Jody Calendar is president of Calendar Communications, Inc., in Tinton Falls, N.J. Reach her via e-mail at consultjody@aol.com.
IT’S A NEW YEAR, AND WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH THE OPPORTUNITY? A LOT!
Yes, some of the negative trends continue. Stocks are down, chains were sold, major papers announced deep buyouts, there’s talk of more consolidation and some newspapers dimmed their lights.
Still, there is innovation and hope everywhere. ASNE and the industry itself are energized, focused, strategic and proceeding intelligently.
While asking around for interesting innovations in the industry, Edward D. Miller, (see his newspaper management column in American Editor departments), quipped in an e-mail that there’s one “Trend That Ought To Be: Audience focus.”
He’s right, of course, and newspapers are reacting, despite some reluctance and disagreement about how to approach the new world.
Clearly, as we move into the digital world, newspaper knowledge and credibility are critical.
As Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, put it while addressing the Hugo Young memorial lecture in London in November, “The civic labor performed by journalists on the ground cannot be replicated by legions of bloggers sitting hunched over their computer screens.”
iPhone news sites are starting to be released now, and the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Sun Times are leading the pack.
USA TODAY has announced the launch of Open Air, its new glossy magazine insert for the affluent, outdoorsmen, which will run quarterly and officially launch March 7.
Pam Fine, managing editor of The Indianapolis Star, explained a recently introduced pair of innovative online features that help readers track the area’s favorite athletes game-to-game: the Manning Meter and the Gordon Gauge.
The Manning Meter, which kicked off with the Indianapolis Colts season opener in September, follows Peyton Manning’s progress as he moves up the statistical lists of the all-time greatest NFL quarterbacks. The Meter also features six photo galleries that present a visual trip from childhood to champion; a Kids Game, with which parents, teachers and children can chart Manning’s stats as they watch him on TV; a library of all the seminal stories the paper has done on the quarterback over the years; and perhaps most engaging, an interactive database of every NFL pass Manning has thrown.
By punching in more than 175 games worth of numbers, the Star enabled readers to search for themselves how Manning has fared in any combination of more than 20 situational variables. For instance, what is his passer rating in the fourth quarter of road games on grass when the temperature is below 30 and his team is trailing? The database is unprecedented among major media.
The Manning Meter has received 425,000 page views since September, roughly 100,000 a month.
Now that’s engaging with the audience.
Charlotte Hall, editor of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel and ASNE vice president, learned this year the power of even small change to drive big audience growth on the Web — and change newsroom culture.
“The Sentinel created the A.M. Team out of nothing — repurposing two reporters’ beats and two photographers’ shifts, moving an editor over and bringing cop reporters in an hour earlier. All of a sudden our breaking news on the Web exploded. Within three months our morning Web traffic had jumped 30 percent. And we had improved the paper as well by getting an earlier jump on stories and visuals,” she said. “The A.M. Team changed newsroom culture by fully integrating Web and newspaper work flow and putting Web reporting first. Its success led to the reorganization of the whole newsroom in which we eliminated our Metro and Features desks, creating small newsgathering teams serving both Web and Newspaper.”
“We often think of government stories as our spinach. Yet on the hottest government story of the year we turned Spinach into soufflé, by sending our political columnist to blog nonstop during a seven hour debate, with details right down to a the county commissioners picking his nose,” she explained. “The savvy in the audience were reading the blog on handhelds. We also did live video streaming, but where we really beat TV was the irreverent voice of our columnist talking about boring Powerpoints, the coffee orders of the commissioners and the green blouse worn by one official to push “going green” on the project. The next day, rather than a tired old “color sidebar,” we simply repurposed the best of the blog into the paper.”
The Wall Street Journal, which has traditionally charged for most content, announced in January a new Web site of its editorial page that offers free access to all editorials and op-ed columns, plus other commentary, book reviews and arts and leisure coverage.
The Web site, in a playful mood, referred to the new approach as a “free lunch.”
And there is evidence in every chain across America that hard-hitting, investigative work is still a priority.
We’re also advancing knowledge and deepening understanding.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has announced a three year, $3.8 million grant to continue a fellowships program run by the International Center for Journalists. In addition, the program is launching new health journalism fellowships supported by a three-year, $1.7 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
And the Council on American-Islamic Relations has announced its “Beyond Stereotypes” campaign to more than 40,000 media professionals in this country.
Change is the trend. The Newspaper Association of America named the trends to keep an eye on: measuring total audience; outsourcing, including pre-press, press and post-press operations; developing marketing plans; separating newspapers from other media divisions; multimedia branding with audience in mind; running leaner; acquiring heatset or ultraviolet capabilities to generate more revenue through commercial printing; and using hyperlocal sections and Web Sites to attract readers. *