Huffington Post partners with Center For Public Integrity to create one of the largest investigative newsrooms in U.S.

By Chris Hogg

The Huffington Post and the Center for Public Integrity have joined forces to create what they’re billing as “one of the largest investigative newsrooms” in the United States.

The Huffington Post will merge its non-profit journalism division, The Huffington Post Investigative Fund, into the Center for Public Integrity. The aim is to strengthen digital delivery of nonpartisan investigative journalism.

“I’m delighted about this new partnership,” Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post and chair of the Fund’s board, said in a news release. “When we launched the Huffington Post Investigative Fund a year and a half ago, we set out to build a hybrid model for the future of investigative journalism — aligning a nonprofit journalism center with a large publishing platform. It exceeds all our expectations that we are so quickly able to scale up our small investigative fund by merging with a powerhouse like the Center. Too often, important stories are only covered after things go bad, as happened with the war in Iraq and the economic crisis. We need more stories uncovered before disaster strikes. I believe this partnership will help with this great project of uncovering.”

Under the unified umbrella the two organizations’ staff will be merged, bringing the total number of employees to 50. The companies say the new combined editorial team offer a unique mix of journalists, computer-aided reporting experts and digital media producers.

“We are delighted to bring the Investigative Fund under the Center’s umbrella,” said The Center for Public Integrity’s Executive Director William Buzenberg. “This represents a healthy marriage of reporting resources that will strengthen our ability to generate high-impact, independent and unbiased investigations and reach a broader audience.”

The following Huffington Post Investigative Fund staff will join the Center: Executive Director Nick Penniman, Editor Keith Epstein, reporters Ben Protess, three-time Pulitzer finalist David Heath, Pulitzer nominee Fred Schulte, Emma Schwartz, Health Care Analyst Wendell Potter, and Kimberly Leonard.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will contribute a $250,000 grant to the Center to support the new news operation. The foundation is a current founder of both the Center for Public Integrity and The Huffington Post Investigative Fund.

The Knight Foundation recently committed $1.7 million to the Center specifically to expand its digital media platforms.

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This blog post is part of the Future of Media‘s ongoing coverage and examination of what’s happening in the media around the world. If you have a story idea, please contact us. This blog post was originally posted on chrishogg.me.

Microsoft parters with Polar Mobile for smartphone apps

By Chris Hogg

Microsoft is teaming up with Canadian app developer Polar Mobile to create 500 applications for Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s new mobile product.

According to a Globe and Mail report, Polar Mobile will build Windows Phone versions of its 350 existing apps available for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android users. The company will also build future apps for Windows Phone.

Polar Mobile is a Toronto-based company of 40 people. The company has made apps for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Time Magazine, CBS Sports and more. Kunal Gupta, the company’s CEO, was a speaker at Digital Journal’s Future of Media event in September.

The Globe calls the deal one of the largest ever in the Canadian app development industry and positions Microsoft to play catch-up to Apple, Google and Research in Motion on the mobile front.

“What has changed today versus two years ago is that they’re not selling phones on hardware and price,” Gupta told the Globe. “They realize that people are buying based on apps and content, and they see us as a one-to-many strategy.”

Polar Mobile has seen success in the app world because of its ability to produce mobile applications quickly. Unlike other app publishers that produce custom-made apps, Polar Mobile uses its “SMART News Platform” which is a template model. Customers provide the content but the overall framework of each app comes from the platform. The result is an app can up and running in a very short amount of time compared to custom-made apps.

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This blog post is part of the Future of Media‘s ongoing coverage and examination of what’s happening in the media around the world. If you have a story idea, please contact us.

Hard news attracts more ad clicks than popular celeb stories

By David Silverberg

Popular articles on Lindsay Lohan and Justin Bieber don’t reel in as many ad dollars as they do eyeballs, a new study has found. The most profitable online news articles focused on topics such as unemployment, the Gulf oil spill and recalls.

Online news outlet might be convinced “link bait” articles on pop stars and weird news will attract revenue, but a new study refutes that claim. Research from the Perfect Market, a company that helps newspapers make their sites profitable, found “articles about unemployment benefits, the Gulf oil spill, mortgage rates and other serious topics were the top-earning news topics based on advertising revenue per pageview,” according to a press release.

Julie Schoenfeld, CEO of Perfect Market, remarked: “The great insight unveiled by the Vault Index is that the stories with real revenue opportunity for news organizations today are not always, as it turns out, celebrity scandals but difficult subjects that affect people’s lives.”

The company looked at advertising revenue generated from more than 15 million articles from 21 news sites over a three-month period this summer. Perfect Market analyzed revenue per pageview and found that articles about Social Security were the most profitable, earning an average of $129 for 1,000 pageviews. Articles on mortgage rates made $93 for every 1,000 pageviews. Unemployment was tabled at $28, $33 for articles on jobs, $20 for articles on the egg recall and $26 for pieces on immigration reform.

By comparison, articles on Lindsay Lohan generated $2.50 for every 1,000 pageviews.

Tim Ruder, Chief Revenue Officer at Perfect Market, added: Without this kind of data, publishers end up chasing trends to increase raw pageviews, but that is not necessarily the best revenue strategy. And it’s a disservice to their readers who want credible and important news, their advertisers who want high-value advertising placements, and their brands which live and die by the quality of their editorial coverage.”

Earlier this month, Gawker Media founder Nick Denton admitted his company’s focus on “pageview journalism” isn’t converting readers into ad dollars.

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This blog post is part of the Future of Media‘s ongoing coverage and examination of what’s happening in the media around the world. If you have a story idea, please contact us. This blog post was originally posted on Digital Journal.

Toronto Star uses Groupon to drive subscriptions

By Chris Hogg

As the debate and discussion about the future of print media continues, the Toronto Star is moving to social media and the Web to promote its printed edition through a partnership with Groupon.

Groupon is the leading deal-of-the-day site that offers group discounts on everything from spa services, to restaurant deals, to discounts at major retailers and more. Deals are offered to members by email and through social media.

Today, the Toronto Star is being featured on Groupon with a deal that offers people the chance to get a six-month subscription to the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star for $15 (regular priced $37).

A two-year-old start-up, Groupon is the fastest-growing company in Web history, generating more than $500 million in revenue this year according to Forbes. Valued at $1.35 billion, Groupon has seen competitors and copy-cat sites crop up in markets all over the world in an effort to cash-in on the group-buying craze.

In fact, the growing popularity of group-buying sites prompted Torstar Digital, the company’s digital arm, to acquire Groupon competitor WagJag recently.

With Groupon’s massive reach and proven track record for selling, it’s no surprise the Toronto Star is looking for Groupon to help drive subscription numbers.

The ironic part of this deal is that companies used to turn to newspapers to get their message far and wide, and now newspapers are turning to a start-up to achieve the same exposure.

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This blog post is part of the Future of Media‘s ongoing coverage and examination of what’s happening in the media around the world. If you have a story idea, please contact us. This blog post was originally posted on chrishogg.me.

ESPN taps into power of Facebook Like button for follow-ups and targeted distribution

By Chris Hogg

ESPN’s Cricinfo.com, the news site dedicated to all things related to cricket, has announced some new features for its audience that help news get to a targeted demographic easily.

Like countless other news sites, ESPNcricinfo.com has been using the Facebook “Like” button to allow readers to express their interest in certain news stories.

The problem with a ubiquitous Like button is that it’s difficult to segment or target specific users based on their interests. For example, a reader may Like a story because it focuses on their favourite team, or because it’s about their favourite player, or because they hate the team that lost. Editors and social media managers have no real way of knowing what specific element of a story the reader liked, and there is no way to follow-up with that reader with supplementary news. That is changing, however, as the site announced new targeted “Like” buttons for specific parts of each story.

In a blog post, ESPNcricinfo.com social media manager Will Luke announced the targeted “Like” buttons will allow ESPNcricinfo.com to personalize news to offer stories to specific groups of people.