Killing the cash cow and other acts of media indecency
And I was feeling so good today--that is until I read this memo from The Philadelphia Inquirer's managing editor Mike Leary to his staff, essentially establishing guidelines on how the newspaper intends to commit ritual hara-kiri.
"Colleagues--Beginning today, we are adopting an Inquirer first policy for our signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts. What that means is that we won't post those stories online until they're in print. We'll cooperate with Philly.com, as we do now, in preparing extensive online packages to accompany our enterprising work. But we'll make the decision to press the button on the online packages only when readers are able to pick up the Inquirer on their doorstep or on the newsstand."
"For our bloggers, especially, this may require a bit of an adjustment. Some of you like to try out ideas that end up as subjects of stories or columns in print first. If in doubt, consult your editor. Or me or Chris Krewson."
(Here's a follow-up interview Ryan Sholin conducted with Chris Krewson, the executive editor for online/news at the Inquirer.)
Luckily, I don't work for the Philly Inquirer and I don't have to consult with Leary, Krewson or any other editor who signed off on this disastrous policy in order to understand that it's doomed to fail. The Inquirer believes this policy will make its paper a more relevant read. I beg to differ.
What's profoundly depressing is that this mindset still infects the newsroom of a top city daily, as if the last decade's worth of media transformation never took place. If I did find myself in the employ of Messrs. Leary, Krewson et al, I would argue in a counter-memo that the Inquirer was long past the point where newspapers can force readers to use a certain medium. If readers want to read a publication online, at least they're reading us. It's a tough business and making the jump from one business model to another is hard. Still, the prescription offered up is redolent of how people in the media business thought about the Internet in the mid-1990s.
I can tell you a story about those times. Back then, I worked at PC Week, which then was a $100 million-plus property and widely considered to be the preeminent news property covering technology. My job was to help get PC Week online. In the beginning, that largely consisted of repurposing "middle of the book" pieces which closed earlier in the week. These were basically filler pieces and totally uninteresting to more than a fraction of the readership. We held the good stuff for print.
Then one day Lisa DiCarlo (who later moved on to Forbes) came to me with a minor scoop about a Hewlett-Packard printer price cut. The news was not going to hold so why not run it online? And so we did. Within the hour, Lisa received a phone call from a Wall Street analyst asking if she could share any more details. Obviously, somebody was reading this stuff.
Unfortunately for me, so was the publisher, who came storming down the hall after finding out we were posting original content. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "We can't do that. We'll kill the cash cow!"
I don't want to embarrass the man so I'll refer to him as P. He knew the technology business inside out and was as good a space salesman as they came. To be fair, I can't really dun him for not being clairvoyant. How many among us were? (If I were so smart, I would have started Amazon before Jeff Bezos.) But P was so much a prisoner of his previous success that he could not envision dispensing with a business model that had worked so splendidly for him until then.
We know what subsequently happened to PC Week as well as the rest of tech publishing's star properties. These "weeklies" either migrated online, where they published in real time, or they become irrelevant to the conversation. These days you can find any number of similar stories about how the Internet forced media to fragment and change. But now the braintrust in charge at the Inquirer believes it can prove itself the exception to that rule simply by "saving the good stuff" for the a.m. edition delivered to subscribers by the paperboy.
On his blog, the always excellent Jeff Jarvis titled his post, "A stake through the heart of the has-been Inquirer."
Sadly, that's spot on.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.
Wait until they see the ad revenues from Philly.com start to take a hit because the prompt news coverage we're looking for isn't available there anymore. Online advertisers are going to go where the site traffic is, and philly.com just gave us all fewer reasons to head to their site first for current news.
If this were a national-scoped paper, okay... I could see it. OTOH, a local daily (even a regional one) is going to have news and stories that affect the residents only, and simply can't be as easily found online. If the lag-time is only a day (or less) for "signature" stories (read: "local non-immediate stuff"), then what's the problem? Opinion columns, esoteric but interesting stories... things like that aren't going to be splattered all over Google News the nanosecond it happens, so I doubt that waiting a few extra hours until after the paper prints it is going to kill the paper itself.
An example: I may live in a somewhat weird area, but being as tech-heavy as my area (Portland) is, I doubt that it could ever be called technically backwards. That said, I still pick up a copy of the free papers at the train station (Portland Tribune, Willamette Weekly) as they come out. They get their funding locally from advertisers, many of whom I wouldn't have heard about anywhere else, and whom I have no problems frequenting (since most are local). Sure, I can probably latch onto the wifi and grab something online, but somehow it's easier to just read through the paper... no batteries, no flashing out gear that could get attention (and therefore stolen), and no need to read something on a tiny screen while the train sways and bumps. I can literally take it anywhere I go and expect to be able to consume its contents (except maybe underwater or something).
Now if you want a real bona-fide example of corporate seppuku, look no further than RyanAir. This is the Irish airline who has recently (this week) decided to unilaterally cancel all flights booked through third-party websites (e.g. by way of expedia and such), demanding that passengers only book flights through its own website. That my friend, is a perfect example of a bone-headed decision. :)
Cheers!
Besides, people that say newspapers are useless sadly contribute to the dumbing down of American society. It's a well-known fact in the political world that people that don't read the papers are far less informed about substantive issues. I'm a Philadelphian and I can tell you that there isn't really a comparable alternative for the Inquirer. In that sense, the decision to withhold temporarily certain products could indeed encourage more people to subscribe.
Like others have said, for local stuff it isn't a huge deal. Getting local news online can be difficult, although I find local TV stations to be fairly decent.
But if they get to the point where it is hurting them and they can't see it, than they deserve to go under.
The newspapers are only going to survive by being local and providing what the locals want in news, sports and most importantly, features such as Dear Abby, comics, etc. This combination will keep them relevant along with their local advertisers.
I live in a suburban county. The big city paper and tv stations have very little relevant news concerning my county of 250,000 people and almost nothing of local politics. The internet is great on some things; but locally, it is subpar.
If the inquirer wants to remain relevant, they'd better re-think their decision to make news available online only after it has appeared in print. Otherwise, they'll hemorrhage online ad sales as quickly as they're losing print subscribers and print-ad revenue.
Beyond that, if you look at the story it has the suspect/victim's name and his condition. It's quite possible they had to wait for permission to publish it, whether from the hospital or police.
The impression I got from the memo was that it pertained to non-news stories (i.e. features, investigations, reviews) - the things that aren't "timely" and typically take days to prepare and usually cost the newspaper the most money.
There currently is no reliable source of income from online advertising, so securing value for both their print advertisers and subscribers makes sense at this time. Until the advertising industry decides whether it wants to pay-per-click, per-view or whatever for online advertising, newspapers are typically in the hole for online content.
a good newspaper isn't just about providing news, its about engaging with and conversing with the audience you seek to inform. does it really matter to you if you get your news 6 hours after you could have read it online? sometimes yes, sometimes no.
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by floravesta
August 11, 2008 3:34 PM PDT
- If I didn't have a 94-year-old neighbor with whom I share a paper, I wouldn't subscribe. When she's gone, I'll drop my subscription. Among other things, I dislike the large paper pages ... a tabloid sized newspaper would be much better. I dislike overlong news stories that fail to observe the old practice of a lead sentence that tells you what you'll be reading (often it can be found only in the final paragraph). No, the newspapers are doing themselves no service by failing to grasp the impact the internet has had and will have on the public's consumption of news.
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