Archive for category Newspapers
It’s a small world…..
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers, Radio, Social Media, Technology, Television on August 10th, 2010
In the Dark Ages - about two years ago - newspaper companies with a healthy stable of smaller to medium size properties felt like they had the ultimate insurance policy. Perceived remoteness.
“It’ll be years before Google, Yahoo and the rest discover us,” was the line of thought, as they watched the metros they owned struggle with competition from new digital information sources.
It was “years” before the big guys discovered the smaller players. About two, in fact.
So much for “perceived remoteness.” Like the song says, it really is a small, small world.
When the big guys looked, they saw “remote” markets that weren’t that remote. Maybe suburban towns and cities that lost their zoned editions - and news-gathering capabilities at the same time - in reactive cost-cutting efforts by the metros. Perhaps they were still served by a community newspaper that believed print would carry them to the next generation, not yet plugged in to the need to compete digitally.
They also found cities of good-size population, a couple hours’ drive from big metro areas. And they found these papers making money. So maybe this was a good market after all, right? “Bird’s nest on the ground,” as a buddy of mine says.
What happened? A bunch of hyper-local companies jumped right in. There were as many different formulas as there were companies.
None of them caught hold in a big way. But that was two years ago - remember, the Dark Ages.
Now AOL is making a run at it, pumping $50 million into a company called Patch Media. Out of the blue I got a cold call from a recruiter, scouring LinkedIn for editor/business types in my city - Atlanta - where they will be rolling out many sites soon.
Clear from the beginning that I was happy and quiet busy work-wise, we nonetheless talked about their approach - in case I knew anyone (and I did, and passed along names).
Just like any good community newspaper, their staffers will live in the community they cover and be part of that community. They clearly understand that connection.
Their people will work hard, pound the pavement, file from coffee shops wth free Internet service and generally act like community newspaper employees. It won’t be easy.
You can find debate in several areas about whether Patch is just really efficient or runs a sweatshop. But when you run the sweatshop claim up against the newspaper industry - never been known for short hours and great pay - it becomes an academic debate.
There are plenty of out-of-work newspaper-types signing on, and good for them if that’s what they want.
This year Patch plans to launch “hundreds” of local web sites. The $50 million in expansion cash can be chewed up pretty quickly across a national network.
Bu regardless of whether Patch succeeds or not - and they seem to have a better shot than most that have come before - this ought to be one more of many, many shots fired across the bow of newspapers who think they don’t have to worry about that pesky ol’ web site.
Because Patch is not alone out there. Look for more on local from Yahoo! this year. Two years ago - Dark Ages again - who would have thought Yahoo! would be publishing a hard copy book - called “The Yahoo! Style Guide”? When you’re writing for the web, will you buy the Yahoo! book or AP book?
What will small and medium-sized newspapers do, faced with this bothersome development in an already troubling time?
Please don’t do what your metro kin did and wait for the bad times to pass.
And don’t blame AOL and Patch and the other local news wannabees. They see a market that they think is underserved digitally, so here they come. It’s called free enterprise.
Most smaller to medium-size newspapers still have a strong hand. They are profitable, respected in their communities, have the reporting resources and knowledge in place, not to mention outstanding local ad sales capabilities.
But are those papers paying attention to digital, focusing on their web sites, looking to grow them and increase revenue? Many are doing just that, and there are some tremendous web operations and products in medium and small markets.
In those markets, a tip of the pressman’s folding newsprint hat to the local newspaper.
In other markets, where the web site is of little interest or attention, don’t fret.
Soon, there will be a nice, community-focused web site in your market, either from a suddenly-alert newspaper or other media outlet. Or from someone like Patch.
Because it’s a small world after all.
A rock for the ages
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers on July 8th, 2010
My dad’s ‘61 Ford - big, hulking, white with four doors, plenty of chrome and a blue cloth interior - was backed up, rear-end to the one-car garage, as night fell, ready for a running start before dawn the next day.
It was the one day of the year that the car was backed into the driveway. The one day.
It was the day we rousted up out of bed before dawn, sensed the dew on the ground in the soft morning chill, knowing the grass would be crackling and sizzling before high noon in East Texas, and it was high time to get out of town.
Sleepwalking through preparation, I marveled that my dad was so alert, fitting the metal ice chest into the truck, emptying ice cube trays into it to keep the milk chilled, and the grapes, too. Always green grapes. A food box was packed in the trunk, plus suitcases, and assorted other items.
And two pillows for the backseat, so my sister and I could immediately go back to sleep as soon as we cleared the driveway and headed up the hill, to adventure.
Sometime on the second day of the road trip, after crossing the vastness of Texas, feeling the hot dust washing over you like a wave at the beach, it came into view.
Shiprock, New Mexico.
It’s in the Four Corners area, a place of mystical proportions, strange names, legends and mysteries…and always the gateway for whatever Western swing the Reetz family was embarking on that year. Sometimes we went east from Texas, driving to D.C., Niagara Falls, civilized places like that. But it seems more trips were headed West, and Shiprock always loomed as the point where the adventure began.
Sometimes we ended up on the Snake River, sometimes at Mount Rushmore or Yellowstone, or in California, Colorado, Nevada or Arizona. But always beating it down the road, green grapes, half-chilled milk and slushy water sloshing around in the tin cooler. It was nice when the ice ran out; that meant sweet canned milk for my morning cereal on the road.
Shiprock became a place of familiarity, a beacon to the West.
So when I left the cozy environs of a corporate culture a couple years ago, started out on my own and began to build a media consulting business, I needed something to guide me, something to help show the way. Shiprock.
In Navajo history and culture it is a sacred spot, a “winged rock” that the Navajo rode to escape attack in a distant land. It gave them new life and security.
As it did for me.
Once before, I struck out on my own, buying a weekly newspaper in East Texas, but that was decades ago and the fire was in the belly. Was it still there? It never goes out.
Once a colleague said, “I like xxx consulting firm because I pay them and they write a report that says whatever I want it to say.”
Was that what I was going to be as a consultant? I’d hate it.
And what a waste. Don’t you hire consultants - experts - to provide a fresh perspective, to provide needed and missing expertise, to get things done?
Yes, most businesses do.
For the last two years I have worked with several wonderful major clients and never has anyone said “here’s what we want you to say.” Instead, it’s always, “here’s the problem, what do you think?”
It’s a great feeling working with people who want not just advice, but action, who embrace you as a team member and value your expertise.
It’s not a job for everyone, and many frankly could not do it. You cultivate relationships, you must stay at the top of your game in your industry, you know the vendors even better than before, and you thought you already knew them well. Everything is built around what you deliver and the value you add, not what your PowerPoint slides promise.
It’s always about what you deliver, and shouldn’t it always be that way? Because, after all, that’s what life is about. Not what you say you will do, but what you do.
If you’re out West, pass by Shiprock. Maybe it’ll move you, too.
Struggling with the buffalo
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers on March 23rd, 2010
I punched in the number of my Texas publisher/friend and started talking before he could reply to my ring. He interrupted my jabbering with words I have never heard before.
“John, I’m at the slaughterhouse and having trouble getting this buffalo inside. It’s not going well. Got to call you back.”
Was Dan speaking in code? Was it a metaphor for the newspaper industry, which over the last few years has spilled lots of blood, and many more tears, yet the old buffalo still refuses to go quietly into that dark night, aka “slaughterhouse.”
Nah, it’s Dan and he’s not a code-talker. He’s direct. He WAS actually at the slaughterhouse, and he WAS struggling with a buffalo.
“They hear the noises, they smell the blood and they just don’t want to go inside,” he said the next day. Well, I would guess not.
I’ve stayed at Dan and Susan’s ranch many times, having the honor of occupying The Man House, his guest house that sits hard up against the fence-line, with Longhorns to this side, horses and donkeys the other direction. We’ve drained a bottle of whiskey or two, talking about the industry on more than one quiet ranch evening, seen lots of things, talked about even more.
But I’d never seen a buffalo there.
“Well, it was my buddy’s buffalo,” he told me the next day. “Now that I’m a retired publisher once again, I can just get up and go and do stuff like this again.”
And that’s the whole point of this column.
Dan Savage, interim publisher of the Waco Tribune-Herald for the last eight months, is interim publisher no more. Call him “former.” For the second time.
Dan retired in 2005 as publisher of The Trib, but came back last summer when new local owners Clifton and Gordon Robinson bought the paper from Cox Enterprises. Dan’s last column explains it all. How he and the Robinsons formed a tight friendship. How the paper prospered while others floundered.
An editorial the same day as his last column thanked Dan for all he has done for the community and the paper, during his two terms of duty.
And I thank him, too. He brought me on board to help build a new Web site and transition off the old Cox infrastructure. It was a pleasure and honor to work with Dan and his management team, to get to know the Robinsons and to be there as a paper bucked all the trends in today’s industry - making money, hiring reporters, growing circulation.
The Trib remains a closely held story. They don’t write press releases about how great they are. They just get it done.
There’s a phrase in Texas about braggarts and politicians who talk and don’t produce: ”all hat and no cattle.”
Dan’s got the hat and the cattle. And the boots, too.
What does he do now? “Do what I do best,” he says. “Be a rancher and fix motorcycles.”
Who says newspapers can’t move quickly?
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers, Technology on February 3rd, 2010
Well, me.
And, most likely, you.
“We’re like a battleship; it takes a long time to change direction,” a senior newspaper exec told me decades ago, trying to calm my impatience with the pace of a large project. “But when we change course, we’ve got awesome firepower.”
Well, the firepower is greatly diminished, and the great, gray battleships are finding it harder to fight off pesky opponents circling them.
Speedy decisions and rapid implementation are essential to survival.
As most newspaper companies come out of two years of cost-cutting, is the industry alive with a thousand new strategies and ideas, or are the budgets being perused for just another round of cost-cutting since ideas and speed are in short supply?
“Every day I read Romenesko,” another industry friend told me recently. “and it’s the same thing from a year ago. Is anybody moving forward with any kind of speed, doing anything?”
Yes.
In the middle of the country, in the heart of Texas, there is a paper that is bucking that creaky, go-slow mentality at a time when it is essential for the industry to change, and change rapidly.
They are not a battleship; they are more like a PT boat.
Six months ago the Waco Tribune-Herald, formerly a Cox Newspapers paper, was sold to local owners, Robinson Media Company (Clifton Robinson and Gordon Robinson).
A lot has changed; no, everything has changed. But you haven’t heard much about it.
Contrary to what most of you likely think about Texans (and I am one), they are sometimes prone to understatement, and avoid bragging. (Anyway, like they say, it ain’t bragging if it’s true.)
There’s not a lot of industry talk about what’s going on at the Trib, and that’s just fine with the folks at the paper.
Their audience is their community; not those covering the newspaper industry’s woes. They’re not trying to please Wall Street; they’re trying to please Main Street.
Since the sale, circulation has steadily increased, ad revenue is growing, there is a re-emphasis on local news. And new reporters are being hired. Tell me how many newspapers are creating and filling new reporter positions?
Waco is.
And, incredibly, Waco has launched a brand new Web site - from ground zero (no contracts or vendors finalized) less than four months ago - to a clean, sharp, snappy Web presence today.
Take a look: www.wacotrib.com.
Now that the site is launched, Phase Two additions are under way now; Phase Three is coming.
What is even more remarkable here is that, prior to the sale, Waco’s Web presence was delivered to a great degree on a platter by COXnet, a group I ran as General Manager until it dissolved as Cox sold nine of its daily papers. Not always did the papers want everything on the platter, because some strategies were centralized and everyone participated. But for the most part they didn’t have to worry about vetting, and running, hosting, infrastructure, content management system, classified vendors, product development and everything that is not obvious to the public but makes up the Web site.
Under the old structure, they had the keys to the car, and produced a great site, sold advertising and were strong in their community. But they never got to leave the driveway with the car.
Now, they’ve not only got the keys, but they’re ripping up and down the highway, own their site, don’t have any ties - and that can be good or bad - to a mother ship.
As the day for launch came close, there was a feeling of the importance of the moment. For 33 years, Cox owned the Waco paper.
Ecstatic about the new ownership and management and what has been done for the paper, there was still a sense of this is a big deal, and the Web change is the final cutting of the cord to Cox.
Former publisher Dan Savage, who came out of retirement to work with the Robinsons to create a community-centric Trib, talked about that in an editorial board meeting. He talked of how monumental it was for the paper, its people and the city.
I relate to Dan’s view: I ran the COXnet group, and then I came in to lead the Waco Web transition project. There is irony there - working for years to knit www.wacotrib.com into the old infrastructure. Then working to break those ties and set them on their way.
What can your newspaper achieve in 94 days?
Take a look at the Trib and see what they did. Spend some time looking around. The site deserves your focus.
But I bet many of you wonder why it worked in Waco, while much of the industry seems to be stuck in neutral.
That’s in my next blog.
Two news sites to watch
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Newspapers, Radio, Television on November 6th, 2009
Everyone knows that media sites - particularly newspapers - are struggling mightily to find the right Internet business model, one that will sustain them as print continues to decline and digital becomes more important and no longer viewed as an interesting appendage, as it has been by too many in the recent past.
Anyone who cares about the value and integrity of news and its importance to our everyday life is pulling for each newspaper, television station and radio station to figure it out. Not all will. And at those who don’t, the “cut-expenses-until-we’re-profitable” model won’t work, because there will be nothing left to cut.
It will take more than a sharp budget knife to succeed.
While we are rooting with vigor for media sites to find that elusive model, keep an eye on these guys: www.sdnn.com and www.texastribune.org .
The first one - ww.sdnn.com - is San Diego News Network.
Take a look. It looks feels and acts like a “traditional” news site (whatever that means these days), but if you spend more than a minute there - and you should spend many minutes there if you’re interested in the future of local digital news - you will be satisfied with not only its completeness, but its fun feel, and its very, very community-centric approach. For an example, navigate to The Good Squad on their site.
The San Diego site was the first of an ambitious rollout plan. The second site is www.swrnn.com. It just launched, covering Southwest Riverside, California. Next is Orange County.
The goal is news sites in 40 U.S. and Canadian cities over the next 30 months.
The local news network sites reside under the U.S. Local News Network banner, a company founded by local technology entrepreneur Neil Senturia. He has built a strong staff, including President Chris Jennewein, a long-time newspaper-focused digital expert who has been in digital so long he could argue with Al Gore that HE actually invented the Internet.
Even if you’re not interested in San Diego, their site is worth watching.
Same for the Austin-based site, The Texas Tribune.
The site is a non-profit, doesn’t accept ads and exists on the support of donations and sponsors.
It’s run by former Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith, with backing from venture capitalist John Thornton.
It’s a political journalist’s dream site, loaded with serious articles and insight into the game of Texas politics. In a state with a rich and storied, and sometimes sordid, political tradition, it’s got the right topic to cover.
Time will tell on both.
But in a traditional news environment that has focused on regurgitating print for so many years, these sites may have something to teach others.
Let’s take a look at the Fast Flip side
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Newspapers, Technology on September 16th, 2009
Sometimes the road to new habits and new technology is littered with temporary bridges and make-do paths, products with a very important but very short shelf-life, and products that fill a gap until a better idea comes along.
Is Google Fast Flip one of these, or is it the start of something much bigger?
In a media industry that focuses on every piece of info, trivial or not, press coverage of Fast Flip the last few days has been middle of the road, respectable but not overwhelming.
The New York Times wrapped up Fast Flip nicely in its article. PC World and Mashable provided similar coverage.
Google’s Fast Flip is basically just a new way to view the news. Google has 39 partners, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar.
Give it a try. Click on an article and flip through the article, a la traditional media. There are ads on the pages, and it’s a revenue share with the partners.
Maybe it’s a short-term play, has a comfort level for some and bridges the gap for others. Maybe it’s a keeper.
And maybe - just maybe - it doesn’t need a lot of analyzing. It’s just another way to read, and whenever that happens, it’s good.
Also, not a bad thing that Google and traditional media found a way to work together.
Ask yourself, what would Dan do?
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers on August 29th, 2009
Like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle, my friend Dan last month walked back into the publisher’s office he once occupied at a medium-size Texas newspaper.
He hasn’t been asleep in the Catskills the last four years. He’s been on his motorcycle cruising past the Tetons, hurtling across the desert. He was at his ranch home off Galleywinter Lane (it’s a Texas country song, too), calling his Longhorns to the fence line the way you or I would call the dogs to the back door.
He left four years ago because it was the right thing to do; he came back last month because it was the right thing to do.
His other retired publisher friends said he was crazy, but no more than normal. He’s just glad to be back in the saddle again (on a temporary basis), helping a friend who bought the paper transition it from its former corporate ownership to local ownership once again.
A lot has happened in the four years since he left. Papers have died, others moved to online only, staffing has shrunk. Grabbing a big ad contract is about as easy as chasing down a tumbleweed on the prairie west of his ranch.
Dan and I, and those on his management team, worked closely together in a different lifetime, not that long ago. Through the years, I visited his paper 30-plus times, and it was always a place you’d want to be. Real people. Doers, not talkers. No pretense or preening or posing. Just get it done, and get it done right.
So it’s been natural to pick up the conversation, to be there when he wants to chat, and bounce ideas off of each other on the transition and newspapering in general. He knows he missed four years, so wonders if he ’s missed something of value, or lost touch. Nah. In fact, most of us in the business would agree that if four years had to disappear, those would be at the top of the list.
As I said in one of our emails: “…being out of the business and coming back in and taking a fresh look is probably just what is needed right now there, and in about a thousand other newspapers these days.”
Which raises the question: As newspapers and media companies rebuild, will they learn from history, repeat old mistakes, strike out in bold new ways, stick to comfortable paths?
Every newspaper is different, and every financial sheet is different so one size doesn’t fit all. Some weathered the downturn better than others; some did worse than their counterparts. So, one size doesn’t fit all.
But there must be some truisms that work for the “new” newspaper industry, and I asked myself: What would Dan do?
• Protect local news, on the Web and in print. It’s the main thing a paper has going for it; if coverage dies, the paper follows.
• Maintain church and state, but treat ad people with the same ranking and respect that newsrooms receive.
• To repeat a Web-ism popular after the first bubble burst, don’t do something just because you can. What’s the business reason for adding this feature, or that Web tool? Sometimes it’s just for quality reasons, and that is a valid business reason, too.
• Avoid ill-defined jobs with no real or obvious contribution to quality or revenue. They sprouted as newspapers got intrigued with the Web about a decade ago, and many have disappeared in the cutbacks. But be cautious in adding jobs that don’t directly increase revenue or improve quality.
• Ban 65-page PowerPoint presentations, whether done under the guise of Business Intelligence, knowledge sharing or whatever. Instead of a 65-slide PowerPoint, how about a shorter, simpler game plan where something is actually DONE, other than watching a PowerPoint.
• Follow up. Ever attend a meeting where plans that rival the Normandy invasion were unfurled for senior management? Whatever happens to those plans? Anything concrete, like revenue?
• Make everyone a part of the solution; employees will actually love this. More stake in the outcome; contributions and ideas gladly accepted.
• Make everyone accountable. Ad salespeople have goals to meet. Newsrooms have pages to fill, and ethics and editing guidelines to follow. Are there standards and goals for others? Marketing, product, business development? Tangible, measurable goals? Again, employees will like it, because their voice is heard, and they also know that everyone is working to the goal, and no one is along for the ride.
• Look at a vendor relationship as a partnership. You are buying a product, but you are also buying a relationship, customer service and responsiveness. Do your vendors return your calls promply, or at all? Remember, you are the customer.
• Avoid the bureaucratic padding that grew like moss under a rock at some big papers over the last decade. Maybe a “director” is more hands-on, and you don’t have a “deputy director” or a “manager” in the structure, unless you have a heckuva large role, department or function.
• Media groups and big papers should consider modeling their operations like small to medium size newspapers. This doesn’t mean quality suffers; we can all name plenty of smaller papers that we think perform better than some bigger papers, quality-wise. What does this mean: hold meetings as needed, but stick to the point, and make decisions. Don’t allow internal turf battles and kingdom-building; it’s all about the paper and its mission, and survival, not the individual. Respect your community and be involved; don’t talk down to your readers. Build a community of ideas with your readers; not all knowledge sprouts from the newspaper, so find a way to truly, not superficially, engage readers. This requires work.
Does this solve everything? No way, but I’m guessing that these are some of the things Dan would do. For starters.
What’s a j-school to do?
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers, Radio, Television on August 25th, 2009
The media industry seeks a path to survival, even as the layoffs continue. The cost-cutting is far from over. There’s talk of a modest rebound for newspapers in 2010, but how do you define rebound?
So how do the educational institutions that provide the talent and energy to help save the business succeed in this very ugly environment, when it’s hard to recommend journalism as a career without feeling a hint of guilt?
What’s a j-school to do?
Adapt, and survive. Maybe even prosper.
Naturally so much focus today is on the industry overall, how it got into this mess, how it gets out, what’s left when the rebound takes hold.
But there’s a huge “related” industry - the colleges and universities that help produce the journalists of the future, and the vendors that provide the tools and technology for newspapers to march into that unknown future.
A different topic for a different day, but at its core, the vendors who support the industry will survive - or not - as they always have: free enterprise competition, who provides the best and most innovative widget, at the best price, with the best service.
What about journalism schools? Those of us who went through j-school like to think there are different forces and values at play: the importance of a free press, a journalist’s unique role in society, ethics, morality, responsibilities. My j-school days were filled with those elevated thoughts, along with the realities of how do you make a living on that tiny salary.
Not much has changed, but there is one more big question out there: after I land my first job will my newspaper survive?
Despite all these fears and doom and gloom, journalism enrollment is soaring.
But why? Every j-school professor has his/her ideas, but a few to consider:
1. Just because you’re in j-school doesn’t mean you have to work at a newspaper.
2. Communication skills that you learn in j-school work anywhere, and there is always a need for people who can read, write and communicate cleanly and effectively.
3. Who wants to take math and science courses?
4. It’s a brave new world in the media; lets go along for the ride.
5. Surely, newspapers will figure out the Web one day and let’s be there when it happens.
As enrollment soars, the savvy schools are taking steps to make sure they lead the way for students.
And those j-schools are more likely to not only survive but thrive. Word gets around, as would-be students look around for the best j-school offerings. Students don’t want to learn to draw pages on paper dummies. They want to be challenged and go with a winner, a j-school looking ahead past today’s crisis.
They also want to be part of the solution. They want to be part of the change. “There’s something sexy about being on the ground floor when an industry revamps itself,” says one j-school grad, former reporter, but still in the industry in public affairs with a college seeking to meet the needs of today’s j-students. “For many of those students, it’s not about being along for the ride, it’s about driving the car.” Goodness knows, based on how some papers have managed up to and through the collapse, it might be wise to pass along those car keys to Web savvy, business-minded grads, while the car is still running.
Who’s doing it right?
A recent Poynter Online E-Media Tidbits blog by Maurreen Skowran listed several colleges and universities that are adapting their offerings to meet tomorrow’s needs.
One, Elon University in North Carolina, offers a Master of Arts in Interactive Media. Elon also has a class on virtual environments, and how games and Second Life can help deliver news, plus a requirement to produce a project for public good, spreading participation beyond traditional journalism students.
At Northwestern University’s Medill school, there’s a strong emphasis on understanding audience, content creation and marketing.
And Western Kentucky University has a new IMedia certificate which includes a course in online advertising.
The clear message from these schools is “we’re looking ahead.” Let’s make sure we don’t skimp on ethics, integrity and mission, but teach students how to help rebuild this industry.
For years, a retired AP executive, Conrad Fink, has been teaching media management at the University of Georgia.
Why do his classes work? Because they challenge students and put them in the real world, where they will be a few months later, thinking about how to manage a newspaper, make the right business decisions, make the right editorial calls. Make a business work.
He was teaching media management to students before it was cool, back in the day when some might argue that most media companies weren’t doing a lot of managing.
Ahead of the curve - for an educational institution, and the industry.
Not every school has a Fink on the faculty.
But every school can look to tomorrow, not to yesterday.
The cost of staying in business
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers on August 15th, 2009
Henry Grady statue in downtown Atlanta
Because big city newspapers have history behind them, they also generally have real estate of high value. That’s particularly true for the papers that have been around a while.
Many sit on valuable downtown property. Some have classic historic buildings. Some have modern-era concrete and glass boxes, many looking dingy because the pressure washer budget item was the first and easiest thing to cut.
Over the past year many newspaper buildings have gone on the market. Most notable is the architectural gem that serves as The New York Times building. It’s spectacular inside and out, though a bit unnerving when you’re walking through the interior, and the energy-efficient blinds open and close on their own, reacting to heat or sunlight or a small man behind the curtain pulling the strings.
Last time I was there, when that happened in a stairwell with no one else around, I felt a bit like Dave in the movie 2001, and expected to hear HAL ask of me: “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”
In the street level glass-enclosed atrium, the silvery birch trees, surrounded by moss, are relaxing and stunning. But you just have to wonder, like we wonder about the newspaper industry every day, can they survive, and what will they look like five years from now if they do?
The Times sold a portion of its building earlier this year, and leased it back, trying to help cover loss of ad revenue.
So it came as no surprise last week when another big city newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, announced (after the Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported it) that it is considering moving out of its downtown location, and out of the city limits. A decision will be announced in a few weeks.
The move makes sense. It’s a superb location, and when the real estate market rebounds, could bring a nice price and be a prime location for a hotel or other large facility, close to Centennial Park, Phillips Arena, CNN and Five Points.
And while the move makes sense, you just have to hate it, because it’s one more signal of the changing landscape.
The building itself, an early 70s creation, is no historic treasure. But The Atlanta Journal (founded 1883) and The Atlanta Constitution (founded 1868), once separate newspapers, once under separate ownership, do have a long history in downtown Atlanta.
I spent 22 years in that building. The first six at The Atlanta Journal, located then on the sixth floor of the 72 Marietta St. building. The Atlanta Constitution was on the 8th floor. In six years there (first time around before I left to buy and run my own small weekly), I never sat foot on the Con’s 8th floor, though I did sneak into their computer system (allegedly a firing offense) a few times. Competition was fierce, and you didn’t dare step onto the competitor’s floor.
Journal folks always took pride in knowing that as afternoon papers elsewhere died in the 70s and 80s, The Journal lived on. In fact, it took Elvis ’s death on the Con cycle to finally let the morning paper ease ahead of the afternoon paper in circulation.
The Journal owned the classic slogan: Covers Dixie Like the Dew, and those of us working there were fiercely proud and lived to cover Dixie like the dew. The reporters and editors on the Constitution, I am sure, felt they were the best, but they were saddled with not only a fanatical crew at The Journal but a weak masthead slogan (”The South’s Standard Newspaper,” if I recall correctly. Can’t find it on the Web because likely no one wants to remember it.)
There were many fond memories. Herb, my boss, legal pad in hand, walking over at 6:55 a.m., 35 minutes before deadline for the second edition of the day. We had six editions daily, truly amazing. Herb’s greeting: “Bud, we got three dead in Telfair County. Need 6 graphs for the Early. That’s all I know. Get on it, Bud.” ”Bud” wasn’t my name then; that’s what Herb called all the guys. All the young ladies were “Gal,” until one day one young lady told him differently. Thirty-five minutes to find the sheriff, get him to talk to you, or find a deputy if he’s not around, hoping somebody would answer the radio call (remember, no cell phones then). Write it, get it edited, and sent off to the copy desk. We always did it, for the readers, and for The Journal.
Other times you could feel the power of a newspaper, like on Thanksgving Eve, when the paper was bursting at the seams with ads and editorial. On my second stint there, in the 90s, when I was in newsroom management, I’d go to the pressroom to wait for the all-critical press start of the biggest paper of the year. We felt like every second counted, though in reality it was “only” every minute that counted. If it didn’t start on time, and if it was editorial’s fault, I’d answer why. So I liked to be present. I’d stand squarely in a spot I determined was exactly in the middle between those four massive TKS presses. I planted my feet on the steel planking (second floor level, presses still rising several floors to the high roof), waiting for all four presses to crank up and be in sync. Every press unit was in use, the only day of the year that happened. There was a steady thrumming, a building of both pressure and sound, the steel planking trembling under my feet, then the papers rushing out through the folders, hooking up to the Ferag system, circling around the roof, headed to the mailroom upstairs. That’s one meaning of power of the press.
Then there was the Olympics. Am amazing period of collaboration and teamwork. I wonder sometimes how today’s paper would pull off covering an in-town Olympics, probably the same way people wonder if we’ll be able to fly to the moon again as easily as we seemed to do forty years ago.
It was one end, and beginning of another march to another ending, in November 2001 when The Journal was closed. The slogan on the last day: “Covered Dixie Like The Dew.”
Fond memories, but that was then, and now is now.
So I will respectfully disagree with my AJC friends (some current employees, some former employees) on Facebook mourning the likely move. (Feelings are mixed, it seems.)
Though I hate it, a move is so economically logical, it’s a must-do.
And anywhere a paper can apply economic logic, a commodity seemingly in short supply in recent years, do so.
It’s a shame it came to this.
But remember, the soul of a paper is not built around brick and mortar, presses or digital, whether the building is downtown or located in Jasper, Georgia.
The soul comes from its people, its writers, its heritage, what the paper stands for, how it includes the community. It doesn’t come from jingles or marketing slogans. If readers don’t like the paper and truly connect with those who run it, it will become very easy to find a nice cozy location elsewhere.
Those who helped make The Journal and The Constitution what they were a few years back would likely be aghast. I can visualize Celestine Sibley’s response to a move, and can hear Lewis Grizzard grousing over it.
And Margaret Mitchell and Ralph McGill likely wouldn’t be pleased.
And of course, Henry Grady, the editor of The Constitution and spokesman for the New South in the years after the Civil War, would have hated to depart the heart of the city.
But they all would likely say, do it. Save some money. Save the paper. But first, make sure you save your readers, make them want to read you. Don’t talk down to them. Respect them, and give them a good paper.
If the paper does move out of downtown, that means that Henry Grady’s statue, a few paces from the newspaper, will be all alone.
And what of the little-known tradition of the Constitution editor firing the paper’s little black cannon at the base of Grady’s statue, on election night whenever a Democrat is elected President?
That, too, gone with the wind.
A light at the end of the tunnel?
Posted by jareetz in Digital, Industry, Newspapers on August 10th, 2009
Or is that a train loaded with unused newsprint rushing full speed ahead at us?
Three promising signs indicate that possibly, maybe, perhaps the newspaper industry is finally starting to break free from the bottom, where it has been mired for many, many months.
Those signs:
1. The New York Times reports that The Seattle Times, the city’s surviving newspaper after the rival Post-Intelligencer closed its print operation several months ago, is in black ink. With the P-I’s closing, The Times circulation jumped 30 percent, from 200,000 to 260,000, in June. And at the P-I, a Web-only operation now, owner Hearst says things are going better than expected, with audience and revenue better than forecast.
2. Gordon Borrell, a long-time observer of the newspaper industry and head of Borrell Associates, is forecasting a “mild rebound” for local newspapers in 2010, perhaps a 2.4 percent increase in advertising. Borrell reports that smaller newspapers “are firmly entrenched in their niche of providing rich local content that people seem to prefer in print – rather than screen – format.” That matches the thinking in corporate conference rooms three years ago when the bottom started to fall out. Then the only solace was a belief that at least the small to medium size newspapers would weather the building storm. Borrell suggested we all might want to remember his forecast and take a look one year from today.
Good stuff, but not yet time to uncork the champagne bottle.
Newspapers face a very tough road, and so far the attempts at righting the ship have come mostly from slash and burn cost-cutting over the last 12 months. Not much room or time to innovate or invent “the new model.”
But now newspapers are in Phase 2: trying to publish a quality print product, while moving forward on the digital front and trying to woo advertisers back.
Any one of those alone is a tall order in good times; an amazing challenge when staff ranks are depleted and morale is down.
But as Yogi Berra and Lenny Kravitz agree, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
And these three reports seem to indicate it ain’t over.
As a pal/editor at the Palm Beach Post says: Onward.