A Recipe for Newspaper Survival in the Internet Age 349
I've spent seven years working as a writer and editor for Slashdot's parent company. During this
time I've been to at least a dozen mainstream journalists' and editors'
conferences where the most-asked question was, "How do we adapt to the
Internet?" You'd think, with all the smart people working for
newspapers, that by now most of them would have figured out how to use
the Internet effectively enough that it would produce a significant
percentage of their profits. But they haven't. In this essay I will
tell you why they've failed to adapt, and what they must do if they want to survive in a world where the
Internet dominates the news business.
I'm going to use the Bradenton
Herald as an example, not because it's a bad
newspaper but because I live in the middle of its circulation area. The
Herald is a typical Knight
Ridder small-city newspaper in every way except one: it
serves Manatee
County, an area with a fast-growing
population where most new residents are old enough
that they grew up reading newspapers every day. Despite these favorable
factors, the Herald's circulation has declined by 3.5% in the last
year. Of course, newspaper circulation declines are now
normal rather than exceptional. Other newspapers have done far worse,
with the San Francisco Chronicle recording a 16.4% drop in the last six
months alone.Readership vs. Circulation
Much of the Chron's circulation decrease was because it stopped giving away free papers. The Boston Globe also stopped a giveaway program and suffered a circulation decline as a result, although only about half as big a loss as the Chron's, but the Globe's marketing people have said that only half of the loss came from stopping the giveaways, and blamed the rest of it on the usual suspects, notably TV and the Internet.
These figures only measure paper newspaper circulation. They don't include Web readership, which generally seems to be trending (slowly) upwards on newspaper Web sites. Circulation figures can also be misleading because they only measure the total number of newspapers distributed, not the kind of people who read them. And readership quality can often be more important, in a business sense, than quantity. This is especially true for those newspapers (namely, just about all of them) that rely on advertising for the bulk of their income.
By definition, anyone who reads a newspaper online at home can afford a computer and an Internet connection, which means they aren't at the very bottom of the economic pile. Online readers are also likely to be more open to new experiences, products, and services than those who don't feel they need to use the Internet -- which by some estimates may be as many as half of all households within the Herald's circulation area, which has a higher percentage of retirees than all but a few other U.S. counties.
Journalism professor Douglas Fisher and media executive Alan Mutter have both talked about intentional circulation losses on their blogs. In his post, Fisher says, "The industry evolves to the point of small, expensive print publications and most of the 'mass' news on the Web somehow. Then, as we evolve toward paid content online will come issues such as whether a certain amount of 'base' information should be free for every person -- sort of like a public utility of information (perhaps presented as a social utility necessary in a functioning democratic society)."
Meanwhile, when newspapers talk about readership vs. circulation, they're typically trying to estimate how many people read each copy of their print product (pdf download) rather than come up with a total picture of their publication's readership, including its online presence. This is a mistake. Instead of treating their Web sites like unwelcome stepchildren, newspapers should turn them into their primary method of news delivery -- and teach their reporters, editors, and ad sales people how to work effectively with this new -- to them -- medium.
Slashdot Lessons
1. No matter how much I or any other reporter or editor may know about a subject, some of the readers know more. What's more, if you give those readers an easy way to contribute their knowledge to a story, they will.
Imagine a newspaper with a space for comments below each story on its Web site. This Slashdot story has comments directly attached to it, not tucked away from public view the way the Bradenton Herald's site hides reader comments on Bulletin Boards that aren't directly connected to any of the paper's articles or editorials. To make matters worse, the Herald's Bulletin Boards require a separate login to post. Even if you're a logged-in reader you must put in your username and password again to use them.
As a result of these posting barriers, you hardly see any reader comments on the Herald's site, and what few there are seem to come from a small group that posts over and over. Even the Herald's single (hard to find) blog, maintained by token hip-dude entertainment reporter Wade Tatangelo, draws so few daily comments that you could count them on the fingers of one hand -- and usually have four or five fingers left over.
By contrast, the Washington Post's Web site has two blogs, Achenblog and The Debate, prominently displayed on the Opinions page that almost always draw 100+ comments per post.
A truly Web-hip newspaper would not only allow but encourage reader comments on all of its stories, not just on a blog or two. With thousands of readers as fact-checkers, mistakes would rarely go uncorrected for long, and if there was any perceived bias in a controversial article, reader comments would make sure the other side got heard. Even better, a reader who witnessed an event the paper covered would be able to add his or her account of it to the reporter's, which would give other readers a richer and deeper view of it.
2. Not all readers know what they're talking about.
While some readers know more about any given topic than a professional journalist writing about it, most don't. Some, indeed, post anything about anything, including misleading or false information. This is why Slashdot has a moderation system, and why all newspaper Web sites need to have moderation systems in place before they allow reader posts attached directly to stories. Slashdot's, which is built into the code that runs the whole site, is probably too complicated for most newspapers, but everyone (including newspaper publishers) is free to download, use, and modify it. For those who don't want to use the code behind Slashdot, there are many other free (and proprietary) content management programs available that have similar -- and often simpler and less geeky -- moderation features built into them.
3. No matter what you do, some readers will post malicious and/or obscene comments
Slashdot removes posts only in response to Cease and Desist orders or legitimate copyright infringement complaints. We find that malicious or obscene posts are usually moderated into oblivion almost immediately, because our readers -- hundreds of whom have moderation power at any given moment -- have a sharp eye for stupid stuff.
A mainstream newspaper might choose to remove blatantly disgusting posts, which would take some staff time. There would also -- inevitably -- be second-guessing and complaints, including whines from readers who believed their posts were removed because they didn't follow the [fill in political party here] line, not because they used offensive language.
Moderation never makes everyone happy. Someone will always feel the rules are too loose, while someone else will believe they're too tight. And moderates -- I mean moderators -- will always get flak from ____-wingers who think they're biased. But these problems shouldn't stop grown-up newspaper people from soliciting and publishing readers' posts. They should already be accustomed to bias accusations.
4. What if readers post comments that advertisers don't like?
This is a problem, and one to which some newspapers are extremely sensitive --not just over readers' comments but sometimes over their own reporters' stories. A 1999 Washington Monthly article had some examples of how newspapers sometimes cater to advertisers instead of their readers. Allowing readers to comment on stories, and allowing them to post anything they want (other than obscenities, blatant hate speech, and personal attacks) increases readers' faith in the newspaper, which makes it a more effective advertising medium in the long run because some of that trust will rub off on advertisers that support it.
The Business Side of a Newspaper Web Site
Slashdot, like almost all other Web, broadcast, and print media outlets, depends on ad revenue for most of its income. For the first few years of its existence as a commercial entity, major advertisers were afraid to buy ads on Slashdot or other free-wheeling, community-driven sites. They worried that every time they touted a product, all the customers they'd ever irritated would post bad things about them. It's impossible to run a company of any scale without having at least a few dissatisfied customers, no matter how good your products and services are, so this was not an unjustified fear.
Luckily for Slashdot (and our parent company), many companies have learned that they are going to get criticized online whether they like it or not, so at the very worst, running ads on pages where they get slammed gives them a chance to tell their side of the story.
Keyword-based ad placement helps them do this. Imagine making software that's often knocked for its security vulnerabilities, while competing software is available that costs little or nothing and doesn't share your product's problems. You'd want to run a Get the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) campaign on every Web page where the competing product was being discussed so that you could tell people who are (obviously) interested in the competing product how awful it is, and why they should buy yours instead.
On a local newspaper Web site, a developer intent on replacing pristine wilderness along a scenic river with ugly condominium towers in the face of opposition from local citizens' groups could run a keyword-targeted campaign explaining why their buildings would be better than a swampy, mosquito-ridden riverfront. They could stress the fact that they would reduce the population of turtles, spiders, alligators, shore birds, frogs, and other annoying wildlife, and that runoff from their chemically-fertilized landscaping would help keep local fish populations down by contributing to red tide, thereby reducing the number of smelly fishermen infesting the area.
Other, more sensible, businesses would use the same tactic -- keyword ad placement -- to sponsor discussions in a positive way. An obvious example here in Florida would be resort property owners linking ads to tourism-related stories and the discussions attached to them. With geotargeting becoming common on the Web, ads aimed at visitors could be visible to all of a Florida newspaper's online readers, while ads for a local business would only be shown to local residents -- unless the local advertiser was canny enough to realize that Florida has many thousands of seasonal residents, and that reaching these snowbirds through the local newspaper's Web site before they come South is a great way to get a leg up on competitors.
Some other ways to exploit the Web that newspapers don't seem to do well:
- Print-them-yourself coupons. This is lots cheaper than putting coupons in a print newspaper. Many newspapers boast that today's paper contains $___ worth of coupon savings. Why don't more papers make this boast about their online editions? TV stations could do this on their sites, too. This would be an entirely new source of revenue for them, since there is no way to put a coupon in a TV spot.
- Online ad circulars, similar to the paper ones that pack print newspapers on Sundays and holidays. The print ones are expensive to produce and deliver, especially in color. Online circulars would be far less costly.
- Selling sponsorships for community calendars and other "public interest" sections that should be on every newspaper's Web site -- but often aren't or are produced in too scattered a manner to be useful for readers. C'mon, newspaper (and local TV) people! A well-organized, database-driven events calendar is easy to produce. If you don't have one (and sponsors for it), you should.
- Sponsored, "free to individuals and small businesses," local classifieds. craigslist and eBay are busily taking the classified ad market away from newspapers, with Google getting ready to help them with this effort. The Poynter Institute's Steve Outing suggests that the best way to beat back this threat is to "Turn newspaper classifieds into an active and interactive community, instead of just static, dull listings. A cold-hearted newspaper classifieds database could well be smothered by Google classifieds. A local-focused interactive community may be less vulnerable."
I believe the future of not only classified ads but of local news gathering and distribution is the "local-focused interactive community." According to this article, craigslist founder Craig Newmark agrees with me. So do plenty of other Web entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are busily building and financing "community" sites.
Local newspapers should have dominated all of this interactivity from the beginning. They had the name recognition and -- through their print editions -- the promotional muscle to make their Web sites into unassailable community hubs. But they didn't, and now they're reduced to playing catch-up.
If the Sarasota Herald-Tribune had followed through on its plans to incorporate reader-written blogs into its site, Suncoastblog.com probably wouldn't exist. This group blog is an admittedly lame effort, barely begun, put together by several people in this area (including me) who thought it would be nice to have a local site that might eventually cover events and places that don't make their way into the local papers. We know the Herald-Tribune, whose circulation area overlaps the Bradenton Herald's, had thought about hosting reader blogs at one point, because they asked readers to submit blog ideas several months ago. I submitted one and never heard back.
I also submitted a local computer business column concept to the Herald. I came up with it because the Herald has a Sunday business page it calls "Digital Manatee," on which I have never seen anything other than out-of-town wire service material even though there is more than enough local computer and Internet business activity to fill a weekly column, and enough local computer and computer service vendors to surround that column with profitable advertising.
The Herald's editor didn't respond to my proposal. I've written three computer-oriented books, and thousands of articles that have run online and in print all over the world, but I am apparently not worth even a polite turndown from my local paper's editor. No problem. A week later I was having lunch with a couple of local entrepreneur buddies. I told them what had happened. They suggested an online computer business magazine instead of a Herald column, and offered to finance it on the spot, out of their pockets.
I don't have time to start a new publication. But I am in a position to help someone else start one, and to write a story or two for it now and then. Financing's in place. So is a domain name. So at some point the Herald and Herald-Tribune may have (yet) another niche publication competing with them. It won't be a big competitor, but its ad revenue will come from lucrative business-to-business accounts you'd think a local newspaper would be eager to lock up with a weekly (or more frequent) column for local computer-using business people.
This doesn't mean the Herald has a bad editor or that another small paper would have reacted differently. I use this anecdote only to point out that it is now easier to start an online publication than for even a highly-qualified outsider to get his or her work into a local paper. Is it any wonder that local blogs and other online niche publications are springing up like mad? And as a corollary, is it any wonder that newspaper circulation and influence continues to decline?
Newspapers need to open up more to the communities around them. They need to stop confining their interaction with readers to advisory board meetings and questionnaires, and allow readers' stories, opinions, and thoughts to become an integral part of the newspaper itself. They should not allow readers to alter the newspaper's own words, as the Los Angeles Times did back in June with their laughable wikitorial experiment. Moderated comments are a much better way to give readers a voice. So are journals that allow (logged-in) readers the same level of freedom they'd have with their own blogs, but also give them the cachet of being published on a "major brand" Web site.
'Local' is the Key Word
The Herald, Herald-Tribune, and many other (if not most) local newspapers seem to think that they are still their readers' primary source of national and international news, just as they were 20 years ago. So that's what fills their front pages most of the time, with local and regional news stuck in a "B" or "C" section.
Welcome to the Internet age, local newspaper (and TV) people. I can and do get my national and international news from the New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News, CNN, and other online media that cover faraway events better and faster than you ever will. I turn to you for local news. You tell me more about last week's home invasion robbery on 11th Street East than they ever will.
It's time for local newspapers to become truly local; to feature local news on the front pages of both their Web sites and print editions, with only a few out-of-the-area stories up front, augmented by an above-the-fold story list that tells readers where to find national and international news on their inside pages.
Add readers' stories and comments to the mix and you suddenly have a local online community, not just a newspaper. This will not take work away from professional reporters, photographers, and editors, who will still be the foundation of local news-gathering. In fact, increased interaction with local community members will probably give them more work than ever, because they will find themselves inundated with news tips and story suggestions they never would have found on their own. Some of these story ideas will be dreck and some will be invaluable. It will be up to the newspaper's editors to find the (rare) nuggets in the huge pile of dross they will need to sort through every day, and up to the newspaper's reporters to follow up on them.
One important thing a community-oriented, Web-based newspaper must do is credit readers for their story leads unless they specifically request anonymity. Another good idea is to pay readers who submit news stories that are written well enough that they can run with only routine editing and fact-checking. Those readers are, in effect, doing a reporter's work, and they should get some sort of compensation for it. Some may even turn into stringers capable of covering government meetings and other events when staff reporters aren't available, and a few of those stringers eventually ought to become staff members. After all, if a newspaper is going to be about, by, and for its local community, shouldn't that community be its primary recruiting ground?
Newspapers Will Not Die
Some newspapers (and newspaper chains) will probably not survive the shift from news-as-monologue to news-as-dialog. Most will, although those that wait too long to adjust will have much of their audience, influence, and ad revenue taken away by more agile competitors.
The smartest newspapers will follow my survival recipe or come up with their own way to become an integral part of their community instead of a building full of people who have been sprinkled with Secret Journalism Powder that makes them better and smarter than their readers. These newspapers will not only survive, but prosper. They may even become the prime outlets for bloggers in their communities, which will increase their readership and ad revenue. Extreme ____-wing bloggers won't want their words associated with the hated Mainstream Media, but most others will be happy to have a widely-read, influential outlet for their work.
Eventually, I expect print newspapers to become "snapshots" of their Web editions taken at 1 a.m. or another arbitrary time, poured into page templates and massaged a little by layout people, then sent to the printing presses, a pattern that has potential for significant production cost reductions if handled adroitly. From that point on, their paper editions will be distributed the same way newspapers are now.
Senior citizens and others who can't afford (or don't want) computers are and will continue to be a viable market. So will commuters who use public transportation. Then there are those -- a substantial part of the population -- who simply prefer reading words and looking at pictures on paper to seeing them on a screen. They will still want physical newspapers, even if they are not as up-to-date or as complete as what they'd get on the Web.
However it is delivered, text will not go away anytime soon. For a fast reader, it is the most efficient way to take in large quantities of information. Most people speak at a rate of between 130 and 200 words per minute. Most college students, according to a Virginia Tech student guide, can read non-technical material at 250 to 300 words per minute, and can increase that reading speed significantly with a little thought and practice. Listening to a city council meeting at 150 words per minute takes much longer than reading a meeting transcript at two, three, four or ten times that speed. Now have a skilled reporter -- whether a staff member, paid contributor or volunteer -- write an intelligent summary of that meeting, and even an average reader can learn what happened there in a few minutes instead of slogging through a two hour audio or video recording.
The Web version of that summary can be posted without waiting for the printing presses and delivery trucks to roll, and can have audio or video snippets embedded in it, but there is no reason not to make the text portion of it available on paper for those who prefer it in that form, unless the paper's editors decide so few people are interested in a city council meeting that it doesn't deserve a spot in the print version -- and tracking page readership on the Web version of the paper before the paper edition goes to press should give those editors a good idea of what they should and shouldn't put on paper.
Printed newspapers will have a significant following for many years to come. They may or may not become "expensive," as Professor Fisher predicts, but they will likely become smaller than they are now, and subscription sales efforts will probably be targeted more closely at groups unlikely to have Internet connections, especially senior citizens.
On the Web side, it's likely that newspapers will end up keeping most of their content free, with specialty sections (and posting privileges) reserved for logged-in users. Whether they'll be able to charge for some or all of their Web content is questionable. I paid $50 for a year's subscription to the NYT's Times Select program, and I don't think it's a good enough value that I'll renew my subscription when it runs out. I would be more likely to pay if I lived in New York and that subscription, in addition to what it gives me now, offered access to additional features like complete transcripts of government meetings. Indeed, I would happily pay at least $30 per year to the Bradenton Herald for a well-organized Web edition that gave me what I now get in the paper edition, plus government meeting transcripts and other useful subscriber-only features.
But if I paid for an online subscription to the Herald, I'd probably drop my subscription to the paper edition. I'd still be the same person, with the same interests, earning power and spending habits. The only thing that would change about me, from the newspaper's perspective, would be my news delivery preference.
The challenge for local newspapers that beef up their Web editions at the expense of their paper versions won't be to keep (or add) readers, but to teach advertisers that the Web, not paper, is the best way to reach their most lucrative potential customers.
This may not be easy, but it will be a lot easier than explaining to advertisers why they should keep spending money in a newspaper that has fewer readers, and less influence, every year.
Newspapers are dead. Long live newspapers. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know when I fly (which seems to be every other day) I prefer to read a paper than fire up my computer to read a downloaded electronic format paper. Why? It is, interestingly enough, relaxing, even for me...a geek.
VERY interesting article Robin. Thanks for sharing.
You'd think, with all the smart people working for (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You'd think, with all the smart people working (Score:5, Insightful)
WOW - Great writeup Rob (Score:4, Insightful)
Fear of change just like the big auto makers (Score:2, Insightful)
When I look at the big newpapers out there, I am reminded of the big auto makers of the past like GM, Ford, etc. They are so used to doing business the way they did decades ago and are hesitant to change. This is somewhat understandable because it worked for so long. Now look at GM, they are hurting bad because they haven't adapted to the changing times. Back in the 70's when gas was expensive for a period, America kept making gas guzzlers, while Japan focused on fuel efficient designs. Gas prices eased up and the American auto makers start cranking out minivans and SUVs that are just as bad as the cars in the 60's. Once again Japan comes through and put a lot of effort into hybrids and alternative energy sources. American auto companies are feeling the sting once again. Now as for newspapers, the tone is similar. Many smaller bloggers and independent reporters are gathering a large following because they give the public what they want... important news easily available online for free. The big papers like the New York Times still insist on stupid registration which pushed potential readers away. They should be focusing on getting as many readers as possible and the advertising revenue will flow. Just look at Google.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]The Internet is not the real problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well that's just it. There aren't allot of "smart people" working for newspapers. Don't get me wrong, the writers and editors (as we just saw) think they are smart, but they are the only ones who believe that. As the internet has developed society has started to hold them more accountable, and as it turns out they plagiarize continually, make up facts, or outright lie/misquote people. Jason Blaire anyone? Dan Rather?
I'd say the mainstream newspaper's biggest problem (e.g. new York Times) is they are reporting OPIOIN more then news (I'm talking about in the news section not just the op-ed). A bigger problem for them is that most people in the country disagree with those opinions.
Blogs have become so popular because people are getting to see some insightful commentary other then the dribble we get from the self proclaimed "smart people" in the media. The problem for the newspapers is their staff, not the internet.
Long Article and Attention Span (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called an "in depth" article. Actually, it is typical for the length of article you saw in a major newspaper on a regular basis before the days of the internet.
Compare this with common blogs, and other similar media since the dawn of the television age.
yes there is more information about more things, but I think you could make an argument that the breadth of content has expanded at the cost of depth. Much content has become more shallow, because of the length of time it takes to type up, say, as a comment to slashdot, when you are rushing to get your thoughts online early in the chain of comments.
it takes time to develop an in depth knowledge of something, time that people are less willing to develop, blaming it on ADHD or whatever, when a summer without electronic technology in a library of dead tree edition books would be a start to a good cure.
I can pay a buck for the Sunday paper (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, I can browse to a website for free and nuke the ads with Adblock.
I guess someone's definition of a "relaxing read" is purely generational.
Re:Smart People? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Internet is not the real problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Newspapers are dead. Long live newspapers. (Score:4, Insightful)
My problem with them is (Score:5, Insightful)
They all seem to have some major backer that I don't feel I can trust to give me honest, unbiased news.
Oh, and before you start, I know that they aren't the most reliable source ever to get information but to be entirely honest with you, I would rather get my news from 100 blogs of different positions than from the New York Times, The Wallstreet Journal, or any of my local papers.
At least then I can pick through the crap, mix together the different points of view and come out with a fairly wellrounded understanding of things.
(That is also why I don't watch television news, but they have a whole other type of corruption going on there!!! *coughs..fox *coughs*)
Re:Newspapers are dead. Long live newspapers. (Score:3, Insightful)
May be just may be we need to rethink what Newspapers are essentially meant for in this modern age. Certainly the "news" in newspapers is old by the time they go to print. So what is the benefit to the consumer to subscribe to a newspaper? Your reasoning could be valid - relaxing. But how many people feel that way? I do enjoy a lazy sunny afternoon break where I can catch my breath and get a cup of coffee and read newspaper. Its certainly relaxing, but at the same time I am not looking for "news". I already know it by then. In fact, by the time I am done reading the first paragraph I am bored. So may be newspapers need to shift focus.
Just telling me what happened might not be enough. It is all over the TV channels, online blogs and even if you missed all that, your know-it-all cubicle neighbor will make sure that you know about it. Now that means the obvious solution might be opinion or editorials etc. But there is already a section for that. But I think they should occupy front page headlines. How about editorials on the current events on front page? Since people already know what has happened, how about giving people an in-depth story about it. Going local is a key concept that the author discussed. How about editorials on local stuff? Forget about war on Iraq and ID. They are being beten to death on news channels and national newspapers.
I am not trying to provide a solution, I am just saying to that just "news" in newspaper will mean zero circulation eventually.
Re:Newspapers are dead. Long live newspapers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Newspaper circulation is in decline. [stateofthenewsmedia.org] Evening newspapers (popular for closing stock information) have declined the fastest, but the overall trend is not encouraging. Since 1970 the number of us households has approximately doubled, but newspaper circulation has decreased slightly. This coupled with recent drops of 2.6 percent in the last six months [businessweek.com] paint a bleak picture.
It is naive to say that there will always be newspapers. It is like saying there will always be record players. Digital technology will eventually destroy newspapers. Even if someday they get replaced by high res flexible digital "paper", the traditional model of a printed paper that has to be distributed is doomed. It is simply too expensive.
Re:Smart People? (Score:3, Insightful)
You forgot the PUNS, PUNS, PUNS!
It's bad enough that they're in the headlines, let alone the article text itself. Also, I love how they embolden (or is it italicise?) the puns, just incase the drooling readers can't spot them as-is.
Re:Advertising model won't die (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet the best form of advertising today is not advertising at all. It is an amazing free market resource that can never be regulated nor disturbed, and the Internet allowed it to come to complete fruition.
Consumer Rating.
Yes, you can find out about products from a TV commercial (or skip it). You can find out about products in a mailer (or throw them out). The future is to just make quality products, and let the new huge version of "word of mouth" carry you to success. Have you seen how many products on Amazon's top 100,000 are not actually massively advertised? It blows my mind.
The best advertising for any product is word of mouth, and that only comes through providing a great product or a great service. When you treat your customers with respect, you can always ask them to "write a review if you were happy or unhappy." Don't be shy about.
Will this allow someone to sell millions of a certain product? In time, yes.
To expand on your comment (Score:3, Insightful)
The internet has allowed individuals to challenge the accuracy and fairness of the newspaper and broadcast television industry. No longer do people just blindly accept what they read in their local paper or see on the nightly news. They are now exposed to many views and many sources of information. This brings about higher scrutiny of what the newspaper or nightly news tells them.
Another problem with newspapers is they tend to be based in big cities and have a big city mindset which is does not always connect to those who might work in the city but live outside of it. Local small town papers are viable until the larger neighbor city buys it up and shuts it down (the Atlanta Journal Constitution has done this where I live). This action alone forces more people to look elsewhere for information.
Still I think the key is the egotistical outlook of papers and broadcast media that they control what the truth is has come to and end. They just don't accept it.
People now are much better picking out when a story is more opinion/editorial than factual compared to the editors of the same.
Re:Smart People? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only qualifications for a reporter are that anything Planned Parenthood and the Right to Choose are just wonderful, and only Abortion Clinic Bombers would thing otherwise. That, and We All Hate Bush. Dan Rather still cant' figure out why he was fired, his TANG story evidence "was falsified, but the story was still true." Yeah, that's the ticket.
The public isn't just bored with today's J-majors, it holds in contempt their advertisers. I'd go on, but why dummy up chumps?
Re:You'd think, with all the smart people working (Score:3, Insightful)
Got any facts on your assumption? Doubt it.
You miss the whole point of reporting. They're not supposed to be experts. They're not supposed to put their own knowledge in the article at all. They're supposed to go out and find experts, and put their knowledge in the article. By your logic, a random guy who can write and knows some physics is more qualified to write than a person who can write well (and they can, despite what you seem to think), and gets their information from an expert in the field.
Not there are not problems with modern journalism...When everything is owned by a corporation, then they're priting stuff that they think will increase their sales, and not offend their subscribers. Not anywhere near as bad as TV, but still.
Nutjobs with blinders (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You'd think, with all the smart people working (Score:2, Insightful)
What's missing from the news? (Score:1, Insightful)
The saddest comment on this fact, is that even back at the turn of the 19th century, Thomas Jefferson wrote about this saying:
"The only truth to found in the newspapers is in the advertising."
As long as there is an agenda in your reporting, I will not pay for it.
Misleading article. (Score:3, Insightful)
Jim Lileks has been touting the solution [lileks.com] for a couple of years now - and it's not (as the slashdot article proposes) by attempting to compete where your strengths are not. (We have a newish local paper that's been following that advice for a couple of years now... And it's circulation is growing, at the current rates of growth in that paper and decline of the 'traditional' paper, they'll cross in another few years.) The author of the slashdot article eventually gets around to this point but again confuses newspapers and web boards.
MSM as Content-Providers (Score:3, Insightful)
In the old 80/20 economy newspapers could offset this by having control of the market: to get any news, consumers had to pay for all of the news they deemed to print. Now users are just as able to find their news elsewhere, specialized down to just what they're looking for (the sport's score, the stock-tip, the local police blotter).
And the long-tail doesn't meant he death of the newspaper either, it just means a change in scope. A short, intelligent article on the East Flagstaff Chronicle might get linked up by thousands of blogs and register hundreds of thousand hits from an international audience that might have never read the paper (and probably won't ever again). Smart advertising (Google Ads, Slashvertisements) could customize to the suddenly exponentially larger (and divergent) readership. Local content and editorial that is easily aggregatable and paid via micropayment (or by targetted advertisement) would satisfy the consistent local demand and the papers would thrive (i.e. I'm not going to read the Baltimore Sun for analysis of my Cleveland Browns). This is how the wire services have always been (the only difference being that the papers would no longer be middlemen between wire reports and the readers).
There will always be a demand for international news/editorial and the well-worn names (NYT, WaPo, WSJ) can provide a similar service for news of national and international content. And as much as we like to think our opinions are ours alone, most of them are driven by these very MSM sources we read. Remove that and the content quality of these blog/web communities would drop off savagely from its already debateable level of quality. The only lethal fallacy would be to assume things have never changed, that they can still charge for the whole cow when we just want the milk.
Re:Smart People? (Score:4, Insightful)
They just don't get it. A small paper in a saturated market can't grow revenue every year. In the market I'm in, we're bumping up against the effing LITERACY rate...We'd have to TEACH PEOPLE TO READ to sell more papers. But our budgeted profits are still targeted higher every year, so we have to cut and scrimp to make budget so we can make a 31% profit instead of a 29% profit, and squeezed to the bone, quality drops, and when quality drops, people stop subscribing, and then we have to cut yet still more to make 32% for next year.
Then magically, one day the company is in the toilet and they're trying to sell, and all the while the stockholders are complaining because the profits aren't big enough. Oy. If I could find a place to put my money where I'd make 25% a year, I'd do it and retire.
Blogs repurpose, they don't report (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW you've somehow missed the most essential architecture element of any newspaper--the wall between reporting and editorial. I agree that a blogger's editorial is not inherently any better or worse than a newspaper editors. But as I said above, pretty much no bloggers compete with the reporting side of newspapers. And reporting is the lifeblood and essence of newspapers, not editorial. Without reporting there is not editorial or blogging. That's not arrogance, that's a fact.
richer content, increased community buy-in, etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
I probably overlooked a few overlaps, but here are some ideas that I don't see you mentioning, tied to your 'community news' theme:
Take advantage of the web-news' ability to add color, and take advantage of locals carrying digital cameras everywhere. Don't be afraid to let your online edition gradually become indistinguishable from a streaming-content-enriched website for CNN or some TV station, even. After all, large color photos on newsprint is expensive and paper-based A/V streams are impossible -- but online, it becomes stupid-cheap. Rather than just web-publishing the same single-best image from last night's high-school game, have the best shot in the paper and then link to your website's five, ten or twenty best photos. Let readers write captions (to identify players, etc). Content-overload should be your motto everywhere: include edited highlights, unedited footage, streaming-audio archives of town meetings, etc. Embrace coral-cache and bittorrent, whereever possible. To use a business cliche, try to eat local TV's lunch!
While slashdot seems incapable of growing a substantial and credible trusted-expert base (sorry for the knock), it is reasonable for sub-million-population communities to grow a large, trusted group of regular readers that are recognized as impartial, interested topical experts, and grant them minor editorial powers. Rather than a 12-member reader's advisory board, aim for dozen or more such groups, each on a field of expertise or interest: town planning, public meetings, sports, crime, courts, restaurants, local politics, summarizers or aggregators of state or national political news with local impact, entertainment and music, outdoors/activities, events, technology, businesses, state news aggregators, national or international news aggregators, etc. For example, let any 'vetted' enthusiast provide any local sport stats, even if you've never covered scuba-lacrosse before. Unlike with large anonymous sites, locals face the loss of privileges and a tarnished daily reputation if they act unscrupulously or doctor things, so they usually WON'T! The goal here is twofold: you answer the locals who regularly complain you're not covering 'their' favorite news adequately, and you embrace a commonly-stated strength that newspapers have over other media: readership studies consistently show that people turn to newspapers for DETAIL and DEPTH in the stories that interest them.
Never forget: a news *website* doesn't need to restrict the quantity of news or data... you're not limited to a single page of local sports in the online edition. Find ways (like the many-advisory-boards above) to enable trusted locals to write and peer-edit or moderate things. Spend your editorial time choosing the gems that ripple up in those categories to your printed edition, rather than restricting your content because you're overworked.
I didn't see roblimo mention anything about NY Times vs. WSJ editorials: the former has deemed editorials 'premium' content, the latter gives them away freely. Early results seem to show that the WSJ got it right: pushing editorial content acts as a draw to a news website while increasing a paper's prestige and increasing their impact on public discourse. Charging for it so far has caused NYT to diminish both their ability to influence public policy and their overall readership. Recognize that anything that grabs eyeballs (and ad viewership) increases ad revenues.
Color reprints (of images or archive pages) are an income prospect (Local TV stations, the same thing goes for your news/video footage!) Whe
Re:You'd think, with all the smart people working (Score:1, Insightful)
Newspapers refuse to accept the web for what it is (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead,
They started with a pretty basic website that only covered the daily headlines. They finally revamped the website a few years ago and added the ability to look up some history and read the dialy paper online. When they updated the website, they made it subscription only except for subscribers of the newspaper. Of course, if you get the newspaper, why would you want to read it online. If you enjoy reading it online, why get the physical paper. If you don't get the physical paper, then you must pay a monthly fee to view the online content.
Even with the subscription, their online paper is small, has hardly any useful information. History only goes back a few years and contains no photos. They have no image gallery, all images are very small when they even include images. They not only don't have any type of community interaction on the website, they hide their email addresses so they don't get hassled with stupid questions (I emailed them with a question and told them how difficult it was to find their email address, thats when they told me they don't like to be hassled with questions). On top of everything else their site uses flash for the main menu and looks like a 4th grade class website project.
A few years ago I applied for a webmaster job at the newspaper and was turned down without an interview. They probably hired someone with a bachelors in english who took an html class in college.
I saw an opportunity to take advantage of their completely ignorant approach to a website. I started my own local website. I started it about 3 years ago and am still going strong
1) Bought an expensive digital camera with a shitload of memory and on the weekends I travel around the region taking photos, ~25,000 so far. I then go through my photos and pick the best and photoshop them into perfection.
2) Using a public domain mapping service, I create custom maps with directions for each city, cemetery, school and so on.
3) Bought a cheap GPS and take coordinates and altitude everyplace I go to take pictures. If someone wants to go stand in the exact spot I took a picture from, they can.
4) Didn't set up a forum but more of a community message board were people promote their local business, website, event or whatever for free.
5) Searched the internet and created a database of every local website I could find. New websites can fill out a simple one line form to get their websites added.
6) I write one article a week posted on the front page with information about a place to visit in the area or a recent major event. I also include plenty of photos.
7) I built a local search using the hand picked websites for the area ~1,500. It's not as powerful as a google search but their is 0% spam in the results.
8) I just use google for the ads. If a local place wants to put ads on my website, they can deal with google. I am actually shocked at the amount of local ads through google since I am the only website I know of in the region that uses adsense. No sales staff, no dealing with customers, no haggling over prices, and no bounced checks all equals more time to add content.
So on just the weekends, with a staff of 1 and almost no budget, I have built an interactive local website with ~6,000 pages of free searchable content covering the same region as the local newspaper. They have a staff of 75+ (not including paper boys) in a large downtown office building. For non-subscribers, their website has 3 small daily photos and headlines with news that cuts off after the first paragraph.
Newspapers make NEWS! Blogs make BLAH! (Score:1, Insightful)
Newspapers do two important things
1) They filter the news
2) They present it in a highly portable and acccessible format
Blogs are a supplement: hardly ever an original source of news. They point to news ON ANOTHER WEBSITE - usually a newsaper's or magazine's, or another article on a website that itself is referencing a newspaper or magazine. They're yet another source of commentary and opinion. Occasionally insightful, usually honest about their bias, but frankly...
Give me ONE real news story for every HUNDRED commentary/opinion columns.
Commentary/opinion may help focus your views on a pre-existing story, but answer this: how many news stories were broken by blogs recently? And how many by newspapers?
A newspaper's main advantage is its reporting team. Maybe 4,000 bloggers can dig up a nugget that a reporter can't, but who has the time to read 4000 blogs? Contrary to popular belief most news stories don't come from guys in trilby hats doing private detective work. They come from leaks. Corporate and political leaks. Those people are going to call the papers, or TV media. They're not going to leak to some blog. They're taking a risk so they're going to get the bang for their buck.
A newspaper has heaps of useability advantages over an internet access point: weight, portability, power requirements, even 'scrolling speed'. Don't talk to me about PDAs and wireless broadband. You've got a PDA with a broadsheet-sized screen that you read on the train? You pick up your laptop from the breakfast table and carry it to read at the bus stop?
The man's right, news is local. This is not a commercial rule, it's basic human nature. Problems with the new traffic lights at 5th street are more important to you than 100 Nigerians dying in a train accident. But local news means a smaller advertising pool. Which is a big minus for media diversity. In other words: for local news it's either a few big media outlets or amateur hour.