Priorities

Last week Seth Godin asked: "When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?" His conclusion was that most of what's in a newspaper (comics, weather, sports, etc.) can be done "better" online, while newspapers are better-suited to actual local newsgathering, an act that allegedly only makes up 2% of newspapers' budget. While I respectfully disagree with the cost analysis, the question of where a local newspaper's priorities should lie -- during a time of financial peril -- is a fascinating one.

There are two common, competing visions of the future of news. In one, daily newspapers die, and semi-professional bloggers pick up the slack. In another, newspapers survive as shrunken online versions of their print selves. Leaving the online vs. print debate for the next post, let's discuss a middle ground between these two visions.

Bloggers do opinion exceptionally well. Politics, pop culture and celebrities, sports, and so on. You can find a blogger opining on just about any topic if you look hard enough. What bloggers don't do much of is actual original news reporting. How many blogs actually break news or make calls to follow up on a story? Very few. Instead, there is a lot of linking to professional news organizations.

Newspapers also pay professionals to opine. An incomplete list include editorial boards, TV and movie critics, fashion critics, book reviewers, and sports columnists. These individuals provide an authoritative local voice on topics that matter to lots of people, but their public service is no longer unique. On the other hand, a city hall beat reporter may not be writing articles with as much general interest, but he or she providing a service to the community that largely does not exist in the blogosphere.

Newspapers have to make tough decisions. It's inevitable that many more jobs will be lost. When those cuts need to be made, it would be folly to let go of experienced local news reporters. Instead, newspapers should think about creating a branded blog network. Seek out the best local voices on the local arts scene, on local politics, and on national topics like politics and pop culture. Pitch bloggers on the local advertising leverage your newspaper possesses. Host the blog on your server, and sell ad space on it. The Washington Post is doing this, more or less, for the Capital Weather Gang. Split ad revenues 50/50 or 60/40, and offer bonuses (and publicity) for material that makes it to the print edition. Encourage your bloggers to increase their visibility by appearing on local TV and by promoting their blog posts through news aggregators and on other blogs.

Here are some positions that could be outsourced to exceptional local bloggers:

• TV critic
• Movie critic
• Fashion critic
• Theater critic
• Music critic
• Art critic
• Book critic
• Pop culture commentary
• Weather commentary
• Sports columnist
• Editorial cartoonist
• Editorial board (advocated for long ago by Michael Kinsley)
• Local politics commentary
• National politics commentary
• Ombudsman (may be outsourced to a local journalism professor, for instance)

I don't revel in the potential loss of these well-paying jobs within a newspaper. Some of the new pro-am bloggers may be able to make a decent part-time income through their blogs. Through their newly-minted affiliation, they will also be able to gain notoriety and access to screenings, press kits, sporting events, etc. But most will not be able to match the secure living wage and level of expertise of their former professional counterparts. When times are tough, however, tough decisions must be made about how to allocate precious resources.

Here are some topics that local newspapers should continue to cover in-house. In some cases, coverage of these topics has suffered as of late. These are very sparsely covered, if at all, by local bloggers, partially because things like weddings are difficult to cover outside the context of a trusted, centralized news organization. Newspapers may want to consider ramping-up their coverage of these topics.

• Local K-12 schools and school sports
• Local colleges and college sports
• Local pro sports
• Local business
• Local government
• State government
• Local U.S. congressional delegation in Washington
• Crimes/fires/serious traffic accidents/etc.
• Local happenings/events/calendar
• Obituaries
• Weddings

The mission is simple: focus on providing readers with local content that they can't get anywhere else

Hirschorn, the Times, and blogging

There's much to be said about Michael Hirschorn's fascinating and controversial Atlanic article about the theoretical end of the New York Times.

The article suggests that the paper could run out of cash by May (not so fast: Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has come to the Times' rescue.) The bulk of the article reflects on the unsavory possibility that a post-print Times, with 1/5th of the original newsroom, may have to survive with some sort of a content-sharing and aggregation model that may or may not fulfill the Times' newspaper-of-record mission.

Hirschorn writes:

In an optimistic scenario, the remaining reporters—now reporters-cum-bloggers, in many cases—could use their considerable savvy to mix their own reporting with that of others, giving us a more integrative, real-time view of the world unencumbered by the inefficiencies of the traditional journalistic form.

Not a terrible outcome, but is it really necessary for every reporter to be a blogger? The internet blurs the distinctions between news sources. Audiences don't necessarily make the distinction between, say, a newspaper article and a magazine article on the web. So why should newspapers worry about publishing blog posts versus "regular" articles? The answer is: they shouldn't. Newspapers should remain content agnostic on the web: as long as a story meets journalistic standards, it should be presented in whatever form best conveys the story.

There's another issue here. Where would all this blog content go? Would the Times play host to hundreds of reporter blogs? If so, it would risk overwhelming readers with too much content. Remember that internet news aggregators have been successful because they allow people to get all their news in one place. Potential newspaper blogs should be chosen carefully from the niche topics that reporters cover.

UPDATE: Marvel as I partially contradict myself in the post above. To clear up any confusion, I don't think there's anything wrong with blogging or newspapers maintaining blogs. I just think that sometimes newspapers blindly pursue "bloggishness" with little regard to actual reader demand.

WSJ: Web Advertisers Get More Say in Ad Formats

The Wall Street Journal reports that internet advertisers finally have found the leverage to persuade content providers to host larger and more innovative ads. Worst-case scenario, this could lead to annoying and intrusive ad formats, especially ads that interfere with a reader's ability to access content in a timely manner (such as flash ads that cover up part of the content). Most users have trained themselves to automatically ignore such messages.

On the plus side, perhaps this could lead to smarter placement of ads online (must ads always be in a rectangular box to the right of the page?) and larger, more print-like display ads. Or other advertising formats like contextual text links.

The ad biz is doing a poor job of providing leadership in such innovation efforts. Perhaps it's because they don't want to accelerate the decline of the expensive, over-produced, crapshoot ad campaign. Regardless, this is actually an opportunity for newspapers. If ad agencies aren't steering enough business your way, then become your own ad agency. Have your own bare-bones interactive creative department in-house for local advertisers, and make money from ad creation to placement.