Nine Strategic Questions for Industry Leaders
In this section we outline some of the key questions leaders should be asking about their revenue and content strategies. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it draws on areas where small-market newspapers are best placed to reinvent and reinvigorate themselves.
1. How can you best focus on original reporting?
Given the changes seen across the industry in the past decade, including job losses, the shuttering of titles, and challenge of often needing to produce more with less, our interviewees were surprisingly optimistic about the future of local news and newspapers.
One reason for this was a recognition that, in many cases, the work local newspaper journalists produce is seldom replicated elsewhere. In addition, many local papers deliver value to their community that goes beyond mere content. Respondents to our 2016–17 survey observed, for example, that “a lot of people, a lot of non-newspaper people, take for granted the role that the newspaper plays in their community.”
As we have previously observed, “Somewhere between forty-five percent and eighty-five percent of all original reporting is done by the newspaper and then picked up by other media. As Christopher Ali said when quoted in a recent article by Chris Sutcliffe, ‘Well, the hyperlocal blogs will pick it up,’ these blogs haven’t been taking it all up and don’t usually exist in smaller [or more disadvantaged] communities.”164
The volume and value of local reporting originating from papers remains incredibly important to the wider news ecosystem, a fact which funders and polymakers should not overlook—indeed they need only look at media deserts to see the impact of their absence.165
This impact offers potential cause for optimism, as does the notion espoused by Al Cross that “the kinds of things people get from a local newspaper are the kinds of things that people will continue to want one hundred years from now.” He continued, “What’s going on within my locality? What’s happening with my school system? What’s happening with my taxes? What’s happening with planning and zoning? What kind of businesses or jobs might we get? It’s only the local newspaper that is likely to be the consistently reliable source of that information.”
By focusing on creating content not provided elsewhere, local newspapers will be best placed to offer a proposition that audiences may be willing to pay for.
2. What is the master narrative of your community? Can you own it?
In almost every industry interview we conducted, participants admitted their newsrooms had shrunk in recent years. Yet, at the same time, in many cases the demands on those newsrooms had grown. One key reason for this is the need to produce content for digital channels. As a result, many journalists are producing more content than they were two to three years ago, with a sizable number also working longer hours.166
Despite these challenges, most titles continue to take a “general store” approach to local news, endeavoring to maintain the same breadth (and depth) of coverage as they have in the past.
With often dramatically reduced resources, this is not always viable. We therefore encourage local newspapers to consider which beats they want to own, and which they want to approach differently, if at all.
As Billy Penn founder Jim Brady told us, in this day and age “you can do anything, but you cannot do everything.” Some outlets have begun to recognize this. For example, The Columbian in Vancouver, Washington, now uses wire services to cover basketballs games featuring the Portland Blazers, whereas in the past a dedicated staff reporter covered this beat. Other titles outlined how beats, such as the arts, had evolved to incorporate user-generated content, with the arts editor now often overseeing citizen reporters instead of paid journalists.
At a time where smaller newsrooms are the new normal, small-market newspapers need to change approach to reflect this resource-limited reality. That means determining which beats to own, and which beats must be dropped or produced differently. This also means deciding how much regional, national, and/or wire service news to carry, if any at all.
It is unique content which is most likely to ensure the continued prosperity and existence of local newspapers. Content from outside of the locality may continue to be useful to readers, but if it can be ascertained from a myriad of other sources then editors need to consider if this non-local content is the best use of their limited resources.
The challenges for newsrooms in this regard are threefold: bringing your remaining staff with you on this journey, communicating the rationale for changes to your audiences, and determining the best way to find what your “master narrative” should be.
3. What are the metrics telling you? To what extent does this matter?
Publications have access to a variety of tools which can help inform their digital output, including helping to define what the master narrative of their community may be. Analytics can also help determine which beats to potentially drop or refocus, as well as develop an understanding of what non-local content audiences are viewing.
This is obviously harder to replicate for the print product. And with print continuing to be the primary income source for most publishers, newspapers need to walk a tightrope between “respecting print, whilst growing digital.”167
Nonetheless, tools ranging from Google Analytics to Chartbeat, Pars.ly, and Omniture can all play a role in helping newsrooms more effectively utilize their digital product. What these tools may tell you, however, is not necessarily what newsrooms want to hear. It may suggest that certain beats or types of stories are unpopular, and that fresh approaches to storytelling should be deployed.
Levi Pulkkinen, senior editor at Seattle PI, suggested this might mean doing less incremental reporting, and reporting where “the newspaper isn’t this kind of serialized thing that you have to read everyday for it to make sense.” That should not be conflated with dumbing down.
Pulkkinen explained, “I think there’s a danger that as journalists, when we’re told that we need to care about metrics and we need to care about growing our uniques, getting that social engagement, there’s a danger that we write that off as just that we’re being told to do stupid things that people will share.”
He added, “People like smart things. Our experience has been that smart things do just fine. What doesn’t do well are boring things and uninteresting things.”
Newsrooms have access to more data than ever, but sometimes the conclusions from this can make for uncomfortable reading. Understanding which metrics matter, and what they are telling you, is a question that every newsroom needs to be asking more frequently.
4. Can partnerships help you deliver some of your goals?
Against a backdrop of dwindling resources, partnerships are already becoming increasingly important for many local newsrooms. In some rare occurrences, downsizing at a traditional paper can actually lead to innovative partnerships such as the one between the Daily Progress and the digitally native Charlottesville Tomorrow (Charlottesville, Virginia).
The role that thirteen journalism schools played in ProPublica’s Electionland initiative reporting on voter fraud168 demonstrated the potential for mobilizing large numbers of J-Schools and students to support national organizations (like ProPublica) and their partners (such as NPR stations and the Gannett papers in the USA Today network). Although a highly complex project,169 the model could be adapted for other events.
Partnerships can help maintain coverage levels in the face of diminishing newsrooms and support efforts to experiment with new content forms such as the AR and 360 video work170 produced by Digital Media Design students at Klamath Community College, and then published by the Herald and News in Klamath Falls, Oregon. We have also seen partnerships support pan-group campaigns, like Gannett Wisconsin’s “Kids in Crisis” initiative, and create opportunities for local newspapers to join larger groups - via organizations such as such as the Local Media Alliance—when selling advertising inventory.
Although partnership work can be challenging, it can produce many potential benefits. Arguably, one of the best ways to overcome reticence in this space is to just get started. As Josh Stearns at the Democracy Fund reflected:
Once people start feeling that momentum, that critical mass, then they realize that there’s people [who] shared [a] struggle with them and there’s possibly shared solutions, and that becomes the foundation for possible collaborations and partnerships, and that strengthens them in general. You know, they’re looking out for each other, they’re keeping in touch, they’re sharing information.
5. Do you have the right structure, staff, and skills mix?
Following an extensive period of buyouts and restructuring, last year The Dallas Morning News reorganized primarily around verticals, with the result being that fifty percent of the newsroom found itself in different jobs than they had the year before. “We redefined every single job,” said vice president and managing editor Robyn Tomlin, “and then we had everybody on staff reapply for jobs.”
The move reflected a recognition that to move forward the paper need a different emphasis. Following the restructure, there’s now a dedicated team “that handles social, and newsletters, and the homepage, and all of the different distributed media platforms that we’re experimenting with,” Tomlin said. “And we eliminated whole departments that we had. We added new ones. For instance, we did not previously have an audience team,” she added, noting that previously “audience development was nobody’s full-time job.”
Other papers have undertaken similar steps, restructuring to ensure that new priorities, including engagement and work with distributed platforms, are given the resources they need to suit evolving needs and priorities.
Meanwhile, many of the new skills that newsrooms are looking for can be found among graduates and newer entrants to the industry.171 However, attraction and retention is a challenge due to pay, fit with the communities you are based in (especially an issue for young people and those from diverse backgrounds), and newsroom culture.
6. Are you making the right tech calls?
The impact of the Facebook and Google duopoly on the news industry continues to be a hot topic.172 And while this remains important, news organizations need to also consider the impact of the next iteration of digital disruption.
Speaking at the Global Editors Network (GEN) Summit in VIenna this June, futurist Amy Webb suggested that “because we can’t anticipate what’s on the horizon, our brain goes into a direction that maybe is not the best for us, and certainly is not good for journalism.”173
“New technology freaks us out,” Webb continued, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore it. The recent announcement that Google is working in the United Kingdom with the Press Association and Urbs Media, an automation software startup, to automate the writing of 30,000 local news stories a month174 175 gives some indication of what might happen next. Whether this scares or excites you doesn’t matter. News outlets, including local providers, need to get their heads in the tech game.
The Dallas Morning News has used IP-tracking as a means to avoid having a “one-size-fits-all” paywall. As Tomlin explained, “If you are coming from an IP that is in the DFW/DMA (Dallas Fort Worth/Dallas Metropolitan Area), you can actually read more articles before you hit the meter, even though those people are the most likely to pay for the journalism we do.”
It’s easier to sell inventory against local audiences,176 Tomlin contends, and this is the readership that the paper is most keen to develop and maintain a relationship with.
Meanwhile in 2016, Willamette Week of Portland, Oregon, became the first newspaper to license The Washington Post’s digital content management system (CMS), Arc.177 Other papers, such as the Alaska Dispatch News and the Tampa Bay Times, followed.178
The move, editor and publisher of Willamette Week Mark Zusman told us, came about by accident. “I just called up the Post and asked them.” As Zusman conceded, “there were some challenges,” but this would be expected with any migration to a new CMS. “But all things considered, because we’ve done this before, it was a smoother transition than we’ve had in the past, and the result is well, well worth it. We now have a CMS that is flexible, fast, very intuitive, and our traffic is up as a consequence. So, we’re very happy with it.”
7. What opportunities for income diversification can you realize?
Most small-market newspapers will not be able to survive based on their traditional mix of subscriptions, advertising, and single-copy sales. Multiple income streams will be essential if outlets are to secure the stablest future possible.
“We’ve really tried to spread the love around,” said editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune Emily Ramshaw, “so we’re not beholden to those single-source funding streams.” Other outlets, larger and smaller, have adopted similar strategies, pouring the profits from events, media services, and other activities into paying for local journalism.
Conversely, some titles have also recognized that they have unique content which potentially resonates beyond a local catchment area. One such example, identified by Christian Hendricks, corporate vice president of products, marketing, and innovation at McClatchy, is The State in South Carolina, which has featured a paid-for vertical around college sports,179 including the University of South Carolina Gamecock football games.180
As Hendricks acknowledged, this case study “points to a small newspaper allocating resources towards something in the marketplace that’s unique and they can actually cover very well, not just for the folks who live in the city or live in Columbia proper, or go to the university, but to global fans.”
It is unclear if this paywall is still in place, but the principle—developing paywalls for verticals with a wider geographic reach—is one other titles can potentially replicate and learn from.
8. How can you make time to experiment?
“Newspaper companies were never really thought of as spending a lot of time and effort on R&D,” said Willamette Week ’s Zusman,. “And yet, that’s exactly what companies like ours need to do . . . There are a lot of opportunities to shift the business model. They take a little bit of time and a little bit of runway.”
That license to experiment and invest in innovation could manifest itself in a number of different ways, from both technology to people. Robert York, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania (part of tronc), offered some practical tips for media organizations to ensure that they are able to accommodate this approach. To do so, however, you need some headroom.
“My view is we really want everybody in our companies to be running at about eighty percent of capacity every day so that when we have new ideas we’re not taking someone who’s already at one hundred and ten-percent capacity and taking them up to one thirty.”
Avoiding scope creep is essential, if you’re to make this ambition a reality.
York, who previously spent twenty years in various roles at the San Diego Union Tribune, also shared our view on the importance of having a clear sense of what you will and will not do. With newsrooms often smaller than they were before, this sense of rationalization is important. “You just have to be willing to take a look and measure the actual value, both real and perceived by your audience, and decide to spend your time doing things that matter to them, and stop spending your time on stuff that they’re not even looking at.”
9. What can you do to stop talking your industry down?
A recurring theme in many conversations with industry practitioners, as well as our 2016–17 survey, was a need to change the conversation. If local newspapers keep talking about themselves as a “dying industry,” then they risk creating this reality.
As Gannett’s Joel Christopher told us: “I think we’ve had this self-fulfilling prophecy where we’ve told our readers that we’re dying and therefore we’re dispensable.”
This doesn’t mean that the economic realities the sector faces should be glossed over, but local newspapers need to do more to showcase and reiterate the great work they’re doing, as well as explain the tough choices and bumpy road ahead of them.
The industry is wounded, but not fatally so. It’s time we started telling audiences that.
Ten Key Takeaways How Can Small-Market Newspapers Best Prepare for the Future?
Business Models
Business models influence the ability of small-market newspapers to respond to digital disruption. Chain ownership can bring security and resources, but may also bring with it homogeneity and a lack of local autonomy. Independent and family ownership meanwhile potentially offer greater flexibility, but with more limited resources and institutional support.
At a time where many newsrooms are under pressure to produce more with less, partnerships can play a valuable role in helping with outreach, content, and product development. We expect partnerships to become a more prominent feature at small-market newspapers.
Original reporting may lie at the heart of potentially successful business models for small-market newspapers, due to the opportunity to provide valuable news and information which is not being replicated elsewhere. At a time of information overload, offering unique content may be the best way forward.
Aside from focusing on providing original reporting, it’s likely that the revenue equation will only be successfully addressed if small-market newspapers actively diversify their income sources. All outlets need to be exploring these avenues.
Content
The local newspaper of tomorrow may have to look very different than the one of yesteryear. Due to diminished resources and competition from other information providers, small-market newspapers may need to be more selective in the beats they cover. It is in this context that we encourage outlets to define and own the “master narrative” of their community.
Analytics tools can be valuable for identifying audience passions and for shaping coverage of certain stories and beats. However, the value and impact of local journalism can go beyond mere metrics. Therefore, while useful and informative, newsrooms should not be beholden to these tools as they do not tell the full story.
Making sense of metrics and producing content differently (with a narrower focus, but using a broader range of storytelling and distribution methods) means that newsrooms will need to continue to evolve in their thinking and practice. The structures, staff, and skills mix required to successfully execute this strategy will need to be regularly reassessed, as needs and priorities change and develop.
Technological bets will become increasingly important, due to their role in improving workflow and distribution. Key considerations for publishers include investments in Content Management Systems and other digital work tools, as well as which platforms they use to reach and engage with audiences.
Culture
Given all of the uncertainty that small-market newspapers and other media face, carving out time to experiment is vital. Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset, creating an environment which allows organizations to “fail fast,” but which also encourages testing new ideas (some of which may take off) will be important from both a content and revenue perspective. All newspapers, regardless of their size, need to adopt this mindset.
Small-market newspapers are operating in a difficult climate, but they’re not dead yet. In fact, they continue to provide considerable value to communities and the wider news ecology. We need to do a better job of telling this story, so that the impact and successes of small-market newspapers is better understood and heard. If we want audiences and policymakers to realize this, and to invest in the sector’s future, then telling them the the industry is moribund will not help.