After surviving, savvy print magazines focus on thriving
 Feb. 26: Signs say that this year may turn out to be better than the last for magazine publishers counting their advertising pages. Although the bleeding of ad revenue hasn’t stopped, there is evidence that it has started to taper.
According to an article in Advertising Age, Media Industry Newsletter recently reported that for monthly magazines, the latest quarterly figures show a year-over-year loss of ad pages at 5.7 percent from the first quarter of 2009. Last year, the industry saw ad pages drop 21.5 percent. “It’s the smallest decline of the last couple of years,” Kathleen Brogan, print director of Carat, told Ad Age.
There may be more than luck and a recovering recession to thank for this small advertising revival. Annually, the magazine division of the Vocus Media Research Group collects editorial calendars and advertising deadlines, a task that can be arduous due to the volume of magazines out there. This year, however, advertisers appeared to be “on the ball,” said media researcher Kristina Elliott, who noted that the accessibility of advertising materials made the compilation process move faster. “There’s always been a technological lag with print outlets; we've seen it in their slow move onto the Internet and their very gradual switchover to using PDFs to share their media kits and editorial calendars. Plus a lot of magazines don’t want to make their ad rates publicly available. But it’s possible that having advertising rates easy for potential advertisers to access outweighs the benefits of holding onto the advertising rates until a serious advertiser asks for it,” she said. “Almost all the outlets we requested from had their rate cards ready – meaning they’ve put a lot of consideration into their 2010 ad rates. Last year it was pretty common for outlets to just tell us the rates in 2009 will be the same as 2008 – obviously they weren’t adjusting for a dip in the economy.”
While Ad Age reported that 94 monthlies dropped ad pages this quarter, approximately 59 grew, including Fitness, Every Day with Rachael Ray, InStyle, Lucky, Marie Claire, Popular Mechanics and Teen Vogue. Some smaller magazines have also had similar triumphs this year, Folio reported. American Cowboy said it saw a 20 percent increase in ad revenue for its February/March issue. “Publisher Bill Garrels credits the growth to several factors, including a pre-Christmas tour to more than 60 advertisers, a magazine redesign (previewed for advertisers via digital edition) and a Web site redesign which in turn is driving interest in print,” wrote Folio writer Matt Kinsman.
Lee Slattery, publisher of Fitness Magazine, said in an e-mail interview that the magazine – which provides a media kit on its Web site – has seen an increase in advertising pages due to multiple initiatives. “Over the last several years, Meredith has made a significant investment in digital applications on both the business and editorial front,” she said. “These investments have enabled Fitness, as well as all our brands to provide state of the art access for our clients to get the information they need as quickly and efficiently as possible. This investment was critical especially given the pace at which media decisions are made today, and the need to have the ability to handle client requests and changes on a 24/7 basis.” In 2009, the publication underwent a redesign that expanded existing features and added new ones. Slattery also credits the publication’s “digital extensions, expanded print coverage and experiential events” as reasons for ad page growth.
Meanwhile, magazines continue to launch and have increased in number according to Samir Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi’s School of Journalism. He recently reported on his popular Mr. Magazine blog that twice as many magazines were launched this January (56), compared to January 2009 (28). Magazine launches have continued into February and are slated to appear in racks and homes in coming months. Recently, inVocus reported the upcoming launch of Exhale Magazine, California Kayaker and Pro Pickup. Other publications coming soon or already here include Juicy, Light & Delish and Serendipity Magazine.
While it is assuredly an online world, print’s future looks less bleak in the light of this year’s early findings. Husni encourages his readers to “enjoy the early signs of the crop of 2010 and keep on working your magic in ensuring a print future in a digital age.”
-- Katrina M. Mendolera
Note to readers: The Vocus Media Research Group lists all top magazines’ editorial calendars and advertising deadlines in the Vocus Database. The following publications do not currently provide content-specific material, but do provide advertising rates and deadlines: AAA Going Places, AARP Bulletin, American Baby, American Medical News, Better Homes and Gardens, Fitness, GQ, Harper’s Magazine, In: Inside Innovation, Marie Claire, Motor Trend, The New York Times Upfront, Parents, Playboy Magazine, Redbook, Self, Shape Magazine, Star and Teen Vogue.
The following publications currently publish no issue-specific content or deadlines: Consumer Reports, Consumers Digest, The New York Times Upfront and Sesame Street Magazine.
Student newspapers innovate or perish
 Feb. 24: As endowments and funding have withered at journalism programs across the country, student-run publications have started to feel the pressure. When it comes to budgets, many educators find it difficult to advocate for their students. After all, journalism students are being trained for a field that can no longer be defined and broadcasts its own death knell. “Any student-run newspaper dependent on its college is in serious danger of losing its funding,” warned an editorial in Chico State’s independent student newspaper, The Orion.
On many campuses, student newspapers that can no longer count on automatic funding have been forced to adapt, innovate or perish. This sink-or-swim collegiate media climate is analogous to the plight of newspapers in the real world in a way college experiences seldom are. Student journalists at cash-strapped schools or those with online-only newspapers are confronted with the problems facing the industry before they graduate, and they must develop into the exact print/digital/social media chameleons many publications are currently seeking for their newsrooms.
The Ventura County Community College District in Southern California is a pioneer in making lemonade from the lemons of budget cuts. Their biweekly Student Voice newspaper is a joint venture produced by students from its three colleges: Oxnard, Ventura and Moorpark. The current organizational scheme is the result of a 1995 budget crunch, prior to which each college had its own journalism program and newspaper. The hard times forced the schools to consolidate their resources, but Joanna Miller, journalism faculty and student news media adviser, noted in an e-mail that they remain committed to preserving a student press presence on each campus.
Aspiring journalists from all three campuses can take journalism classes and interact with the entire newspaper staff through a videoconference system. Together, these students produce The Student Voice and its companion Web site for the nearly 36,000 students in the district’s community colleges.
Miller elaborated on how this system allows the shared paper to be both cohesive and hyperlocal: “I usually stay at my home campus on Thursday and then hold the [journalism] class at alternating campuses on Tuesday. It works pretty well, since that allows students at Ventura and Oxnard Colleges to stay there, attend class and meet with other editors and reporters, while covering their own campuses.”
Besides utilizing technology to produce the paper, the staff also maintains a Facebook and Twitter presence and offers a smart-looking Web site complete with a digital edition for online readers. “Students know they need skills for all platforms,” Miller said. “Students are working to learn skills in telling the story in multiple ways, including with video and audio.”
Other colleges have responded to budget woes and the morphing nature of the media in much the same way as real world newspapers – by shifting their publication models to less-costly online-only distribution. Three years ago, the Tacoma Community College student paper, Challenge, went online-only. In response to a post on InsideHigherEd.com, the college’s e-learning director said that under the online-only publishing model, the interaction between staff, students and faculty has been “fantastic.”
Student publications with established online audiences and sufficient budgets took a hit last November when college news content-sharing service UWIRE halted operations with little explanation. Left scrambling for last-minute editorial content without UWIRE’s network of stories, two student editors at Ohio University’s The Post decided to launch their own content-sharing vehicle, The College News Network. Three months after its creation, the not-for-profit service is going strong and boasts over 50 member publications.
Necessity aside, college newspapers are investing in innovation because it gives their graduates an advantage in the job market. Texas Abilene Christian University’s Optimist recently announced that it plans to be the first college publication formatted for Apple’s new iPad. The paper is already distributed via the iPhone and iPod Touch, but journalism department chair Cheryl Bacon told MacNewsWorld that her students need to continue leading the charge towards digital distribution. “They're going to be going into work environments where they have to adapt very quickly to technological change, and they have to understand how mobile delivery differs from other types of news delivery," she said.
While many student newspapers have embraced new media, from formatting their papers for iPhones to featuring their own YouTube channels, some papers remain recalcitrant and have yet to cultivate a Web presence. Bryan Murley, director of the Center for Innovation in College Media, said in a PBS article last August that these colleges may be hesitant to make their student newspapers accessible on the Web because they fear controversies. “A college that will not allow their student journalists to practice online journalism in a "real world" setting is abandoning its commitment to education in order to save face,” he said. “And that is a tragedy not only for the college, but for the students who look to higher education to prepare them for the future.”
-- Marissa Maybee
A copy and paste world
 Feb. 19: In the last month, two journalists from prestigious news organizations have resigned from their respective publications. Their crime was what both men have referred to in different reports as “inadvertent plagiarism.”
The most recent offense was just last week when New York Times business reporter Zachary Kouwe was accused of lifting content from an article the Wall Street Journal had posted only hours before and copying it in The Times’ DealBook blog. According to the New York Observer, The Times reexamined Kouwe’s past work and found multiple examples of content that had also been copied. “I was as surprised as anyone that this was occurring,” Kouwe told the Observer. “I write essentially 7,000 words every week for the blog and for the paper and all that stuff. As soon as I saw, I guess, like six examples, I said to myself, ‘Man what an idiot. What was I thinking?’”
Only two weeks prior, Daily Beast reporter Gerald Posner had been caught in the same sort of predicament, except it was the Miami Herald he had copied. In an interview with Slate, he said he didn’t even remember having ever read the Miami Herald story. In his own blog, he explained he was used to working at the slower pace of book writing and traditional deadlines. “Speed, the desire for a scoop, the natural inclination to want to break news on a developing story of national importance, made me shortcut my own rigorous standards,” Posner wrote.
Cases of inadvertent or accidental plagiarism have surfaced several times in the last year. Indeed, even veteran journalist Maureen Dowd was shown to be fallible in a New York Times column last May when she was accused of lifting a paragraph from Talking Points Memo. Plagiarism may be an age-old crime, but it’s possible that, like Posner said, the speed of the Web is contributing to more instances of accidental plagiarism.
“‘Too much hurry’ is the name of the game now, and even professionally-managed blogs are often subject to errors, sloppiness, and ethical lapses,” said Bill Reader, assistant professor of journalism at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, in an e-mail interview. Mistakes are easier to make when a journalist is on a deadline all day long, he noted. The process of writing itself even lends to unintentional content stealing, punishable by disgrace and dismissal. “It’s the curse of the inverted pyramid – give a dozen students the same police report to write up as a brief, and you’ll get three or four nearly identical leads. Have three different writers contribute to one story, and there is really no way to tell whose information is whose. That’s just a function of the work; you can only prepare hamburgers so many different ways, you know.”
Like a recent New York Observer reader who attributed Kouwe’s plagiarism to “laziness and arrogance,” some may scoff at the concept of inadvertent content copying. But in a Newsweek article last year, writer Russ Juskalian delved into a phenomenon called “cryptomnesia” – the “act of copying without realizing it.” At the time, cryptomnesia researcher and professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Georgia Richard L. Marsh weighed in on the issue. “When people engage in creative activity, they are so involved in generating or coming up with something new or novel that they fail to protect against what they previously experienced,” he told Newsweek.
While it’s hard to say whether these offenders are telling the truth, Reader said he believes that Kouwe’s explanation is believable. If they are to be trusted then, Robert Jensen, a professor of media ethics at the University of Texas at Austin, said fault can then be attributed to the structural features of contemporary media and society. In today’s culture, there is a great pressure to produce more work, more quickly, “which is distinctive of a hyper competitive environment,” he said. Meanwhile, technology makes borrowing content not only easier, but faster. “The act of plagiarism hasn’t changed, but the ease with which one can do it has increased,” he said. Despite this, Jensen said that while there are probably more instances of plagiarism in today’s digital world, it likely goes undetected.
If the act of plagiarism is committed knowingly, it is then that individual’s “moral failing,” noted Jensen. But it’s a copy and paste world where even the unwitting can become offenders. Reader, who teaches media ethics, believes that Kouwe’s resignation was extreme. “I think the big plagiarism/fabrication scandals from earlier in the decade – at the New York Times, obviously Jayson Blair – have made editors hyper-sensitive to the issue,” he said. “Fabrication and publishing factual errors are so, so much more damaging than what happened here. In fact, publishing false information is by far a more serious problem today, I believe, than plagiarism, because the damage done is to the stakeholders in the story, rather than just the ego of the journalists and their editors.”
-- Katrina M. Mendolera
Learning to share: evolution of media partnerships
 Feb. 17: Cooperative agreements between news organizations are not a new concept. Since the advent of the Associated Press in 1848, the media has recognized a distinct economic advantage to shared content. In the face of a turbulent industry and shrinking ad revenue, however, content partnerships have not only grown more frequent but have evolved in their diversity.
In a digital world, distance knows no bounds as organizations in different areas of the country continue to enter into joint collaborations. According to an ongoing investigative report by Editor & Publisher, Boston-based PBS show “Frontline” and New Orleans-based Times-Picayune newspaper recently teamed up with New York-based ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative online news organization, to collaborate on a series called “Law & Disorder.” The joint effort utilizes various platforms and media tools to report on the New Orleans police and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. ProPublica “had dedicated a lot of time to an archipelago of cases in which people were shot by police after Hurricane Katrina in ways that have not been thoroughly investigated. They had done some good research on that,” Times-Picayune managing editor Peter Kovacs told Editor & Publisher. “The idea was to take all the information and cases and put them into a family and uniting theme.”
Back in September, Voice of OC editor in chief Norberto Santana Jr. told inVocus that newspapers and online nonprofit organizations would work best together. “I think some functions like investigative reporting are well-suited for the nonprofit in conjunction with the daily newspaper,” he said. “I think that is the best model – working side by side.” His ideology started to become reality last month when the newest online nonprofit, The Bay Area News Project, announced it would be teaming up with the New York Times to provide news for the paper’s San Francisco editions on Friday and Saturday. While in the past, news mediums were fiercely competitive, nowadays it “makes sense to share,” said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst with the Poynter Institute, in an e-mail interview. “Papers are much more willing than they were to accept content from independent organizations like ProPublica, the collectives in the Bay area and Chicago and many more,” he said.
Meanwhile, content sharing partnerships between daily newspapers continue to surface as well. The Ohio News Organization formed in early 2008 and combines the resources of eight dailies in Ohio: The Columbia Dispatch, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Toledo Blade, Dayton Daily News, Akron Beacon Journal, Cincinnati Enquirer, Canton Repository and Youngstown Vindicator. If one paper is covering a specific story, then the others will pick that article up and link back to the originating newspaper. The same goes for Florida’s largest papers, the Sun Sentinel, Miami Herald and The Palm Beach Post, which formed a partnership in late 2008. In a similar vein, the Tennessean, Commercial Appeal, Chattanooga Times-Free Press and the News-Sentinel joined forces to create the Tennessee Newspaper Network early in 2009. “I think the content sharing movement is well-established now and will continue to gain momentum,” Edmonds said.
Even college-based media has joined the revolution. Last January, Boston University's College of Communications created the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR-BU), becoming the first nonprofit, university-based investigative reporting collaborative in the country. Those included in the venture are Boston.com, The Boston Globe, New England Cable News and WBUR-TV. In addition, NECIR-BU is also partnered with New England Ethnic News, an online ethnic news service. Then in 2009, two Ohio University students founded the College News Network . According to the organization’s Web site, more than 50 college news organizations from 28 states have joined as of this month.
“As resources for independent reporting shrink, and local news becomes more ‘glocal’ (global + local) such partnerships make sense,” said media analyst and journalist Ellen Hume in an e-mail interview. But there are some drawbacks to such partnerships, she noted. “The negatives include a lack of checks and balances on media – a feeling of ‘gang up’ by media on whatever is being investigated. And if a consortium makes a mistake, all media participating looks bad," she said. "If a consortium includes people with differing ethics, will all be dragged down to the lowest common denominator in the partnership? Ideally, we need competition to keep each other honest." Meanwhile, if investigative and accountable journalism is combined with talented journalists who couldn’t have done the story otherwise, then media alliances can be very positive, noted Hume.
The necessity of transparent journalism was evident with the controversial pairing between the Fiscal Times and Washington Post. According to the Nieman Journalism Lab, after the Post ran a story from the Fiscal Times on the nation’s deficits and debts, there was a public outcry. Fiscal Times owner Peter Peterson, philanthropist, former investment banker, and United States Secretary of Commerce from 1972 to 1973, has strong opinions on the national deficit, which is the focus of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. “Is it possible for a deeply opinionated philanthropist to keep his nose out of a newsroom of his own making? I do think it’s possible. Look at ProPublica, funded almost entirely by Herb and Marion Sandler, who also launched the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress” wrote Nieman writer Jim Barnett. “But transparency is key to credibility – and ultimately, to the viability of any news organization, for-profit or nonprofit.”
While content partnerships may continue to change and evolve, both Edmonds and Hume agree that such agreements between news organizations are a positive move for an industry that is continually transforming. Content partnerships “will help continue the media mandate to hold the powerful accountable,” Hume said.
-- Katrina M. Mendolera
Community papers battle media woes with pay-models
Feb. 12: Some analysts and news reports have attributed 2010 to be the "year of the paywall," when “newspapers will try to persuade online readers to pay” as The Economist recently put it. But while the viability of paywalls among daily metros still remains to be seen, many community papers have been utilizing the pay-model with relative success.
In Texas, the Rockdale Reporter doubled its electronic subscribers to 150 from 75 since it went behind a paywall in May. “I expect that number will continue to grow. It is easy for those who don’t want to wait on the postal service,” said Ken Esten Cooke, publisher of the Rockdale Reporter, in an e-mail interview. But success reaches farther than Texas, as there are similar tales of working paywalls at community papers across the country. For instance, since the Washington-based Stanwood/Camano News re-established a paywall on their news site, the paper has added 300 subscribers to their online version.
 For Rick Doyle, editor of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, the reason for going behind a paywall last month was simple: it was financially a good move. “It takes money to collect and distribute news and information,” he said in an e-mail interview. “Online ad sales are not sufficient to recoup the costs involved. You have to demonstrate that there is value in what you have to offer.” Although the site offers summary versions of its articles, readers have to subscribe to get the benefit of the whole story for much of its content. Despite its short life, Doyle said that it has “exceeded our expectation. Within one month, we are almost three-quarters of the way to our goal for subscriptions for the entire year.”
Like many papers initially experimenting with an online pay-model, the Colorado-based Johnstown Breeze had to deal with some readers who didn’t like having to suddenly pay for something that was once free. But those who complained were the minority, said executive editor Matt Lubich. “We tried to explain to them that it costs money to generate Web content just like content for the print product,” he said. Although the paper did see a drop in Web traffic, he noted that they have a regular influx of subscribers who may have canceled their print subscription and re-subscribed on the Web, others who let their print subscription lapse and re-subscribed to the Web, or those who access the site for 24 hours. “Bottom line is that any traffic we now generate is generating revenue as opposed to before when it was being given away for free. In these tight newspaper times, every little bit helps,” he said.
Back in the world of big city metros, the New York Times is giving itself a year before taking the plunge. If Newsday is an example, the forecast doesn’t look good as it lost approximately 1,000 unique visitors when it went behind a paywall in October. The disconnect between metros and community papers appears to lay with localism. “It looks like community newspapers may have more success with a paywall because many of them are the only game in town,” said David Coates, managing editor of newspaper content at Vocus Media Research Group. “In other words, people on Long Island could get their news from other forms of New York media and Web sites. However, the small community newspaper in West Texas has a captive audience that has no other choice but to pay to get behind a paywall to learn about local news. The less competition, the more likely a paywall will be accepted and work.”
Rob Blethen, publisher of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin and member of the family that owns the Seattle Times tends to agree. “We’re very isolated, have very strong print penetration (54 percent on Sunday), are an older market, are a very community oriented market and have very limited competition,” he said in an e-mail interview. “In Walla Walla, if you want to know about what’s going on the Union-Bulletin is basically the only place to get it.”
The problem with news covered by large city newspapers is that it can always be found somewhere else for free. When the New York Times put several of its popular columnists behind a paywall, they found that there wasn’t much interest in paying for them, noted Coates. “This is nice reading when you are getting it for free but an overpriced luxury when you have to pay for it,” he said. “In the case of Newsday, it put Long Island news content and popular sports behinds its paywall and saw only 35 people willing to pay an extra $5.00 a week to view it. Why? Quite possibly the readers found their local news in community newspapers and their sports on TV Web sites.”
While there is a general consensus that times are tough for all newspapers right now, there is also agreement that community papers are more likely than larger metro papers to find success behind a paywall. “I think community papers, again, have the 'local' angle in that often they (as we are) are the only real source for the news about that area. From that standpoint, I think they are most likely to benefit from a change like this,” said Lubich.
Regardless of newspaper size, Coates said he believes that newspapers need to continue to research their given markets in order to find a viable model. Blethen expressed a similar sentiment: “It is a healthy experiment for the newspaper business that likely won’t have a one-size-fits-all solution. I think it’s very important that many newspapers try many different things in order for solutions to be found that sustain the quality journalism that is so important to the vitality of local communities and our democracy.”
-- Katrina M. Mendolera
Copy editors: the disappearing gatekeepers
 Feb. 5: Only about five years ago, John McIntyre oversaw approximately four dozen editors as copy desk chief at the Baltimore Sun. By the time he was laid off last year, there were six.
Just last month, Baltimore Magazine detailed a recent blunder featured prominently on the front page of the Baltimore Sun. The headline read: "Ethics changes outlined for city," followed by this subhead: "Rawlings-Blake says her bill will seek to heighte public trus'." Indeed, this incident lends credence to McIntyre's remark that he has witnessed an increase in grammatical and factual errors since his departure. "I think their decision to eliminate editing so that they can keep reporters is shortsighted. Writers benefit from editing and so do readers," McIntyre said. "I just see a steady decline in the quality of what is being published."
Over the last year, reports of newspaper inaccuracies and mistakes have been plentiful. News organizations and blogs have provided the gritty details while some reader representatives like Edward Schumacher-Matos at the Miami Herald have addressed discontented readers' concerns through editorial. Over at the Washington Post, ombudsman Andrew Alexander has been relatively vocal about the amount of errors that have been making their way into the pages of the Post. While the newsroom had more than 900 full-time employees 10 years ago, today they have a total staff of about 650 - copy editors specifically have declined to 43 in 2008 from 75 in 2005. Add to that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's recent announcement that they would be cutting 27 employees, 18 of which are copy editors, and you have an epidemic.
While it's common knowledge that newsrooms have dwindled in all departments, copy editors have frequently drawn the short straw. McIntyre said he believes that copy editors are often the first to go because those in a position of authority don't understand the function. "They imagine that copy editors are just spell checkers and processors, they don't understand that copy desks do substantive work," he said.
The role of a copy editor has long been quality control and consistency. "That's why journalists have AP Style, that gives consistency and consistency is good, readers like it," said Emilie Davis, professor of journalism at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and co-author of "Think Like an Editor: 50 Strategies for the Print and Digital world." "Style brings order out of chaos."
With the significant downsizing taking place in newsrooms nationwide, it's probably safe to say that stories aren't getting as many reads as they once did, noted Davis. In a Miami Herald article, copy desk chief Jeff Kleinman admitted that where once stories were read two to three times before making it to print, they now are edited once or twice.
Meanwhile, readers have taken notice. In November, Alexander referenced complaints received from outraged customers. "I'd like my 75 cents back," one reader reportedly wrote in. "There is no excuse for such a shoddy product. It's completely unprofessional; more errors than one would see in a high school or college newspaper."
Displaced Indianapolis Star copy editor and current journalism professor Renée Petrina has a philosophy on reader loyalty which she calls the "picket-fence theory." "The coveted suburban families that read your paper notice errors, especially errors in the story about little Tyrone's elementary school football team. Next thing you know, they tell their neighbors while chatting at the fence or the mailbox. And word-of-mouth is the strongest kind of advertising - good or bad - that newspapers can get," she said in an e-mail interview. Meanwhile, McIntyre believes that increasing errors have caused some readers to give up on newspapers altogether.
While Davis doesn't believe that the role of a copy editor is any less important today than it was when she led Gannett News Service's copy desk, newsrooms have changed. "It doesn't mean the role has gone away, but maybe the label has gone away," she said. In the digital world, every journalist has become what she termed a "multi-job" journalist. As copy editors continue to disappear, reporters and editors should be trained to think like a copy editor. "They're [copy editors] trained to visualize, they're trained to memorize things. They're trained to know what they know and look up what they don't know. They're just trained in a totally different way."
Back at the Washington Post, director of communications Kris Corratti noted in an e-mail that the old copy editing model no longer fits the "realities of the 24/7 newsroom." Instead, copy editor roles have transformed to include more stories, blogs and Web photo captions. "The operation was restructured in the fall and there was a shakeout period when there was an increase in typos," she said. "But we are pleased with how well the structure is working now."
As newsrooms become more digital and job functions become less distinctive, it's obvious that some newspapers need to take a step back and re-evaluate how responsibilities are being dispersed. "More people should know the role of a copy editor, since every one is a multi-job journalist," Davis said. "Rather than hold onto a position, more people need to know what that person does and recognize the importance of that role."
-- Katrina M. Mendolera
A theory on a sustainable business model
 Feb. 3: In the last year there have been many forays into the search for a sustainable business model for newspapers. From nonprofit models, content-sharing agreements, and paywalls, theories abound on the industry’s salvation.
While the industry debates which path has the most potential, media economist Jack Myers has been focusing his career on a plan he believes holds the promise of success. In a recent interview with Myers, he offered his opinion on several media trends that have gained popularity over the last year and offered his insight into what he believes to be the future for newspapers.
KMM: You mentioned that you were working on a sustainable business model for newspapers – what are some of the ideas that you have?
JM: The newspaper industry has been focused on news and journalism. My focus is on commerce. Newspaper publishers seem to have missed the key point that consumers once relied on them as their primary source for information on everything local for sale: to find houses, cars, jobs, restaurants, events, entertainment, products and services. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, universities became important centers for journalism education. Syracuse University's Newhouse School, Columbia University, Northwestern, USC, and many other universities built expansive departments to advance journalistic learning, with a focus on editorial and production. The business of media remained, for most universities, an afterthought. Advertising curricula also focused on the creative processes, ethics and role of advertising in American life, with little if any emphasis on business models, return-on-investment metrics, or organizational roles. This reality remains the case, with few university programs addressing the destructive forces that are at large in the media world today. In the corner offices at most major media companies, editorial voices reign supreme and as much as business realities may appear to be at the forefront, it is the editorial product that is perceived as the core deliverable to consumers. Ads – both display and classified – are the fill packaged to fit into the editorial content. It should not be lost on the newspaper industry that those papers that continue to do well – pennysavers and local weeklies – design their content with advertising at the forefront and editorial content packaged around it.
KMM: Do you think paywalls will be effective in bringing in more revenue for newspapers?
JM: Paywalls can only work if the content is exclusive, compelling and truly valuable. I believe the Wall Street Journal would find it easier to make $100 million selling 100 $1 million "Bloomberg-like" corporate subscriptions to Wall Street firms than they will selling 650,000 $150 subscriptions. For the average local newspaper, paywalls will be counter-productive in the long term.
KMM: How do you think that newspapers can balance online and print coverage to bring in more dollars?
JM: The distribution model needs to be fundamentally recalibrated. Charging more for home distribution is fair and equitable to the consumer. They are paying for the convenience of a service. Newsstand distribution should be somewhat less costly than home distribution or at least equitable in cost but not more than home service. Online distribution is rightfully free, since the paper is saving on costs across the board. If advertising cannot support the free online distribution model, then in the long term, the economics just won't work. Home and newsstand distribution will inevitably be disintermediated by online, mobile and e-reader availability, and trying to shift home and newsstand pay-for-content economics to a tech-enabled society is just not a sustainable model. If a local paper invests in highly valuable journalistic capabilities and believes it is appropriate to limit access to that content, then they will need to generate sufficient subscription revenues to be profitable without dependence on other revenue streams.
KMM: Several months ago the Dallas Morning News broke tradition and reorganized by asking editorial to answer to sales people renamed “managers.” What is your opinion of that sort of set up? How close is too close when it comes to advertising and editorial?
JM: Well, conceptually that's a step in an interesting direction, but it was misguided. Salespeople will try to guide writers to focus on the "story" about advertisers. They will put sales ahead of journalistic integrity. It's completely appropriate for newspapers to assure that editorial environments are advertiser friendly ... that news and relevant content are a value-add to the commerce information and resources consumers are actually seeking. Advertising should not be viewed by editors as an intrusion on their stories. The real key for newspapers is to monetize their relationships with local businesses by using a company like Live Technology, one of my clients [full disclosure], to develop an automated solution for local newspapers to provide consumers with easy online access to all local retail and commercial resources and for simple online access for advertisers to place their messages across all local media channels simply and cost-effectively. This model applies to all newspapers that have a loyal, core audience and a strong and relevant brand identity. The key is the ability to use that brand to bring audiences to a central hub where all local commerce can be conducted, founded on a principle of offering free online classified advertising. There are a few newspaper groups exploring this model now. But they struggle with the need to convert their current paid online classified business to free and to refocus their priorities on becoming the center for commerce for their local communities rather than (or in addition to) making news aggregation their number-one business goal.
Finally, in the long run as newspapers regain their economic footing, they can once again invest in journalism that is unfettered by economic concerns. Foundations are likely to step up to underwrite journalistic enterprise. National news and investigative units will be underwritten by multiple newspaper organizations. Once local newspaper sites establish themselves as the primary local source for their communities' commerce needs and interests, the news reporting and journalistic components can be allowed to thrive.
Jack Myers is a media economist and founder of the M.E.D.I.Advisory Group, which works with media companies, agencies and marketers to develop and implement investment and growth strategies. He writes the weekly Jack Myers Business Report and is the author of several books, which include “Reconnecting with Customers: Building Brands and Profits in The Relationship Age,” “Adbashing: Surviving the Attacks on Advertising,” and “Virtual Worlds: Rewiring Your Emotional Future.” In addition to his many accomplishments, he was the recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award for journalism, Crystal Heart Award from the Heartland Film Festival, and has been nominated for both an Academy and Emmy Award.
-- Katrina M. Mendolera
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