Indeed, why can’t newspapers print only good news!

I can understand the reluctance of anyone to launch an effort such as newspaperproject.com.

With so many experts out there ready to weigh in with criticism, who the hell would want to try something?

The point is, something is being attempted.

Too late? Perhaps, but I believe not. Poorly executed? Again, something that is up for debate. I happened to like the point that was made.

We can nitpick these efforts to death or we can view this an opportunity to build upon.

When my staff comes into my office to complain about anything, I send them packing until they come back with something resembling a solution.

You all have identified the problems. What are the solutions?

Martin, I have already devoured and gotten excited about many of your posts, particularly the one about what an online-first newsroom means. Thanks.

I’m not confusing anything, Bill.

I’m venting because newsrooms are doing extremely creative things these days — mine included — and the naysayers seem to drown it all out.

I appreciate the efforts by the newspaperproject for what they are: a simple show of support for a struggling industry.

It’s a good first step for a one-dimensional society that seems to enjoy the struggles of the media without fully realizing the implications to democracy of weak journalism.

So analyze each of my words, Bill.

Then…attack.

I appreciate your comments, Bill.

We definitely can’t take positive efforts to the bank. But I am convinced that there are enough smart people in this industry that a solution can be reached.

A new business model will be hatched. And debates such as this will contribute.

Best of luck to you as well.

It is good to see that our modest, grassroots project started a conversation. I’m afraid there have been some misinterpretations, however. We are not tied to paper. Showing support for the printed product does not take away from our online strategies. My company (CNHI)grew online revenue by 40% in 2008. We are increasing overall audience through a combination of platforms, and that is as it should be in today’s world. But the bulk of our revenue still comes from traditional newspapers. That won’t always be true, but it is true today.
Trouble is, there is a lot of misinformation about what is happening with newspapers. Newspapers (the printed versions) still enjoy a substantial audience, more dominant in most communities than any other news source. Yes, some readers have migrated online…to our news sites. Advertising revenue, not readership, is the problem. The recession has taken a serious toll on all advertising-based businesses, including television, radio, even sponsor-reliant NASCAR and MLB. We are no different. It is also true that many (not all) newspapers have been impacted by Craigslist. Newspapers still deliver results, but it’s hard to complete against “free.” The business model is certainly in transition, but we need to be sure we put the focus on the right areas. This is a revenue crisis, not an audience crisis. We need to set the record straight before we scare off all of our customers and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ditto what Martin said. Moreover, I’m curious exactly what the ‘misinformation’ is that you folks behind this effort say you are trying to correct. So far, ‘misinformation’ appears to be a ‘straw man’ argument. I worry that what you are saying is itself in the realm of misinformation, and that your effort, no matter how well-intentioned, might be stillborn because of it.

For instance, you claim that readership is increasing. Yet I’ve not seen any such claims that don’t conflate the DAILY printed circulation number and the number of MONTHLY online users. Is someone who uses a daily newspaper’s Web site once per month the same as a daily reader of print edition? Since when did daily newspapers become monthly publications?

Look at the data. For example, Nielsen’s six-month figures from March through August 2007 showed that The Boston Globe had 3.798 million visitors during an average month in that period. Does this mean that the Globe had a ‘combined audience’ of 4.158 million readers (360K in print and 3.798M online)? I ask because the same Nielson report states that the average user of the Globe’s Web site visited only 3.22 times per month (in other words, approximately once only every ten days), and saw only 19 Web pages and spent only 14 minutes and 19 seconds on that site all month long (probably less time than a Globe print reader spends per day).

Monthly user counts are rife with infrequent visits. In his critique, Martyn mentioned NAA data about NYTimes.com. Nielsen’s figures for that newspaper in period I mentioned above are 4.05 visits per month, and 27 Web pages and a total of 20 minutes and 20 seconds spent on the site all month long. So, on which of those 4.05 days per month should the advertiser place his ad in that daily newspaper’s Web site? Mixing daily and monthly usage data is mixing apples and oranges. Yet every claims I’ve seen that newspapers’ readerships and audiences are rising is based upon that misarithmetic. It’s disingenous and misinforms.

Likewise statements that online revenues are rising 20%, 30%, 40%, or even 50% per year. Sounds great but doesn’t withstand a peek behind the curtain. Newspaper online revenue has been rising 20% to 50% during each of the past ten years. The problem is it’ll have to continue rising at those rates (unlikely) for another ten years before it even starts to reverse the titanic monetary declines in print edition revenues. According to NAA data, for example, between 2006 and 2007 total online newspaper revenues grew 18.8% while print ad revenues declined 9.4%. Subtract the latter from the former and you can allude that it’s a net gain of 9.4% because online grew double the percentage that print did. However, the reality is the 18.8% online increase was from $2.664 billion to $3.166 billion (a gain of $502 million) while the 9.4% print decline was from $46.661 billion to $42.209 billion (a loss of $4.452 billion). The online increase would have needed to be 167% (rather than 18.8%) that year, just to keep the ship from sinking further. And the situation was almost certainly worse in 2008 and will likely be much worse in 2009.

Daily newspapers aren’t hurting because of misperceptions. Circulation and readership didn’t markedly decline in proportion to population during the past 25 years because of misperceptions. Advertisers aren’t increasingly abandoning newspapers because of mispercentions (online advertising and CraigsList aren’t fads). Publicly-held newspaper companies’ equity values and market capitalizations haven’t declined by 75% to 99% during the past five years — a period mostly pre-recession — because of misperceptions.

I’m glad that you support our industry. But don’t cherry-pick data. Stop using it out of context. Don’t conflate figures. The American newspaper industry has spent 250 years building its credibility. Don’t Baghdad Bob our industry when it needs a stronger defense. Your efforts may be well-intentioned, but your time would be better spent radically revamping the products you produce, because your customers (readers and advertisers) are rejecting those in ever-increasing numbers.

Todd,

I’m a Print evangelist not a newspaper person, but the “sky is falling” stuff has been rampant in our industry for years, so a lot of it sounds familiar.

At any rate, I thought I would weigh in with what it looks like from the outside.

1. Newspaper companies are in trouble because of the massive debt they have incurred. The secular decline in readership has been going on since the 70′s. Profit was fine until advertising imploded.

2. The fact is that readers are a niche market. Most people view, scan, search Printed newspapers. Companies like the New Yorker have the best handle on the niche market of readers. Because of that fan base they seem successful with a read for free, pay for print, buy the stuff we make model.

3. The web is for talking, searching, and viewing. It is actually Telephone + TV +Search +a big filing cabinet+ the cheapest way to buy stuff every invented.

4. Print is for scanning, searching and reading for the mass market in phsyical space.

5. Since the real estate on the web is unlimited, the cost is going to continue to go down. Since the real estate in Print is limited, the cost can be stable. But it’s a location, location, location issue. If the Print is inserted in the right location with the right content, the advertising sell should be easy.

6. Newspapers should use the web to find and nurture tribes of fans. Data analytics are a big help. The number and quality of conversations started are a great place to start.

7. Once tribes and loyal fans are identified make stuff to sell them on the newspapers own website.
Why pay a publisher rent when the newspaper’s own website reaches the most probable buyers of a book produced by their staff. Given that the logistics of book printing and delivery have become trivial, publishing channels are a bug not a feature.

For the not readers, which is most of the audience, sell them posters, t shirts and tote bags.

8. Newspapers should consider the long tail of their content as a monetizable value. Consider replacing textbooks with targeted editions for students in K-12 focused on history, science, business, etc etc etc. Textbooks are another industry who’s value add is disappearing. Newspapers have massive under used capacity in their classrooms + they already give away copies of their editions as part of a “do good” program.

9. Reporters should be organized in teams of three to cover beats. Start with beats that are interesting to a potential fan base. Focus on that beat as a way to do business. Stop putting resources into following the news cycle. Devote the same place in the paper to that beat coverage.
As appropriate, print a special edition for the fans of that beat. As appropriate, print and sell and book covering that beat.

The same thing works for printing companies. Find your fans. Sell them stuff.

If the Internet is the future of newspapers and if social media is the future of the Internet, then social media is the future of newspapers. Or at least for those that can deal successfully with that reality. How many will?

Randy articulates a critical disconnect that newspapers need to understand and resolve in order to survive when he says:

…newspaper companies must accelerate their development of innovative products that meet the news and information needs of consumers in multiple formats

.
In the world of social media, there are no consumers. There are users, lurkers, trolls, contributors, hyper-contributors — all kinds of people, but virtually no consumers. Sure, all these people buy stuff. But if you think of them as “consumers” you might as well close up shop today.

If you don’t understand what this means, I commend the following to your edification:

Cluetrain This 1999 book/website nails 95 theses to the front door of the Internet. Two of the authors are now fellows at Harvard’s Berkman Center. (Thesis #74: We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.)

Clay Shirky’s ‘Cognitive Surplus’ Presentation Video of NYU professor explaining the importance of participatory media. (“Even a 4-year-old knows that a screen that ships without a mouse ships broken.”)

This thinking is primary to social media. And it is, in general, consonant with the kinds of suggestions that people like Martin and MichaelJ have been making.

The real problem, IMO, is that “the newspapers” seem to think of themselves as being in a position to determine how business on the Internet is going to work. Not possible.

Banner CPMs will continue to fall, search advertising will continue to gain in share. That newspapers are on the outside looking in at search advertising indicates how badly they misunderstood the Internet. If a newspaper website is anything, it is an aggregation of data that people want to get at.

A decade ago, Cluetrain accurately predicted the importance of a relevance-based approach on the Internet. Google’s stellar success proves it out. Newspapers have done what to position themselves for success in this new arena? That’s what I thought.

Final word: stop talking the talk and start walking the walk. Don’t sell ads, build community. (You remember that, right?)

PS. First comment here, so hoping the tags render.

let me add one example of what I am trying to say that I noticed recently.

The New York Times or an outside publisher, I’m sure which, produced a book on Obama’s campaign, or something close to that.

They set a pub date of “President’s Day.” From what I understand about publishing that probably means that the books are well advanced in the channel. The books were printed, probably in boxes at the stores.

Consider how many more books would have been sold and what the increased profit to the Times might have been if the book were offered on the website, with ads that were presented on the web near every article about the inauguration, and sold directly from a logistics firm that was contracted by the Times.

I am only looking at this from the outside, so I am wrong in details. But in any case it is a good example of finding the audience, using excess talent to innovate stuff for them, and sell it to them at a low cost with a good profit.

Agreeing to disagree is a pleasure. For a Print evangelist it is much better than I’ve experienced over the last ten years.

Here’s a place where we do agree “why this basic approach wouldn’t work for every article with highly relevant and, therefore, effective text ads served instead of poorly targeted, irrelevant banners.”

Until the computer algorithm is developed, this might mean a much closer relationship between the team that positions content and the team that places advertising.

As for counter intuitive, I would counter that purpose of discussions in a context of intellectual honesty is to get from intuition to an operational definition of what’s going on so that people who have to can make better predictions of the consequences of their decisions.

That’s why agreeing to disagree creates so much value.

Hope your drop-in session went ok.

RF,
You make a point about “self-important editors,etc.”

But it’s not a newspaper problem, it’s a general formal organization problem. The phrase works as well with “senators, auto executives, our last President, school principals, University Presidents.”

If you put a qualifier in front of it, as in “SOME” “self-important etc” it’s a useful statement about reality.

But disruptive technologies lead to disruptions in the communication ecology. People who have to spend most of their day in a bubble have a very serious signal v noise problem. It”s the echo chamber effect that explains how good, smart, hard working people can make really bad decisions.

The good news is that a discussion such as this one might help amplify the signal from the ground to cut through the noise up in management circles.

As for your prediction.

Once the focus on the “interests of prospective readers” is changed, versioned Print + web + delivery trucks can pretty much deliver the same customer experience you describe.

Epaper, kindle’s and whatever comes along will be great for serving niche markets and identifying fans.

10,000 Kindle subscribers for the NYT is still a tiny niche of 46 million page views on the web. Maybe it will grow to 100,000 or 200,000 with the next release over time. At a $9 monthly subscription fee that could turn into a nice revenue stream.

But newspaper don’t have time. Mostly because of debt obligations.

Netflix destroyed Blockbuster. In ten years, Google reinvented advertising. The trick is not where it’s going to end up. The proximate problem is how to get from here to there, and still maintain the position you’ve earned over the last 100 years.

Michael, do you mind my asking your age and occupation (i.e. what you do to pay your bills)?

I thought we might have a worldview somewhat in common. (I am a 69-year-old retired newspaper columnist.)
Somebody should hire us to fix this mess.

Even if any of us had “the answer”, it’s still up to each individual to execute it the right way for our business and our market.

What made me think after my last post with Carlos (# 11) is that while it is a discussion about business, and we’re not talking face-to-face (which has it’s liberties in either being honest or rude – you pick) it’s still another human being at the end of the line that may have challenges in business like me that are not always fun. It was that “take a deep breath” approach that I wanted to leave our conversation, and not to have a continuous “I’m going to win this point no matter what” post that we’ve all seen before.

Ideas are one thing, but the execution of the idea is a totally different animal. I see the potential in digital, but I don’t have to look people in the eye and tell them they no longer have a job to make that transition. Others may not want to give up the printed page yet, but possibly will miss out on the digital lifeboat (my opinion) for their survival if they wait too long. And some will jump in with the right answer but fail because the implementation was wrong, and visa versa.

The next part of the solution isn’t constant debate, but feedback and reports from people who are trying new things in the real business world. In front of customers, readers, and staff. How’s it working, what would they change, who’s got a new idea from within. Real world stuff in action, taking the hits or getting some wins. The “here’s what I’d do” needs to be replaced by “here’s what I’m doing, and here’s how it’s going”. If this site is nothing than a debate, a defense, or a warehouse of feel good stories then it may become nothing more than the time waster none of us needed.

Martin, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts, opinions, and ideas.