Media: How to transition from dead trees to online
NOTE: The following post first appeared on Oct. 4, 2007. Recent posts about staff departures at the Journal Star, and more misery in the newspaper business, made me think it was time to revisit the idea of what newspapers need to do to adapt and survive. That list doesn’t include shedding reporters. I’ve done some minor editing and added a few small suggestions.
I’m still thinking about my post about Scott Adams belief that it’s an economic fact that online will eventually replace print media. There have a been many predictions about the demise of the newspaper. Some of the dates in those predictions have come and passed. But ad sales DO continue to decline. Newspapers DO continue to lay off staffers, or not replace reporters who quit or retire.
Maybe they will still be around five years from now. Maybe not. But they almost certainly won’t be printed on paper 100 years from now. The only question is exactly when the last dead-tree newspaper will be printed. The trick for newspapers is to be one of those that make the transition to online.
Here are some radical ideas. All are based on the premise that the decline of print and the rise of online is NOT something to be staved off. Instead, it is something to be embraced and encouraged. It lowers fixed costs and lets news organizations devote the more of their resources toward paying people to gather the news, instead of killing trees and tossing paper on porches:
- Hold a meeting of all employees. Tell them that effective immediately, their paychecks are coming from an online news organization. Tell them that job of print-only reporter/editor has been eliminated. Tell them they all have jobs as reporters for your Web site, as long they are willing to commit to it, and make the necessary adjustments to their newsroom culture. Oh, and if you are thinking of using this as an excuse to do away with unions or to outsource jobs, I hope you get hit by a bus. You would deserve to.
- Make the following changes in your newsroom culture: Abandon the conceit that good journalism is defined as something that happens only in newspapers, and that since online journalism isn’t on paper, it cannot be good journalism. Readers do not buy your newspapers because it’s printed in paper. Ink on paper is a medium for delivering the content. It is NOT the content; it is not why people by the newspaper. The product the readers are buying is the reporting. If newspaper industry apologists would shut up and think for a moment, they would realize this.
- All deadlines are now “as soon as you get a story done that is reasonably free of spelling errors and typos.” In other words, put the article on line ASAP. Additional details can be added as they come in. Back in ancient times, they called this “beating the competition.” Deal with it.
- Take all feature content out of the dead-tree version of the newspaper. This includes the comics page, the bridge column, cross words, sports stats, stock prices, etc. Don’t give anyone ANY reason to go out and buy a copy of the paper. Put it ALL online instead. Your print version should be a stripped-down version of the online version, not the other way around.
- Raise the price of single issues. The Peoria Journal Star charges $1 on weekdays. Double it. Then triple it if sales don’t drop enough. If senior citizens complain and stop buying, then, well, screw them. The survival of your news business is at stake. Senior citizens aren’t going to be customers in 10 years anyway, to be blunt about it. Besides, if my mother can get the news online, so can yours.
- Restrict ad sales in the newspaper only to those who also buy ads online. After a year or two, stop selling ads in the newspaper altogether. Wean your advertisers off dead trees because it is in your interest to do so.
- Start charging people to gain full access to your online content. Do it now. Don’t wait. Online subscriptions should be far less than the cost of a daily newspaper subscription. It should cost customers less because it costs media companies far less. Putting your local content online for free stinks. It is stupid. You paid people to produce it, you paid syndicates for the features. You have the right to make a buck, and people WILL pay because your newspaper is STILL the only place they can get that much local content and the quality content I’m assuming your employees produce. And if you’re NOT producing high-quality content, you are screwed anyway. I am continually astounded at how many genuinely smart people in the news business think no one will subscribe to a news site for $5 a month, but will instead pay $365 a bloody year to buy newspapers out of ugly little news boxes.
- Make sure the amount of news online on any given day exceeds the amount in the dead tree edition. Also, there’s no real reason to NOT give your online readers access to more comics and columns that you could fit in your newspaper. Stop thinking in terms of limited space. Remember, it is the ONLINE edition that has to be the premium version of your news content.
- Train your reporters and editors to write for online. Readability is now the only consideration. Learn how to avoid journalistic shorthand. Stop thinking in terms of limited space. Think in terms of answering as many questions as possible, and giving readers the resources to find out more.
- Do not hire bloggers to replace reporters. Guys like C.J. Summers and myself have a watchdog role to play, but the meat and potatoes of journalism is the full-time reporter who covers a beat. There is no substitute for an experienced beat reporter who knows where the bodies are buried and who works for a newspaper that likes to uncover the corpses (not that there aren’t bloggers who aren’t capable of digging up a body or two). Going online-only lets your newspaper spend money on reporters, not to ship rolls of paper and barrels of ink to your plant, then to deliver copies of your paper door to door. It’s the 21st-frigging-century for crying out loud. However, if you want to pay bloggers to provide added value and hits to your online product, feel free. Call me.
- Take down the firewall between today’s online news and your archives. If anything, charge for new stories, and give away yesterday’s news for free instead. It is stupid that newspapers do the opposite. Make access to old stories at minimum as easy to access as today’s stories. Someone reading about last night’s city council meeting should be able to click on a link to last week’s council meeting, AND the one five years ago when they discussed the very same issue.
- You shall read and try to understand all 95 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Perhaps THEN you will understand why unsigned editorials fail in the 21st century.
- Slapping Google Adsense onto your online site isn’t going to cut it. Learn how to sell online ads to LOCAL customers. Most online ads link to customer Websites. If your good customers don’t have good Websites, perhaps that’s a business opportunity for you.
- Change your hiring policies. If an applicant has no blog, don’t interview them. The same with applicants with no HTML skills.
- Want to civilize your reader comments? Limit comments to paid subscribers.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Regarding No. 6: Why do you suppose very few news outlets seem to be able to do this successfully? The Wall Street Journal does, but there has been a lot of speculation that Murdoch will make it free. The NY Times just got rid of Times Select. The trend appears to be going in the opposite direction.
But there doesn’t seem to be any ceiling on what people are willing to pay for cable TV. What is the secret? People may view TV almost as a drug. You just sit passively and let it do its work. Reading news, like many components of being a responsible citizen of a democracy, requires effort and is sometimes uncomfortable.
Regarding No. 9: That’s quite a concession for a blogger.
Why? Because they skip steps 1-5. You have to get people cured of their dead tree addiction.
I want the paper in hard copy. I don’t want to rely on internet access for my news, anymore than I would want to rely on hard copy papers for my news. Why does one have to “win” over the other? Radio didn’t do away with print. TV didn’t do away with radio. Don’t you think there’s a market for both hard copy and virtual news content?
Wow, you could work at a newspaper. Call the Times Observer.
So I’ll go with the minority and say Billy has some really good ideas here. And he’s right, there will not be printed editions in 100 years, maybe less.
Likewise, C.J. makes a good point that radio and TV didn’t do away with print because you can’t sit down at your leisure and get the news on radio and TV like you can the paper, I freely admit that. TV didn’t do away with radio because there are still places where radio has huge advantages over TV (work, in car, etc.). Now, as a radio person, I’m fully aware and have complained long and loud about how many things radio has done wrong over the years, but it still exists, and is in fact beating back a challenge from satellite “radio”. But radio has done some things right, for instance evolving away from soap operas and variety shows (radio staples until the 40’s) when TV came along, and adjusting how they programmed their stations.
Over the years, TV had opportunities where they succeeded in taking things away from radio (time and temp, weather have become, sadly, TV’s territory now, radio hasn’t kept up because so many of it’s “consultants” don’t want to interrupt the same 200 song playlist for ANYTHING), but TV also had areas where they could have eaten into radio’s audience that they blew, like MTV and VH1 losing their roots and ignoring videos. Does MTV even run ANY videos anymore?
But both of them couldn’t kill off the newspaper PRINT business. The internet, on the other hand, will do to papers what Alex Bell’s little invention did to the telegraph. Sometimes things just go away. Carving drawings on walls like the ancient Egyptians? Gone. Scrolls? Gone. Likewise, it will happen to print. Billy has some good thoughts here, any paper publisher worth his or her salt will take a look at that list with an open mind and possibly start moving forward to make changes. I think those papers that embrace this list will still be around, as they are still the best news-gathering organizations in most every major city, many times based solely on the mere size of their organization.
If the laptop and WI-FI were a woman, Billy, you’d be the father of 12 by now. Alas, a woman is still made of flesh and blood, and the newspaper is still the preferred source of news for those who like things to be slightly… well, real. Ironic, isn’t it?
And to think, newspapers all over have been missing out on Bill’s sage advice. These ideas have been brandied about for years. Some are okay; some are suicide. If you want a job so bad, just apply.
just wanted to share that as I was reading this I couldn’t get the “video killed the radio star” song out of my head. Not that it means anything… just thought it was funny.
[...] still recommend that newspapers start planning for the permanent transition from dead tree journalism to online-only, and stop using their free Web sites simply to scare away online-only [...]
[...] is dead, it just hasn’t fallen down yet. Take my advice, PJS, and start making the transition to online only [...]
[...] still recommend that newspapers start planning for the permanent transition from dead tree journalism to online-only, and stop using their free Web sites simply to scare away online-only [...]
[...] is dead, it just hasn’t fallen down yet. Take my advice, PJS, and start making the transition to online only [...]