Several reports have questioning whether it's OK for anyone to use the anti-gay slur that "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington used against co-star T.R. Knight. But ABC Reporter Laura Coverson wrote a much-needed article about whether it's OK for the media to use the word in coverage.

"The Other F-Word" jumps off from the discussion I started here last week. It's not OK to quote hate speech in the paper or on TV. It's offensive, same as it would have been if the n-word was repeated to cover Michael Richards' outburst.

What is needed are more articles like Coverson's. Discuss what is appropriate instead of ducking the subject. Related stories:

USA Today: Here's the dirt on using this 'F' word

AJC: Washington incident raises debate on power of slurs

Were straight people offended by the use of the term? Not sure, but we do know most folks were keenly interested. Ratings spiked for the celeb shows that covered the f-word dispute.

The very same Tribune Co. that has put itself up for sale is about to give away classifieds for free. Well, some classifieds, at least. Merchandise only.

For a long time now, sites such as Craigslist have given away classifieds in most of the Tribune markets. Perhaps Tribune realized what many of us have been saying: It's just not possible to compete with free. The first step toward beating the Craigslists of the world is admitting that no one in their right mind is going to pay for something they can get elsewhere for free.

Executives, repeat after me: "Hi, I'm a newspaper executive, and I've been selling refrigerators to Eskimos."

Now it's our turn: "Hi, (exec's name here)."

Sorry, Eskimos. No offense . . . I suppose I could have chosen, "sweaters for lions." Or, "underpants for pop stars." They're all corny, so I went with a more traditional cliche.

It's really not fair to pick on Tribune. Aren't they leading the pack on this one? And making fun of newspaper executives probably isn't a productive way to convince them to make changes. We'll just have to wait patiently until they lose enough money or market share to pay attention.

Ever since YouTube first surfaced, it’s been a mystery how the thing isn’t shut down. Obviously, there are copyright violations on a massive scale.

But instead of going the way of Napster and being torn down, YouTube was bought by Google. Surely Sergey wouldn’t buy a ticking time bomb?

Hmmm.

The owner of Comedy Central and MTV demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 stolen video clips.

"We cannot continue to let them profit from our programming," said Viacom CEO Philippe P. Dauman in an interview reported on NYTimes.com.

YouTube quickly conceded and removed the problem clips. Seems like YouTube knows that video-sharing has potentially the same problems as file-sharing. They’re hoping that playing nice will help avoid consequences. But I don’t see how it matters.

If YouTube enables people to steal copyrighted video, then it’s liable for damages. To make matters worse, YouTube streams the stolen video and plans to make money from the hijacked content. All it takes is a company willing to sue Google.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

If Microsoft could find grounds to sue its nemesis, it would. Someone’s going to do it. Google’s got a lot of money. What a hefty target for a lawyer looking to test the law.

By the way, if YouTube removed the clips, they've missed quite a few.

One thing about the Tampa market: journalists love that two big dailies are fighting over turf. Keeps people on their toes.

In 2004, the St. Petersburg Times launched “tbt,” one of those youth-targeted tabloids. That move eventually (keyword: eventually) riled up The Tampa Tribune to launch its own tabloid. Six month later, executives have closed The Tribune’s “Orange” because, “it didn't meet business expectations.”

The main misstep was the timing. Tribune’s slow reaction meant it entered a saturated market, not an emerging one. Here’s how St. Pete’s media critic, Eric Deggans, reports it:

Orange faced serious competition locally: Besides Creative Loafing, there is a music-focused monthly tabloid, Reax; a biweekly alternative tabloid, Tampa Bay Scene; and daily and weekly versions of the St. Petersburg Times' free tabloid, tbt*/Tampa Bay Times . . . "You have to make sure you're aiming toward a group that is not well-served," said Mary Nesbitt, managing director of Northwestern University's Readership Institute. "Reaching that target is more difficult when you have a lot of competition, because they have already carved it all up."

I respect any company that recognizes a product isn’t working and tries something else. Here’s what The Tribune should try next. They need a super niche.

For those of you who aren’t from the Tampa area, where I’ve spent several years, the place to party is the infamous Ybor City. Although not a large area, it’s filled with clubs and restaurants and things to do. It’s the type of place where streets are closed and turned into giant sidewalks packed with partiers.

If The Tribune wants to capture a younger audience, create a weekly that covers Ybor City, and only Ybor City. Put the word, "Ybor," in the masthead. Market it as vital to planning your night out. Fill it with photos of people on the scene. Offer a “Sex in the City” type column. Track how many people show up at each club, each night, so partiers know where to go.

Since thousands of people come to Ybor each week from all over the city, the potential market is the same as tbt. But focusing on Ybor makes coverage cheaper than mirroring tbt, which reports all pop culture and news from a youthful perspective. A Ybor City publication covers partying. Only partying. Keep it simple.

On recent redesigns, I offer random thoughts based on nothing except personal preference. (And then I have a point.)

First, I love:
Time.com
TimesOnline.co.uk

But I don’t love:
NaplesNews.com
StarTribune.com

The first two strike me as fresh and – uh oh, clean. The second pair feel cluttered and out of fashion. This puts me on the wrong side of the fence, since many of you love Curley’s Naples design and gawked the StarTribune’s print-to-Web makeover.

And lastly, I hate:
SavannahNow.com

How frustrating to visit a newspaper site and get road signs instead of news.

So there you have it. My random thoughts based on nothing. No facts to back it up, or anything. I’m told that’s how some actual focus groups on redesigns are conducted. Just give your gut reaction.

And I have to agree that if a reader’s gut reaction is to dislike something, then the likelihood of him or her using it frequently is slim. I much prefer impassioned fall-in-love moments.

Domino magazine likes to redesign rooms (yes, in your house) based on what a person is wearing. Makes perfect sense to me. Design is personality. Taking the personality of clothing and infusing it with a living room is not only possible, but also it’s what a lot of sites lack.

People judge you based on appearances, without exchanging a word. And we facilitate that judging by projecting a certain image through our clothing and manner, etc. It’s our way of helping out.

Same goes for Web sites.

Everyone should ask users to judge your daily book by its cover. See if they describe the site how you’d expect.

David Harris invited me to a discussion about blogging he organized for his SPJ chapter at the University of South Florida, my alma mater.

Several someones asked why anyone should blog. And as part of my answer, I started saying that knowing this sort of thing puts you at an advantage. Then I changed my mind and thought about it the whole drive home.

When I came out of college, knowing “Web stuff” did put me ahead of the curve. At least half my success is good timing. But knowing the same stuff today wouldn’t get me the same first job.

If your education doesn’t include everything from blogging and podcasting to shooting video and recording audio, then you’re at a disadvantage. The disadvantage won’t be felt when trying to get a job. It won’t. The disadvantage will be more like going from high school to college and realizing nothing had prepared you enough. It’s an overwhelming feeling. When expected to record audio for your story, or shoot a short video clip, or file to the Web site from your car, you won’t know what to do. That’s the disadvantage.

Really, those are only the basics. Have you ever used a database for reporting or organized common information into a useful database?

My grandparents recently visited me here in Florida, and that means we went to the dog track. Not knowing your way around Internet reporting tools reminds me of the comments about the greyhounds in the racing sheets. They say things like, “Slow from the start,” or, “Never a factor.”

When reporters are on stories, they’re competing – against other reporters on the story, and against other reporters in the newsroom to get the best assignments. Don’t get bumped at the gate.

The New York Times reports today that Google is having trouble selling ads on the radio, at least not with the same success it has had on the Internet and in newspapers. One has to wonder why Google is taking Google Audio on such a seemingly separate strategy from the one it used to grow online.

Most newspaper.com’s use Google ads to fill remnant inventory. And small sites, such as blogs, use the ads as revenue to support a hobby. Google combined what had been seen as individually unvalued into a viable advertising market.

At least the way The Times reports it, Google is taking a different path with radio. Here’s how the trouble gaining traction is reported:

Industry insiders cite everything from culture clashes to resistance in the radio industry, which relies heavily on sales representatives, to automate its advertising systems. But the hurdle mentioned most often is Google’s apparent inability to secure enough air time, or inventory, to make its system attractive to advertisers.

“If Google Audio were to be successful, it needs to have prime-time and drive-time inventory in major markets,” said Jordan Rohan, an Internet analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

Ignore the “industry insiders.” Rohan’s wrong. Google’s advertising model is disruptive. And disruptive technology is often born in the low-end market, only to slowly work its way up the food chain. That’s what we’ve seen online.

Larger advertisers are starting to buy space with Google online, and only recently have Google ad rates started to climb from dirt cheap to moderately cheap for popular keywords.

Google’s next steps online should be to start selling banner ads in all of the standard IAB sizes. Let the rates grow and the returns grow for newspaper.com’s who use Google’s system instead of their own. Google is growing into a position where it can take over almost all online ad sales.

Same goes for Priceline.com and selling hotel rooms. If it wanted to, Priceline could partner with a hotel chain to sell all of its rooms, instead of the cheap "remnant" rooms that it does now.

Peter Scheer used a full-page column in PRESSTIME to seriously suggest a 24-hour embargo for all news online. That way, he says, demand for newspapers will increase.

Our thanks to Scheer (who is, ironically, the executive director for the California First Amendment Coalition) for providing the best illustration of what happens when people get so wrapped up in saving printed pages that they disregard the purpose of journalism. Remember: journalists work at the pleasure of the people.

To benefit the greater good, the people have given up some control over their lives to government for making laws. And since the people all have full-time jobs, they let the media work on their behalf to provide oversight.

We’re not doing our jobs if when the market (an indicator of the people’s desires) wants news to be free online, then newspapers collude to build a paid wall.

When a man charged with protecting the First Amendment asks that all newspapers curtail their own speech, I have to wonder how he keeps his job. After all, his organization's slogan is, "Protecting and Defending the Public's Right to Know."

Here’s what Scheer wrote, believe it or not:

The first step in any strategy to extract value from newspapers’ content online is to stop giving it away. Many publishers know this instinctively, but they figure they can’t unilaterally discontinue unrestricted, free access as long as their competitors persist in giving their content away.

What to do? Mainstream media outlets need to figure out a way, without running afoul of antitrust laws, to take collective action to shock users into an appreciation of the value of their content – and to follow that action with content distribution arrangements that reflect papers’ enhanced leverage.

My proposal: The metro papers and wires should agree to embargo their news content from the free Internet for a brief period – say, 24 hours --- after it is made available to paying customers.

Temporarily depriving the Internet of its only free sources of comparatively trustworthy and credible news in real-time would establish the true value of that information.

Even as Scheer wrote his column, smart organizations did just the opposite. Variety.com announced this month that it is removing the paid wall to its content. Worcester’s Telegram.com took down its paid wall last year. Expect more sites will do the same, especially in the magazine sector.

Scheer sent a similar letter to the San Francisco Chronicle in November.

Despite disparate backgrounds, journalists have a lot in common. And that can be a problem. People who work in newsrooms are immersed in the weird of the world, covering and obsessing about what’s going wrong. The stereotypical journalist isn’t an idealist. We’re skeptics – or, “jaded” reporters and editors – tracking things down often to the point of minor obsession.

Anyway, I say all this to say that newsroom people are odd. Although we use our commonalities with the world we cover to understand it, we also must be aware of how different we are from the rest of society.

For example, the economic hardship facing the newspaper industry does not necessarily stretch outside our world. As reporters and editors are downsized, that doesn’t mean the whole country is in a recession.

Duh, right?

Here are some more practical differences from pollster John Zogby, whose recent comments at the We Media conference in Miami were summarized by Jemima Kiss.

Zogby reports that 76 percent of journalists said they are satisfied with the news, but just 27 percent of the public agreed. Such a huge difference illustrates a disconnect between what we’re providing and what the market wants.

How do people want to receive their news? Answers depend greatly on whether you work in the industry. Zogby reports that 26 percent of the media and 12 percent of the public read newspapers; 5 percent of the media and 32 percent of the public get news from TV; 60 percent of the media and 40 percent of the public get news online.

Here's a bit of a bright side from Zogby for those of us who blog about the media. Looks like we picked a good target audience: Although more than half the public said blogs are important, compare that with a whopping 86 percent of the media.

The point is that coverage and business decisions must reflect everyday people and should be based in research. Too often journalism leaders base decisions solely on their habits, as if they’re one-man microcosms of the entire world.

Via the comments in Melissa Worden's multimedia blog, don't miss one of the best points Rob Curley ever made:

Why are online journalists treated so differently at most newspapers than the print journalists are? I mean, if a print editor was planning a huge enterprise project that was going to be really special for the newspaper (and would take some resources to do successfully), would people ask that print editor how he or she was going to monetize it? Never.

With that said, a lot of the pressure to make money online is well-deserved. Our responsibility, like it or not, must be increasing Web revenues at least as fast as print revenues fall. These pressures shouldn't become so irrational, though, that good journalism is considered a frivolous expense.

Borrell Associates released a report about video advertising that offers an insightful take on what’s happening across the industry.

In 2006, newspaper-run Web sites captured about $81 million in locally spent streaming-video advertising, while local TV broadcasters captured about $32 million. Although it is small potatoes in the $280 billion U.S. advertising industry, it spotlights a fascinating phenomenon: Print media are using the Internet as a crossover platform to tap traditional TV advertisers, just as TV stations (and others) are trying to use the Internet to tap traditional print advertisers.

Local newspapers are emphasizing video while local TV stations are focusing on classified advertising. Can both be making the right move?

If newspapers make enough inroads into the video market, then they’ll attract advertisers that TV Web sites can’t afford to lose in the long run. On the flip side, if local TV stations succeed at stealing classifieds revenue, I doubt it will have much effect on newspapers. After all, they’re already losing that money at the hands of Monster, Craigslist and company.

TV Web sites ought to wake up before it’s too late. It should be embarrassing and alarming that newspapers earned $49 million more in video advertising revenue. This should be solidly TV money. But as slow as newspapers might be in moving online, television stations are even slower.

Finally, it looks like we get to eat someone else’s lunch.

Attention all executives with your heads buried in the sand, here's a report for you. The World Association of Newspapers says it has discovered that newspaper circulation isn't declining. Nope. Everything's fine.

And next the researchers are working on a study about whether we really landed on the moon. The facts are still out on that one, apparently.

OK, so I made up the second study. But they're responsible for the first one.

Here's what the group's CEO, Timothy Balding, said about the report:

What we are seeing completely contradicts the conventional wisdom that newspapers are in terminal decline. Newspapers are doing far better than commonly believed. In fact, the figures confirm that the industry is healthy and vigorous and is successfully dealing with increasing competition from other media. The fashion of predicting the death of newspapers should be exposed for what it is -- nothing more than a fashion, based on common assumptions that are belied by the facts.

I've chosen to make fun of this report because I think most of you will find it as absurd as I do. Thanks to Fishbowl for pointing it out.

A growing culture change and fear that the printed page might die are sending more reporters and editors to my desk. Everyone has an idea; a lot of which are good. Here’s how I decide which projects make the list, and in what order.

Making the list requires two things:

1. A member of the Web team really wants the idea to become reality.

2. The right people in the newsroom show support for the idea.

Still, too many projects meet those criteria. Now, the ruthless question: Will this project generate a lot of page views in a short time period?

First, estimate how many page views the project will earn per quarter. Let’s say Project X is estimated to earn 1,000 page views per day, which is 91,000 page views per quarter. Then estimate how many hours of work it will take for the team to complete the project. Let’s say Project X requires 40 hours of your team's time to create. Now divide to find the rate of page views per work hour.

Project X generates 2,275 page views per work hour. (91,000 / 40 = 2,275)

Rinse and repeat. After every project is calculated, just sort the list and you’ve got a well reasoned schedule intended to put the biggest ROI first in line.

With any system, there are exceptions. Let’s say a project has to get done during the first quarter. Or let’s say your boss insists. Or, your boss’ boss insists. Be reasonable. Make room for good journalism that might not explode in page views.

And remember this is all based on estimates, and you could be wrong. Page views per work hour helps offer perspective, not an absolute timeline.

A new study from the University of Missouri-Columbia reports that investing in the newsroom provides a greater return on investment than sinking money into the Advertising or Circulation departments.

The researchers studied financial statements of more than 900 daily and weekly newspapers dating back 10 years. They concluded that whenever a company invested in the newsroom, it made more money.

Unfortunately, I haven’t read anything that explains the methodology of such a conclusion. But it makes rational sense and lines up with what Philip Meyer suggested in his book, “The Vanishing Newspaper.”

Still, the whole study presents a false premise. The choices in a modern world aren’t as simple as, “Do I invest in the newsroom, advertising or circulation?” The entire business model needs to be shaken and tweaked to benefit from an online-focused marketplace.

This study feeds into the journalism fairytale that if we just do better journalism, then we’ll all live happily ever after. The myriad of opportunity and challenges facing the journalism industry aren’t solved just by adding more reporters to the budget.

They are solved by confronting the hard realities and doing something about them.

Tribune Co. has sued Fox News, accusing the network of ripping off the name of its youth-targeted tabloid “Red Eye” and using it for a late-night talk show.

Fox’s explanation boils down to “Oops.” TVNewser, where I found this story, reports that Fox failed to do a trademark search before picking the name. Now the FNC Web site lists the show as simply, “Greg Gutfeld's Show."

Obviously, they’ve got some real creative geniuses over at FNC. First they steal a name. Then, they replace it with the television equivalent of naming your dog, “Dog.”

Everyone should read this story from the IHT, although it only begins to explain how one Norwegian newspaper built its online business into 20 percent of its profit. That number is anticipated to become 60 percent next year for the company, Schibsted.

Thanks to Mathew Ingram for pointing out the story. Here are the high points, as I see them:

• Leaders recognized early on that the Web competes with newspapers. Instead of letting competitors emerge, they decided to compete against themselves.
• The newspaper used the Web to expand coverage into nearby geographies that are outside its traditional print boundaries.
• Some coverage was divided into niche Web sites that report only on business, for example. Not everything is lumped into one giant newspaper Web site.
• New Web sites are designed as classifieds standalone and search standalone, ensuring the newspaper company the title of market leader.

Special note: Unfortunately, the IHT story's statement that online business comprises 20 percent of Schibsted's revenue conflicts with the company's own Web site, which says it's actually 20 percent of the profit. That's a big difference, not just a semantic one. I've gone with the number cited on the company's Web site. Truthfully, I don't know that 20 percent of profits is even noteworthy now that I'm thinking about it. Originally, I wrote this based on the IHT's understanding that it's 20 percent of revenues.

Included below is an explanation from Kaupthing analyst Dag Sletmo, who was kind enough to respond via e-mail to my questions about why he predicts online business will grow into 60 percent of all Schibsted revenues this year. You'll remember that the International Herald-Tribune based a rather glowing story on Kaupthing's forecasts. If what Sletmo says gets confusing, don’t worry, I’ll explain below. But I want to put his comments here in raw form first:

Sixty percent of earnings from online is less spectacular than it sounds. It was maybe 50 percent in 2006 on an UNDERLYING basis. By underlying, we mean ex project costs. Schibsted is investing heavily in new projects, primarily within Internet, and these are charged directly through the P&L; although they, in an economic sense, are investments (which should have been put on the balance sheet and appear in the P&L; as depreciation).

If the 50 percent of earnings from online grows by 30 percent this year, and the "old" stuff grows at 5 percent, you are close to 60 percent.

Another point which is relevant in this context and widely misunderstood by investors; what matters in the print to online migration is EARNINGS, not sales. This is against financial intuition, which says sales is what matters when growing a business. In this case, it doesn’t apply due to very different margins and business models/dynamics (one key element is the disconnection of the actual printing, the paper and physical distribution - this is not part of the core product and is very low margin)

The thing that confuses people is the statement on the Schibsted Web site that online business accounts for 20 percent of profits. But Sletmo said that number not only is slightly outdated but also includes costs that he considers capital investment instead of expenses. If investments are not treated as expenses, then the share of profits generated in 2006 by online business increases to about 50 percent.

Sletmo expects online earnings to increase by 30 percent year-over-year while print revenue (and anything else considered "old") will increase only 5 percent year-over-year. The slow growing “old” revenue and fast growing Internet revenue has the effect of increasing online profit share quickly.

Just to be clear: This idea of treating new online expenses as investment isn't common here in the United States, at least not that I know of. More commonly these costs are treated as expenses when reporting profit margins, etc.

And when I contacted the media relations folks at Schibsted, they seemed to include investments as expenses in the figures they reported, saying online business accounted for 14 percent of total revenues and 28 percent of profits in 2006.

I totally agree with Sletmo’s distinction that when transitioning media businesses to the Web, the important thing to watch becomes earnings and not total revenues. This is because costs of doing business online are much smaller than in traditional models. And that makes a big difference. The question becomes: Can the media business shed the costs of its "old" business fast enough to keep pace with the transition of advertisers and other sales to online?

I’ve said before that it’s important to learn the teachings of Craigslist. Use the lessons to compete more effectively. Lesson No. 1 from Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster: Pace yourself. In a podcast with OUT-LAW, he says keep costs of doing business online low and the margins healthy, then grow slowly.

You don't have to be in a big rush as long as the trend is going in the right direction, and if you keep your costs low it gives you far more flexibility than you otherwise would have.

Newspapers used to be good at patience, with a reputation for slow, almost lumbering changes. But my concern is that the more modern corporate think of cost-cutting and profit maximizing is reincarnating itself as page view greed. It is possible to over-maximize profit per page view if it comes at the expense of users.

Consider what Buckmaster said happened to our print counterparts.

Newspapers as an industry are still twice as profitable as the average United States industry . . . Journalism as practiced at newspapers has been hurt by an excess of money over the years as you've seen newspapers bought and sold and consolidated into large chains run by corporate managers to maximize profit, and increasingly over decades have resorted to running wire stories, putting an ever-greater proportion of advertising into their newspapers and . . .

Etc. Etc. We know the list of cuts better than Buckmaster. Funny that one of our most prominent new competitors is lecturing us about what used to be our core mission. Newspapers, like Craigslist, exist first as a reader service.

With the recent surge of pressure to quickly move newspaper business online, don’t lose focus on the service we’re providing. To some extent, that’s what Rob Curley was saying a few days ago.

Growth isn’t a goal; it’s the effect of being a good service.

As a reader of The New York Times Magazine, I much appreciate the expose' on flimsy stapling reported by Gawker. That damn thing is so hard to read.

As one commenter points out, there are no staples on the Internet. Thank God.

Online journalists have a lot of bosses. Don’t we? Beyond the individual who signs your paycheck are a host of people with a lot of expectations.

First, the readers, who have too many expectations to list. Second, the newsroom. Reporters and editors expect us to expand their reporting online. They expect us to know how. And they expect us to be fast. Or, more to the point, to be the fastest. Satisfying the newsroom is vital to a successful Web site because a good relationship means more news, idea generation, participation and ultimately a better product.

Luckily, satisfying the newsroom is also the path to satisfying the readers. And satisfying the readers helps impress another important boss – the advertisers.

Yes, you’re expected to create a site that advertisers think is worthy of spending money on. And when you’ve don’t that, usually, you’ve satisfied another boss: The corporate executives who expect you to rescue the company.

An old expression holds true here. “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.”

So which do you choose?

What I've said above seems to imply that if you could please the newsroom 100 percent of the time, then everyone else in the chain would be happy. I think that's true. But I also think the expression is wrong. You can't please some of the people all of the time when staffing is short.

The big story leading today's newscasts is the sudden drop in the stock market. Stocks had their worst one-day drop since 9/11. So how did newspaper stocks fare? Here's how Marketwatch reported it:

Among newspaper publishers, New York Times Co. was down 3.4% to $24.57; Tribune Co. fell 2.8% to $29.94; Gannett Co. fell 2% to $61.70; Lee Enterprises Inc. shed 4.3% to $32.75; Media General Inc. gave up 3.3% to $41.28; and Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of MarketWatch, fell 3.6% to $35.86.

No immunity for newspapers.

The Academy Awards becomes the latest group to insist that YouTube take down clips of its copyrighted broadcast, Variety reports.

The clips that were removed are not available on Oscar.com, but the Academy folks said they're taking action to protect their brand. Expect to see more and more of this. Unless . . .

At the end of the Variety story, there's this important tidbit:

On Monday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Reuters that YouTube will soon make technology available to media companies that will enable them to prevent the unauthorized uploading of their content.

If that happens, expect to see altogether fewer and fewer clips.