The words “Document-sharing website” probably won’t thrill too many people who aren’t stationery geeks. Nevertheless, one such website, Scribd.com, has released a new feature that could make online news reporting a more interesting experience for the journalists and the readers.

But first, a dose of background: Scribd is a website that lets you do all sorts of things in publishing, including selling electronic copies of books. Some of us at Media File use it for a different purpose: embedding documents related to our reporting inside blog posts. See this blog post I wrote about pharmaceutical company Mylan’s legal tussle with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. At the bottom of the page, you can see the legal documents that I wrote about in the blog post and posted by using Scribd.

On Wednesday, Scribd said news outlets The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Mediabistro will use Scribd’s document reader on their sites in the same kinds of ways that I used it on Media File.

Scribd is letting the sites use it for free, sensing what advertisers and publicists like to call a “branding opportunity.” The reader would include Scribd’s name on it, but also the name of the media outlet in question. Think of your personal notepaper that reads, “From the desk of…” at the top.

Here’s more from Scribd’s press release:

The document reader turns nearly all file types — including PDF, Word and PowerPoint — into a Web document that can be shared on Scribd.com and any website that allows embeds. It can help news organizations:

• Embed documents in news stories and add transparency to the reporting process
• Increase people’s time spent reading each story
• Increase brand recognition on and off their website through logos on the reader
• Retain attribution for original document uploads, regardless of where the document gets shared on the Internet
• Increase traffic through links back to the original story
• It also, Scribd said, lets people share the documents on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Now, this is not a plug for Scribd, though as I said, I do use it on the Media File blog because it’s easy enough for someone not well versed in technology. I’m writing about this because I’m curious to hear from you readers after you’ve played around with Scribd. How important will these kinds of “paper-like” developments be to online news reporting?

(Graphic: Here is a sample of a document shown online via the reader)

It always makes me happy when one of the companies on my beat reminds me that I study Turkish for at least one practical reason. In this case, it’s our rival wire service Bloomberg, which will start broadcasting news in Turkey through local partner Ciner Media. Pronounced, more or less, “Jiner Media,” the company also publishes magazines in Turkey that include Marie Claire, Newsweek Turkey, OK! and GEO.

The service will be called BloombergHT for “Haber Turk,” which translates to, “Turkish News.” The service will be a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week Turkish language financial news and business channel that will broadcast on cable and satellite in Turkey and “Turkish Republics.” I have to find out what that means, but I’m guessing it means parts of Central Asia where Turkic languages are spoken.

The launch will come later this year, Bloomberg said in a statement on Tuesday. It also said that Bloomberg will retain editorial control over the channel’s business content and will provide Ciner Media with access to the Bloomberg news service and that a website will follow.

This news comes months after Bloomberg held a rare round of layoffs and laid out plans to shut down some of its non-English-language TV operations around the world. Bloomberg, as we and others have reported, has been working to broaden its worldwide reach. The company, I have heard from people familiar with its thinking and also from employees, wants to raise its profile outside its hardcore financial industry subscribers and is trying to offer more news to a bigger audience to do it. Pursuing BusinessWeek is one way to do it. Another would be forging more deals like the one in Turkey — let someone else handle the distribution, and you just focus on the news. We might see more of these deals soon.

UPDATE: While I’ve been obsessing over whether I’ll get to play Peter Ustinov’s part in a remake of Topkapi, Business Insider noticed some substantial changes on Bloomberg TV’s presentation for the rest of the world. In the world of financial journalism, less really is more, apparently.

PS: Efendi = “lord” or “master” or a general “sir” might even do these days. “Efendim” = “My lord,” etc. and is a common form of address. For example, you might call me “Robert efendim.” Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

(Reuters Photo: Istanbul)

The U.S. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee hit one of my favorite topics on Thursday: What the government could, should, must (or must not) do to help the struggling news media survive, with the spotlight on newspapers in particular.

I had a look at the testimony and found some fascinating thoughts in the testimony from Paul Starr, a professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Starr has some ideas for how the government might preserve a free press by extending a hand to the news business — all without using that word that no one wants to use: bailout.

First, the background: Newspapers are in trouble as the Internet destroys their advertising revenue. More people than ever read the news online, and news websites are trying to figure out a way to make money off that because letting people in for free just kills the circulation of their printed products. Some folks have raised the idea of federal, state or local subsidies to help papers — usually in the form of tax breaks — but the Newspaper Association and others say it’s a bad idea because the press shouldn’t be beholden to the government that it’s supposed to be monitoring for abuse, fraud, etc.

Meanwhile, the Obama White House, Justice Department and other federal offices are examining the situation. In Congress, one bill would let some newspapers become nonprofit companies, and another bill that would let businesses book their recent losses over the past five years – something that would get them some extra cash from the taxman.

The association was one of the groups that testified at the hearing. We know how they feel. What I’m INCREDIBLY eager to get your thoughts on is what Starr wrote:

Increasingly, the production of news will require subsidy, and the question is really from where and under what conditions that subsidy will come. The problems that this challenge raises are difficult because of the legitimate concern that any subsidy, whether from government or private philanthropy, may induce subservience and dependency in the press. But we should take encouragement from three experiences.

(He points out that we’ve done it before with eased postal rates for U.S. papers and public broadcasting subsidies, and it’s worked well in other countries, notably Scandinavian ones — take that how you will.)

First, any subsidies must be viewpoint-neutral; they cannot favor one viewpoint over another. Second, they should be platform-neutral-they should not favor print media over online media, for example. And, third, they should be neutral or at least reasonably balanced as to organizational form. Taken as a whole, they should not favor for-profit over nonprofit organizations, or vice versa. To be sure, some policies by their nature may benefit one type of organization, but the sum total of policy should be indifferent as to whether news is provided via a for-profit or nonprofit enterprise.

Nonprofit support of journalism is already increasing, and many Americans would be more comfortable seeing support for journalism come from a great variety of private philanthropic sources than from the government. To facilitate that development, Congress should seek to remove any legal obstacles that may stand in the way of newspapers receiving tax-exempt support or becoming nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations themselves.

But here we face a new question. From the founding of the republic, newspapers have played a central role in politics–endorsing political candidates, for example. It would be a real loss to freedom of the press if, in becoming nonprofit, newspapers had to restrict their political expression. I believe, therefore, Congress should consider creating a new category of nonprofit journalistic organizations that are freed from traditional limitations on 501 (c) 3 organizations.

Financial support for journalism could take a number of different forms. Direct grants might allow for political manipulation of the flow of funds, unless there was some intervening, professionally run organization strongly insulated from political control.

Indirect forms of subsidy through the tax system also ought to receive consideration. As I mentioned, many other countries exempt the press from the value-added tax; the equivalent in the United States would be an exemption from the payroll tax, or at least the employers’ share (with the idea of replacing those contributions to the Social Security trust funds with general revenue). To be platform-neutral, this tax exemption would have to apply not just to newspapers, but to journalistic organizations more generally. Defining eligible organizations and individuals would be difficult, but the same problem arises in many other areas, such as state “shield” laws that provide journalists with an exemption from some demands to testify under subpoena.

(Reuters Photo: This was not someone who testified at Thursday’s newspaper hearing, but you get the drift of what a newspaper hearing might look like.)

Rupert Murdoch used News Corp's fiscal fourth quarter conference call on Wednesday to say he wants to be paid ANYTIME his news is read online. Perhaps he was just in a cranky mood, but most of the reporters listening to the call thinks he's going beyond what he's said many times before on the topic.

The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution, but it has not made the content free. Accordingly, we intend to charge for all news websites.

That's not just for newspapers and websites, but also for his TV news channels, like Fox, and by implication, Sky, when viewed online, Murdoch said.  However, when asked if he will be charging for celebrity photos from newspapers such as The Sun or News of The World, it was by no means clear he's figured out how to make visitors pay to view these other than by watching ads.

He said he's prepared to be first among his competitors to do this and considering introducing a paid-content plan for News Corp web sites in the company's current fiscal year that ends in June 2010.   

Of course, there's nothing counter-revolutionary about content creators wanting to get paid. It just made the blog posting trifecta work.    

(Transcript: News Corp Q4 2009 conference call, Seeking Alpha; Image: The Sun)                                           

See also Revolution and Evolution

Here are some of the day’s top stories in the media industry:

Verizon Planning Its Own App Store (Business Insider)
Preethi Dumpala writes: “The main idea: Verizon wants to be the company connecting its customers with apps — not necessarily its handset partners. And it wants to avoid becoming an even dumber pipe. Depending on how it’s set up, this could clash with gadget makers’ plans.”

McGraw-Hill might ‘give away’ Business Week for nominal $1 (FT)
“McGraw-Hill might reap only a nominal $1 by selling Business Week, according to people familiar with the 80-year-old financial magazine’s record of losses. The publisher has appointed Evercore, a boutique investment bank, to sell the title after deciding it was non-core to a group that owns the Standard & Poor’s rating agency and an educational publisher, two people familiar with the decision said,” writes Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.

Sinclair says it might consider bankruptcy (Baltimore Sun)
“The Hunt Valley-based owner of television stations, which depends heavily on automotive advertisers for revenue, said it might be obligated to pay $488.5 million of its total outstanding debt within the next 18 months. The company said it had $1.3 billion in total debt outstanding as of March 31,” writes Lorraine Mirabella.

Minority Broadcasters Seek Federal Aid (WSJ)
Fawn Johnson writes: “A group of minority broadcasters asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Monday for financial assistance akin to the aid that has been extended to the financial and auto industries. ”Minority-owned broadcasters are close to becoming an extinct species,” the letter said. “Even in better economic times, minority broadcasters have historically had difficulties accessing the capital markets.”

In other news:

• Earnings Preview: A tough 2Q expected for Gannett (AP)
• New York Times to sell NYC radio station (Reuters)
• CHART OF THE DAY: Users Spent A Billion Hours On Facebook In June (BI)

Here are some of the day’s stories on the media industry:

‘Tonight Show’ Audience a Decade Younger (NYT)
“In Mr. O’Brien’s first month as host, the median age of “Tonight Show” viewers has fallen by a decade — to 45 from 55, a startling shift in such a short time. This audience composition means advertisers can now address almost exclusively young viewers on “Tonight,” and NBC is already contemplating a shift in how it sells the show,” writes Bill Carter.

Springer’s daily Welt dreams of going international - again (Reuters)

“German publisher Axel Springer plans to launch an international weekly edition of its flagship daily, Die Welt, in a 48-page tabloid format starting February 2010. Springer is still mulling distribution options but the paper will likely be available from airlines,” writes Nicola Leske.

Just the Messenger: Mediaite.com Focuses on Celebrity of Journalism (WP)
On the newly launched website, Howard Kurtz writes: “Mediaite paints with a colorful palette, even if its hues will appeal mainly to journalists and those who obsess over them. By hiring bloggers who worked for Mediabistro and the Huffington Post, Abrams has put together a sassy critique of media missteps and foibles, an overall take not driven mainly by ideology.”

Cubs sale finalized for TribCo (Crain’s)
“Tribune Co. has finalized a deal to sell the Chicago Cubs to a bidding group led by bond salesman Thomas Ricketts. Documents describing the fully financed deal were sent to Major League Baseball over the weekend, a source familiar with the negotiations said Monday. The value of the deal is between $850 million and $900 million, the source said.”

Food Network magazine is media’s next wave (MarketWatch)
“Hearst executives are very pleased with the magazine’s progress. The company started out by printing 300,000 copies last fall. Hearst now projects the publication’s rate base, the circulation figure that publishers promise to advertisers, will climb to 900,000 later this year and to 1.1 million in 2010,” writes Jon Friedman.

Hulu plans September bow in U.K. (Variety)
Steve Clarke writes: “Hulu, co-owned by News Corp., NBC Universal and Providence Equity Partners, is believed to be offering broadcasters equity stakes in the U.K. service plus a share of online advertising revenues. (Disney has a deal pending to become a co-owner.)”

In other news:

• Two new blogs offer daily tips for business journalists (BusinessJournalism.org)

• Behind the launch of the Rocky Mountain Independent (Westword)

• Talking Point$ Memo (CJR.org)

News about the media industry:

Netflix looks to future but still going strong with DVD rentals (USA Today)
“Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings doesn’t think his 58 distribution centers are in immediate danger of becoming obsolete, but he knows that day will come. He believes DVD rentals have four to nine years to keep growing, despite inroads in Internet delivery of movies to set-top TV boxes and other video-on-demand options,” writes Jefferson Graham.

Is the bell tolling for Clear Channel? (San Antonio Express-News)
David Hendricks writes: “Analysts believe Clear Channel, now with about $22 billion in total debts, will have trouble making scheduled payments later this year. The company, already down to about 800 stations from its peak of about 1,200 stations, either will have to start selling stations itself or go into bankruptcy, where lenders will put stations up for sale.”

Foes No More, Ad Agencies Unite With Internet Firms (NYT)
Eric Pfanner writes: “With consumers spending more and more time online, analysts say Internet companies and ad agencies have no choice but to work together to develop ways to make money from digital media.”

In other news:

• U.S. gov’t to release $4 bln soon for broadband (Reuters)
• Politico’s Washington Coup (Vanity Fair)
• Average Twitter user has 126 followers, and only 20% of users go via website (Guardian)
• First Came Gizmodo, Then Engadget. Now, GDGT (NYT)

News about the media industry:

Google Makes a Case That It Isn’t So Big (NYT)
“Google has begun this public-relations offensive because it is in the midst of a treacherous rite of passage for powerful technology companies — regulators are intensely scrutinizing its every move, as they once did with AT&T, I.B.M., Intel and Microsoft,” writes Miguel Helft.
> Graphic about Google share of all ads and online ads (Lost Remote)

Media and cable now the riskiest sector (Reuters)
“Default risk for the media and cable sector has risen from its already high levels a year ago, CreditSights said. Rising leverage, along with a protracted decline in advertising revenues that was accelerated by the U.S. recession, are behind the higher risk,” writes Dena Aubin.

Sun-Times seeks more time to reorganize (Crain’s)
“Lawyers for Sun-Times Media are asking for three more months to come up with an exit strategy, a request they considered “neither surprising nor remarkable.” The publisher currently has until July 29 to submit a reorganization plan,” writes Lorene Yue.

Vibe magazine shutting down (Daily Finance)
Jeff Bercovici writes: “Vibe enjoyed significant success in the late ’90s and early part of this decade as hip hop and R&B became the nation’s predominant forms of pop music. But in recent years the title has fallen on hard times under its new owner, the Wicks Group, which bought it in 2006.”

MSNBC Beat CNN on Weeknights in Second Quarter, Fox Still on Top (NYT)
Bill Carter writes: “The trend of cable news viewers moving away from CNN continued in the second quarter of 2009 with MSNBC beating CNN in weeknights for the first time ever for a full quarter of a year.”

In other news:

• Gannett Said to Prep Massive Layoffs (Gannett Blog)
• Times’ retirement plan hit by $154M loss (Boston Business Journal)
• Cable Hits a Big Winner With DVRs (WSJ)

BGC Partners apparently does not. The self-described global full-service inter-dealer broker of financial instruments issued this announcement on Tuesday (via press release on the PRNewswire press release service, of course):

In compliance with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent guidance regarding “notice-and-access” news releases, the company plans to discontinue issuance of full-text financial news releases via a wire service and will issue only advisory press releases notifying investors when new and material information is available on its websites.

This came out a few hours after General Motors used its website to disclose news that some people might think material: It is cutting 10,000 jobs. There was no press release issued through the normal distribution services.

And then Molson Coors stucksome of its results tables on its website rather than in its press release.

Do three opaque acts in 24 hours equal one clear trend? We fear as much.

We’re not saying reporters should be so lazy as to expect everything to show up on the press release wires. But PRNewswire and BusinessWire do exist for the disclosure of important information that is supposed to reach recipients simultaneously. That way, everyone gets to make their bets and win and lose money with equal abandon.

There may be some arguments for a company to scale back on wide distribution of press releases. After all, PRN and BW charge for issuing them, and every penny counts in Corporate America in these hard times. The Web also is a good place to make information perpetually available.

BUT…. at a time when the economic crisis makes clear delivery of information more important than ever, and money scandals and mismanagement are tearing up the old order of the financial world, is it really the best time to tell people that information they used to be able to get at once on an electronic document will now be buried somewhere in a labyrinthine website? After all, who said that a company had to prominently display information on its homepage? Why not put it somewhere on the website that is three or four clicks deep? Isn’t disclosure normally considered a laudable goal?

We’re curious to hear from readers. Who is moving their information out of the spotlight while keeping it in plain sight?

(Photo: Reuters)

At least San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has the good grace to look a little bit sheepish when he offers San Franciscans the opportunity to watch him talk city politics for SIX HOURS on YouTube video.

The mayor of the liberal, tech-friendly California city has broken the ’state of the city’ speech into a handful of roughly 40-minute YouTube video segments which offers “the opportunity for you to spend one minute with me, one hour — as much as five or six hours if you choose,” he says in the intro.

Known for his support of gay marriage, Newsom delves into nearly every other issue, including a five-year plan.

“Just what I wanted,” said Aaron Peskin, outgoing president of the Board of Supervisors, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Somebody imitating Al Gore for 7 1/2 hours. The guy did a Fidel Castro.”

Web watchers have given many videos high ratings, although a few days after launch only about 10,000 had watched even the 1-minute intro, and no one had posted a comment on YouTube.

Still, it’s early days yet. Gems like “Emergency Planning” are still to come.