Old-guard media rules don’t work on the Web
People shouldn’t have to read the print edition to get the best, most in-depth coverage.
In fact, logic would dictate that a newspaper’s Web site would have more coverage due to the limitless nature of its medium and its ability to display so many different kinds of news and content. That’s what logic would tell you. That’s what 2008 would tell you.
And that’s what people want. They want Web products that kick ass. They want to get news on their computers and mobile devices — and they want it now.
And far be it for us to tell them, “No! You need to read the print edition to get all the news, because we haven’t figured out how to properly monetize our online content.” That’s the business staff’s problem, not editorials.
If that’s how we’re going to act, people are going to leave our Web sites and find new ones. Every day new competitors pop up. The Web makes it possible for anyone to join in the conversation.
Recently a managing editor of a small daily wrote a blog post that ended with:
So… to those local folks who only read us online, I have this to say: I’m sorry. Boy, are you missing out.
As you can imagine I commented on it. I said that people in her coverage area should be able to read her paper’s Web site and get all the information they need. In fact, the Web can be home to many projects — especially databases, multimedia, blogs, etc — that the print edition never could be.
I told her it was up to her paper to find a way to monetize their Web site. What spurred this post, however, wasn’t that exchange. It was the fact that my comment was deleted.
I’m not Sam Zell. I don’t go buccaneering around the Internet swearing up a storm. My comment was civil, thoughtful but it was critical to a point.
I strongly feel that Web products cannot be left behind. In fact, they should probably be the epicenter of news operation. Because I know that’s what people want, and I’m in the business of making products that people want.
In a comment to another poster the editor left this:
Our core product, the print edition, is obviously currently at the center of what we do.
Is that really what your readers want? But here’s the real moral of this story: You can’t control the conversation. This editor clearly thought she could.
My comment originally went up and another person commented on it, but my comment was later deleted. Many in the old-guard media are used to a time when they control the conversation — they get to select which letters to the editor get printed, who gets covered, etc.
But here’s the thing, this is 2008. I have a blog, I have Twitter and I’m not going to roll over every time some old-guard media person thinks they can silence my voice.
Because they can’t. They can’t silence any of us. That’s what the power of the Web is.
It’s a revolution.
And you can either join the social, two-way conversation that is the Web or you can be left behind. That’s your choice. But don’t try to force your old rules on our revolution.
Everyone finally has a voice. That’s a beautiful thing.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Could she be more out of touch? Her lack of understanding of the Internet is disturbing; her ideas come straight out of 1995.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Thank God she is only the managing editor…
Oh wait.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Wow, in 2008 that attitude is unbelievable. It was sad in 1996, it’s shocking in 2008.
One thing I worry about with these operations (and, in fact, my own) is their continued relevance in an increasingly web-savvy world. I mean, sure, we have to find ways to better monetize web content but the time will come when all the current 20-somethings with their new-fangled iDealies (talkin’ at you Pat) will be the core readers and those outlets with weak digital offerings — monetized or not — will be left out.
That editor has as good as killed that paper, not today, not tomorrow, but I doubt that when or if they finally wake up they’ll be able to recover.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
and you are who, exactly? Because there are so many “voices” spouting useless crap that the Internet is hardly even worth listening to anymore, especially dung from some “expert” whose largest paper was Allentown.
ha.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I’m mostly surprised by the acknowledgment that they are serving two groups of readers: print and online readers.
How can they say they serve one group of readers (the Web-savvy ones) by cutting the Web product? Assuming they actually believe there are two markets, how would a stronger Web site hurt the print product?
Sure, there’s the possibility that you create an economy of scale where your print readers flock to the Web site because it’s cheaper. You might get a segment of your print readers to make the switch, but not so much it will collapse your entire business model. (And if you properly monetize your Web-offerings, you should see gains).
But we all should know by now that price isn’t the only factor as to why people don’t read the paper. There are countless studies that show time and time again the number one reason people don’t read the paper because they don’t have the time. It isn’t instant and it doesn’t necessarily have information relevant to individual needs at the moment.
So, when you start cutting off a segment that wants something from you in a particular way, you cut off potential profit. You open the door for some guy with a laptop, low overhead and a few connections to start gobbling up that market you’ve blown off to protect the “core” product (without any evidence that it needs protecting from the Internet). That, my friends, is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Robb…yet you come back to spout your own dung on this blog time and time again. If you don’t like what you’re reading here, go somewhere else.
Also, I’m nervous if you ever listened to the “Internet.” You know it’s not some giant Linksys router a la South Park, right?
April 25th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
@Robb,
I, unlike old-guard media members, let your posts go. I’m not here to silence anyone. I just wish your posts would be about something — anything — substantive.
Is there something you disagree with about my post? Or am I simply not worth listening to because the biggest paper I work for had a 120,000 circulation? I’ve got news for you, many of the publications making the biggest waves on the Web aren’t that big.
The Lawrence Journal-World is a great example of that. They have a circulation under 30,000 and have a better Web product than just about any other newspaper in the country. I guess their opinions don’t matter either. I mean, it’s just some paper in Lawrence, Kansas, right?
April 27th, 2008 at 8:33 am
so, let me see if i got this right: we’re supposed to listen to a guy who has never worked on a big time daily newspaper and walks around in his PJs all day, blathering about whatever. dude, do you have any real world experience or does your “new media” tag relieve you of that requirement? nah, didn’t think so.
LOL
April 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I wasn’t going to comment, but then reading the other comments (here’s looking @robb, @seamus) I decided I should.
Here’s the deal: Don’t listen to Pat. Don’t listen to the 20-somethings. Don’t listen to the old guard editors. Don’t listen to the consultants. Don’t listen to any of us. But do yourself a favor, listen to the readers. They are the only opinion whose really matters.
The problem is, too many people like the editor referenced in Pat’s post aren’t listening to them either. They’re selling Windows 95 in a Vista world. (Forgive my MS references and the idea of the OS themselves. I’m a Mac user.) Sure, it still works. You can still do the things you always did quite capably. But whether you move on or not, the other people will eventually upgrade. Unless you adapt to the new environment, you probably won’t be compatible with their upgrade.
The question is whether you will make the move quick enough to grab their attention on the new platform — or whether some start-up by a “kid” like Pat or some other member of the group formerly known as your readers will have seen the opening and seized your marketshare.
You can keep doing things the way you always have and become irrelevant. Or you can catch the hell up with the 21st Century and become even better at what you always did by using all this new technology to distribute more content, more efficiently, across more platforms. Those are your options.
April 27th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
You can sit there and carp all day long about the merits of print and how web journalists are just a bunch of hacks in their PJs. But at the end of the day, week, month or year - your print product is viewed by fewer and fewer readers. Eventually all your advertisers will be gone, your debts will be too high and your decent employees will be working for a web only site.
This Luddite attitude that so many in the newspaper community have is nearly sickening to me as a journalist. It is NOT the medium, but the message. Wake up and smell the 21st Century. You can still do great journalism on the web. Words are still words, images are still images, and wow - on the net you can actually do some new things too. Interactive things we could only dream about when I was in J-School.
Embrace the technology - because it will be the only thing that will save journalism. Keep insisting on dead trees and journalism will go the way of the telegraph and the dodo.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Wow, who knew that my little blog would reach this esteemed portal. Yes, I am the aforementioned “managing editor.” First of all, I am not “old guard.” I’m young (at least at heart) and if I had my way, would ONLY work on the online product. What prompted my blog actually was my frustration at how slo-o-o-ow we have been at jumping on the Web bandwagon.
My frustration also comes from the fact that, apart from a techie Web master, we have no online staff. In my role as the aforementioned ME, I am charged with overseeing the print product as well as content for the online product. And therein, I know, lies the problem. Our Web site is practically a reproduction of our print product, at least when it comes to local stories. And I hate that. It keeps me up nights thinking how we can add more depth. We have the technology at our disposal but none of the staff to implement that.
I’m keenly aware of the industry’s direction — online — and am a total techie myself. I live on the Web. I believe the challenge for journalists today is to provide ALL of our readers, and users, with up-to-date news, presented in the best way possible. As mentioned above, that’s a challenge.
We live in a 60,000-plus town in the agricultural heart of California. If I was to describe our core subscribers, it would be the 65-and-older folks who’ve called this city their home their entire lives. I’m inundated with nasty comments from those who think that reading us online is their way of slapping us down, or cheating us out of a few bucks. The blog was one way of saying to them — not you folks out in the Wide World — that they are missing out on the parts of our paper that aren’t online — the bread and butter of our business, if you will.
Within a few months we will be offering online subscriptions; too late? Maybe. In our part of the world, the print product is still king.
I enjoy this debate, and will check back to see if there’s any response.
P.S. Apologies for deleting your comment. It was blocked by our spam blocker.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:14 pm
PPS. I’m constantly amazed at the amount of venom that is spewed by those who hide behind the mask of a user name. We see it on our Web site all the time. Hey, if I could make a living working from home, in my pjs, you bet I’d do it!