All Hail the Mighty Paper

Warning: long, long post today... ;-)

I remember a few years ago when I moved to Hoboken, NJ and took a job with JPMorganChase, situated right across from the NYSE. **ahhh** What a great deal that was. Every morning, I’d get on board the ferry in Hoboken, sit back and read the newspaper for the mile-long ride across the Hudson River, and get off at the Wall Street pier. I’d make my way up Wall Street, past all those financial conglomerates: Schwab, UBS, Trump Tower, Merrill Lynch, and others.... and just get immersed in the sounds and smells of downtown New York: the coffee, the doughnuts, the street vendors, the people lined up at the corner newspaper stands, the taxis, the passersby, and the trench-coat busy-bodies hurrying to their windowless offices with rolled up newspaper in arm (or briefcase).

What can I say, it was all very intoxicating and I completely bought into it.

I also remember shortly after my new move, I started taking up a subscription for the WSJ. At the time, it was more for status than readership; I thought the WSJ was for the intellectual right and the fashionably “cool” in society, and I was determined to be part of the “in”” crowd. Eventually though, I became an avid reader - for the quality of the writing, the editorial content, the "intellectual grade" and the range of print issues.

What can I say, the WSJ was and still is, a great newspaper...

Reading the WSJ was a daily routine, and a relaxing one at that. When I finally flipped that last page, I felt like I had accomplished something, learned something, retained something. I felt pretty good about myself.

Eventually though, those daily routines were supplanted by online news reading from sources like AP, Reuters, the WSJ Online and others. And now that I’m working for a newspaper – I feel the decline of readership more personally and I find myself wondering what the future has in store for newspapers and the WSJ. And let’s face it, newspapers don’t have too much to be happy about these days: advertising revenue is down, circulation is slumping, and newsroom cuts have become "daily news."

While the old news forums are indeed being usurped by the advent of the internet and new digital technology, unlike many (if not most), I don’t believe that the newspaper will wither away into nonexistence – unless we let it.

Even it becomes a niche market, rich in content...there is a way to save the newspaper.

Times have changed. The newspaper business has to be forward thinking if it wants to retain readership and grow it’s revenue base – be it through new and renewed subscriptions, information portals geared towards niche subscribers, or advertising dollars. ** A point of clarification - the newspaper is not the product. The "product" is the readership (the audience); the market is the advertiser. **

That said, the future of the Newspaper is about three things: Rich content, content "growth" and data management. The online version will be about rich media content across a wide array of verticals (a perfect marriage between online and print media). Okay, so that's technically, 1-2-3..4 things.

Content, Content, Content
Not for nothing but the editorial content of most newspapers today is sorely, soreley lacking. 95% of newspapers I just throw down in disgust. I can't handle the ultra liberal point of view or worse, the "uneducated yet well-written" point of view. And with continuous budget cuts and declining readership, the content is only going to get worse. Here's what I say, the business objective shouldn't be about making significant (or even slight) content cutbacks. That's the crux of the paper people! The goal should be to enrich the content and make it more valuable to all your readers and non-readers.

The future of newspapers is the 20-something generation. Today, they're fresh out of college – tomorrow, they’re readers. The trick is building loyalty and awareness now.

Add a rebuttal section: the same complaint that myself and so many others have - is the biased perspective of the media - particular newspapers. Add a fun, intellectual rebuttal section for key issues; readers submit the questions. You present the 'conservative' and 'liberal' points of view, or in the non-political sphere, the 'for' and 'against' point of view. You have two or three bullet points in a summary section highlighting the issue, each rebuttal is 1 column long, half-page. That leaves plenty of room for two debate topics. This section could be bi-weekly...every Wednesday and every Sunday to give it more value.

More "Jon Stewart" journalism: Not throughout the paper of course but every good paper should have a good, hearty "wise-cracking" page for the satirical and the cynical - make it fun, make it hip, make it interesting. We all share so much of the same thoughts, fears and hopes - make it relevant. Oh, and please...none of this 2000 words on a page for just one article. Have several brief columns for the page.

Add readership inserts that stir the palate of the 20-something crowd: technology, business for the ages, social events for 20-something readers in the local area, career and job hunting tidbits, etc. Or hey, have one weekly insert segmented by age group for everyone to enjoy! The question editors really need to ask (and answer) is 'where is the audience going?' - what information do they value and how can we incorporate these concepts into our paper thoughtfully and with added value...

Better stories, more stories:
...more content, more facts, more satire, more fun, more funnies, more inserts, more, more, more! As one LA Times editor said, “"wise investment – not retraction – is the long-term answer to the industry's troubles.” OR, "A dollar's worth of smart investment is worth far more than a barrel of budget cuts."

Of course, going this route may be more costly, and the newspaper may eventually be tailored towards a niche market with fewer papers being printed for a higher price, but if the quality is in tact and the content is at a level higher than it's ever been, newspapers will be around for a long time. And besides, I'm all for higher content quality. The biggest problem with news in general is that all the articles covering a particular topic, all say the same thing – so little varied perspective.

**ack. cough. tears.**

New Digital Content
As for the online version of newspapers... I have a few thoughts on that as well: In addition to the usual news/events, weather, etc….paid subscribers should be able to choose the level of editorial content, and level of censorship in their news, comics, and entertainment. Preferences can be modified for different household members – i.e., children and teenagers can have the G or PG-rated editorial content. It should be a "mix-it-up" subscription service.

Now, keep your pants on fellas...I'm not talking about intellectual "porn" here. No, I'm talking about mature, intelligent or maturely funny editorial content.

Audio-reading:
An option for the elderly or just those who want the news but don’t want to sit in front of the computer for hours on end. This could be in partnership with Adobe (Adobe has a downloadable audio-reader as part of their, I believe, 8.0 suite. If articles can be downloaded as PDFs you can listen to them using the audio reader.)

Newsbloggers:
Locals write the news and self-syndicate to all of the newspapers from their homes.

And finally,…

the information portal:
a comprehensive database of all articles, and key words within those articles with links to sources, names, events, references, etc. All stories with even the most obscure references would be tied together and stored in the database; a benefit for readers and editors who wish to have detailed information, background information on any particular subject previously covered, at their fingertips.

Think, a Wiki of the news per se. Today’s article search is a mindboggling expedition, and next to useless in so far as time goes but the technology is there; it is possible. Information is still the most valued commodity and it can come with a price – so long as the technology is relevant and no one else does it better (or first).

Internal Management
Ahem, so I'm relatively new to the newspaper industry but I've learned quickly that this industry - ahead of the data-mining curve it is not. Apparently the popular way to go from a circulation marketing perspective is to outsource marketing campaigns to local call center type organizations. Everything goes...from concept, execution, all the way to tracking.

..And here's what I have to say to that. EH. WRONG ANSWER! If you have the budget to outsource it to a group of people who hold no real personal value for your business, then you have the budget to "insource it" with one or two good people on your team. You can outsource the execution, but circulation teams need to be managing the campaigns that go out the door from concept, to execution strategy, to campaign tracking. If you value your business and the future of your business, you need to own that business.

Database Management
Another area with room for improvement. In order to effectively target and segment your audience to track campaign spend and revenue, to track usage across all campaigns, to track response rates for new campaigns, etc... you need to have an oustanding marketing database. No newspaper, with significant market share and declining readership, should be without one. Note to the industry, Invest in technology - it WILL help you.

Why? It's important to be able to drill down your data to really understand who you're reaching, why, and how much your "reach" is costing the company. It's important to know which marketing campaigns are effective? Which offers generate the largest response rates and within which segments? And the end-all-be-all of questions - what's the long term value of every customer, meaning how much is each customer worth in cost and revenue? Ultiamtely, you want to know what kind of penetration you're getting and what that return is in terms of costs vs advertising revenue.

You should be able to effectively drill-down data across demographic, location, risk, penetration, response-rate, number of households, homes on the DNC list, high customer service areas, hard delivery-areas, etc. You should be able to track customers by complaints, calls through the VRU, refunds, cancellations, write-offs, customer contact points, and so much more. And at the end of the day you should be able to tie all that information together to give you "the big picture".

Information is power, and information is the crux of the newspaper business. That rings even more true from an internal management perspective, when running the business.

So what do you think...are newspapers out and the internet in? Is the internet the future of news?