| You don't get free gas from a gas station. You don't | | | | While papers have cut their editorial staffs not only |
| get free meals from a restaurant. | | | | to the bone but inside the bone, there's no excuse |
| You wouldn't walk into the Googleplex ... that's | | | | for them not coming up with a dynamite local news |
| Google's corporate headquarters in Mountain View, | | | | website. That's because they can reallocate the |
| Calif. and expect a staffer to rush to the lobby with | | | | staffers who work in national or international news or |
| 1,000 free shares of Google stock for you. | | | | other areas of the paper to the local effort. Go for it |
| At least we don't think so. | | | | ... marshal all the resources into this one specialty. |
| So why is the newspaper industry the only one in | | | | Local news, local features, local business, local sports, |
| America that is expected to give its product ... in its | | | | local commentary. If necessary, use "citizen |
| electronic version ... away for free? | | | | journalists" for neighborhood news. Cover the |
| Wrestling with that question will determine the fate | | | | community top to bottom. |
| of this nation's newspapers. | | | | This is not only a financial and logistical advantage. It |
| Our answer: except for the "Big Four" national | | | | creates a journalistic improvement, too, as news can |
| players, newspapers will not survive unless they | | | | be instantly added and obsolete or inaccurate |
| 1) convert out of print and totally into the Internet, | | | | information removed. The expertly crafted story or |
| 2) confine themselves to local news and, most | | | | hard-charging enterprise piece or beautiful set of |
| importantly, | | | | photographs can remain on the site for readers' |
| 3) charge for it. | | | | enjoyment for a while instead of becoming |
| Astonishingly ... despite many erstwhile titans now | | | | tomorrow's bird cage liner. |
| tottering on the brink of bankruptcy or outright | | | | In doing so, it would behoove the papers to play it |
| extinction ... we're talking about big ones like the | | | | straight. Millions of readers have deserted them in |
| Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, | | | | disgust over political agenda-driven reporting. |
| Rocky Mountain News, Chicago Sun-Times, | | | | Step 3: How much to charge? The Arkansas |
| Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer ... almost | | | | Democrat-Gazette, one of the few if not the only |
| no one in the industry charges for their web site | | | | sizable metro paper to charge for its web site, |
| product. Even as they swirl down the drain, they give | | | | makes readers pay $4.95 a month. Since that's about |
| it away for free. | | | | 16 cents a day, we'd say it's far too low. We'd make |
| "Giving away information for free on the Internet | | | | it a nice round number, easy to remember ... $20 a |
| while still charging 50 cents to $1 for the print version | | | | month. That hopefully would bring in a substantial |
| of the paper was one of the most fundamentally | | | | amount of revenue. |
| flawed business decisions of the past 25 years," says | | | | Readers, of course, have become conditioned to |
| Prof. Paul J. MacArthur, who teaches public relations | | | | free content on the Internet. Many expect it, some |
| and journalism at Utica College. "Newspapers told their | | | | stridently demand it. Can that habit be broken? |
| paying customers that the information truly had no | | | | "The only way you can charge online is if you have |
| value. They told their paying customers that they | | | | something so special that no one else can re-create |
| were suckers. Why would anyone pay 50 cents for | | | | it," says Paul Swider, a former St. Petersburg Times |
| something he or she can get for free? This poorly | | | | reporter who also did a citizen journalist web site for |
| conceived and obviously flawed strategy has helped | | | | the paper. "Don't charge for national politics because |
| put the newspaper industry into its current financial | | | | there's 1,000 other outlets to which the reader can |
| condition and hastened the demise of many | | | | turn, so you're done. But if you have a synthesis or |
| publications." | | | | data or other unique quality of content that others |
| Step 1: Papers are being overwhelmed by enormous | | | | can't duplicate, you could charge for it and succeed." |
| newsprint, production and delivery costs ... and a huge | | | | That means local news. |
| amount of staffing associated with them. All no | | | | And what of the current business model of |
| longer needed. | | | | newspapers ... the one that has them give content |
| Newspapers can still "deliver" their product ... instead | | | | away free on the Net in hopes of luring huge number |
| of being flipped from a speeding pickup truck at 4 | | | | of readers and the attendant "page views" to lure |
| a.m. on or near a driveway, its content can be | | | | advertisers. Well, if it works, why are so many |
| delivered electronically to a customer's computer or | | | | papers failing? |
| to a portable wireless electronic reading device such | | | | Papers should do both ... charge for their content and |
| as Amazon's Kindle. | | | | work hard to get advertising on the site. Wouldn't a |
| What's more, "content providers, once called | | | | lot of advertisers prefer quality over quantity in |
| newspapers, are experimenting with on-demand | | | | readership ... wouldn't potential business customers be |
| delivery particularly to mobile telephones," says | | | | a lot more likely to be those who pay for the paper |
| Michael Ray Smith, communications professor at | | | | instead of those who freeload? |
| Campbell University. "Telephones are computers and | | | | Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the |
| computers make moving information more | | | | Democrat-Gazette, noted in an op-ed piece for the |
| convenient than ever. In some cases, information | | | | Wall Street Journal in 2007 that the U.S. newspaper |
| alerts and bursts can be downloaded from a source | | | | industry collectively spends about $7 billion a year to |
| at work or home or even in transit and then read | | | | gather news. "By offering this news for free and |
| while on the road." | | | | selling it to aggregators like Google, Yahoo and MSN |
| Let's hope that papers have a heart and offer the | | | | for a small fraction of what it costs to create it, |
| best severance packages and retraining possibilities | | | | newspaper readership and circulation have declined," |
| they can to their blue-collar workforce, many of | | | | he wrote. "Why would readers buy a newspaper |
| whom tend to be long-term, loyal employees. | | | | when they can get the same information online for |
| But obsolescence is obsolescence. Oh, yes, the four | | | | free?" |
| papers that probably can survive in print ... of course | | | | He added this point: ads have much more impact in |
| they're USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New | | | | print than on a computer screen. "While consumers |
| York Times and the Washington Post. | | | | often find pop-up ads a distraction (on a web site) |
| They're in the right place ... "I see New York and | | | | and banner ads as more clutter, readers often seek |
| Washington always having newspapers because they | | | | out the advertising in newspapers." |
| are the seats of financial and political power," says | | | | Hussman's paper, incidentally, while not exactly |
| David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, an | | | | flourishing, has suffered much less advertising and |
| influential public relations firm in D.C. | | | | circulation declines than most other of his peers. |
| They have a national base in their financial and/or | | | | Which brings us back to our original question: why do |
| political reporting and an affluent readership that | | | | people expect newspaper web sites to be free? |
| surely is strong enough to keep them going. | | | | And there's no good answer. The so-called experts |
| Step 2: Carve out a niche that makes the paper's | | | | use airy, meaningless phrases like "because that's the |
| web site dominant, irreplaceable and one of a kind. | | | | Internet culture" as if this notion just floated down |
| "I would like to offer a two-word solution to the | | | | from heaven somehow. |
| financial woes of our ink-stained friends: 'local news,' " | | | | In fact, that's how Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who |
| says business consultant Jonathan Stark, who has | | | | benefits immensely from basically free news, views it. |
| consulted for a number of U.S. papers. "Newspapers | | | | In an interview with Fortune's Adam Lashinsky, he |
| have real roots in the communities they serve. They | | | | actually said, "the culture of the Internet is that |
| have history, tradition and personal relationships. In | | | | information wants to be free." |
| some cases, they are a source of local pride. If | | | | Information doesn't want to be free any more than |
| newspapers are willing to let go of their print-based | | | | gasoline wants to be free or food wants to be free. |
| history, invest in their writers, embrace technology | | | | When Mr. Schmidt stands in the lobby of the |
| and dedicate themselves to being THE source for | | | | Googleplex and hands out free shares of his |
| local news, they will have readers for as long as | | | | company stock, then maybe we can believe the |
| people can read." | | | | "free" rationale. Until then, papers should charge for |
| Who else can do it better? Local TV station news | | | | what they do so they don't go out of business. |
| anchors and skimpy throwaway weekly papers can't. | | | | Simple as that. |
| They feed off the big local paper anyway. | | | | |