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Newspaper people like to think they have their fingers on the pulse of readers. They like to think they have an idea of what readers think, what they want, what they believe they need. A new survey shows, however, that news execs far overestimate their readers’ perceived needs for the news they’re producing – in any format. For example, both groups were asked what readers would do if their local newspaper Web site went away. Would they turn to the print product to get news? An overwhelming 75 percent of news execs said if their Web site went away, readers would pick up the print edition. But only 30 percent of readers said they would – 68 percent said they’d go to other Web sites, 45 percent would turn to TV. This is one of those surveys that anyone in news should read.
That’s the convention wisdom, and now it’s confirmed in a new report, “Small business Marketing Health Check.” The report found a direct relationship between spending on marketing and the success of the small business. Example: Of businesses with flat or declining revenues, only a third had raised or planned to raise spending on marketing. But two-thirds of businesses with increased revenues had raised spending on marketing. The survey also showed small businesses shifting spending away from traditional media toward social media and email newsletters.
One of the more interesting online news ventures in the nation is happening right here in Texas. It’s an online-only news site that was launched as a non-profit organization. It’s called the Texas Tribune, and it’s funded by readers who donate to keep alive what they consider a worthy cause. The editor is Evan Smith, former editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly. You can check out the new site at texastribune.org. And even if you don’t go there, look at what promises to be a regular feature on that site – using animation and pop-ups to insert everything from humor to fact-checking to background information into a speech, inserted during the speech itself. Currently, the “victim” is Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson. You can see the “stump interrupted” concept on the Texas Tribune site, or access it directly from YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAUUw4NrKkE.
When an account is 60-days past due, accounting takes a copy of the statement to the advertising sales manager and she or the sales representative call the past-due advertiser and put them on a “cash only” basis and try to encourage the customer to pay a portion of the past due with their cash payment for current advertising. The sales rep usually handles the first contact by telephone and occasionally makes a personal call on the advertiser. If not successful, the general manager gets involved and no further advertising is accepted.
Two news items about our business from last week:
- Circulation is down. Big-time. Average weekday circulation has dropped nearly 11 percent, the sharpest decline in years. And the big guys are hurting the most: Nearly two-thirds of the 25 largest papers in the U.S. posted circulation declines of 10 percent or more.
- Despite the drop in circulation, or maybe because of it, the buzz in corporate offices is still about how to charge for content. More publishers, it seems, are determined to make news consumers pay for what they’ve been getting up to now for free. But despite the conversation about the need for pay walls, and no lack of proposals about how to make them work, publishers realize that erecting pay walls only drives away readers.
About the only pay-wall ideas with traction now are the ones that involve charging not for the basic news content of the paper, but for supplemental content.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, for instance, has a free site but charges $19.95 a year for premium coverage of the Minnesota Vikings — a plan similar the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Packer Insider coverage.
The Wall Street Journal Online uses a model now being talked about in Texas newsrooms — offering some free content, but only teasing a lot of major pieces, which will require a subscription. The magazine Consumer Reports uses much the same approach.
The issues here, of course, are that these are highly specialized media. WSJ is the last word in business and financial coverage, and CR is best known for its product reviews. Neither — at least of that quality and reputation — is available free on the Web and gathered in one site.
Some newspapers have even offered up as a model iTunes, which lets the consumer pay for individual music downloads. Newspapers, some publishers say, could offer news downloads in the same way. Of course, downloaded music can be played again and again, and you don’t typically see news and opinion being read over and over.
And perhaps the Internet’s best example of pay-for-specialized-content is the one type of content that (until social media came along) was most prevalent online: pornography. But even with porn, you can now get pretty much all the smut you want for free, and profits for purveyors of porn have plummeted. [Sorry; some alliterations are just too good to pass up.]
Lauren Fine, research director for ContentNext Media, believes that newspapers are going to have to realize that they cannot charge for most types of news:
“[Newspapers] have to think a little more creatively about what people will pay for, what they find of value, but core news in and of itself still feels like there’s so much available that it will be hard to get people to pay,” Fine said.
The analyst believes newspapers are going to have to think out of the box to come up with the types of content people will pay for on their Web sites:
“If I’m a local newspaper, maybe I can’t get you to pay for the content, but I could create a real estate service that says you’re going to be one of 25 people who receive the first alert that a new home is available,” she said.
The real question, of course, is what kind of content the reader will be willing to pay for. One blogger put it like this in a series of questions we must all eventually ask ourselves: “What value are you providing that makes it worth paying you? That’s the question I keep asking. Newspaper folks seem to think that their content is magically so valuable that everyone will start paying if they charge. There’s no evidence that’s true at all. So what value are they adding beyond all the other content out there that makes it worth actually paying for?”
That’s the dilemma. The staff of the Center is following this issue, so you keep following the blogs and Around the Web features here, and we’ll report the newest trends and experiments in ways to charge for premium content.
OK, admit it. You’ve never even thought of parodying the Associated Press Stylebook. But these guys (one from Texas) did, and the result is often hilarious. Written in the same tone as the “real” stylebook, this Twitter feed provides a great newsroom break. And it shows again the power of the Net—three weeks ago it didn’t exist, and now it has 40,000 followers. And that’s more than the AP Stylebook has.
Yes, news media can safely publish information about student-athletes without violating the law.
However, publishers may run into some legal difficulties based on the sources of their information.
The First Amendment, with very few exceptions, protects the publication of truthful information. Even when somebody engages in an unlawful act, such as illegally recording a private cell phone conversation, the publisher is not going to get in trouble for broadcasting or printing this information — as long as the publisher had no part in the illegal activity. This was the case in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on this very situation, Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001).
As long as the information published is newsworthy and isn’t an outrageous and highly offensive violation of a person’s privacy — which are more typically personal medical or sexual matters — then the publisher won’t open itself up for civil litigation on privacy grounds, either.
That said, the source of this information could run into some legal problems. The Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, also known as the “Buckley Amendment”) protects the privacy of student educational records. Schools that receive federal funds can lose funding if they violate the provisions of FERPA, and the U.S. Department of Education can investigate unlawful release of student records.
Records of school-related drug tests would certainly be protected by FERPA, and any school official releasing these could be in violation of the law. A publisher receiving this information can legally publish it, of course. But that publisher may very well be called upon to identify the source of that information under federal subpoena. With no federal reporter shield law in place yet, publishers would have little choice but to reveal the identity of the source or face contempt of court sanctions.
The best way to deal with this would be to get sources on record that are not linked to the school administration — the players themselves, teammates, parents, or anyone else with specific knowledge of the reasons for their dismissal from the football team.
Community journalists, as announced at our latest workshop you’re being invited by the Schieffer School of Journalism to participate in an exciting two-day event at the School featuring one of the country’s top journalism minds. See the invitation below and this page on TCU’s website for more information:
Colleagues, students and media professionals:
You are cordially invited by the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism to a unique two days of discussions on media innovation and ethics in media led by Steve Buttry.
As many of you know, Steve is a faculty member of the American Press Institute and creator of the Complete Community Connection in his role as C3 coach of Gazette Communications, a family-owned multi-media enterprise based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Steve is an alumnus of TCU.
“Innovations and Ethics” will be November 18 and 19 at the Brown-Lupton University Union.
The programs are sponsored by the Schieffer School of Journalism and the American Press Institute.
There is no registration charge, but space is limited to 50 persons for each of the two sessions on Complete Community Connection and 40 persons for each of the four sessions on media ethics.
“The Complete Communication Connection” will be presented twice on November 18. Both four-hour sessions are the same so you sign up for one or the other.
“Upholding and Updating Ethics” on November 19 includes four 90-minute seminars on different subjects. You can choose to attend all four or any combination of one, two or three of them.
See the attached agendas for more program details. A registration form is also attached.
We look forward to seeing many of you November 18-19 in the Brown-Lupton University Union on the TCU campus.
Sincerely,
John Lumpkin
Director, Schieffer School of Journalism
Andrew Chavez associate director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism argues for an advertising-supported business model online for community newspapers during the Keys to Growing Online Advertising Revenue workshop at Texas Christian University on October 29, 2009.