circumstances act as sources for each other. This study examined the use of weblogs as sources in the traditional media and the use of sources in weblogs in general. A content analysis of 2059 articles over a six-year period from the New York Times and the Washington Post found that the newspapers increasingly legitimized weblogs as credible sources. A separate content analysis of 120 weblogs found that they heavily relied on the traditional media as sources. By allowing each other to influence their news agendas, there is indication that the traditional media and weblogs create what the researchers introduce and define as a news source cycle, in which news content can be passed back and forth from media to media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies the concept of mass customization to the newspaper industry. Although the theory of mass customization has received considerable attention in recent years, its application to the printed mass media market has been almost totally neglected. Researchers have not provided any empirical evidence of a substantial market for mass customized printed newspapers, and we do not know much about customer attitudes toward such innovations. This article contributes to research on both issues. Based on an empirical survey (n = 2,114), we examine consumer acceptance of an individualized newspaper. We address the 2 most pressing issues associated with mass-customized products. These are consumer willingness to pay a premium and consumer willingness to devote additional effort to "designing" such a newspaper. The results, based on conjoint analysis, suggest that consumers are generally willing to devote effort to customizing their news. However, only those who are well-educated and belong to the upper socioeconomic strata are willing to pay extra for individualized newspapers. When introducing mass-customized media, management should focus on these customer groups and their respective preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment was conducted to illuminate the effects of balanced and imbalanced conflict story structure on perceived story bias and news organization credibility. Participants read mock newspaper stories on capital punishment, flat income tax rate, and drinking age that were systematically manipulated to be balanced or imbalanced, imbalanced stories favored either the pro or the con side on each issue. Participants were randomly assigned to read one story about each issue. Results showed participants perceived imbalanced stories as biased and correctly identified the side favored by the story's imbalance. Participants evaluated newspapers apparently responsible for balanced stories as more credible than newspapers apparently publishing stories imbalanced to favor one side or the other on the issue. Imbalanced story structure directly led to perceived story bias, and perceived story bias in turn led to negative evaluation of the credibility of the newspaper publishing the imbalanced story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]