Vignettes from the field

Our RSS reader picks up occasional commentary by newspaper readers and former journalists that provide a glimpse into how the newspaper industry collapse is affecting ordinary people:

• A Bay Area book enthusiast laments the Chron’s decision to fold its stand-alone book review section into the weekly news analysis pages.
• A Twin Cities consultant lists the reasons he’s canceling his newspaper subscription. There are several. Like many readers, he simply doesn’t see much value any more. As newspapers slash costs and staff, the devaluation spiral continues. The product gets worse, which gives readers less inclination to read it.
• Mark Hamilton remarks wryly on the dubious value of incessant political polling
• Finally, the head of global public relations for Disney Parks & Resorts issues the most pessimistic forecast for the newspaper industry that we’ve heard anywhere. At about 10:20 in this podcast interview Eric Schwartzman, Disney’s Duncan Wardle states, “The printed newspaper industry has three to five years to live.” We hope his staff heard that!

Business sections feel the blow

Newspaper business sections have been hard hit by the ad downturn,

Glimmers of digital hope

The U.S. political campaign has apparently given a lift to newspaper websites, according to Media Post. Quoting: “The week ending February 23 saw visits to Web sites in Hitwise’s news and media category increase 22% compared to the same week in 2007. The upswing especially benefited Web sites for print publications, including online portals for magazines and newspapers. The New York Times Web site was the winner in the print category, taking 5% of total visits–a 50% increase in visits over last year. It was followed by People.com, with 3%, and The Washington Post, with 2%.”

Honolulu Advertiser’s 600 Employees to Protest Contract Offer from Gannett – Hawaii Reporter, Feb. 19, 2008

[Demonstrating that unions are as clueless as ever, six unions that represent 600 employees at the Honolulu Advertiser are incensed at Gannett’s latest offer of a 1 percent increase in wages and a 1.5 percent bonus. Gannet is “doing great,” said Hawaii Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who evidently has not read Gannett’s latest earnings release or noticed that its stock is off 60% over the last three years. All the congressman wants is for Gannett to share some more of that bounty, since its future looks so bright. One is reminded of the UAW strikes in the 1970s, which were just what the US auto industry needed at the time. – Ed.]

[The editors at E&P should have read this story more carefully. It appears to contain good news for newspapers, but the numbers just don’t make sense. Tell me if you can untangle this:

According to new research, “the increase in the online newspaper audience is making up 28% of the losses in print readership.” Umm, what does that mean? Making up what? Circulation? Advertising revenue? It goes on to say that “from August 2004 through March 2007….online newspaper readership grew 14%.” Wow, that’s pretty pathetic, if you ask me. That would be an annual growth rate of less than 5%, which differs from all the other research that’s been done in this area. Finally, we learn that “70% of all newspaper web site visitors also read the print version.” It that’s true, it’s bad news. It indicates that newspaper Web sites are attracting mostly their own print subscribers. – Ed.]

‘Baltimore Sun’ Launches Youth-Oriented ‘b’ – MediaPost, Feb. 21, 2008

The Baltimore Sun is planning to launch a new free tabloid targeting younger readers called “b.” The first daily issue is set to appear on April 14. With a mix of typical tabloid fare and lifestyle content, the newspaper plans to freshen its pages by inviting readers to submit their own stories, photos and video to the newspaper and its Web site.

At Annual Meeting, Lee Enterprises Claims Growing Print Readership In ‘Toughest’ Year – Editor & Publisher, Feb. 20, 2008

They appear to be doing something right at Lee Enterprises. Quoting: “[T]he reach of Lee’s print and online newspapers between October 2006 and October 2007 increased to 71% of all adults inits markets from 67%. And while the percentage of adults who read only the print newspaper remained steady at 50%, the percentage who read both print and online editions grew to 16% from 11%… Lee advertising revenue declined 1.4% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, compared with an industry average decline of 7.4%.”

Help wanted. Desperately. – Reflections of a Newsosaur, Feb. 10, 2008

[Alan Mutter analyzes the crash of the newspaper help-wanted market, which he figures has contracted 54% in the last seven years. He traces the beginning of the end to 9/11 and cites newspaper smugness over their once near-monopoly on that business. Newspapers failed to understand that readers weren’t going to go to a single destination to find jobs. Increasingly, they want the jobs to find them. Unless newspapers understand that and act quickly, he says, they’re going to lose the half of the market that hasn’t slipped away yet. -Ed.]

Newsstand Mags Drop Circ, ‘Time’ Plummets – MediaPost, Feb. 12, 2008

[Once upon a time, a year-to-year decline of almost 20% in Time magazine newsstand sales would have been big news. Today, hardly anybody notices. Time recently redesigned to make its look less cluttered and more open, but it seens that readers prefer the dowdy old Economist – with its boring design, provocative writing and insightful analysis – over the eye candy that US publishers dangle in front of them. Time has company, BTW: Newsweek‘s newsstand sales were off 16% and U.S. News‘ were down 8%. – Ed.]

For Publisher in Los Angeles, Cuts and Worse – New York Times, Feb. 18, 2008

[The New York Times profiles the controversial publisher of the Los Angeles Times, David Hiller. His unpleasant assignment has been to make sweeping changes at the troubled west coast institution, but his style has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Detractors call him evasive and sneaky, while supporters say he’s just carrying out a difficult job. His approach to the newsroom is viewed by some as meddlesome. Last week, he named Russ Stanton editor, the fourth person to hold that title in three years. Stanton has most recently been in charge of the LATimes.com website, which should offer some insight into what Hiller is thinking. – Ed.]

Dramatics Intesify at the New York Times – social|median, Feb. 12, 2008

[Apparently, big investors in The New York Times Co. aren’t amused at the stock’s 50% drop in value over the last four years, and they’re putting some of their people in place to change direction. The Sulzbergers aren’t going quietly, though. Jason Goldberg summarizes. – Ed.]

Down On The Wire – Forbes.com, Feb. 14, 2008

[With their businesses in free-fall, some newspaper publishers are beginning to question the value of the Associated Press, whose sprawling information-gathering empire is 30% funded by member newspapers. The AP charges papers an average of $143,000 a year for its services, but large-circulation titles pay more than $1 million. The Daily News recently said it would dump AP if the charges weren’t brought down, and some publishers are wondering openly whether the AP is even necessary any more, given the amount of information that is now freely available online. – Ed.]

Newspapers, Time To Disaggregate! – Media Post, Dec. 20, 2007

[This column from a few weeks back suggests that newspapers, which are about the most vertically oriented businesses on the planet, would be betfer off disintegrating and setting up their piece parts as profit-making entities in their own rights. In other words, spin the printing plant off into a business of its own with the newspaper as simply one client. It’s easier said that done (particularly when it comes to unwinding union printing contracts struck years ago) but would no doubt make the few newspapers that managed to pull it off leaner and more competitive. (Thanks to Randy Craig for the referral) – Ed.]

Nonprofit journalism on the rise – Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 12, 2008

[One possible solution to the loss of quality jouralism resulting from newspaper job cuts is an increase in activity from the nonprofit sector. This article profiles a few fledgling ventures that are offering the kind of activist investigative reporting that was once the domain of daily newspapers. There are plenty of risks in this model – sustainability among them – but philanthroy could fill some of the gaps left by dying dailies. Quoting: “There’s freedom in not having to worry about making every possible reader happy, says managing editor Roger Buoen, formerly with the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune [and now with MinnPost, a nonprofit startup]. In his previous job, his bosses were preoccupied with attracting ‘readers who don’t read the paper,’ he says. ‘If you had complicated stories, there were a few strikes against them off the bat.'” – Ed.]

What Does the Future of the Newspaper Look Like? – WebProNews, Jan. 15, 2008

[A search engine optimization expert looks at The World Association of Newspapers recent “Shaping the Future of the Newspaper” slide show and concludes that a lot of it is hooey. – Ed.]

The Art of Link Letters – That’s the Press, Baby, Feb. 11, 2008

[David Sullivan writes of how a one-man news operation called Newzjunky is creaming its competition in Watertown, NY. Why? Economics. Newszjunky has almost no overhead, and its “content” mainly consists of links to other sources. But it’s hyper-local, with a great list of links to resources in the community. It’s also stuffed with ads. Newzjunky is one of the ugliest websites I’ve ever seen, but there is an odd appeal to its flashing, font-filled chaos. There really is something for everyone there. And its rival, the Watertown Daily Times, doesn’t know how to compete with it. – Ed.]

The True Promise of Citizen Journalism – Local Man, Feb. 12, 2008

[Doug McGill writes about what reporters can learn from citizen journalists. He makes interesting points about the dampening effect of objectivity. Reporters aren’t suppose to have opinions, yet they do, of course. Other writers have commented recently that newspapers began to separate from their readers when they adopted neutral voice and lost their personalities back in the 1960s. Some misty-eyed veterans are imagining a return to the muckraking advocacy journalism of the 1920s noting that one of the appeals of blogs is their personality. Thanks to Mark Hamilton for the link. – Ed.]

McClatchy 4Q: Another Bad Quarter – MediaPost Publications, Feb. 7, 2008
Quoting: The McClatchy Company reported weak fourth-quarter results and a discouraging outlook for 2008, joining NYTCO and Gannett, which announced their results last week.

Gannett: 4Q Rev Drops Across Media – MediaPost, Feb. 4,2008
Quoting: “Overall, the company’s earnings were $245.3 million, down 31% compared to the same period in 2006, as revenue dipped 12% to $1.9 billion. For the full year 2007, Gannett’s newspaper ad revenues sank 6.4% to $4.9 billion, as broadcasting slipped 7.7% to $789 million.

“Like other newspaper publishers, Gannett reports that the collapse of print classified advertising revenue has been joined by declines in local and national advertising, including retail. Classifieds were down 11.4%, local 3.3%, and national 11.6%”

A.H. Belo shares fall on first day – Houston Chronicle, Feb. 11, 2008
[The stock market’s newest pure-play newspaper company disappoints in its first day as a publicly traded company. “There is a certain group of investors who don’t want to own newspapers, and they don’t care about the dividend,” says one analyst. – Ed.]

Help-Wanted Index Fell 33% in Dec. – Editor & Publisher, Feb. 1, 2008
[The Conference Board’s index of help-wanted advertising in 51 major newspapers plummeted an astonishing 33% in December. However, the organization chooses to interpret the fall as a sign of an economic slowdown rather than the real reason, which is that newspaper help-wanted advertising is no longer efficient. – Ed.]

‘Denver Post’ To Cut Biz Section – Editor & Publisher, Feb. 4, 2008
[The paper says that the standalone business section had “no heft.” The merged metro/business section will run about six pages. No job cuts are planned and business coverage won’t suffer, the Post Editor said. Last months, the Orange County Register did the same thing. Businesspeople are more likely to get their information online, so it’s no surprise these are the first sections to get cut. – Ed.]

Wall Street to Daily Papers: ‘Drop Dead’ – The Nation, Jan. 24, 2008

[Eric Alterman’s piece on the sad state of newspaper publishing (owners don’t even try to spin their cost cut positively any more, he notes), includes these interesting factoids:

Gannett Eyes Another Student Newspaper – Chronicle.com, Jan. 23, 2008
[Gannett is buying student newspapers, perhaps because the major metro daily market has such a poor future. -Ed.]

Ledger’s death a window into speed reporting – Los Angeles Times, Jan. 22, 2008
[An LA Times blog looks at the chaos and misinformation that surrounded the death of 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger. Some readers have complained that this was shoddy journalism, but the blog points out that it’s really an evolution of news reporting in the online world. “If the public wants its information as raw and immediate as possible, it’ll have to get used to a few missteps along the way, and maybe even approach breaking stories with a bit of skepticism, like a good reporter would,” it notes. -Ed.]

Murdoch Retreats From All-Free WSJ.com – Media Post, Jan. 25, 2008
[Maybe that $65M revenue stream isn’t such a bad thing after all. -Ed.]

Don’t shoot the messengers – Reflections of a Newsosaur, Jan. 23, 2008
[Alan Mutter suggests that the financial situations at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Minneapolis Star Tribune are dire and that the owners could be close to defaulting on their debt. What to do? If the creditors come in to run the papers, they’ll simply slash budgets to restore profitability, but at what long-term cost? There are no clear solutions to this predicament. -Ed.]

‘Miami Herald’ Won’t Outsource Editorial After All – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 15, 2008
[The controversial experiment is abandoned over quality concerns. Outsourcing of some production and website monitoring will continue. -Ed.]

The times are changing, and so is your newspaper – sacbee.com, Jan. 13, 2008
[The new editor of the Sacramento Bee makes it clear in her inaugural column that online is where it’s at. -Ed.]

Goldman Sachs Predicts Grim Year For Newspapers – MediaPost, Jan. 10, 2008
Quoting: Newspapers will take it on the chin in 2008, according to analysts with Goldman Sachs, who warned Wednesday of a potential double-whammy, as the industry’s secular downturn converges with a broader economic slowdown. Overall, they forecast a 7.9% decline in revenue, a much more substantial drop than their earlier prediction of just 2.6%. The predicted 7.9% drop is especially gloomy as it comes after several years of losses, compounding a 1.8% decline in 2006 and a roughly 8% drop in the first three quarters of 2007 compared to the same period in 2006."

Bostonian To Blaze New Trail at Edmonton Journal? – Canada Rocks, eh!, Jan. 19, 2008
[An embittered former reporter details the cost-slashing that’s gone on at the newspaper where he used to work and wonders how an optimistic new publisher can make a difference in a company that he believes is bent on cutting costs to a minimum. -Ed.]

‘Chicago Tribune’ Eliminates Print Help-Wanted Ads On Weekdays – Editor & Publisher, Jan. 14, 2008 
Quoting: "Instead, there will be a listing of basic information in the business section every Tuesday. The listing, called ‘Careerbuilder QuickFind,’ will refer readers to the full recruitment ad on chicagotribune.com/careerbuilder through a Web ID…Print help-wanted classified will continue to run in the Sunday paper under Careerbuilder section title, but the Tribune said the section will have ‘a bold new look with fewer columns, larger ads, and clear headings that enable easier page scanning and navigation.’

The end of the year was a good time for newspaper insiders and critics alike to review a pretty terrible year and wonder what come next.

$23B zapped in news stock value – Reflections of a Newsosaur, Jan. 1, 2008
[Alan Mutter runs the numbers and concludes that US newspaper companies have lost 42% of their market value in the last three years, with the majority of that decline coming in 2007. He further suggests that Wall Street’s lack of confidence in newspaper stocks is an indication that investors don’t believe that newspaper executives know how to pull out of the tailspin. As usual, his analysis is well-researched and pointed. – Ed.]

Lee CEO Junck Optimistic About Newspaper Biz – Editor & Publisher, Dec. 31, 2007

[A newspaper CEO points proudly to a year in which her company’s financial performance sucked less than that of its competitors’. -Ed.]

Enduring Values in a Time of Change – washingtonpost.com, Dec. 30, 2007

[The Washington Post’s ombudsman looks on the bright side. Deborah Howell starts by detailing the declines in circulation and revenue at the paper, but finishes by describing the shift in attitude about the Web that’s occurred among the reportorial staff. While it’s clear that some are adapting to the new online channels out of self-preservation, Howell clearly believes that most of the staff is embracing new media and trying to reinvent the paper. -Ed.]

‘Cincinnati Post’ Closes, Other Newspapers Outsource To India – MediaPost, Dec. 31, 2007

Quoting: “The Miami Herald announced Thursday that it is outsourcing some advertising production tasks to India as a cost-cutting measure, beginning in January. The New Delhi firm Mindworks will handle copy editing and design for special advertising sections, including a weekly community section covering Broward County. So far, the move hasn’t resulted in any layoffs in the paper’s Florida offices. However, Herald executives say the outsourcing is a test–implying that some jobs could go to India if it proves successful.

“The Miami Herald is actually the second newspaper owned by the McClatchy Co. to outsource to India. At the beginning of December, The Sacramento Bee also said it would experiment with outsourcing some ad production tasks.”

[This really isn’t surprising. Many functions associated with running a daily newspaper can be managed remotely, and why pay $25/hour to someone in the US when you can get the job done for $5/hour overseas? These early outsourcing experiments have sparked considerable teeth-gnashing in the newspaper industry, which is interesting, considering that creative cost-cutting initiatives like these are clearly needed. – Ed.]

Old and new clash in a struggle for dominance – The Boston Globe, Dec. 30, 2007
[A Globe columnist sums up the rough year that mainstream media has had and asks what’s next. “As old embraces new, some fear that the basic function of old media – watchdog, investigator, pillar of democracy – will be lost in a sea of microtargeting and snark,” she says. It’s an interesting observation, because blogging is, in many respects, the epitome of democracy and communities have proven to be pretty good watchdogs when they’re given a forum to talk about what they see. As for the investigator role, we’re still working out how to sustain that valuable function in the new world. Sending 2,500 reporters to cover the Iowa caucuses was not a great PR move for the newspaper industry. -Ed.]

Album Sales Plunge, Music Biz Rethinks – Media Post, Jan. 4, 2008
[The topic isn’t newspapers here, but the dynamics that are killing the music industry are meaningful to any mainstream media business. Record companies have long resisted buyers’ demands that they provide more flexible means to acquire their products. They’ve stubbornly refused, insisting that consumers buy an entire album, even if they only want to listen to one song. So customers have stopped buying, and now the recording industry is paying the price. Album sales are off a stunning 15% year-over-year, continuing a long-term decline. A desperate industry is forced to resort to desperate measures, but their reputation is so tattered that it’s questionable whether customers will give them another chance. This is a harsh lesson of the digital media age. -Ed.]

There are signs that the industry is trying to reinvent itself, or at least complain more vociferously about the forces that are marginalizing it.

What’s Black & White And Spread All Over? – MediaPost, Dec. 10, 2007
[A study commissioned by the newspaper industry finds that newspaper readers are more likely to be influencers than non-readers. The results really aren’t surprising. In percentage terms, twice as many people over the age of 60 read daily newspapers as under the age of 30. Given that newspaper readership increases with age, it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that older people would be more influential in purchasing decisions than kids. You can also assume that people who can afford a subscription to a newspaper are somewhat more affluent than those who rely solely on the Web. It’s hard to tell; the rather skimpy 10-slide presentation on the NNN’s site gives no demographic breakdown. – Ed.]

Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky, ajc.com, Dec. 13, 2007
[The author calls for “citizen journalism” to be regulated and/or certified. The scenarios he outlines to support his case are valid. Unfortunately, professional journalists aren’t licensed or certified, so the idea that ordinary citizens should be subjected to some kind of review process rings pretty hollow. -Ed.]

Local Papers’ Web Scramble – WSJ.com, Dec. 18, 2007
[Newspapers are rapidly losing market share in the one market in which they should have a significant edge: local advertising. In 2007, for the first time, pure-play Web companies had a larger share of local advertising than newspapers. In just three years, newspapers’ overall share of that market is down from 44% to 33.4%. This is largely newspapers’ own fault. Instead of investing in local sales staff over the last decade, they have mainly focused on trying to sell more high-margin national display advertising. Meanwhile, pure-play Web companies swooped in and took their market share. -Ed.]

More on Times Layoffs – New York Observer, Nov. 29, 2007

[The New York Observer publishes a memo from Times management about the layoffs along with a Newspaper Guild reaction. Apparently the Times still maintains a photo lab years after news photography went entirely digital. -Ed.]

Smithfield Herald to Shift Printing Operations to News & Observer – WRAL.com, Nov. 28, 2007

On Bad Day For Newspaper Stocks — Sun-Times Media Group Sinks 23% – Editor & Publisher, Nov. 26, 2007

[No one knows why Sun-Times stock fell 23% in one day. – Ed.]

Black October For Tribune Revenues – MediaPost, Nov. 28, 2007

[The Trib’s ad revenue was off 10.6% in October, largely because of lower real-estate advertising. Perhaps even worse is that circulation revenue was down 6.3%, meaning that the paper is losing subscribers. Speculation is that unless the FCC will let Tribune Co. own a newspaper and a TV station in the same market, buyer Sam Zell may back out of the deal. – Ed.]

Online Revenue Grew 21% In 3Q For Newspapers – MediaPost, Nov. 23, 2007

[Good news about strong growth in newspaper online ad revenue is tempered by the fact that growth is slowing and that print revenue declines are falling faster than online sales can make up the difference. – Ed.]