Poynter on the Record

Surprise, surprise:  Dow Jones has hired a new executive in charge of spearheading a more in-depth approach to digital ventures. I'm sure a lot of us have already heard that newspapers have been struggling with circulation, while the good news has been focused on their online ventures. There's plenty of rumbling going on that the future is definitely online, and while many of us have felt that the writing is on the wall, it seems clear that the newspaper industry gets it.

Dow Jones has hired a former Viacom executive, Ann Sarnoff, to help it expand into new markets and woo new customers. Dow Jones owns several well-known news sources that operate well on the Internet, including The Wall Street Journal, Marketwatch.com, and part of Smart Money.

Interestingly, Poynter Institute's journalism site Poynter Online recently posted an article pertaining to newspaper execs' attitudes at the Mid-Year Media Review conference from the Newspaper Association of America. Among the interesting observations reporter Rick Edmonds made was that many of the newspaper executives at the meeting were not focusing so much on their core, traditional newspaper operations, but on the great opportunity they see in their online properties and initiatives.

Indeed, the sense is that online revenues will reach 25% of all newspaper revenues by 2011, compared with an average of 6% now. And Edmonds' article points out that there's excitement brewing as companies try to think up ways to capitalize on what looks like a huge opportunity; he pointed out that many of the participants didn't even mention old-school newspapers until well into their presentations. One presenter supposed that once newspapers really gear up their efforts, Google and Yahoo! might face bigger problems on the Internet than might have previously been considered.
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