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Monday, July 16, 2012

Media Is Microsoft Getting into the News Business?

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 1:22 PM

The news that Microsoft and NBC News dissolved their partnership over the weekend isn't really exciting to anyone but journalists, but this bit of information from the Verge should be exciting to anyone who pays attention to news:

Most interestingly, though, Microsoft plans to strike out on its own this fall with original online reporting. Visse told the AP that MSN will be building a brand-new news team of approximately 100 journalists, or roughly the same size as the original group of reporters behind MSNBC.com at its launch in 1996.

With the rumors spreading last week that Rupert Murdoch may finally be putting his iPad-only newspaper The Daily down after the election, this is welcome news. Someone needs to finally get online news right, and Microsoft at least has the cash to make a good attempt. Let's hope their new effort is based in the Seattle area; New York is over-saturated with media outlets, and you wind up with a lot of inbred organizations that pass reporters back and forth, resulting in a myopic worldview. The distance from New York would serve Microsoft's news organization well.

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Josh and Erica must be tucking their resumes under every windshield in Redmond right now.

Posted by gloomy gus on July 16, 2012 at 1:27 PM

Breaking News: Windows Phone is the greatest thing ever and you should totally ditch your iphone. Seriously.

Posted by Pick1 on July 16, 2012 at 1:29 PM

I think the key problem is the phrase "the distance from New York". While the physical location may not be there, a lot of those people are actually from there, so it's more like a refugee situation.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 16, 2012 at 1:35 PM

Stranger, you gotta be kidding. Microsoft makes software. They're super geeks, run by hyper-aggressive marketers. Their anti-competitive, illegally predatory monopolistic business practices make them the antithesis of news people. Microsoft only exists to defend its own right to make money.This is the company the Pulitzer Prize winning Stranger wants to champion the Fourth Estate??? God save us all.

Posted by abbiehoffman on July 16, 2012 at 1:48 PM

Slate
MSNBC

Now... something new again.
Third time is the charm, right?

Posted by SchmuckyTheCat on July 16, 2012 at 1:51 PM

MSNBC online was headquartered in Redmond, so it wouldn't be a stretch to expect the spinoff news division to be in that area too. I wouldn't expect any breakthrough in news reporting but any voice that's not controlled by the Big Six media companies is a welcome addition -- especially if the nature of online advertising affords a bit more editorial freedom than broadcast or print.

Posted by FauxfauxAlex on July 16, 2012 at 2:17 PM

Paul, if you want a new job you should just come right out and say it.

Posted by TVDinner

on July 16, 2012 at 2:24 PM

Losses before the gains? AP article linked from the Verge

"Although it will be based in New York, NBCNews. com will retain a significant staff in the Seattle area, according to Schiller. About 170 of MSNBC. com's 300 employees worked in the Seattle area.

Microsoft is letting NBCNews. com remain in its Redmond office while it looks for a new location in the area."

Is it a prediction to predict the companies will come out richer and the journalists come out poorer?

Posted by bedipped on July 16, 2012 at 2:36 PM

I don't get it. Did Apple or Google announce plans to assemble a news team sometime last year? That's the only reason I can see Microsoft planning on doing the same.

Posted by Zebes

on July 16, 2012 at 2:53 PM

@9 Nope. That's why this is their third attempt at joining the news media...you see, their own ideas are largely failures.

They might not be inventive, but they can be shrewd businesspeople. They're like Thomas Edison.

Posted by Pick1 on July 16, 2012 at 3:10 PM

@10 But it's not No. 3. Slate aggregated opinions, not news. MSNBC aggregated wire services (tons of AP and Reuters). Most MSNBC.com workers were backoffice techies, not original content news journalists -- though they had a few. And if you count all the other failed efforts at being a content company -- Sidewalk, MSN Tech & Gadgets, dozens of misses really, it is clear -- News is not in Microsoft's DNA. Software is.

Posted by abbiehoffman on July 16, 2012 at 3:42 PM

Interestingly Warren Buffet has been on a newspaper buying spree lately.

Why Warren Buffett Still Buys Newspapers as the Industry Sinks

In putting his considerable money where his mouth is—Buffett’s company is in the process of buying 63 Media General newspapers for $142 million—the chief executive is challenging the widespread belief that the industry is trapped in a death spiral. His move comes at a time when the New Orleans Times-Picayune and three other Newhouse papers in Alabama are cutting back publication to three days each week.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20…

By the way, have you seen Morgan Freeman in "Deep Impact" (1998). It is the proverbial disaster film with comet hitting earth and a black man as President mocked in later speeches. It's also a much less cool parallel of Armageddon (1998 also).

Anyway, the entire thing is a product placement for MSNBC. The lead reporter works for MSNBC. There is an MSNBC news chopper that figures prominently. It's almost as if the MS part (or the GE part) paid to have the movie made.

Seemed like such a great marriage of technology, media and content back then. But like many of these "great idea" projects MS has taken on, they just never had the management finesse that creative businesses require to make them work.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe