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Crunch Time for the Dailies

by Bill Dusty

News that the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor (CSM) would be ceasing its daily print edition early next year in order to focus on its Internet incarnation hit the headlines just this past fall, but the downward spiral of our nation’s traditional newspaper industry has been old news for several years, now.

Newspapers – both dailies and weeklies – have struggled to get local advertising revenue as large retail chains have overrun local merchant business. Adding to the hardship is the fact that readers are flocking to the Internet in ever-increasing numbers to get their news and information. The Monitor is actually an anomaly in the industry in that it gets the loin’s share of its revenue from subscription sales rather than advertising – the opposite of most print newspapers. (It makes up the difference by way of annual cash infusions from its parent entity, The Church of Christ, Scientist.) Even so, the CSM switch is in all likelihood an early harbinger of things to come for the daily newspaper industry. Already, more people are getting their news online than from print newspapers. According to this Pew Research Center survey, in 2008, 34% of news readers went to daily newspapers while 37% got their news from the Web. (Even radio edged out newspapers by one percentage point, at 35%.)

For years, newspapers assumed the Web would eventually settle into a format that fit more into the traditional mold, both in news reporting and in advertising. ‘Why change the way we do things?’ they opined, when it should be the newcomers adapting their methods to fit the traditional model.

Things didn’t work out that way. Instead, advertising revenue plummeted, news staffs were cut to make up the difference, and newspapers across the nation either downsized their operations or closed up shop altogether.

Here in Massachusetts, both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have seen better days. The Herald laid off over a hundred employees this past year and underwent a re-design that shrank the paper’s size. They also shipped out their printing operations to Chicopee, MA. Meanwhile, rumors continue about a possible sale of the Boston Globe, which is currently owned by the New York Times Company and operated under the latter’s business unit, New England Media Group (NEMG), which also consists of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Boston.com. The Financial Times came out with a story last week about the Globe being up for sale. (The two main players in that story have since denied any interest in buying the Globe.) Advertising revenue for Globe parent NEMG reportedly fell by 23.3% this past November, according to this Boston Business Journal story.

Closer to home, the Republican newspaper serves as the sole provider of daily print news for the Greater Springfield region. Regular readers have observed through the years, however, that its pages have thinned out considerably as its advertising revenue – and its staff – has shrunk. The front section of the daily is primarily made up of Associated Press stories these days, while their business news is a patchwork of AP stories and Wall Street Journal statistics, with a smattering of local news sprinkled in between. For years, the Republican barely acknowledged its online counterpart, Masslive. A little logo in the bottom-left corner of the front page and a smattering of occasional sidebar reminders were the only indications readers got that news from the Republican was actually available online. Meanwhile, Masslive often stood alone on an island – dutifully posting Republican stories while being left on its own to provide Web-only content. Rarely would an online contributor make it to the print edition (usually relegated to the “Plus” editions of the paper). Whether by choice or by contractual obligation, such a segregation of content will eventually have to stop if the newspaper itself is to survive as a daily.

But maybe that, too, would not be enough. When the average person looks for breaking news, he or she turns to television or the Web. So why do print dailies even bother? By the time a “breaking” print news story reaches the breakfast table, it is already out-of-date. Instead, the local dailies should concentrate on local news features, investigative reports, informational fare (medical, science), online content (either summarized or in total), and sports. If a story breaks overnight, have a print teaser on the front page that lets readers know where to go online to read the latest.

These days – and from now on – the Web owns breaking news.

The Republican is far from alone in its historical reluctance to partner with the Web. In fact, it’s actually doing better now with integrating its content than either the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald. Neither Boston daily refers to its online offerings (other than including their Web address under their nameplate). The Republican now features a large sidebar on page A2 for Masslive content, and it also regularly references videos available on Masslive. (The paper also includes the email addresses of its reporters with their stories, but this is more of a feedback service than an Internet one.) Both are moves in the right direction, but the paper still has a long way to go if it is to save itself from falling into irrelevance. One look to the south of Springfield, where the struggling Hartford Courant has recently re-invented itself, should show the Republican which path to follow.

The Hartford Courant is owned by the Tribune Company, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, so it would appear to be a poor choice to serve as an example of how to adapt to changing times (the Courant also announced layoffs of about 60 staffers last July). But the Tribune’s current dire financial woes have more to do with its purchase back in April of 2007 by billionaire Samuel Zell and his subsequent move to privatize the company, which has since sank the Tribune into $13 billion of debt. The Courant, meanwhile, underwent a radical transformation this past September that took it a big step beyond the font updates it had earlier experimented with. The Hartford Courant, much more so than any other daily newspaper in the region, appears to have opted to embrace its online content and move aggressively to include mention of it in its print editions.

At the Hartford Courant, any denial of the Web’s dominance
appears to have come to an end. Even the nameplate of the newspaper
leaves no doubt where the action is: “Hartford Courant.com”
(Click here for an interview with the Courant design director
Melanie Shaffer, where she discusses the design changes at her paper.)
- – - -

At the new-look Courant, readers are greeted with local commentary and opinion as soon as they turn the first page. Page Two also features “On the Web” links and referrals to blogs and online polls. The front page section itself merges local and national news – with an emphasis on local news. In the Friday, December 26 edition, for example – with the exception of two celebrity obituary notices, an Associated Press story did not appear until Page Four. “Reader Speak” segments are tacked onto the top of various pages, featuring commentary from the Courant’s online, Topix-hosted forum (the Republican has a similar feature, using quotes from its online forums). Web links appear frequently throughout the publication.

- – - -

The Hartford Courant’s merging of its Web and print content shows that a convergence of the two mediums can be done effectively. Reminder Publications managing editor Mike Dobbs talked about convergence in a post at his blog, “Out of the Inkwell,” this past June:

Convergence means synergy between the traditional and the new. Convergence means determining what platform best showcases which story. It means a video/Web reporter working with a print reporter on a big story. It means beating TV stations to the punch with video. It would be a lot of work, but very rewarding.

Newspapers are downsizing and dying all around us. Business Week online contributor Jon Fine refers to newspapers as “cockroaches” – always able to survive, until the Internet arrived in its role as “Black Flag.”

If print dailies hope to survive and remain relevant in the Internet Age, they will eventually need to find an alternative purpose to their current role as a provider of breaking news. There is so much more they can still contribute: Local investigative reporting, special interest stories on people and issues, data lists, reader contributions, artist and musician profiles, and “series” articles that keep readers coming back each day. The industry’s other primary problem, advertising revenue, will also need to be addressed. But this is the time for dailies to be inventive and to experiment – to take risks with their content as they search for what works and what doesn’t work.

They must do these things, or they will almost certainly join the ranks of those who also chose not to.

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Posted by Bill Dusty on Dec 30th, 2008 and filed under Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.