07newsroom

My Star-Ledger Is Free; So Is NJ.com

We were in Chicago over the weekend, and I saw a fascinating hedline in The Chicago Tribune. It wasn't on a news story -- it was on an ad distributed with the paper. Subscribe to The Trib for $1 a week.

That seemed like a good deal for readers, but I guess there will be plenty of people in the Tribune circulation area who still won't take the deal. It's not because they don't want to pay for content -- it's that they don't value the experience of sitting down and leafing through a printed newspaper. Listen to nonreaders: rather than cite a newspaper as a convenience, they'll complain about papers stacking up, about the inconvenience of having to put paper out on recycling day.

Back in North Jersey, The Star-Ledger landed on our front lawn this morning, just as it has many weekdays and every Sunday for about two months. One problem: we don't subscribe to the paper. We didn't ask for the paper, we don't get billed by the Star-Ledger and we don't pay for delivery. The printed Star-Ledger costs me exactly what it costs me to read the same content on NJ.com -- nothing.

I used to work as an editor in Philadelphia, where I had plenty of meetings with marketing, circulation and sales people. I also participated in focus groups and reviewed studies about readership. 

Do readers pay for content? Ask your circ people and your marketing people how they get new subscribers. They can cite stats on kiosk sales, direct mail, phone banks. It costs money to sign up a subscriber -- even for just 13 weeks. Most big city metros have high levels of churn. In Philadelphia, a huge response to news or commentary was dwarfed by other factors. When a political endorsement angered readres and resulted in something like 600 cancelations, we learned that more people had canceled in that same period because they had died. Do readers pay for content? Turn the question around: what do papers pay for a new sub? I recall seeing figures from $30 to $50 a sub. Anyone have more current figures?

The marketing people study this all the time. Read the direct mail pieces they send out -- pieces  scripted to maximize results. There is very little there about news coverage, but plenty about utility and convenience.

We had some conversations, too, about the number of people who ever said they canceled because the news was available free online. If you are talking to your circ people, ask for that figure. They usually do exit interviwes with at least a sample of readers who cancel. If the number who cite free content online was a notable number, the circ people would be pounding on the editor's door. Silence on that count told me all I needed to know when I met with them.

I asked another question: how many new subscriptions came over the transom, with readers who unsolicitied went to the paper's website and ordered the paper. I forget the exact number now, but it was in the thousands, and the circ department valued those readers -- they always provided credit card information so they never had to be billed.

Steve Buttry of Gazette Communications has stirred the pay wall conversation with an insightful post on his blog. Other bright minds, including Tim O'Brien of The NYTimes and the media critic Bill Wyman have also kept the converstaion moving along. I have a question for Tim, who lives near me in North Jersey -- do you receive a free Star-Ledger, too?

Buttry is trying to move the conversation past the pay-no-pay point to a discussion about other ways a multi-platform and multi-media newsroom can help partner with businesses that need to reach customers. That will be the way to build revenue for news organzations. That's the important conversation Buttry keeps prodding smart editors and publishers into joining.

The heated discussion illuminates many points, but nothing makes the point quite as clear as the pound and a half of newsprint dropped on my lawn this morning -- free of charge.

-- Carl Lavin

Where Can The AP Find Content Theft? In The Mirror.

Yes, I enjoy working with many AP staffers and I am fortunate to have a number of friends among the nearly 4,000 people at The Associated Press. The AP's best work, on Guantanamo inmates and on recipients of federal bank-bailout money, is terrific. But the AP vow that it will be diligent about protecting the intellectual property of newspapers makes my Spidey sense tingle.

One of the worst offenders is the AP itself. The bread and butter of an Associated Press report is not global or national enterprise reporting, it's quick rip and rewrite work that rebrands and distributes newspaper content. Sometimes, the name of the paper that did the work is part of the AP package. Often it is left out. Nothing Google does will destroy brand value as fast as repackaging original content and omitting all credit.

In a few minutes of searching just now, I stumbled on a typical situation. An Iowa paper, the Des Moines Register, ran an article about hospital budget cuts.  A short while later, there was an AP story about hospital budget cuts from Iowa. In this case, the AP piece on the Chicago Tribune website actually credits the Des Moines paper. Often, too often, there is no such credit.

The AP is a collective and any AP member has a right to the locally generated news report of other members. Very occasionally, a story from one paper will run on a state wire as is -- with full credit to the paper where the story started. As every newspaper editor knows, the more common situation is content laundering -- the AP does a very light rewrite, strips away any credit, and allows any other paper to use the story.

Typically, this is a big portion of a state or regional wire report. When I worked in Pennsylvania, for example, where there is a talented and hard-working AP crew, it was common for the AP state wire to serve up stories to members that were essentially uncredited rewrites from local newspapers.

What if the AP simply distributed the original stories -- allowing content to be shared among members as it was published, without an AP reporter making a call to confirm information or rewriting the article. That would be a real content-sharing cooperative, similar to cooperatives springing up in Florida, Ohio, New York and New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Maine.

Is Google the enemy? Or is it a long-standing practice of rebranding and re-distributing content under the AP flag that is really hurting newspaper companies? If the AP wants to expand its search for content theft, a good place to start would be a long look in the mirror.

The 2009 Newspaper War: Where Are The Generals?

The newspaper war in 2009 is not among  competing newsrooms and it's not a squabble over scoops. It's a war against declining revenue.

Total ad sales reached almost $50 billion a year as recently as 2006. Last year the figure dropped to $38 billion. This year, with another 17 percent drop expected, at least one estimate forecasts total 2009 sales at $31 billion.

Total newspaper employment is down, but the drop is not keeping pace. New numbers, which should be available in April, are likely to show 5,000 fewer jobs for reporters, editors and other journalists -- for a new total of around 47,000 remaining news jobs at newspaper companies.

But with circulation declines and rising newsprint prices, the falling ad revenue means executives of newspaper companies will have to make more cost-cutting moves, and make them soon.

For several years, these top executives have made modest course corrections. For example, The New York Times, after spending $1 billion for a new printing plant in Edison, N.J., closed the plant last year. The photo above, though, shows the Times company has not had much luck getting a tenant. (Photo by Lauren Shay Lavin.)

In Philadelphia, the owners of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News haven't sold the headquarters building in Center City. If they had done a sale-leaseback, the bankruptcy filing for the holding company might have been delayed.

Profits are so low, that a US Senator, Benjamin Cardin, has proposed legislation allowing publishers to reorganize as nonprofits.  Any income they can earn would be free from taxes. 

All the noise about the end of newspapers ignores one fact, though. With $30 billion in ad sales, it is possible to make a profit. It's not possible to make a profit while paying for big empty printing plants or offices, while continuing to employ 50,000 journalists, or while moving slowly to take other needed steps.

Some companies will move fast enough to find a cost structure that works at the new revenue levels. Some companies will move fast enough to innovate new product lines, on and off line. A very few companies will do both. Those will be the companies that will start to collect larger and larger shares of that $30 billion.

Newsroom Twitter Tips

Should you use Twitter? What can it do for your newsroom? Why are places like The Philadelphia Inquirer offering staff seminars about social media? (The Inquirer used Twitter to scoop competitors on a corruption trial.)

Some more pieces of evidence: The Chicago Tribune masthead emphasized Twitter addresses for one day. The New York Times has one main Twitter account @nytimes and it has more than 350,000 followers. A couple of dozen related NYTimes newsroom accounts have smaller audiences -- @NYTimesOpinion, for example, has 800 plus followers -- but the aggregate audience size is meaningful.

Newspapers as small as the News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill., find Twitter useful for distributing and gathering news. Meg Thilmony, a writer and innovation leader at the News-Gazette, wrote these Twitter tips for the newsroom, including two search tips:

* using search.twitter.com – search things like “Champaign,” “Urbana” or the communities you cover. You can also find people talking about these communities – lots of alums tweeted things like “Going to the football game” over UI's homecoming weekend. * trying other search tools. Newspaper reporter Daniel Victor, who works for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., suggests Twitterlocal.net. It allows you to see the latest local tweets or sign up for an RSS feed of these. He also uses tweetscan.com to search for people discussing or tweeting from his location.

Here's a direct link to the Twitter search page: http://search.twitter.com/search.

I recently sent a note to Forbes reporters about shortening url's:

When circulating url's, it's often easier to use a web-based program that shortens our long url's into something that can fit in a short message. Tinyurl.com, shorturl.com, and snurl.com all produce shorter substitute url's. I like tr.im, which has a log-in option that allows you to track traffic to the substitute url.

One word of caution that I included:

Many of the people you interview use Twitter, too, and are very likely to tell the world that they just spoke with a Forbes reporter. Two examples from this evening:
pencilbugs -- 1 interview with @wayneliew via a chat session which was totally fun. 1 interview with a Forbes writer on the phone.
--and--
collegeadvice: I just got a call from Forbes Magazine; did an interview about college admissions craze; April 1 around the corner. What will headline be?

A year from now, I'll examine the evidence again. It should be clear by March 2010 if this is a passing fad or an important tool.

Turn Your Newsroom Into A Platform

One debate we don't need: should content be paid or free. One discussion we do need: how to defend and expand our ability to obtain and distribute quality content.

Newsrooms are full of people very skilled at obtaining information, distilling the essence of it, and distributing it to an audience hungry for meaning.

Some of it will always be available free, or at a very low price. Is the content paid for when subscribers pay to have a printed newspaper delivered? No, in most markets that subscription price just pays for the actual paper and delivery costs. Is all content free when there is no online pay wall? Try getting Tom Friedman to come to your group's next meeting to give a speech. You can read his work online without paying, but that in-person delivery method will cost you.

From global economic insight to high school sports, topics addressed by many newsrooms will find a passionate audience if the material is clear, insightful, relevant and presented with some urgency.

In Wisconsin, some officials are trying to make it difficult for local newsrooms to obtain and distribute the high school sports information. Are the matches entertainment that should result in a revenue stream for a private regulatory body or are they government-sanctioned events that are owned by the public in much the same way as other activities related to the public school system?

One account, WIAA suing Gannett Co. following webcast of high school football game, notes that Wisconsin is not the only state troubled by the issue:

Many other states are undergoing similar disputes between news organizations and high school athletic governing bodies. WNA Executive Director Peter Fox said in some states, like Illinois and Arizona, the sides have reached "uneasy truces" to continue coverage of events.

Publishers need to protect a newsroom's ability to provide such coverage in order to make sure there is the type of content that will attract an audience. What parts should be paid and what parts free will continue to be an issue, but only after insuring that the content is there in the first place.

What A Newsroom Creates

Paul Maidment and Bill Baldwin are the new co-editors of Forbes -- one flag, one newsroom, one mission. The newsroom integrates all the journalists from on and offline. Until this week, there were separate print and digital newsrooms, each fully staffed and each with a separate (but overlapping) mandate. Now, everyone is part of the same group and has the same goal. From the editors' mission statement:

What we produce every day is not primarily a physical product, a magazine or a web site, but our intellectual property--Forbes journalism. It is numerate, researched, often contrarian and rigorously analytical. Journalism that delivers the highest value to our readers by making them richer and smarter.

Selling Change In A Newsroom

There can't be many people left in newsrooms who still resist change, but newsroom leaders still seem to be grasping for the right words to describe the magnitude of the changes remaking the media landscape.

Barack Obama took a shot at it on Thursday. Yes, he was talking about the economy, not about the media revolution, but Obama's clarion call for change is worth repeating in newsrooms. It might help more journalists recognize just how much they will have to change their approach to their jobs.

Obama: "There have been some years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare. Then there are the years that come along once in a generation - the kind that mark a clean break from a troubled past, and set a new course."

If 2008 wasn't that kind of year in your newsroom, 2009 will be.

To The Candid World

Space isn't the issue and it takes only a few minutes to find the text and configure it for posting online. Wouldn't it be great if every news organization -- or at least every US news organization -- would post the Declaration of Independence? Once it is in the system, it shouldn't take much effort to give it some prominence every Fourth of July.

Tracking the ad dollar

How effective are those ads in the Yellow Pages?

The Annual Spoof Warning

It is the season for the annual warning to newsrooms.

Here's a note I sent to reporters and editors:

Crain’s fell for a spoof.

The LA Times fell for a scam.

The silly season is upon us. Many publications will be running corrections on April 3 for items they fail to see as pranks on April 1. Don’t let that happen to you – or to your readers.

One editor reminded me about a 1998 prank announcement that fooled the FT:

Guinness brewery issued a press release announcing that it had reached an agreement with the Old Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England to be the official beer sponsor of the Observatory's millennium celebration.

According to this agreement, Greenwich Mean Time would be renamed Guinness Mean Time until the end of 1999. In addition, the famous observatory would refer to seconds as "pint drips."

The Financial Times, not realizing that the release was a joke, broke the news in an article in which it discussed how some companies were exploiting the millennium excitement in order to promote their own brand names.

There are sure to be more examples this year. Have you seen any? Comment below.