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The Washington Post racked up some very impressive results today, winning six Pulitzer prizes, a record for The Post. The winning stories included an expose on miserable conditions at Walter Reed, coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings and reporting on private American contractors in Iraq who operate under a different set of rules than American forces. Columnist Gene Weingarten’s Pulitzer-winning piece about violinist Joshua Bell performing to indifferent crowds in a Metro station is a personal favorite.

These stories are what make the Post one of the nation’s best newspapers. In his letter to shareholders in The Washington Post Company’s annual report earlier this year, Don Graham wrote:

[The Post] is a news organization full of reporters and editors who’ve shown they are willing to look hard and long for important stories — information people do not want you to know about.

Graham specifically called out the Walter Reed coverage:

We also publish a newspaper that does a good job of telling the news and works occasional wonders: last year, Dana Priest and Anne Hull broke the story of the mistreatment of some Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at Walter Reed (alongside the excellent treatment for which the hospital is known). The Army’s immediate response (including the resignation of the Secretary of the Army and a change of command at Walter Reed) improved the wounded soldiers’ care and demonstrated the impact of the stories.

Unfortunately, great coverage doesn’t sell newspapers like it used to. Paid circulation is off more than 10% in the last four years, despite continued population growth in its distribution area. The Post, like many newspapers, is offering buyouts to newsroom employees.

One of the Post’s greatest assets is its industry-leading Web site. Weingarten’s piece is significantly enhanced online by the video of Bell’s performance and an online discussion. The site also allows the Post to reach readers that the print edition never could. Weingarten writes in his online discussion, “My favorite global letter so far, came from Marnie Smith of Des Moines, Iowa, who was alerted to this story in the Washington Post through an email from her daughter, who lives in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.”

The Post reaches more than 7 million readers a month through its Web site. But those readers are much less valuable than a print subscriber.

As an investment, Washington Post stock is down only 9.58% over the last year. That’s outstanding, compared with a 46.53% drop for Gannett and a staggering 65.73% decline for McClatchy.

How’d it pull off that feat? Despite its name, the The Washington Post Company isn’t really a newspaper company — the bulk of its revenues come from the Kaplan education division; the newspaper division only accounted for 21% of revenue. From the company’s annual report (pdf):

Fifteen years ago we were accurately described as a media company. Over that time Kaplan has grown into a powerhouse, a multidisciplinary and increasingly international education business unlike any other education company in the world. For the last six months of the year, Kaplan’s revenue was almost half of the company’s, at 49%. Kaplan will continue to grow stronger in 2008. The Washington Post Company is now an education and media company (this isn’t “re-branding”; it’s reality), and the accent on education could get a lot stronger in the future.

These numbers are only going to get more lopsided. In the fourth quarter, newspaper revenue dropped 6%, while education revenue increased 21% (including acquisitions). Compared with 2006, online revenue increased 11%, but was still beaten by Kaplan (+21%).

Again, from the annual report:

As the company has grown, The Post’s business results are no longer as significant as they once were. This is both bad and good: it’s bad for shareholders that the newspaper no longer provides the profits it once did. It’s good that the money the newspaper made went into education and cable investments, most of which have proven successful.

If Wall Street had its way, the company would likely be split in two. Investors cheered when Scripps announced such a separation.

The Post’s ownership structure, with the Graham family controlling a majority of the seats, makes such a separation unlikely.

Disclosure: I worked at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and at the Star Tribune (a formerly McClatchy newspaper).

Check out the great pictures on flickr from opening night at the Nats’ new stadium. This crowdsourced collection is much more captivating than the skeletal slideshow at washingtonpost.com. For best effect, install the PicLens Firefox extension.

See also: Flickr vs. The Washington Post

Some interesting reads from the last few weeks:

• Wall St. Journal Makes Politics Its Business (Washington Post) - Media critic Howard Kurtz takes an in-depth look at changes at the Wall Street Journal since its takeover by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The biggest change is the increase in political coverage amid one of the most interesting political campaigns in recent history. The Journal, a rarity among newspapers, is increasing its news hole thanks to its new benefactor. via Howard Kurtz
• Steered Wrong: Drivers Trust GPS Even to a Fault (WSJ) - For all their convenience, portable navigation devices and online mapping still have one big problem: the world’s road network is constantly changing and digital mappers can’t keep pace. Some countries in Europe even have signs at tricky intersections telling drivers to ignore their GPS’ instructions. Yet many drivers put their faith in technology and blindly follow their GPS’ instructions. Perhaps this is because their accuracy is oversold; a TomTom TV ad (see below) shows a couple driving across a bridge during the ribbon cutting ceremony. The typical map on a PND is a year old the day you take it out of the box. via Doris Truong
• Eating away the innings in baseball’s cheap seat (USA Today) - What’s more American than baseball and Cracker Jacks? Possibly stuffing yourself silly. Faced with anemic attendance, some teams have come up with a new way to generate revenue: all-you-can-eat sections where you can eat all the hot dogs, french fries and soda you can stomach. At the Braves’ Turner field, the “typical all-you-can-eat customer downed: 3.35 hot dogs; one 20-ounce soda; one 7.9-ounce bag of peanuts; one 3-ounce order of nachos and 32 ounces of popcorn.” In unrelated news, the average seat at the Mets’ new Citi Field is 21 inches wide, 2 inches wider than those at Shea.
• IRS making sure your rebate gets spent (Marketplace) - One of the big concerns about the “economic stimulus” package is that people will do something silly with it — like save it or use it to pay down debt. I suggested that the rebates be issued as VISA debit cards. Apparently the IRS is using lifestyle analysis to determine what taxpayers want and spending their $600 rebate checks for them. One couple received an air conditioner instead of the check they were expecting.

The Honolulu Advertiser has done an absolutely terrific job with its saturation coverage of the abrupt shutdown of Aloha Airlines. The coverage is exactly what local papers should be doing on big local stories.

In addition to in-depth news stories, the coverage includes extensive photo galleries and videos. Relevant historical stories are highlighted. There are active reader forums as well as tips for travelers and a job search board with ideas for laid off employees.

Some interesting reads from the past couple of weeks:

• Hulu: Great Product, Still Screwed (Silicon Alley Insider) - The much-hyped video site from NBC and News Corp. is now out of beta. Hulu offers free access to full episodes from many NBC and Fox shows, plus a few free full-length movies. Hulu has decent quality video, is easy to navigate and does a good job of suggesting related content. (Hulu’s search feature can use a lot of help with its poor indexing and cryptic snippets like “Season 2 : Ep. 10″.) Despite all this, analyst Henry Blodget thinks Hulu will have a hard time making it due to constraints imposed on it by its corporate parents.
• Kara Visits Tellme (aka A Little Bit of Microsoft in Silicon Valley)! (All Things Digital) - Kara Swisher visited Tellme recently and talked to General Manager Mike McCue (my boss’ boss). The video offers a glimpse of life at Tellme. In another video, Mike talks about trends in speech recognition. (The videos didn’t work for me in Firefox; if you have trouble, try IE.)
• Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism? (New York Times) - It’s not my idea of vacation, but apparently a new trend in tourism is organized tours of slums in cities like Mumbai and Rio. Are these tours exploiting the poor in the search for profit? That’s a good question. I was surprised how quickly organized tours of hurricane damage developed in New Orleans. I’ve been to New Orleans twice since Katrina and have refused to go on them.
• How to Deal With Layoffs and Buyouts (AAJA) - What’s glummer than a gathering of AOL employees at layoff time? A gathering of journalists discussing the future of their business. As newsrooms across the country rapidly contract, young and mid-career journalists face tough decisions on whether to continue to play musical chairs or get out of the business altogether. The Asian American Journalists Association held an informative discussion offering advice to journalists on how to cope in troubled times. Although much of the advice is specific to journalists, there is also solid financial advice for anyone facing layoffs.

Creative Commons image from flickr user listentoreason.

Google’s LatLong blog reports that The Ledger in Florida has published a Google My Map of Christmas lights in and around Lakeland, Fla. It’s great that newspapers are finally starting to use open Internet tools to help tell the story. I’ve written before about how news outlets used My Maps during the California wildfires.

It would’ve been nicer if The Ledger included pictures. Instead, they have descriptions like this:

North Pole scene with polar bears and igloos; forest scene with 15 lighted trees, Santas and deer; inflatable snow family; inflatable Santa; two Santas in sleigh with reindeer; nativity scene with shepherd, angels and wise men; Santa and Mrs. Claus and elves; candy canes and lollipops, 12 lighted trees; lighted deer; holographic snow family; wreaths; stars; lighted arches; eight-foot lighted star.

How many times does the “picture is worth a thousand words” have to be repeated for it to stick? Kudos to The Ledger, however, for allowing users to edit the map by adding their own favorite light displays.

Now if you had a Dash, you’d be able to see the map of light displays as you’re driving around.

More on: Google, maps, newspapers

Crises force people to think differently. Faced with a rapidly moving story, media outlets in Southern California have done an outstanding job in adopting Web 2.0 tools to keep readers informed during the tragedy.

SignOnSanDiego, the Web site of the Union-Tribune, has a regularly updated map of the fires in San Diego (screenshot above). Fire perimeters are shown on the map. The map also includes geotagged pictures and videos. Click a ZIP code and you can see which structures burned in that area on the map. The page also provides updates on evacuation orders.

SignOnSanDiego started a new blog on Blogger with the latest in fire news. Blogging platforms are more conducive to getting news out fast and in a way that is clearer than traditional content management systems. They also come with built-in notification tools. The wildfires blog has 425 posts so far this week. An accompanying help blog lists offers of assistance for area residents.

The site is also making good use of user-generated photos and videos. The tools and UI are crude, but pictures like this one do a good job of telling the story. Embed code is provided for the videos.

KPBS has a Twitter account with important updates such as “Boil Water Order issued for Barrett Valley.” The account has 969 followers. With Twitter, residents can subscribe to get alerts via SMS.

Such alternative distribution is important when people have evacuated their homes, as well as for those with relatives in the area.

The Los Angeles Times has its own fire map, user-generated photo gallery and Twitter account. A fire-damage database allows users to search for homes that have burned. They’ve also teamed up with other media outlets for an evacuee database.

Many of these things are impossible or not very useful in print. It’s great to see so many outlets experimenting.

Update: The Google blog has a list of fire maps.

More on: maps, newspapers

Very few occupations are constitutionally protected. Journalism is one of them. The first amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

It’s easy to take these freedoms for granted. Last night, I helped judge the second annual trivia bowl for the Asian American Journalists Association. The competition consisted of teams from various media outlets around the D.C. area.

One of the questions asked the teams (of up to 10 people) to name the five protections in the first amendment. Check out which freedom The Washington Post team missed:

The team captain’s name has been removed to protect the guilty.

At least their opponents on the washingtonpost.com team got it right.

More on: newspapers

Among television, movies, newspapers and music, which industry is the most screwed up when it comes to adapting to the new world?

The newspaper business won some serious points this week in the “screwed up” race with Roy Peter Clark’s piece “Your Duty to Read the Paper.” Clark implores journalists to spend more time reading newspapers:

It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper — emphasis on paper, not pixels. …

I’ve been reading the paper more closely lately, spending at least 15 minutes in the morning, and then picking up some longer stories and features in the evening. The experience has reminded me of something I forgot along the way: that there is no substitute for the local daily newspaper if I am going to live as a full-blooded citizen in a place that I love.

Why knock the newspaper industry for Clark’s essay? Clark is a “senior scholar” at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, considered by many to be the most prestigious “think tank” for the newspaper business. If Clark were Jason Calacanis or Robert Scoble, I’d chalk up this piece as linkbait. Sadly, I don’t think Clark knows what linkbait is or its purpose.

While Clark has been spouting the sanctity of the printed newspaper, I’ve been consuming television content.

Not watching television, mind you, but watching television content. I watched CNN’s Reliable Sources and NBC’s Meet the Press on my iPod while on trains and planes. I caught NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup streamed onto my laptop on Friday night. (I’m visiting my brother who doesn’t have a TV.) These are shows I wouldn’t have been able to watch otherwise.

Unfortunately for Clark and the newspaper business, those were potentially prime news reading opportunities. I hate it when people shove their broadsheet pages in my face when I’m crammed into a seat for five hours, so I try not to do that to them. Television won out because they provided content I wanted to consume in a format that was convenient for me. I can nitpick the details of NBC’s implementation or their fight with Apple, but at least they’re trying a lot of different things.

Same with the movie industry. I was interested in seeing I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With from IFC Films. It’s in limited release, so I can’t see it at the theater. No problem, it’s available for $6 through Comcast On Demand. The movie business as a whole is still stuck in the distribution window mindset with staggered releases to different channels, but those windows are rapidly collapsing. Comcast is now getting many On Demand movies at the same time they hit DVD.

That leaves the music business. It’s the industry that came up with the Ringle, one of the dumbest ideas I’ve seen in a long time. It’s also the industry that has been the most aggressive at suing its customers. At least newspapers haven’t done that yet.

Disclosure: I attended a Poynter Institute leadership seminar in the mid-90s and had a great learning experience, though I can’t say the same about the St. Petersburg Hilton Motel 6.

More on: newspapers, television

Recommended reading:

• Eat Your Vegetables and Read a Newspaper
• A troll in scholar’s clothing
• Wait, I’ve Got Another Idea—Let’s Have a Bake Sale!

A common refrain in journalism schools is “show don’t tell.” It means to make your writing sufficiently descriptive that readers can visualize what you’re talking about. Instead of writing that the “laptop looked old,” you should write “The laptop bore the logo of a long deceased company; the keys were sticky with years of donut crumbs and oil from fingers. The casing bore a tinge of yellow.”

Technology gives us an easier way to show: pictures. Unfortunately, most newspaper sites haven’t mastered this. They’re still stuck in a print mindset where the written word is king and photos are expensive window dressing. They edit photos for the one or two spaces they have in the paper.

Consider this story about the North American Sandsculpting Championship in Virginia Beach. It’s a story that’s screaming for pictures. The photographer who shot that story very likely shot dozens of pictures. They were edited down to the two that are shown.

In print, where you only have so much space and color costs money, this makes perfect sense. Online it doesn’t. Every photo that adds to that story should be online. (Except photos with serious exposure problems, nearly identical photos, etc.) Compare the two photos that are online with the selection of pictures I took at the event.

The two photos from the The Virginian-Pilot are certainly better than any of mine; but mine do a better job of giving users the flavor of walking down the beach and seeing the sculptures. My photos are also geotagged, making them easy to search for on maps. (This can be done by carrying a $150 GPS around while shooting.)

Slideshows are extremely popular among readers. They are also an easy way to tell the story better and get a lot of extra page views. Especially when the people who are in the pictures send the link around.

Pictures are especially critical for stories like restaurant reviews and travel pieces. These are visceral experiences where images can be critical to the reader’s decision and understanding. Compare these pictures from a restaurant opening with what you’re used to seeing on newspaper sites. Even mundane pictures like this menu add to the story.