Texas Center For Community Journalism

In today’s struggling retail environment, garnering advertising dollars, whether online, in paper, special sections or niche publications continues to be an ongoing challenge.

Coupled with the evolving and changing advertising media (Consider the Internet’s impact on other media!), the media choices for many retailers may, at times, be overwhelming.

“No money to advertise!” Simply stated, this is an all-too-frequent objection refrain from a potential advertiser.

However, when business is tough to get and the retail or service provider sector continues to be challenging, “No money to advertise!” may be reality, from the potential advertiser’s point of view, rather than an objection.

When a small business owner feels (rather strongly) that she has no money to advertise, your selling opportunity shifts from one of overcoming an objection to one of education. To secure any ad dollars for your newspaper, you must first help her understand where to look and where to find dollars that may be utilized to invest in her business through advertising and promotion.

Within her business and without increasing her budget or without additional cash input, ad dollars do exist to invest in her business. Here are six areas to consider in your search for those elusive ad dollars:

• Explore reducing overall salary expense, by reviewing her business’ hours of operation. Opening an hour later or closing an hour earlier without impacting customer service or revenue generates 20 hours (one hour/day x 20 days) of saved expense that may be converted to a $200/month ad budget (20 hours x $10/hour in payroll expense).
• Bring her vendors and suppliers into the conversation. Inquire from each and every business that she does business with, if co-op advertising or extra promotional dollars exist to support their product placement in her business. Leverage enhanced product placement in her store or in her ads for those vendors willing to contribute to the promotion of their product or service.
• Review her current inventory and purchasing habits and controls. Is it possible to tighten her inventory without impacting customer service or revenue, and shift those savings into an ad dollar investment?
• Take a look at helping her initiate a joint neighborhood marketing effort. Inquire locally at the Chamber of Commerce or other city agencies to see if neighborhood promotional dollars or marketing opportunities are available for the asking. This strategy may also open the door for additional and new advertisers for you.
• Challenge her to review her own remuneration schedule (e.g. her salary!). Remind her that a small reduction in her personal income this year make reap big benefits for her business and subsequently to her next year and down the road!
• Last, but not least, help her clarify where her business dollars are going in support of her local community. Do some services or charities or groups duplicate others? Would a realignment of her dollar commitments maximize results while better allocating those funds?

“No money to advertise!” may simply be a challenge offered to you by an advertiser to find the money! Good luck and have fun!

We have more information about news consumption than ever before.

Problem is, we’re not sure what it all means, or how it will impact the future of community journalism.

Let’s take something that came out just this week: The Pew Research Center tells us that tablet computers are exploding in popularity. For instance: it took the iPad one quarter to reach the same rate of unit sales that DVD players took five years to achieve. Which is not to say that we were slow to part with VHS and move to DVDs. In fact, it was considered a phenomenally quick transition for a nation where so many people already had a VHS player next to their TV sets.

Phenomenal, that is, until the tablet came along. Now 11 percent of American adults have Internet access via tablets. At its current rate, the iPad will pass gaming hardware and cellphones to become the fourth biggest consumer electronics category next year.

And what does that mean for news? Of tablet owners, 77 percent read the news on their device once a week, and 23 percent have a print subscription that gives them free access to tablet services.

That’s the good news. On the other hand, only 21 percent of those who don’t have news access would be willing to pay $5 a month to access their favorite tablet news site.

It’s just one more confusing part of the media future into which we’re rushing headlong. The bottom line for community journalism? Nobody knows how all of this will shake out, but we have to stay abreast of the issues and trends, so that we won’t be starting from scratch when it’s time to make some critical decisions that will affect our newspapers and news sites.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/39501308/iPad_Adoption_Rate_Fastest_Ever_Passing_DVD_Player
http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2011/10/the_tablet_-_a_saving.php
http://www.editorsweblog.org/newspaper/2011/10/get_on_the_tablet_bandwagon_quickly.php

The new Walter Isaacson bio of Steve Jobs is probably something every publisher and editor in community journalism should read. 

As Politico’s Playbook tip sheet pointed out this morning, the main message of the book is this:  Know how to cut to the essence.  Jobs was a master at focusing on a few things – the most important things.  It’s a lesson we must learn in community journalism.

For years, we’ve focused as much on the medium as the message.  I can still remember my mother’s reaction when I first told her I had decided to become a journalist, back in 1966.  Her small-town Arkansas experience was exclusively with community newspapers, and she looked at me and asked a question I’ll never forget:  “Does this mean you’ll have ink smudges on your hands for the rest of your life?”

She was serious.

For mom, what she knew of journalism was inextricably wrapped up in that ink-on-newsprint product. It never occurred to her that they could be separated.

That was 40 years ago, but that world could as well have been 200 years ago.  Then, we called even the news by the name of the medium on which it was printed—the news was “the paper.”

And that worked for then.  It started changing when news started arriving by radio, then by television, then on your computer, and now on your mobile devices.  Steve Jobs started out as a computer guy, but he was one of the first to realize he wasn’t in the computer business – he was in the business of delivering information and entertainment … literally of bringing the world to your fingertips.

One of the stories in Isaacson’s book, according to Politico, is the story of when Apple execs were brainstorming the product that ultimately became the iDVD:  Jobs “jumped up, grabbed a marker, and drew a simple rectangle on a whiteboard.  ‘Here’s the new application.  It’s just got one window.  You drag your video into the window.  Then you click the button that says “Burn.”  That’s it.  That’s what we are going to make.’”

Jobs knew what business he was in – and that computers were the means, not the end.

This ain’t our fathers’ community journalism.  We do indeed publish a paper, and probably will for some time.  But that’s not our business.  Our business is news and information and entertainment.  Our business is putting people in touch with their community, and doing it so well that we provide an excellent platform for advertisers to reach that audience of news and entertainment consumers.  Our job is to be the go-to place to connect readers and viewers not only with events and news, but also with each other.

Our flagship is the newspaper.  But that paper product must now work in tandem with our website and with our social media platform.  Gone are the days when we thought only of getting something into the newspaper the next time it published.  Have you seen the commercials where these guys are playing with their tablets at football tailgate and someone comes up with a late news flash, and they respond, “That’s so 27 seconds ago”?

That’s not our current reality in community journalism, but that mentality is soaking into our audience – especially our young audience, our future – every time they turn onto a TV set or look at Facebook on their iPhone.

We have to realize what Steve Jobs realized, what made him a visionary; we have to figure out what our real business is, and to be relentless about pursuing it.

It’s scary, but it’s our future.

And besides, our hands will be a lot cleaner.

The Postal Service, reacting to worsening finances, and perhaps to get the attention of Congress on its need for legitimate relief, announced plans Sept. 15 to study closing more than half of its mail-processing facilities around the country.

As explained by Vice President Network Operations Dave Williams, the existing network was expanded over time primarily to serve growing First-Class volume. With that class in sharp decline, the network must be reconfigured. Therefore, the sad reality is that because First-Class Mail is declining, USPS thinks that it must make plant changes that will, in effect, ensure that other volumes face the same fate.

Although proposals on service standards would end overnight First-Class delivery, and on paper, only change Periodicals standards nationwide from one to nine days to two to nine days. Make no mistake: Service will decline for Periodicals and other classes of mail not entered at the office of delivery. USPS is effectively becoming a last-mile delivery agent only. Otherwise, it will not be a reliable “delivery partner.”

Reduction is Draconian

The proposed plant reduction can only be termed Draconian, and it holds special significance for community newspapers, which enter their mail mostly in or near small Sectional Center Facilities. Then it flows from those SCFs to many other ZIPs within the news coverage territory, or trade area where advertising is most effective.  In Salida, Colo., for instance, Publisher Merle Baranczyk gets next-day delivery to post offices in all directions via highway contract routes from his Salida SCF, which is on the closure-study list for merger into Denver.

The plan, expected to save $3 billion a year, would expand on existing Area Mail Processing consolidation studies that have been increasing in frequency the past few years. Judging by the sharp deterioration in service based on the AMPs put into place so far, the proposed changes, if implemented, would in most cases take newspapers much farther away for processing and handling.

In Kentucky, for example, a Bowling Green AMP sending mail to Nashville for processing caused delivery to degrade from two days to five days for a Periodical owned by Landmark Community Newspapers. When the customer paid an upgrade fee for First-Class, which has a three-day nationwide service standard, the delivery still took five days, infuriating the customer.

Similar stories have been heard from the National Newspaper Association members across the country. USPS management assurances that existing service standards will be maintained or only degraded one day under AMPs have been false. There is no reason to believe that the massive proposed changes would do anything but severely disrupt delivery of Periodicals and all other classes of mail.

Postalgeddon

Make no mistake about it: This proposal, while said to be necessary with USPS financial losses, will surely do nothing but hasten the Postal Service’s demise as a meaningful conduit of hard-copy commerce. NNA firmly believes the five-day delivery proposal will also back up mail, reduce delivery service nationwide, and notes with regret that the Obama administration proposal on USPS Sept. 19, includes shifting to five-day. Add the two changes together, and it’s no exaggeration to term it “Postalgeddon.”  (With 10-12 Monday holidays, there will be three days without mail delivery.)

Although the administration does ask for return of a $7 billion over-payment by USPS into the Federal Employee Retirement System (but over two years), it does not relieve the unfair pre-payment of $5.5 billion a year for retiree health benefits, something imposed on USPS as another “budget trick” to help the federal deficit in 2006.

It’s a shame that an agency supported only by mailer postage would be made a perpetual deficit punching bag because it’s part of the unified federal budget.

Obama also proposes to allow price increases above the rate of inflation, reversing the 2006 postal reform bill. Raising prices drastically, especially during a continuing nationwide recession with severe cuts in service, is a “perfect storm,” to continue the clichés (though true), for an ever-weaker USPS.

DDU entry a necessity

Clearly, newspapers can maintain local delivery by using Exceptional Dispatch privileges in DMM 707.28.3 to drop copies at the office of delivery using the paper’s transportation for “trade-area” offices that are critical to the success of readers and advertisers in the newspaper’s county and surrounding counties. That is one avenue for time-sensitive Periodicals not available to other classes of mail.

NNA is fighting hard to keep local-entry access and timely delivery alive in testimony filed Sept. 16 with the Postal Regulatory Commission in the post office closing review case. All newspapers in the country that are non-members of NNA should be begging to join to help preserve local access.

Unfortunately, distant subscribers could soon be a thing of the past, if all this comes to pass. While older subscribers who have moved away are loyal, they don’t always embrace the Web. But most newspapers are beginning to sell Web-based subscriptions. NNA’s effort since 2007 to get paid PDF facsimile subscriptions count on the postal Statement of Ownership, PS Form 3526, should be finalized in 2012.

What newspapers can do

First, go to nnaweb.org, then click on the article “U.S. Postal Service must make changes with community papers in mind,” and find the link to plant closings at the bottom of the article. If you are not a member, join us in this fight by finding the box to join NNA. We desperately need all the support we can get to engage Congress and get the best possible results for community newspapers.

Secondly, call your U.S. senators and representatives. Quickly! Let them know how severely you think these changes will affect delivery, and ask them to vote to approve returning both the $5.5 billion per year wrongly assessed USPS as well as the $7 billion proposed by Obama. Ask that USPS not be made a victim of the 2011 federal deficit fight, and risk destroying an important institution of commerce.

Thirdly, start moving more mail to Exceptional Dispatch DDU drops, or at least have plans to do so if the plant cuts proposed actually move forward (and the likelihood is high).

This blog post was used by permission of Publisher’s Auxiliary.

The Texas Center for Community Journalism is happy to welcome two new consultants who will help to provide answers for the questions Texas community journalists ask. Joining the Center’s group of specialists are Max Heath of Shelbyville, Ky., and Michael Sherrod of Fort Worth.

Heath is one of the nation’s best-known specialists in postal issues and Sherrod is a pioneer in new media business models. They join TCCJ consultants with specialties in law, publication design, writing, advertising sales, freedom of information and innovative approaches to community journalism.

TCCJ consultants provide answers to questions sent in by community newspapers to the Ask an Expert feature of the Center’s website, www.tccj.tcu.edu. They also advise the staff of the Center.

Heath is a semi-retired postal consultant for Publishing Group of America (American Profile/Relish/Spry), and for Landmark Community Newspapers, Inc., a division of Landmark Communications. For 21 years he was executive editor and for 23 years corporate circulation director as well.

Heath writes a monthly Postal Tips column for Publisher’s Auxiliary. He was named to the Postal Service Mailer’s Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) representing NNA in 1989 and is also on the national Periodical Operations Advisory Committee, and the rule-making Periodicals Advisory Group.

He received the National Newspaper Association’s President’s Award in 1989, 1997, and 2007, the Ambassador Award in 1992, and the Amos Award for service to NNA in 1994.The Postal Service presented him a Special Achievement Award in 1997.

Michael Sherrod has been a pioneer in the online world since 1985. At the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he created and sold one of the world’s first electronic advertisements to AT&T through an innovative videotext news service he helped manage.

Sherrod founded or co-founded 10 companies, including DigitalCity.com. He served in senior management roles at AMR Information Services, AOL, Ancestry.com, and examiner.com where he was founding president & CEO.

He recently served as the first publisher of TexasTribune.org, a non-profit, non-partisan media site covering Texas government, politics and policy.

He is currently entrepreneur in residence at the Neeley School of Business at TCU.

“Newspapers are the backbone of educating Americans,” members of the National Newspaper Association were told Friday at the 125th annual convention of the organization in Albuquerque.

Dean Lowell Catlett of New Mexico State University was the keynote speaker for the opening session of the convention.

“The demand for what you do has never been higher,” Catlett said.

More than two dozen Texas newspaper men and women are at the convention.

Chad Ferguson of Columbus is the president of the Texas Press Association and carried the state flag during the opening ceremonies.

Postal issues top the convention agenda followed closely by digital programs.

Max Heath of Shelbyville, Kentucky, chairman of NNA’s postal committee had a session on problems related to USPS plans to close many more post offices in the near future.

Two Texas newspaper men are past presidents of the national organization including Jerry Tidwell, publisher of the Hood County News in Granbury and Roy J. Eaton, retired publisher of the Wise County Messenger in Decatur.

Another program set for Friday was “Beyond Libel”, which covered legal pitfalls in the digital age and how to avoid them. The convention ends Saturday afternoon.

An exhibit currently at the Texas State History Museum chronicles the impact of high school football on Texas. But if you’re a Texas journalist, you don’t need this exhibit to remind you that football is king in Texas, and the king holds court every Friday night.

And that’s why football gives community newspapers one of their best opportunities to establish themselves as the go-to source for the latest news in town. Since almost nothing is bigger than the week’s game, community papers should make sure that they are the definitive source of news and information on that game. Nobody should beat us. We should have more news, more pictures, more features, more stats … and have it quicker than anyone. If your readers can find photos of the game, and reactions to the game, on Facebook before they can find them on your site, you’re missing a great opportunity.

Maybe there was a time when people would wait until next week when your paper came out for game news. No longer. But the same digital media that make everyone a publisher also give us some great opportunities to take the lead in covering high school football.

Here are some resources that will help you re-think what you’re doing to cover games:

Take time to read Steve Buttry’s great piece on Tweeting and liveblogging high school football. And even if Twitter isn’t that big in your town, you can use your game coverage to build your Twitter audience – and then use Twitter to promote everything from your website to your upcoming editions. Run house ads to say you’ll be Tweeting the game, and remind anyone with a computer that Twitter is free and starting an account takes only minutes. And as Steve shares in this blog, you’re not just Tweeting the game yourself – you will “curate” the Tweets of others by establishing a hashtag where everyone in the stands with a smartphone can comment on what’s going on in the game itself. Check out Steve’s blogpost – it’ll get you started. And if you already have a “Twitter presence” at your high school games, or if you’re liveblogging them, let us know at the Center by emailing tccj@tcu.edu. We’d like to share your story.

Looking to improve your photos of the games? The Center is publishing a series on sports photography by Texas photojournalist Jason Fochtman. Check out his first blog on photography in poorly lit stadiums – if you haven’t seen it already – and watch for Jason’s future pieces.

And take time to re-evaluate your coverage in general to make sure you’re getting everything possible out of the games, and attracting as many readers – and advertisers – as you can. A good way to do that is by looking at Andrew Chavez’ blog post on football coverage that ran earlier on the TCCJ website.

You won’t want to do everything in this grab-bag of ideas – but if you find only one or two that will work at your paper, you’ll be attracting more high school football fans to your website and your newspaper.

Editor’s note: This is the first of two blogposts on improving football photography at high school games.

If there is anything I’ve learned going into my third year photographing sports in the world of community journalism, it’s assume your stadium/gym lighting will be that of a bat cave, and that you’ll be expected to come away with a good photo with company gear that’s far from top of the line.

We’re going to look into ways you can cover a football game given those two constraints.

First, we need to get some general understanding about football stadium lighting out of the way.

If you were high in the stands, you would see that not all parts of the field get the same amount of light.

The less light you have, the harder it will be to have properly exposed photos.

Football fields have the most light directed at around the middle of the field, specifically the 50 yard line.

The light drops off as you get further away from midfield and as you go closer to the sidelines.

There is also a light dropoff around the 10-to-15 yard line and typically a significant lack of light in the end zone (that fact has always amazed me given the focus of the sport).

That might seem as one more strike against you, but understanding stadium lighting can help you maximize not only your efforts, but also your effectiveness as a photographer.

Now that we have an understanding of stadium light and its limitations, how can we use that to our advantage?

The best way is not to rely solely on it in the first place.

High school football games typically start with about an hour of decent evening sunlight left, giving you an hour to capture the best-lit images you might get all game.

That’s an hour you and your camera won’t be handicapped by the quality of the stadium’s lights.

The tradeoff is that you have to be aware of the location of the sun, which might mean having to shoot photos on the other team’s sidelines (Gasp!).

I find too many photographers have the mindset that they’re shooting for “their team” and therefore stay within the confines of “their team’s” side of the field, even if that means shooting a backlit player resulting in washed-out photos.

General rule: You want your back to be turned to the sun, not facing it. The result will be photos where the player has the most amount of light on him as he comes toward you, giving you the best-exposed photo.

That brings me to another point, positioning yourself to get the best photo you can with the equipment you have.

If you’re trying to get a shot of the offense, either a running back or a wide receiver, you’ll want to be ahead of the ball (probably 10 to 15 yards if you have a wide-angle lens, possibly more if you have a telephoto lens).

If you only have a wide-angle lens, you have to come to grips that you won’t get every shot, and that you can’t shoot a photo of something that happened at midfield and expect you’ll be able to crop later.

Patience is key.

You’ll have to wait for the action to come to you. The closer they are, the better.

I always think of it as wanting to fill your frame with as much action as you can.

Using a telephoto lens, you have more reach to get photos from further away, but my earlier point remains the same – fill your frame.

If you are looking for a defensive shot, you’ll want to be behind the offensive line typically 5 to 10 yards.

Basically you’ll want to be as close as possible to the action you want to capture.

In my next post, we’ll look into what camera settings you could use for a football game and what kind of images you can capture.

To recap basic ideas:

1. Stadium light stinks; don’t rely on it. Make the most of the evening light.
2. Pay attention to where the light is falling. Don’t be afraid to move around the field.
3. Fill the frame and wait for the action to come to you.