Wishful thinking, newspaper edition

From the wishful thinking dept. at Editor and Publisher.:

Returning to print shouldn’t be seen as taking a step back. Many readers still rely heavily on the print edition. A Pew Research Center study found that around half of newspaper readers in three U.S. metropolitan cities (Denver, Colo., Macon, Ga., and Sioux City, Iowa) only read in print.

With the saturation of news, the toxicity of online harassment, and the amount of poor Web experiences, readers will soon want to come back to print. This resurgence must take place if we want to keep print around for many more years, and publishers can accomplish that by immersing readers—not with virtual reality headsets—but with ink on their hands.

That's at the bottom of a mishmash, way-too-long piece that tries to make the case that poor woeful newspapers are being victimized again by technology, this time ad blockers (BTW, there's an easy way to get around Forbes' ad-blocking message and many other publishers').

That Pew statistic? It's a nice way of deception. Remember, it says half of all newspaper readers. It doesn't say what's happening to the overall number of newspaper readers (in other words, if there are still two newspaper readers and one reads only in print, you've met that stat -- but it's hardly a viable business model).

I'm a big fan of "newspapers" if you mean the term to refer to robust news orgs. If you mean it to refer to ink on paper, however, I'd like to introduce you to the dozens of students I interact with every semester. You know, the future higher income, higher educated readers your advertisers want. "Newspaper" is not in their daily universe.

This, of course, from the same people who have been telling themselves for years that as people age and buy houses, have kids, etc., they'll start reading newspapers -- despite every bit of solid social science research that's debunked that.

So how's that working out?

What does "Big Silicon" mean for journalism and j-schools?

There's been a lot written lately about "robots" (i.e., computers) writing news stories, be it routine earnings report at the AP or routine sports stories. The latest reflection on this, in the N.Y. Times, prompted a colleague to pose the question on a Facebook group: "What does robojournalism mean for j-schools and the people that love them?"

If we cut through the somewhat visceral reactions these stories tend to invoke, what is happening can actually provide the sort of clarity we need to examine the state of affairs by making us truly assess what journalism is versus "news" and what has been the reality of the industrial process in which it has operated.

Here are two responses I posted:

It means we have to stop doing the rote stuff and actually think -- constantly -- about how what we're teaching fits into the constantly developing ecosystem. Unfortunately, that is difficult in institutions that on one hand say they value innovation and change -- when it comes to research -- but value stasis more in the curriculum.

---

One other thought on this. This does not mean the death of journalism. At its heart, journalism will always be a cottage industry -- it relies on one journalist having a relationship with individual sources to extract useful information, detect patterns, supply context and advance knowledge. Much as the financial folks would like it to -- and much to their consternation -- that heart won't change. But that does leave the question of what is "journalism" and what is "news." "News" is largely processing, taking what is in the open already and processing it for presentation over whatever form. That's an industrial process. Every industrial process strives to replace labor with capital. That is what is happening here.

So as we look at the "journalism" landscape, it's good to keep that distinction in mind. No computer is going to duplicate Sy Hersh's work on My Lai, for just one example. Or Jim Risen's on national security.

What it means, however, is that journalism has become a creative business, much like art or acting. And our students have to understand that. Going out and covering a news conference, processing it and putting it on the air, online or in the paper, is a job that will be automated as much as possible. Covering a game and writing rote ledes (such as the second example in the Times' story), will be automated as much as possible.

This also means our students have to understand they will be treated as actors are -- responsible for their own training and continued preparation. (Ever known someone to go to an audition and the director to say: "Hey, we'll hire you. Now let us send you to acting school."?) And they are much more likely to be part of the "gig economy," not salary men (or women).

The clinker in all this for me is that the economics have been that the "news" part of the business has tended to subsidize the journalism part of it. It's also provided a lot of jobs. So as journalism is distilled in the new economic order, will we have the infrastructure (legal, distribution, economic) to support journalism? As other institutions (business, government) get stronger and the Fourth Estate atomizes, is it even possible to develop that kind of infrastructure in an atomized information society? Put another way, would the Pentagon Papers be published today, given the large actual cost and potentially enormous legal and other costs that could have been extracted? For all there is to criticize about them, the large journalism institutions had the reserves -- when they chose to use them. It's a useful litmus question to ask ourselves from time to time.

Jay Bender poses the question well in a different form (larger S.C. papers in the background helping smaller ones) in his oral history for the S.C. Press Association. I also recommend the Tow Center's report on post-industrial journalism.

Caveat emptor: Comptek/Universal Media Syndicate, Aereo and morally challeged newspapers

We've all seen them, the full-page ads for Amish heaters (where it doesn't exactly say but where, apparently, primarily only the frames are made by the Amish), "rare" coins and bills, etc. While the debate about "native advertising" in digital rages in various forums (punctuated by John Oliver's hilarious takedown of it), the old-fashioned "advertorial" has become more and more a staple (from my observations) for cash-strapped newspapers.

But even newspapers have some moral, if not legal, obligation, it seems to me to at least give these things a vetting for being misleading -- and, frankly, from a business sense, too, since this kind of stuff doesn't do much to help your already steadily eroding credibility.

This ad was in The State newspaper today (The State is happy hunting ground for all these ads) on page A13. It's not masquerading -- it is clearly labeled as "Special Advertising Feature":

But what the ad is trying to do is trade off what may be for many people some dim recollection of this thing called the Aereo case that got headlines a few months ago when the Supreme Court ruled against the company. The ad artfully misstates what Aereo really was, however:

• Yes, it did use "mini" antennas.
• But they were in a bank of antennas in a huge warehouse in Brooklyn, for instance.
• And they were not so much designed to plug into your TV as to enable you to watch your over-the-air free TV stations on your computer anywhere you wanted to.
• And, finally, consumers have been able to get "free TV" as long as TV has been on the air

There's no evidence I see that this "slick little $88 device" that "pulls in crystal-clear digital TV channels for free with no monthly bills" does any more than a $15 or $25 antenna from Wal-Mart (or other retailers) that you can plug right into the back of your digitally enabled flat screen. And if you happen to have an old analog TV, you can add a digital converter box for about $35, bringing the total cost to maybe $60 instead of almost $100 with shipping and handling. Heck, one of those boxes will even record shows if you plug in a large-enough digital drive.

The ad promoting the "Clear-Cast" and using as a source "Comptek, 8000 Freedom Ave., Canton, Ohio, 44720," is artfully worded to avoid legal issues, things like "consumers who have a slick little micro antenna device will receive all of the major network Hollywood movies broadcast over the air for free." Yep, and you can receive those same movies with one of those cheaper antennas or, if you have an enabled flat screen, artfully shaped aluminum foil shoved into the antenna input, it would seem. Always have been able to. (Any implication that wording might make in the minds of the slightly informed and hugely gullible that they might get things like HBO or even TNT is, of course, an unintended consequence, I'm sure.)

No surprise here. Universal Media Syndicate, the operation behind these questionable ads, has been the subject of numerous complaints.

The only "slick little device" in this ad is the wording.

But at what point does a paper like The State have to make some moral decisions and say enough is enough? You no longer can separate the newsroom from the business, as if you ever really could. And that makes it even more important that news organizations -- newsroom, ad, business and corporate -- examine their morals and ethics when it comes to things like this.

(And I haven't exactly seen press associations rushing to rethink this, either.)

Oh, indeed, the almighty dollar is tempting -- and sorely needed -- at times like this. But if news organizations don't do it with an enlightened sense of what they are about, they will ultimately be almighty dead. Because, you see, even the dullest consumers have flashes of brilliance, and when they do these days, all they have to do is hit a button ...

How not to do customer service in 2014, newspaper version

So here's a wager for you (I'll provide a copy of AP's newswriting guide by Jack Cappon to the first person who can figure out the puzzle).

One condition: You must be a seven-day print and digital subscriber to The State newspaper.

The setup: Go to the newspaper's website. Pretend you want to look at various pricing to see if, as a consumer, there are options to consider. Try to find where it lists your subscription options other than your existing seven-day-plus-digital subscription.

That's OK, I'll wait.

Try the FAQs. See anything there (of course, that they haven't been updated since November 2012 might  speak for itself). Click on those links and it takes you to the page where you can start a new subscription "from $2.60 a week." Click on that, however, and you are prompted to set up a new account with all new user info and password. If you don't do that, you apparently don't get to see that "from $2.60 a week" rate -- or any other.

You can try it from any number of pages where there are links to manage your subscription, etc. -- same result.

So existing or prospective subscribers are denied some of the most basic information that should be provided so they can make intelligent decisions going forward. And nonsubscribers have to disgorge a bunch of personal information before they can get comparison pricing info. Imagine if Wal-Mart or any other retailer had a gate before you could get into the store. Of, if you don't like the analogy to a retailer, how about a service, like asking a plumber the cost estimate of a repair and being told it's none of your business until you give up a bunch of info (or, if you've used that plumber at all, it's none of your business whatsoever).

All in the name of what? Trying to force people into staying with their current option? Trying to force them to stay with seven-day print (you can do that by pricing, not by hiding the info).

Besides, it's 2014 -- you know, the digital era -- and as a digital user I even expect (hold your breath now), that when it comes time to renew I can go online and change my options (if I find them more useful) and pay for the new subscription instead of having to call an 800 number during business hours and be told traffic is "heavy" and wait untold minutes. (Well, sort of business hours -- 7 a.m. - 4 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Sunday. That's convenient and consumer friendly, eh? Makes Comcast customer service seem like it's worthy of a J.D. Power award.)

This is still one more data point on how some news orgs simply don't get that they have gone from a monopoly to a retail/service business. Spot checking around. (In none of these cases can I tell whether existing subscribers can change their plans online.):

• The Augusta Chronicle - not much better. Gives you an" as low as" monthly price, but no options for various home delivery frequencies. Clicking on "learn more" just gives you a bunch of sales copy about the service, no prices. Clicking on the digital only gives you a teaser rate. Clicking on print plus digital stops you with a wall demanding your ZIP code. Put in 30912 and you'll get the options (not sure if that link will work directly).
•  Post and Courier (Charleston): Well, at least there are options in pricing. But each is an "introductory rate" with no indication what the normal rate will be starting in the seventh month. (OK, so the paper is taking its cues from the cable or phone companies, but it's a start.)
• The Greenville News - a winner! All the options laid out. Now, if the paper would just get rid of the annoying splash screen with the condescending option "No, I don't want to save."
• Herald-Journal (Spartanburg) - another winner with it all laid out.
• Florence Morning News - It's all there, though not many options, eh? (This is the pricing model I referred to above.)
• Times and Democrat (Orangeburg) - It's there, but don't be fooled by putting a local ZIP code into the "home delivery information" form at the bottom. All you'll get is a 404 error. Instead, click on "start a new home delivery subscription" for print-only rates. If you want the print and digital package, or digital only, you'll have to click on "online subscription" and be hit with an annoying splash screen with the options. But here's the rub. It appears that if you want a print-digital bundle, you have to do the home delivery option first, create that and then go here to add the digital. So much for one-stop shopping (hey, guys, find out how Amazon does it).
• Island Packet (Hilton Head) and Beaufort Gazette (McClatchy papers along with The State) - well, it's there if you root around. One you follow that link, click on "print & digital" and then on "view delivery rates."
• The Herald (Rock Hill) - at first, looks like the other McClatchy papers. But lo and behold, click on the print and digital link and a really smart form comes up that lets you pick a plan before you have to disgorge any personal info (and you get a gift to boot!).
• Myrtle Beach (McClatchy) - just as bad as The State. (So if other McClatchy papers can show rates, why can't all?)
• Charlotte Observer (McClatchy) - Hits you with the ZIP code, but once you put that in, you get rates.

For all I know, The State will give you rates once you disgorge all your personal info, but I find that troubling  in so many ways (you harvest my data to sell to others just so I can see your pricing?).

The State makes it even more torturous. Log into your account and there is a "Delivery Options" link. Follow it (you can't from here without logging in) and all you get (at least all I get) is "start a new subscription," "vacation holds" and "report delivery problems." Click on the new subscriptions link, and all I get are options for Go Gamecocks and Lake Murray Magazine. Someone truly evil has had to figure out this consumer torture.

What is even more interesting to me is that on many of these websites, "subscribe" is in small type and has to be hunted down. Aren't we in the business here of getting people to subscribe? And many are pushing E-Z pay, the auto draft on your credit card or bank account. Read the fine print. Orangeburg, for instance, says that's an extra $18.

But maybe you know something I don't. Have at it and share.

Update, 2 p.m. 7/29: After a 12-minute call to customer service, here are some of the rate plans (compared with $288.60 for seven-day delivery and digital - 79 cents a day); all include digital:
Thursday-Sunday: $195.52 (94 cents a day)
Friday-Sunday: $177.84 ($1.14 a day)
Saturday-Sunday: $159.64 ($1.54 a day)

All per-day prices are approximate. I just multiplied 52 by the number of days each week; there might be slight variations, but I did not count actual days.


I did not price Monday-Saturday, Monday-Friday or Sunday only.

Tying journalists' pay to revenue: 'This is a blood sport now'

In case you've missed the last five years or so and are still trying to figure out the shifting dynamics of the journalism business, this article on DigiDay, "Is it time to tie journalists' pay to revenue," should clue you in.

It includes this observation from Troy Young, president of digital at Hearst:

At the spirit is the need to align editorial teams with the company’s traffic and engagement goals and have them share in the success. The new generation of editors are analytically inclined anyway. Traffic is a reward in many ways because it gives them credibility. This is a blood sport now.

(In fairness, he does go on to warn about the dangers of solely chasing reader traffic.)

Useful reading - Picard: Shift in modes of news production

Robert Picard is one of the world's leading scholars on media economics, and as a blogger he's definitely quality over quantity.

So when he does a piece like this that nicely and clearly explains the shifts in news production into a forked model, I highly recommend it.

CSJ Column: Why journalists need to pay attention to 3-D printing

I've resumed my Common Sense Journalism monthly column with some thoughts on why 3-D printing will be one of the long-term business disruptors for journalism and other advertiser-supported media.

Why you should pay attention to 3-D printing

By Doug Fisher

No. 118 for July 2013

The curiosity factor of 3-D printing has soared lately with videos of a working gun made using one of the printers. The curiosity will fade – for a while, at least – but smart media managers will keep tracking the technology's progress because it could be one of your next big business disruptors.

It's not as likely to be a direct disruptor as many other digital technologies of the past 15 years have been. But it will disrupt the business of some of your major advertisers.

The idea of "printing" three-dimensional objects is no longer a dream or even an expensive prototype. It is likely to be an accepted consumer technology within a decade.
Doctors already use 3-D printing to make replacement body parts. Formula One racing teams use it to make car parts. The federal government is putting $30 million into creating a manufacturing hub in Youngstown, Ohio.

For $99, a South Carolina company is putting kiosks at malls where you can turn your or your children's drawings into a 3-D model. Keychains and charms are also in the works, according to The State newspaper. The Center for Digital Education says the University of California-Berkeley now has a 3-D print vending machine. And a consumer-level printer can be had for about $1,300 (see cubify.com/cube for an example).

The digital age is ruthless in cutting out middlemen, as media companies are learning. And many of your advertisers are retailers, the epitome of middlemen. Read more ...

Google taking flak

There was the ouburst of unhappiness last week when it was announced Google Reader was being phased out, and now there are broadsides against the search giant for problems with Google Alerts (which I have to agree has been sucking lately).

Here's the deal, folks. This decade is going to be pay to play. Many of these free services were launched with the idea they could be ad supported. We know where that's gone with the media, so why does anyone think it would be different with anything else?

Sure, some will stay free (there's always the motive to get people in the door or there will be other objectives, such as Google's and Facebooks' massive data-gathering efforts -- if you'e buying FB stock, you're not buying a social media company but a huge database you hope can be monetized). And with churn there will be new free ones popping up.

But if you make them part of your workflow, get ready to pony up. It's going to be a cost of business.

Allyson Bird's "Why I left news"

Allyson Bird, one of the best students I've ever had, writes at length about why she left journalism. You should read it.

I think there's a lot to chew on here:

I don’t think the Internet killed newspapers. Newspapers killed newspapers.

People like to say that print media didn’t adapt to online demand, but that’s only part of it. The corporate folks who manage newspapers tried to comply with the whims of a thankless audience with a microscopic attention span. And newspaper staffers tried to comply with the demands of a thankless establishment that often didn’t even read their work. Everyone lost.

People came to demand CNN’s 24-hour news format from every news outlet, including local newspapers. And the news outlets nodded their heads in response, scrambling into action without offering anything to the employees who were now expected to check their emails after hours and to stay connected with readers through social media in between stories.

There was never such a thing as an eight-hour workday at newspapers, but overtime became the stuff of legend. You knew better than to demand fair compensation. If any agency that a newspaper covered had refused to pay employees for their time, the front-page headlines wouldn’t cease. But when it came to watching out for themselves, the watchdogs kept their heads down.

Combine it with the latest from the State of the Media report and it's observation that "nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to," and I think it's time to reassess.

 One of the things I'm going to suggest to the S.C. Press Association this weekend: Do Less With Less - but do it better.

I think our audience is telling us very simply: We can get the "more" if we want it very easily. But if you want our loyalty and engagement, the formula isn't more, but better - do what you do well. Show us you care -- about us and about your own profession. And while you're at it, show us you're having some fun, because to read most news sites and papers these days is no-fun city.

(There's an interesting debate about some of this at Slate between author Matthew Yglesias and the reaction by the commenters on his article that argues journalism has never been in better shape.)

Hyperlocal - make sure you read this

A sobering list of things Mike Fourcher says he learned running hyperlocal sites.

It's quite a good list, covering audience, ads and journalism.

Sobering, as in frank. Not necessarily depressing, but enlightening and a reality check.

Death of Newspapers Documentary: 'Black & White and Dead All Over'

Well, if the trailer is any indication, Black & White and Dead All Over should be an interesting documentary.

Two things seem to be apparent from the trailer

• There's going to be a serious amount of "feel good" here for traditional journalists (hey, I wanted to get up and salute).
• It appears to center on the Philly Newspapers upheaval (though Bob Woodward, for instance, makes the obligatory Watergate reference).

It also appears the bogeymen in this are those greedy or clueless "owners" -- you know, the "hedge funds." As one person sniffs in the trailer: "We're dealing with people who are not necessarily newspaper people, whereas we are newspaper people."

Some other pithy quotes:
"When you're dealing with hedge funds, you never know what's gonna happen next." (So true - just ask the tens of thousands of other people who face the same thing in businesses all across the country. Let's grow up, shall we?)

"They sold our iconic building." Yes, that's what you often do when you transform from an industrial business to a service one, which is what journalism is becoming. You try to get rid of as many fixed costs as possible. You work out of a storefront or your living room, if necessary. What does it matter where you work if your journalism is outstanding, accessible and worth it? This is the sort of edifice complex (including the still-lingering idea that the only true journalism has to, somehow, come out on dead trees) that has plagued us for years.

Here's the problem if this is all the film is.

1. "Journalists" (me included) are not innocent lambs in all this. Yes, 99.44% of them I've ever known stand for truth, justice, and ... well, you know. But they also have, to whatever extent (we can debate how much - I don't think it's as much as some critics would contend), been resistant to change until the Great Recession forced the issue. It's easy to get religion when you are staring death in the eye.
2. The big bad owners aren't necessarily the bogeymen either. That's too simplistic. It's a business, not a charity (notwithstanding some of the outstanding nonprofits that have sprung up). The comment about those folks not being from newspapers shows an enormous naivete on the part of those making it and a tremendous tribal instinct that has been part of the problem.
3. Whether journalists want to acknowledge it or not, they never really had the great trust of their audience. There were a few small windows when the polls looked good, but those were fleeting on the grand time scale. By and large, we are a nuisance to be tolerated -- on all sides -- and as soon as people could vote with their feet, they did. Trust, credibility, whatever you want to call it is no longer institutional but transactional. Put another way, it's earned, what have you done for me today, what have you done that's actually worth paying for? And that still hasn't penetrated significant segments of this business.

The "death" of newspapers (apparently defined here as major metros) is a complicated sociological and economic phenomenon. Complaining, as some do in the trailer, that people don't realize what they're losing reminds me of the guy in the cellphone commercial who complains about not being a winner (his screen's too small to play the game), and the old woman sitting next to him at bus stop looks up and says, no, "you're a whiner."

As Paul Gillin at Newspaper Death Watch notes, the filmmakers, Lenny Feinberg and Chris Foster, haven't put out much information beyond the trailer.

Let's hope the necessary shallowness of the trailer doesn't reflect the shallowness of the documentary. If it does, "Black & White and Dead All Over" will be more chest-thumping heat than providing light - ironic given newspapers' love of that and similar mottoes.

On the other hand, if you want a short video to try to inspire your students and reaffirm your ideals in journalism, definitely play them this.

Best line from the trailer: "I live in a game preserve of corruption."

Go team!


Update 1/12 
The site now has an explanation up:

Black and White and Dead All Over is an in-depth look at the newspaper industry as it struggles to remain financially viable and to keep the presses rolling. Through the voices of prominent journalists including Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and David Carr of the New York Times, we reveal an industry in the midst of a financial death spiral, as readers abandon print for online news sources. We see publishers and editors desperately trying to create a sustainable business model for their dying papers. Our film examines the importance journalism has on our society by following two fearless investigators into the badlands of North Philadelphia. With the economic crisis in the newsroom threatening to shutter their struggling tabloid, these courageous women bring down a dangerous and corrupt narcotics squad. If the American newspaper dies, who will conduct investigative journalism, who will hold public officials accountable?

And a new trailer that's a little more low-key

TRAILER: Black & White and Dead All Over TAINTED JUSTICE from Lenny Feinberg on Vimeo.

If you want to understand newspapers' future ...

Then you have to read the interview with Media General CEO Marshall Morton in RichmondBizSense.com about why Media General agreed to sell most of its papers to Warren Buffett.

Say all you want about "Mismanagement General" - and there's plenty that can be said. But Morton lays some stark truths on the line:

Although the bulk of its cash flow — 87 percent in the first quarter —comes from its TV stations, owning newspapers put Media General at a disadvantage when it came time to renegotiate its huge debt load.

That blindsided Media General, Morton said.

“The banks who had lent us the money no longer wanted to lend to media companies,” Morton said. “They just don’t have confidence in newspapers. You can talk until you’re blue in the face about the value of newspapers in communities, but if you can’t get capital …”

And this:

Publishing revenues are down about 50 percent over the past five years, Morton said, but much of the costs— printing presses, delivery drivers, etc. — have held steady.

“There was nowhere to hide from these revenue declines,” Morton said.

“Over the past five years, our first thought was that this was heavily due to the recession and, like many other recessions in the past, that this was a cycle. You tighten your belt, freeze hiring and even drop the number of people.

“So we went through a couple years thinking that was the way to handle it. But it kept going.”

It wasn’t until the second quarter of 2011, Morton says, “that we realized the world had changed.”

I don't think Buffett is all nostalgic and doesn't understand the newspaper business as people like Clay Shirky suggest. In fact, I don't think he really bought newspapers at all - he bought cash flow from properties that, in general because of their location, are likely to throw off decent cash for at least a decade. He bought them at a fire-sale price. And he got the real estate and a 20 percent stake in Media General's broadcast operations as well (just as has often been noted, McDonald's is not so much a hamburger company as a real estate holding company that happens to sell hamburgers.

So when he's done getting he cash, he can flip the real estate (if not before)

Meanwhile, over at John Robinson's blog, in response to his skeptical post about paywalls, we continue to get from some of the comments the same old take-it-on-faith rubbish that as the younger generation gets older, has families, etc., they will become newspaper readers. Rip Van Winkle can't top that. Every stick of research in the past 20 years shows that each generational cohort reads the newspaper less and does not convert as it ages. Back to my rant last week about journalists failing to even read the research about their industry - and then waking up surprised.

Gingras retrospective

Given the recent remarks by Richard Gingras, head of Google News, on the future of newspapers, it's also worth listening to this 90-minute recording of his 2009 appearance at the annual Convergence and Society conference co-sponsored by the Univ. of SC and Univ. of Nevada.

(At this point, let me also make a pitch for you to get your free subscription (email link) to the Convergence Newsletter, which showcases papers from this annual conference and others as well as tales from the field to bridge academic research and professional practice. We'd love it if you'd contribute articles too.)
Video streaming by Ustream

Good for newspapers, maybe, but for journalism?

Thanks to Lou Phelps of the Savannah Daily News in a column this week for making brutally clear that newspapering is a business - a cutthroat one - that's not necessarily good for journalism.

 Phelps, a media consultant whose company also publishes the Daily News, seeks to make the point that, when looked at from a cash-flow perspective, newspapering is still a pretty decent business and that "we are far from dead," especially smaller community papers:

For smaller publishers still operating their own presses who need to spend $150,000 for computer-to-plate equipment, or $250,000 on press improvements, these incentives will help them cut their payrolls and newsprint waste, helping to make their companies even stronger in future years.

I agree with Phelps, who also looks at Lee, McClatchy and Gannett and finds that they would be in decent shape if it weren't for their crushing debt and depreciation payments. Traditional media companies are going to have to move earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization (EBITDA) closer to bottom-line earnings.

This month's Common Sense Journalism column is going to use an example out of Iowa to argue that if trad media companies want to thrive among the nimblest of new-media companies, they are going to have to write down and throw off more of the real estate, "big iron" and "big silicon" they find themselves writing down and tied to. They have become storefronts on the information highway, and, frankly, they probably ought to be operating out of storefronts, or close to it.

Phelps, however, takes it a step further, nicely drawing the distinction between newspapering as a business and journalism:

Unlike many business sectors, our expenses are tied very tightly to revenue. And, our industry, generally, is not burdened with significant research and development costs or patent attorneys, such as those in the drug or manufacturing sectors.

Take a restaurant, for example. It has to have employees standing there to cook and serve, and has to purchase the food items listed on the menu whether customers come in the door on Friday night or not.

Not so with the newspaper business. If our ad revenues decline, we cut newsprint/ink usage, we buy fewer stories and photographs, and we don't pay sales commissions (particularly optimum if sales reps are on straight commission.) Well-run newspaper companies have controlled all of their overhead and operating expenses, and changed their staffing strategies to be able to adjust to these vagaries.

Granted, some companies were late to that party and paid dearly in 2008 and 2009 as they struggled to believe that advertising revenues would not rebound - and took too long to cut.

But by 2010, most newspaper companies came to grips with the future, and began to admit to each other ... "It's amazing how few people it actually takes to run a newspaper company, isn't it?" as one distinguished newspaper owner in Georgia said to me last year.

And, we all began to cut like crazy.

 Exactly. Newspapering doesn't take (relatively) a lot of resources. Journalism does.


To keep things in perspective, The Savannah Daily News is not the traditionally dominant paper (the Savannah Morning News, daily circulation about 35,000, is). It's a free, low-staff operation (perhaps it's significant that the paper's "about us" page is blank, though this is on the subscription form: Welcome to readership of Savannah Daily News, locally owned and edited by professional journals. Be sure to sign up your family members...and we how you will consider recommending us to your friend and associates. ---Founded in 2004, Savannah Daily News is the region's FREE daily news source. SDN is locally owned, with news stories written daily by respected journalists who live in and love the Savannah, Coastal Georgia and the Lowcountry.)

I couldn't readily find any circulation figures, but it doesn't matter, because I think the sentiments Phelps expresses are shared by many others in the industry looking for low-cost, turn key solutions to what ails them (which Phelps will happily supply through her Community Daily News LLC).

As Phelps notes, newspaper companies are "not burdened with significant research and development costs." Which goes a long way to explaining why newspaper companies are finding it so hard to merge onto the new information - and journalism - highway.

Figuring out who we are as journalists

As online journalism moves into a decade when we will see consolidation, and rethinking, and more rewriting of the rules, and more of the Internet being reshaped in business's image, David Sullivan has put up a thought-provoking post about the rules of journalism and how maybe it's time to rethink and retrench a little.

Retrench, as in not go off headlong chasing every rumor that shows up on a website or a blog. Where do we draw the line? There is no percentage in trying to keep up with the whole Internet; its like trying to empty the ocean with a teacup.

The key in the coming decade will be for each of us - individuals and organizations - to figure out what we are and what we stand for, not, as Sullivan says, to try to be most things to all people. Retrench, yes. Withdraw, no.

As Sullivan writes in his discussion of the wild goose chase regarding a Philadelphia Eagles rumor:

[W]e need to stop thinking that we are competing with everyone in the world. We are competing with people who do what we do to gain the readership of people who want to follow what we do. Those are our customers. Other customers will go to other types of information. With every person having a printing press, it has to be that way. There are too many options to cover every bet. We have to figure out what customers we can get and what they want, and not be worried about the customers we won't get.