The Monday New York Times always has a package of articles on the media business headlined by David Carr's column, which today covers reorganization at Gannett's Journal News in Westchester.
Carr works hard to be fair to a process that as a journalist he must find repellent, forcing veteran reporters to reapply for their existing jobs and quizzing them on their new media skills as the Journal News attempts to move to a more online-focused delivery system. In the process, 70 of them lost their jobs.
At the same time, I checked Gannett's USA Today this morning to find an analysis by Julie Appleby on the ethics of pricing in health care and its impact on older Americans. Appleby has for years made USA Today's coverage of the health insurance market competitive with the other national papers and it's good to see her back writing. The article had good quotes from young and old on how much they pay for insurance and why as well as from various activists attempting to regulate premium fees.
What was most interesting was Ms. Appleby's byline, which was from the Kaiser Health News. Much as Gannett is trying to bring costs in line with revenues at the Journal News, it apparently also can no longer afford to pay Ms. Appleby directly for her services. The Kaiser Family Foundation - which is independent but originally funded by profits from selling health insurance - can.
Kaiser Health News has also hired Mary Agnes Carey, a long time health care reporter for Dow Jones Newswire and Congressional Quarterly. As the profits from providing news fall, news organizations are taking on more and more content contributed from outsiders, usually to good effect. It will be very interesting to see if Kaiser Health News will succeed as a model for delivering sophisticated news coverage in specialized areas.
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