Future of News: Collaboration not that easy

In the November-December issue of The Quill, the magazine by the Society of Professional Journalists, an article entitled "Newshole" again spotlighted the effect cutting newsrooms would have on community coverage and watchdog journalism.
However, deep into the article was a summary of what the author said were predictions for the future of news. While there's nothing new here, I was struck that one of the options while credible already is meeting opposition.

-A mix of online news from foundations, professional and amateur sites and big papers capitalizing on their brands to create and aggregate news.
-Ever closer collaboration between papers, competitors and readers to generate content, avoid redundant stories and pool coverage resources.

These last two, while possible, will be more difficult just because of the competitive nature of some news organizations. Witness the saber-rattling from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune against Minnesota Public Radio declaring MPR its chief competitor and unfairly so because it receives taxpayer funds.
Our own preliminary agreement with MPR to share news so both can have better regional coverage caused great concern from at least one publisher (who saw this as a pact with the devil) and the Associated Press (who worried the arrangement threatened their services for which we pay a healthy sum). An official announcement of this pact should be coming in January.
Without a doubt, we in the news business have to recognize that while a percentage of our problem is cyclical because of the economy, a larger amount is tectonic. And our continued success will rely upon our ability to adapt. While I'm not proposing we should ignore caution with any arrangement, the market is telling us we need to be more open to collaboration and sharing of resources.

Report: User-generated content won't hurt credibility

A recently released report on user-generated content on newspaper websites found people want to participate, they don't think it diminishes the credibility of the news organization and they want the newsgroup to block inappropriate behavior -- no free for all.
The report, entitled "Striking a Balance Between Community Journalism and Citizen Participation: A Research Study About User-Generated Content on Newspaper Websites" was funded by the Suburban Newspapers of America Foundation.
Conducted by American Opinion Research, the report shows users want to contribute to a newspaper’s website.

Newspaper website users say they are more likely to visit and enjoy sites that allow them to share opinions and content.
Users also make some fairly clear distinctions about what they want to post on a newspaper website.
Perhaps given the broad use of social networking sites, far fewer would post personal information (including photos and videos) than want to comment on stories or give their opinions about issues in the news.
However, users do not want newspaper websites to become a “free for all;” most favor some specific requirements or restrictions on postings.
Simply put, users want to post content to newspaper websites; it will increase their use and appreciation of these vehicles. But, they want the newspaper to create a framework for this sharing of information with some mechanism to ensure crude or inappropriate content do not appear.
Finally, most users reject the argument that allowing user-generated content diminishes a newspaper’s credibility or journalistic integrity.

The full report can be found here

Future of News: A small newspaper perspective

Last weekend, my presentation for the "Other Future of News" in Minneapolis was focused a representing the "small newspaper" challenges. The event was co-hosted by David Brauer of MinnPost.com, and Taylor Carik of BringMeTheNews.com.
This event came on the heels of another Future of News conference with Minnesota Public Radio that had a lot of big dogs, very heavy solution discussions but didn't really get into the entrepreneurial spirit that is emerging. OFON I felt did that well. The best blog on it (while incomplete) is from Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the Pioneer Press
I had five minutes and couldn't completely cover even all that I was prepared to talk about so here is a little more of my presentation:
There is too much discussion floating around about the decline of news organizations taken solely from the perspective of the major news organizations.
The metros have the larger megaphone. They are laboring under a different set of circumstances than the non-metros. Metros have huge and isolated debt loads. They had (and still have) very high advertising rates as well as operating costs. They are limited in their ability to respond quickly because their size forces the creation of more "silos" in departments which means collaboration is minimized.
Non-metros, on the other had, are suffering from limited investments, lower salaries and a move for more centralization. However, they still retain the ability to move faster and more collaboratively within their own walls. They also are much closer to the communities they cover and subsequently have more emotion invested by readers and advertisers. Anything small news organizations try in a community will get you instant feedback. That's a plus.
That said, conspicuously missing from the discussions on the future of news is a representative voice from vast majority of community newspapers that are trying some innovation albeit on a shoestring.
At the Free Press, we don't have the most modern of equipment and we are hard-wired to our awful corporate online design from which we will be freed by late January 2010. My newsroom is slaving away with the old bubble iMacs operating on an antiquated OS9 system. To compensate for the lack of tools, we have peppered some PCs and laptops around the newsroom to give them access to what they need.
The evolution here is slow both in the newsroom and more importantly with our sales department. In the newsroom, I would venture that about 20% are fully engaged and, frankly, that's the segment I spend time with. We are encouraging moving to "mobile journalism" (mojos) to expand our territory.
And yet our sales force is still grasping to fully comprehend how to intertwine both print and online as a multimedia package. We also are struggling with online advertising design that moves away from print design principles.
Contrary to some belief, news organizations are not trying to catch up with innovation. In the late '80s and early '90s, news organizations were exploring new opportunities with such groups as New Directions for News with Jean Gaddy Wilson. The problem is we didn't come up with any silver bullet then either.
So what's the urgency now? It's not readership which has been slowly migrating to other media over time; it's advertising. And everyone in all media is suffering from the lack of it.
Yet, discussion about our future is focused chiefly on how to deliver content. That is misplaced (Later, I will argue it's not HOW the content is delivered but WHAT kind of content is delivered.) Yes, content needs have changed but we are finding newspapers are raising rates and increasing revenue. So content is not the major issue.
Secondly, no discussion should be seriously considered without a viable plan on how to monetize it.
One of the suggestions I offered was for reporters and editors to take an advertising rep out for lunch to learn what challenges they face and advertisers are telling them about why they aren't advertising.
That prompted a "tweet" from SPJ_DMC that said "Uh, got ethics?"
Is it really the preference of journalists to keep an arms distance away from those people who bring in the money to help pay the salaries of our news organizations? Why? Is it because they fear trust in our reporting will be tainted. Well, sorry, but that bus has already left the station and it had nothing to do with perceived coziness with the ad staff.
Then there's the demeaning stereotype that salespeople have no ethics. If journos would talk with the ad staff, I'm certain they would learn that ethical behavior is just as important for them. Their clients have to trust them or they won't get the business.
And while I wasn't suggesting reporters should talk to advertisers, I'm warming up to that idea. As one tweet following the OFON conference said "Have journos closed themselves to valuable resources by refusing to talk to advertisers?"
Journalists should treat all sources regardless of who or where they are with some skepticism but not avoidance. I think reporters have enough backbone to say no when presented with a proposal that doesn't smell right.
I'm asking that journalists listen not negotiate for stories.
In an earlier life, I was with a group of very talented journalists with our own regional magazine. We wrote the stories, shot the photos, sold the advertising and handled distribution. The entrepreneurs of today and survivors of the decline will need to be a jack of all trades. T.D. Mischke found that out when he lost his job at KSTP and moved to City Pages.
As one participant at OFON said, "Now it sounds like journos have to be tweeters, videographers, bloggers AND marketers." Yep. Probably.
One of the major initiatives we started this year was something very simple and yet will mean the very survival of our business. Listening.
For our advertisers, we started a feedback loop on the effectiveness of their ads. We are asking them "Did if work for you?" Knowing that an expectation like that is paramount, our designers and ad reps pay closer attention to what the ad will say, how it is designed, when it will appear. They have a vested interest in the success of that ad, just as much as the advertiser does.
We then will collect what common principles appear to make an advertisement effective and use them on further designs.
For the newsroom, that means listening to our readers. We have commissioned the Organizational Effectiveness Research Group at Minnesota State University-Mankato to do a consumer study that asks specifically what information they need to plan their day, choose their entertainment preferences, make decisions about work, get engaged with their child's school, become more involved in local politics. We wanted research from the consumer perspective, not the newspaper which typically asks do you want more state news, national news, movie reviews, etc.
We then will look at how we can provide those pieces so we can be relevant.
We hope to have the results of that study by the first quarter of 2010.

Future of News: Better include talk on advertising

It's the Monday after a day-long weekend conference in Minneapolis titled "The Other Future of News" crafted by David Brauer, MinnPost's local media reporter, and Taylor Carik, with BringMeTheNews.com. As the early morning speaker, I had a fresh crowd and thankful for it. But I had five minutes and rushed through a lot of points. Only later could I see what was being "said" (Tweeted) about the remarks. It was eye-opening to see your passion distilled to 140 characters or less. Later, I will expound on that presentation but one point quickly for the OFON participants.
One of my suggestions was our news folks should take an advertising sales rep out to lunch to find out what the world is like from their perspective. What are advertisers telling them about why they are or are not advertising.
Some thought I was suggesting reporters should sit down with advertisers. Not so; that maneuver should be reserved only for the stout-hearted and preferably management such as editors. What I was suggesting was getting to know more about those people -- the people who bring in the advertising money for your news organization and who have a direct impact on your livelihood.
Journos should talk to circulation people to find out what people are saying when asked to buy a subscription. Page Designers should talk to press people to find out if their color screens choices are best for reproduction on newsprint.
Journos should collect information from as many sources as they can especially if they are wondering why some decisions are being made that affect them and their livelihood.
But we should challenge long-held notions about news organizations and separation of departments. Many of our news entrepreneurs (some forced into their situation by the economy) aren't going to have the luxury of isolation and comfort of a well-heeled organization. They will be reporting and collecting information, disseminating in lots of various ways but most importantly they will be finding a way to make a living off of it.
Shouldn't journalists of today know the Business 101 of newspapering, TV and radio broadcast? If for no other reason than to prepare themselves should they need to be their own boss. T.D. Mischke of City Pages and formerly of KSTP, and another morning speaker at OFON, shared what he found out moving from traditional radio and then finding out what he needed to do to monetize his talent.
But we'll go into that more in a later post.

Finding out what readers want: Stage One

In an earlier post, I took up the challenge by Alan Mutter who said

"It’s time for editors, publishers, academics and foundations to pony up for serious, in depth and disciplined study of what consumers want, what they need and how journalists and media companies can provide it."

While it may not be to the scale Mutter is suggesting, we have commissioned a study with the Organizational Effectiveness Research Group at Minnesota State University in Mankato for such a study. Breaking away from the templates usually employed by research firms used by newspapers is no small feat and some feedback would be welcomed.
We were trying to get away from the traditional survey questions: "Do you want more orless of ..." "Are we doing a good job reporting on...." These types of questions are drawn from the perspective of the newspaper than the reader.
Instead, the charge to OERG was to ask as though you were a consumer. We also are using motivators drafted from the Readership Study conducted by Northwestern University.
Here are summaries of some categories being explored:

What information do you need to:
-- Help plan your day?
-- Assist when thinking of dining out?
-- Know more about working in south central Minnesota?
-- Help better understand what is happening at your child's school?
-- Help decide your entertainment and cultural choices?
-- Get a closer perspective on local higher education (we are in a university community)
-- Better understand local and state government actions or decisions that affect you?
-- Get closer to what is happening in your neighborhoods?

We do offer some suggestions on what those pieces may be. For instance, on local K-12 schools we suggested: Features on local teachers, unique classroom activities, after school activities, local school funding, school board meetings, standardized test results, advances in effective teaching methods, etc.
We also left an open-ended slot for further advice.
For each category we then will ask what medium (newspaper, radio, tv, internet, friends, family) is best used to provide that information now and how well that medium is performing.
This is not meant to replace the newsrooms ability to spot and choose what stories are occurring in our communities but help us understand what our readers are telling us they need.
This is a draft so we welcome any additional suggestions on questions. The one requirement we gave to our research team was the result has to be actionable. So such things as "Reading the Free Press makes me feel good about myself" while is nice to know doesn't get to the heart of what changes need to be made to be more relevant.

Do smaller news orgs have elusive solution?

Another in a string of conferences on the "Future of News" was held this time in Minneapolis November 16 and yielded what was acknowledged by the summary white paper, and I paraphrase, "We agree there's a problem, the stakes are high and we need to find solution."
This was a predictable conclusion because there was scant representation of rural, community newspapers even though they make up the vast majority of newspapers in this country.
Panelist Ken Doctor found more redeeming value in what he termed the "wankfestapalooza" than I did saying he heard some new answers -- like sharing of resources. However, the discussion is still focusing on "national" or "big city" news organizations.
Let's get to the crux of the problem here:

Journalism is not dead nor are the news organizations that support it. We are going through a very dramatic shift but not anything we haven't seen from earlier times when other technologies caused a disruption to our comfort zone.
News consumption by all news consumers is up, way up, in some cases. So if our main product is news, the market is growing by leaps and bounds. Distribution and revenue models are more of the question. The notion that journalism i.e. news consumption, is dead, is preposterous and ridiculous and not supported by the facts.
I will acknowledge that we effectively lost classifieds and will not be getting them back as they were. We need something different to retrieve some of them and there are models being tried today. (ADDED: However, the losses to the metros were more pronounced chiefly because of both their volume and high rates. The fall of community newspapers was not as far.)
Local ROP advertising (if constructed well) does continue to work for our advertisers especially those in regional hubs. In fact, a recent Yankelovich study found traditional media, especially newspapers, still is the most effective advertising method. However, the economy has forced
businesses to scale back on ALL media.
(ADDED: National advertising has nearly dried up for metros while it chiefly left community newspapers back in the '80s.)
Preprints for all newspapers are the latest battleground at the negotiating table with demands of unprecedented concessions in rates. Besides capitulation, some modifications here include partnership such as Zip2Save which provides advertisers an online alternative with a print component to help in the transition.
However, circulation rate increases - while affecting units - is showing revenue growth because a good chunk of readers apparently aren't shying away from paying more for a product they value. (ADDED: This appears to be holding true for some but not all newspapers depending on region and other factors.)
There seems to be agreement that online revenue will not replace the amount of revenue we now see from traditional sources. However, it will be a strong niche income producer not unlike our other products newspapers are offering such as city magazines or other niche publications.

In other words, the business model is being reshaped as the revenue mix shifts possibly bringing in less from advertisers and more from consumers. The challenge
to newspaper organizations is to ensure we have the right mix that allows for us to engage our communities, give the best results to our advertisers and yet fund the best journalism we can. That first goal is the most important.

Despite the white paper starting out with a quote offered by Jim Hoolihan, CEO of the Blandin Foundation that "Newspapers should aid the community in achieving the dreams of its people," there seemed to be very little mention of how our new models will strengthen our communities.
Instead, as one blogger noted, we are now bumping up against conferences that are saying and finding out the same thing. The problem is the conferences focus on a question -- who will be the king of the hill -- rather than a solution. Isn't it
about time we looked at it from another angle? Can we finally acknowledge that one of the reasons we are not finding solutions is because we are not focusing on the obvious.

First, the consumer -- are we giving them what they want or just what we THINK they should have. We have scant research being done on what consumers want. We have commissioned Minnesota State University-Mankato to undertake such a study and have thrown out the templates newspapers have used for decades instead challenging our researchers to look at it from the perspective of users not providers.
Second, consider the geographic community -- we are spending too much time talking about serving the very specialized audience (audiences on mobile phones, social media, etc.) without acknowledging those platforms have relatively small penetrations in our non-metro communities. Yes, they should be in the mix of communication methods but for now at least they are not predominant.
Third, what do we mean by engagement? In some cases, reporters and editors will tell you they already are engaged. But there is always more engagement possible. For example, we found out differently during a meeting with representatives of our various minority citizens who found us to be less than approachable. We at The Free Press are working to rectify that. But it took a face-to-face meeting to find that out. Are the leaders of the larger organizations willing to reach out at the neighborhood level?

Pew Center research finds respondents are less trusting of us. Is it because we continue to stand aloof rather than amid?
As the news organizations evolve, we cannot continue to ignore significant segments of our community. And we must acknowledge they use various methods of communication. We need to engage them in a very personal level and creating "communities" through social media will not get this done.
And that last point is something community newspapers always found to be their strength. Community involvement, engagement and helping set the agenda for development and progress. No one medium can do this anymore.

I offer this as one possible mutation: Community news organizations as the heir apparents to the larger organizations. We KNOW local. Could one succession be that smaller "neighborhood" newspapers print & online emerge under one umbrella utilizing all aspects of online & mobile portals for further engagement? Maybe even partnerships with those once considered competitors.
For instance, we are working on shared content agreement with Minnesota Public Radio that gives them reach and enriches our offerings.
This may mean smaller newsrooms of specialized reporters and using professional editors to work with able neighborhood representatives serving as "citizen journalists." Online would be used for both engagement and enrichment of story development with the communities we serve.
More than likely this development will happen with entrepreneurs or present community newspaper publishers will to take the risk.
The likelihood of larger organizations morphing into this new model is slim. They are loathe to breaking themselves up and the newspaper guild would be hard pressed to accept reduced benefits and wages. With both backed into this corner, some of them are more open to government bailouts while community newspapers are foregoing the tin cup.

Finally, future conferences need to be less about jockeying for power and more about finding solutions that include all news providers not a select few and all media not just the emerging digital media platforms.

Seeking consumer definition of local news

Alan Mutter's latest blog post Wild guesses won't solve journalism crisis concludes with this admonition "It’s time for editors, publishers, academics and foundations to pony up for serious, in depth and disciplined study of what consumers want, what they need and how journalists and media companies can provide it."
That is exactly what we are doing with a survey team from the Minnesota State University at Mankato. We deliberately avoided using the traditional newspaper survey companies because we wanted a fresh look. And frankly out of all the years doing surveys, we tend to ask the same question framed by news producers, not news consumers.
Rather than ask "do you want more local news?" we are seeking the consumer's definition of local news.
The discussion with Associate Professor Lisa Perez of the Department of Psychology was simple. What do people need to direct their lives and how can we provide it.
I have no idea what will come of this experiment but in all likelihood it will raise more flags for us to explore. But the study being suggested by Mutter is getting underway.

Let the market, not largesse, save journalism

Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. not only thinks journalism is heading for extinction but believes its salvation can only come from a mix of philanthropy and federal intervention, including using taxes.
In the report The Reconstruction of American Journalism co-authored by Michael Schudson, professor at Columbia University, six solutions were offered to the state of affairs now afflicting news media.
While there was some modest attempt at providing a business model solution -- digital commerce and target marketing -- for the most part the survival of journalism, according to Downie and Schudson, depends on largesse. God help us all if that's our future.
Here are the six recommendations:

1. The Internal Revenue Service or Congress should clearly and explicitly
authorize any independent news organization substantially devoted to
reporting on public affairs to be created as or converted into a
nonprofit entity or a Low-profit Limited Liability Corporation serving
the public interest, regardless of its mix of financial support, including
commercial sponsorship and advertising. The IRS or Congress also
should explicitly authorize “program-related investments” by
philanthropic foundations in these hybrid news organizations—and in
designated public service news reporting by for-profit news
organizations. (Since we already have non-profits reporting on the news,
I'm not really sure the necessity of this.)
2. Philanthropists, foundations, and community foundations should
substantially increase their support for news organizations that have
demonstrated a substantial commitment to public affairs and
accountability reporting. (With the tremendous strain many non-profits
are feeling today and with the shrinking pie, this has little chance of
opening the purse strings for journalism.)
3. Public radio and television should be substantially reoriented to
provide significant local news reporting in every community served by
public stations and their Web sites. This requires urgent action by and
reform of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, increased
congressional funding and support for public media news reporting,
and changes in mission and leadership for many public stations across
the country. (Good idea to a point. I've always been in favor of expanding
our news coverage by sharing stories with public radio and television.)
4. Universities, both public and private, should become on-going sources
of local, state, specialized subject, and accountability news reporting as
part of their educational missions. They should operate their own news
organizations, host platforms for other nonprofit news and
investigative reporting organizations, provide faculty positions for
active individual journalists, and be laboratories for digital innovation
in the gathering and sharing of news and information. (I'm not sure propping
up newspapers is really the mission of our universities.)
5. A national Fund for Local News should be created with money the
Federal Communications Commission now collects from or could
impose on telecom users, television and radio broadcast licensees, or
Internet service providers and administered in open competition
through state Local News Fund Councils. (This is one of the most problematic
of the suggestions. Not only is this rife with practical problems, using tax
money to support journalism is the antithesis of the role of The Fourth
Estate, is it not? One could argue that newspapers already receive some
government support from sales tax relief, legals and the Newspaper
Preservation Act. But direct funding from tax dollars is going beyond
the pale.)
6. More should be done—by journalists, nonprofit organizations, and
governments—to increase the accessibility and usefulness of public
information collected by federal, state, and local governments, to
facilitate the gathering and dissemination of public information by
citizens, and to expand public recognition of the many sources of
relevant reporting. (Yes, we all could do more to lead the horse to
water. But until we can increase the engagement factor of our readers
rather than making information they should know more available
this will be an exercise in futility.)
You will note that very little of this resembles a business model for journalism. As writer Howard Weaver on Twitter said "If the market won't support journalism, what makes us think society values it?"
Dan Gillmor noted correctly -- in my view -- that some element of market solutions have to be considered.
But even more importantly I wonder is why the discussion still centers on the health and well-being of the major metros as though our industry's future depends on their survival. We ignore that fact that there were 1,408 newspapers as of 2008 and 80 percent of them have circulation of 15,000 or less.
Even the authors admit these paper are not at risk. "Many of those less battered by the economic downturn are situated in smaller cities and towns where there is no newspaper
competition, no locally based television station, and, as is the case for now in many
communities, no Craigslist. Those papers’ reporting staffs, which never grew very
large, remain about the same size they have been for years, and they still
concentrate on local news."
That's the point exactly. These newspapers concentrate on local news, are connected with their communities. Isn't that the winning formula? The louder voices in this debate come from those most worried about survival because, I posit, they are the ones who despite having the largest staffs and higher salaries are less connected with their communities.
Now I'm just a small town publisher but it strikes me that survival of the newspapers and, yes, journalism, will depend more on experiments such as those at Cedar Rapids with its Complete Community Connection initiative. We need to be more attuned to our communities, giving them news, solutions and analysis they can use and let the market control the outcome. If not, there isn't any amount of tax dollars or donations that can make our communities want to read us.

Part 2: Save the Business, Save the Craft

This is the second of two parts of my observations from the Midwest Newspaper Summit held Sept. 17 in Dubuque, Iowa.

To some, what I'm discussing may seem rudimentary and for that I apologize for not moving the issue forward. However, a number of community newspapers haven't had this dialogue yet and this is aimed at them.
This final installment is focused on options to "Save The Craft."

One solution to help ailing newspapers offered by Alan Mutter at the Midwest Newspapers Summit was for newspapers to provide "premium content," content that people will pay for.

Another speaker, Mary Peskin of API, commented on the research with Belden entitled the "Newspaper Economic Action Plan" saying "Professional journalism can be extended, the medium is secondary"
Whether the "paywall" is subscriptions for print or subscriptions for online, the information must be relevant and unique.
This could be a very sobering consideration for a number of our community newspapers
Take a look at what is commonly used for local news -- not syndicate or wire -- in small- to medium-sized newspapers:
Government reports, government meetings, non-profit events, crime or fire news, marriages, obituaries and features stories usually about someone in government or non-profit ... and sometimes business.
Now, how much of this material is truly exclusive to our reporting, not attainable anywhere else?
Funeral homes already post their own obituaries online and aggregation is pretty simple.
As for government news, here in Mankato, city hall has a Facebook page to share its news directly with the community. Anything from announcing a street closing to public safety news gets out a lot faster than waiting for the next day's newspaper.
Regardless of speed, we need to look specifically at content. Small- to medium-sized newsrooms are set up to ensure there is enough copy to fill the newspaper.
We have established beats to ensure it. We attend regular meetings and events because we are performing our watchdog function, they are predictable and it's the easiest way to get adequate copy.
But is it really covering the community? Our commitment to school news is to cover the school board. Is this really what the readership wants when it ask for more coverage of their schools? Or do they want to know what's going on in the classrooms? Are our reporters well versed enough to explain not only a change in curriculum but the impact it would have?
This point came home when I read Karen Feldman of IBM Institute for Business Value talk at the Midwest Newspaper Summit on its research in marketing behavior.
The conclusion: Newspapers cannot be "massive passives." We need to engage. Personalize, be relevant to reach that different audience (I'm not saying age anymore. I think it's a huge mistake that we are losing "younger" audiences. I think we are using audiences who have the characteristics of the young.)
Jon Rust, publisher of the Southeast Missourian and co-president of Rust Communications, while speaking at the Suburban Newspapers of America conference in Kansas City said a "community paper must serve the community, be at center of the community." To my mind that means our reporters need to be fully engaged in the community. It means getting out of the office, observing, analyzing and putting community in context. Find out what information our community needs and provide it.
Peskin laid out the road map by pointing out that we have opportunity with community niche and social networking. This is far different than writing advances for the city council meetings. It means finding out how those city council decisions affect real people. If they don't affect them, we should rethink what we are writing about.
One way to adjust our coverage would be to deploy legions of "professional correspondents" to attend not only city council work sessions but such meetings as neighborhood watch groups and PTAs. Bring back the old rewrite desk manned by seasoned editors to bring context to these reports and, should something interesting come from these meetings, assign reporters for any follow ups. Better yet, these correspondents should be part of a reporter's network.
Set up regular "sound off" sessions with reporters and editors in coffee shops of small towns to hear their concerns, ferret out some interesting stories and just allow readers to engage with real people behind those bylines. From that engagement we can find out what people are truly interested in and shift our coverage to satisfy that need.
And more specifically reporters should be actively using social media when appropriate to share what they are working on and learn from readers what is of interest and importance. A well connected spider web of social media can prove invaluable to a community news reporter.
Mutter warned that "news companies will have to change to suit consumer behavior or you will be roadkill." True enough. But for small to medium-sized newspapers, we first need to find out what that consumer behavior is and engagement is the easiest path.

Forget the cheerleader: Save the business, save the craft

This is the first of two parts of my observations from The Midwest Newspaper Summit held Sept. 17 in Dubuque, Iowa.

While a good recap of the summit was handled by Steve Buttry, what follows is a perspective of the business side of community newspapers, which makes up the vast majority of newspapers in the United States.
To some, what I'm discussing may seem rudimentary and for that I apologize for not moving the issue forward. However, a number of community newspapers haven't had this dialogue yet and this is aimed at them.
This first installment is focused on options to "Save The Business."

It must have been a pleasant surprise for the seven press associations, organizers of the Midwest Newspaper Summit.

Originally, they had anticipated about 50 attendees. About 270 showed up for the event and about a third of them were news publishers or owners.

That last point I found significant. Prior to this, the discussion on the future of newspapers has been filled chiefly with journalists (some still employed), academics, social media advocates, techies, analysts and consultants with a vested interest in the gored ox.

Except in the rarest of circumstances (such as Howard Owens of theBatavian.com), what I found missing in these exchanges were the people who would be charged with making any answer a reality -- the publishers and owners; in other words, the very people charged with paying the bills.

The gathering in Iowa consisted of representatives from small- to medium-sized newspapers. Again, this is significant because to date the focus has been on the largest of the news organizations as though only they have the wherewithal to make change happen, setting aside the tactical maxim that PT boats move faster than battleships.

That's not to say non-metros have been waiting on the sidelines. Some experiments are under way the best and most challenging of which is at the Cedar Rapids Gazette with its Complete Community Connection. But even there change is "hard" and "messy." We'll come back to that later.

As a couple of speakers noted at the Newspaper Evolution summit in Iowa, advertising in its traditional form (ink on paper) is still needed at least in the short run because that's where the vast majority of the revenue is coming from -- yes, even today. However, there can be no question there has been a tectonic shift in marketing that challenges the very business models upon which we rely.

So many news executives approached the meeting wanting to learn more of the opportunities.

One option that was both interesting but, in my opinion, impractical was presented by Jennifer Towery of the Peoria Newspaper Guild called the L3C, an initiative covered rather thoroughly by Huffington Post columnist Sally Duros. L3C is an untested model centered on establishing a low-profit limited liability organization with social benefit as its goal. Its funding source is akin to that of a foundation but in this case the community (read both readers and advertisers) will own shares of the newspaper. (If you thought having family owners of your newspaper were tough to keep happy, imagine editors wrestling with advertisers as shareholders questioning news coverage, play and emphasis.)

One publisher for a large Midwest newspaper tuned out during this discussion because he said he didn't see any owner wanting to become non-profit; that's not in their DNA. While it may be one answer for saving the jobs of journalists and has aspirations of saving the craft of journalism, it doesn't save the business simply because there will not be enough takers.

The most intriguing of options came from Alan Mutter, famed for his blog Reflections of a Newsosaur. He proposed a set of revenue streams including assisting advertisers with SEO/SEM (which Mutter says is an enormous opportunity for newspapers), interactive fees (paid content), online Yellow Pages and direct marketing.

His hypothesis is by 2014 the revenue breakdown will be:

-Niche 48%

-Traditional 15%

-Search & SEO 16%

-Premium (paid) content 21%

That's a pretty big leap from today where traditional advertising revenues coming from print (including magazines and TMC/shoppers) are closer to 55% or 60%.

Online niche is working to some degree now with examples from Gannett's Moms Like Me blogs or print/online combos like Go! in Lawrence, Kansas. These are successes both with users and financially. Mutter also pointed out Tween Tribune now being used by my parent company CNHI in Valdosta, Georgia.

Now, if you believe as I do that a good chunk of advertising is shifting from mass to targeted/relationship models, then there is some appeal to Mutter's formula. Content, messaging and relevancy have become more personal and we need to adopt our business models and our content gathering to reflect this information processing to fully exploit both push (mass) and pull (target) advertising.

But what was not adequately discussed in Mutter's approach was how to bring it to market. While SEO may indeed be the best opportunity, Mutter knew of no newspapers presently doing this. And therein lies the rub. Talking with other publishers you could sense a frustration not only for what could be but for what is. "I can't get my sales staff now to go beyond selling what they've always known."

This is critical. With all the debate swirling around new business models, paid or unpaid content, niche products, free standing pubs or increased elitist pay structures, the fundamental point is -- what kind of sales force do we need to bring this to market? In other words, do we have the infrastructure ready to sell it? And, in the same vein, are our traditional graphic services departments ready to transition to the next generation of advertising appeal?

Here's a quick test for publishers to understand the baseline:
-How many of your sales people have a Twitter account? Facebook? LinkedIn?
-How many understand the importance of SEO? How many can even explain SEO?
-Or how many know how to read the analytics of your website to explain it to their accounts?
Another quick test: How many new social media marketers are in your area talking to your advertisers about how to get a piece of the new relationship market? Better yet, would your advertising reps recognize advertisers that are being wooed by these marketers? My guess is not.

And how will that lack of knowledge or confidence be understood by advertisers who are following trends or heard a sharp presentation from a social media marketer? It will undermine your sales reps' ability to provide marketing solutions to businesses that are searching for answers.

So why not get better sales reps? For one, reports are reinforcing an image that newspapers are dying, so talented sales reps aren't necessarily attracted to us.

Secondly, compensation typically rewards reps who bring in bigger dollar accounts especially if they are working on commission. Consequently, if you sell a full page advertisement versus an online banner ad, you will get more money for selling the print ad.

While Mutter's solution is to train your existing sales people to sell such things as SEO while selling ink on paper is great in theory, it will stumble in the execution under our present traditional arrangements.

We need an increased emphasis and some fundamental changes in how we operate to break through these barriers.

Separation of revenue income streams as described by Mutter will require special talents and leadership.

First examine the qualifications of your sales managers. Do they understand target marketing? Social media marketing? (They are different.)
Are they comfortable explaining, for instance, the different demographic attractions to sections of your newspaper?
Can they articulate a profile using Claritas, for example, to identify who your readers are and explain how those profiles work best with your advertisers targets?
This is fundamental.

Let's say you have the right leadership. Now examine your sales force. If they are lacking in the understanding of the multimedia model, you either can replace your entire staff or add to your existing staff. Let's examine both options:
(1) Replace the staff: If you can find someone who understands and can sell SEO or direct marketing, teaching them to sell print is not a great leap. Makes sense? Sure, and you might be tempted to do just that. But this is most disruptive not only for your advertisers but the whole production stream if done en masse.
(2) Add to the staff. One practical application would be to bring in a specialist who can sell SEO assistance, understands direct marketing and has figured out how to monetize a Twitter account. Make the specialist a champion with an account list but also reward them for making four-legged calls with existing reps with sold multi-media packages.
However, this is a temporary fix. The sales rep of the future must have a full understanding of how each of your marketing products work best for the advertiser.

In either case, you will need to match up your position description for sales reps to the pay-for-performance measurements tied to your strategic goals. For instance, are they expected to present a certain number of multi-media packages to advertisers?

Does your compensation structure include a bonus for multimedia sales presentations? You also may want to structure it so a full compensation plan is not fulfilled unless a multimedia presentation has been made.

Personally, I feel we have a moral obligation to train those willing to learn more about the targeted nature of relationship marketing and transcend to social media marketing and how both fit into the overall marketing picture we can provide. We need brown-baggers to explain how Google AdSense works, how to effectively use a Facebook page, show relevant uses for Twitter. If you have a university nearby, bring in someone who understands and can teach SEO/SEM, public relations strategies and is on call to test projects you may be considering.

After this you will learn who your adapters are. If they are either unwilling or unable to learn, then our obligation is to find those sales reps -- and managers -- who will learn.

Another tactic to consider and something we've begun doing at The Free Press: When was the last time you had a little one-on-one with your advertiser, asking if an ad had the desired effect? Did it increase foot traffic or word of mouth or awareness? Was an expectation for the advertisement discussed? If nothing else, this conversation can lead to a discussion of targets and how the message should be crafted -- and what medium (or social network) to use to reach those targets.

Until this culture becomes second-nature in your sales departments, it will be hard to execute any shifts to different business models no matter how passionate you are about change.

NEXT: How newsrooms can help save the craft within the business structure.

Social media a fad? Don't blink

Research: Tweeters love news

More encouraging news yet re: online usage and news.
Pew Research found that 76% of tweeters are reading newspapers online. "Twitter users are just as likely as other to consume news, but are more likely to do so on the internet and more likely to get online news through a smart phone."
This finding appears to solidify the argument that what is affecting newspapers today is not loss of readership but loss of revenue. We need to focus on revenue generation rather than focusing on what I consider to be a straw man argument that recent closures, bankruptcies and mergers show that "newspapers are dying."
They are morphing with different delivery mechanisms but arguably not fast enough. Rather than look for the magic bullet we need to address the "long tail" application of fulfilling our community needs to provide different kinds of news using different methods of delivery.
Pew Research on tweeting

#3 newspaper thought: Rock and river = landscape

#3 thought from NAA interviews:

CHARLOTTE HALL: senior vice president and editor, Orlando Sentinel, and president, American Society of Newspaper Editors:

 (The successful newspaper of the future) stops the clock once a day and takes an assessment, offering the kind of in-depth and analytical work that the 24/7 breaking news world on the Web cannot provide. Print is good at the things the Web is not good at—watchdog, explanatory, enterprise, narrative storytelling. The two media complement one another. One is the flowing river, changing constantly; the other is the rock on the shore, fixed and solid.

MY TAKE: The successful small to medium sized news enterprises will look at the web product differently than the newspaper -- not unlike how we view the difference between our magazines and our newspapers. To expand on Ms. Hall's description, online flows with breaking news (not features nor depth and analysis), databases of community information for day-to-day decision making (ratings of local mechanics, day care centers, where to eat tonight), archives (past editions and stories), deep and wide links to community information (online directory with depth of access more than phone numbers and addresses), and local/local social networks of community gathering niches (mom to mom, teen to teen) facilitated by the news enterprise.

#2 newspaper mission: No more one size fits all

Thought #2 from NAA interviews

TIM McGUIRE: Frank Russell Chair, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University in Phoenix, and former editor and senior vice president, Star Tribune in Minneapolis:

 Print publishers need to totally rethink what they are doing and [ask]:

• Do I want to deliver eyeballs to customers, or do I want to entice customers to pay for the product or a combination of the two? How do I support the news gathering I want to do?
• Is this a mass endeavor, or it is targeted? What are the information opportunities for that market?
• What is my role in the democratic process? If you want one, go for it. If you want to be all Britney [Spears], all the time, chuck the democracy façade.
• What are the market’s information needs and potentials?
• What is it that we can do for our market that nobody else can, and how valuable will that be to the market? If it is a commodity product, I can’t charge much. If it is truly special and distinguishable, the value of my product is greater.
• Invent a new product that is not tied to yesterday but is tied to serving your market or community. Create and add value that meets the market’s needs.

MY TAKE: It may be time to explore separate print products for separate customers. Those who want and act with a vested interest in developing community and partaking in democracy would get one type of product; those who need information to conduct their day to day lives with information of a different sort, get another product. Define the market, link up the advertisers who want to reach those markets and put out your products.

#1 newspaper mission: Concise, compelling

Captured thought #1 from interviews with NAA

 ALAN MUTTER: blogger, Reflections of a Newsosaur (http://newsosaur.blogspot.com) and managing partner, Tapit Partners, an information technology consulting firm)

Although the newspaper generates 90 percent of a typical publisher’s sales, it is a mistake to think of it as the “core product.” The true core products of a newspaper company are its abilities to produce compelling content, build large audiences, sell advertising and make a profit. The publishers who succeed in the future will be agnostic about the platforms they use to capitalize on those core strengths.

The traditional, one-size-fits-all newspaper should be a concise, reasonably comprehensive and extremely well-organized guide to the community. It should leverage the strengths of print: deep reporting, thoughtful analysis, fine writing and elegant visuals. 

It should avoid the weaknesses of print by de-emphasizing warmed-over coverage of stale, widely reported news."

MY TAKE: Stop calling it newspapers, then. The print components -- newspapers, magazines, tabloids -- these are print and very distinguishable from online. To be discussed on Thought #3.

Diary from newspaper retreat

I participated in a Minnesota Newspaper Foundation Leadership Retreat for publishers and editors, funded by the Blandin Foundation, this past week joining smaller papers from such diverse areas as Sleepy Eye, Ortonville, Cottonwood County, Park Rapids and Fergus Falls.

Here are some random thoughts that bubbled up during this time.

• Equation for successful newspapers: ? => # => ! => $ 
• Defined: ? (find out what people want to know about our communities) => # (interview or be authority that gives most useful answers) => ! (aha moment keeps readers coming back) => $ (subscribers/advertisers will follow authority). This is different from what we provide today because we tend to cover meetings, not issues.
• Just like hospitals, newspapers are obligated to improve the health of their communities. When all other leadership fails, newspapers are the institution of last resort before anarchy.
• Regardless of where we are with leaders in our community, we should be developing a "training" or "step up" program for our future leaders and not leave it to serendipity.
• What is impossible to do today at the Free Press but if done can make us a success? Shouldn't we focus on how to make it less impossible?
• Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.
• What is being yelled at us from around the curve? "Pig!" Talk to me and I'll explain it.
•  The courage and dedication of editors, writers, desk people -- hell, all newspapers people who live in the Red River area to continue to cover the story while their own families and homes are threatened. I'm hard pressed to believe a citizen blogger would do the job just as well. Why aren't we telling this story more?
  
• Think you are prepared for all emergencies? How about a pandemic! (Thanks, Deb.)
• You know your own social capital but what about the links from the rest of your staff? You may have more valuable connections waiting to be utilized.
• What's wrong with using fear to get the community to activate, participate, attend? Because the Blandin process of involvement must carry ethical issues of how to involve the community or shoulder some of the criticism of instigation rather than activation.
• Newspapers can help a community define itself. If you focus on crime, conflicts and rock & roll to sell newspapers, it may be great for newsstand sales but it presents a distorted picture for all to assume. And it can shape the personality of its members -- we aren't a mirror as much as we are a shiner of the light, an educator. Our goal is not audience; our goal is community development so our businesses stay healthy.
• Why would any newspaper editor want to be a mere chronicler of a community's slow, spiralling death?

'Keep on publishing'

Amid all the talk of moving to a "new platform" for news delivery and journalism evolving to web only, we need to keep in mind a constituency that will not follow that migration.
Here's a letter received today from a reader in Cleveland MN.
"Please! Don't stop publishing your newspaper as others have. I have been retired for several years and when I get up in the morning, I grab a cup of coffee and my newspaper; settle down and enjoy! We don't all own computers, nor do we want to. Most of us have lost friends and spouses. Please! We don't want to lose you too. Keep on publishing!"
I know the immediate reaction from some would be "Your most loyal customers will be gone soon and those not in the newspaper habit will not be there to replace them."
I think the jury is still out on that premise, mostly because we all age and we all need portability. And, no, not "everyone" is migrating to just the web. My bet is on maintaining both online and print as the viable business model but with product differentiations -- not one copying the other and not one replacing the other.
Frankly, I am both encouraged and saddened by this letter. Encouraged because not many businesses have such a personal connection with their customers. Saddened because the actions of others are scaring people needlessly. Smaller newspapers are not going away and probably will come out this faring better because they will fill the voids left by scaled back metros in some areas.
Meanwhile, we need to keep readers like the one from Cleveland MN in mind as we "evolve."
We have a greater purpose than just putting out a product.

Chicken Little with a bigger megaphone

Sat down Monday morning with a friend who also is president of the local credit union. Not exactly a financial institution that is hurting today but the effects are felt everywhere just the same.
As we talked, he paused a little, set down his mug of coffee and said "Have you ever experienced anything like this before? This is a little different."
In fact, we both had been here before but in circumstances one could say was much worse than today. We both lived through the 1982-83 recession when the prime rate was 17% and that was coming down from its high of over 20%. I had just locked in my mortgage at 13.3% a few years earlier and felt lucky!
Unemployment hit a high of 10.8% that year and my employer froze every one's pay. He then took to wearing dress shirts with frayed collars and driving a run down pickup truck after we just had some layoffs. I was lucky because I was new and lower paid. I was also young and being poor was nothing unusual for people my age.
We didn't remember those times as being particularly paralyzing as they seem today. Today is a little different.
Back then we had very specific and limited sources of information. We had only the three network news programs at 6 p.m., a common point of reference for us all. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk had not yet made it to the national talk radio scene. Johnny Carson was a reassuring Midwestern voice for late night viewers and his satire was less biting than today.
Of course, we had newspapers and we had our backyard fences over which neighbors would discuss the trials of the day and find some solace in shared pain.
Why are we so much more frightened today than we were 25 years ago?
We lived through the S&L crisis and survived. We lived through the "malaise" of the '70s with the long gas lines and heating oil crisis and moved on to those dastardly '80s.
And before that we lived through the upheaval of the '60s when people thought our very democracy was crumbling.
And here we are having just lived through one decade of "excessive exuberance" -- that we were sufficiently warned was unsustainable but who was listening -- so that when it did start to erode, we now feel somehow that the end is near.
Today, we seem more edgy, more pessimistic, less sure about coming out whole.
But why is it so different?
It could be because today we are barraged constantly, unrelentingly with updates -- we have 24-hour cable news of all persuasions needing to find ways to fill up the other 23 hours; news alerts on stock market conditions beamed to our Blackberries; Twitter texts sent with up-to-the-minute reinforcement from other Tweeters to let us all know that it is still bad out there, don't get too comfortable; Internet at home and at work accessing all sorts of unfiltered news, blogs and chat rooms.
There is barely enough time to reflect and ponder before the next news blast.
And the backyard fence conversations have been replaced with societal clones -- people who like to converse with, listen to and read from like-minded people thereby shutting off the chance contact with someone who may have a different perspective on things.
In an effort to surround ourselves with assurance, our comfort zone must be secured and isolated from challenge. Consequently, other voices -- maybe unpopular voices, definitely different voices -- are not heard, evaluated, challenged and measured against what we see, hear, believe.
And so we remain paralyzed -- first by the constant drumbeat of bad news and secondly by our cloistered existence -- lacking confidence that it will all come out all right even though times were tougher ... maybe not for those who have lost their jobs in this latest round but historically so.
This is especially tough for those under 40 years of age who don't have a frame of reference to or (as some research suggests) even a desire for history.
So what's to be said of all that?
Well, maybe we should all pause at bit, step back from the dance floor and climb up on the balcony. Disentangle ourselves from the chaos of the every day and find those related experiences to learn what was done back then as well as seek out those who lived through it and find out how. Learn from history. I know that's a bit out of vogue but something I genuinely hope the leaders of today are spending some time doing.

Peeling back the covers

Here are two columns that address the proliferation of "doom and gloom" scenarios and the motives behind them.

The first one is by Mark Morford of SFGate.com Die, newspaper, die? "Look, I'm all for media upheaval and revolution. I'm all for seeing what will emerge from the ashes of print, should it die out completely. But there's a reason the traditional newsroom model has lasted 150 years, that professional journalism is still considered so vital to a healthy democracy, that it's still a profession requiring years of training and education, and not just a casual hobby you engage in when you're a little drunk and you've read a few McLuhan books and you don't get enough sex so hey, might as well mosey over to that Planning Commission meeting and scribble some notes.'

The second one is by Randy Siegel, publisher of Parade Magazine. Behind The Newspaper Naysayers "As newspaper companies fight for survival and attempt to rectify many of the mistakes they have made in the last decade, they don’t deserve a break from anyone—their readers, their advertisers, or their competitors. What they do deserve, however, is a little more objective coverage of their problems and more detailed disclosure about the possible motives of those 'critics' and 'analysts' who are hardly unbiased observers."

From out of the din

The cacophony of wildly diverse opinions on the state of newspapers today can be distressing for some, gleeful to some and bewildering to others. What it is NOT is enlightening because the discussion is fueled on a false premise that newspapers are dying.
Now, before you start swinging again, take a breath and follow my logic.
As I was a young lad in Chicago, our household had three daily newspapers to read -- The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago American and the Chicago Sun-Times. The American (or rather its evolved version, The Chicago Today) died as many PM newspapers died.
We thought then that newspapers were dying and TV was killing them.
Let's get a little perspective.
According the Illinois Newspaper Project, run by the University of Illinois and the Chicago History Museum, "Today there are more than 450 current newspaper titles published in Illinois."
That's 450 newspapers in one state -- daily and weekly.
Now take what is widely being circulated as proof that newspapers are dying -- figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation. The latest figures show that circulation for all AUDITED newspapers dropped 5% last year. The problem with citing this figure is it represents roughly 500 newspapers. By last count I believe there are 1,500 daily newspapers and 8,000 weekly newspapers in the U.S. That's hardly representative of all newspapers in America.
However, let's use the ABC figures for remainder of this argument. Newspapers that lost 10% or more of circulation include The Houston Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Star-Ledger of Newark, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Orange County Register and The Detroit News.
See anything common about those cities? They are ones served by more than one newspaper.
There is a widely circulated "death watch" list of newspapers purported to be the next to fail. With one exception, all of them are newspapers in cities that are served by more than one newspaper.
Allow me then to posit this theory -- this is not a matter of newspapers failing en masse. In some cases, newspapers are dropping readership that is too hard and costly to serve. So losses are self-inflicted. And in the big cities where a lot of the losses are happening, I would suggest that time-pressed readers are not able to read as many newspapers so they are culling their choice to one.
The injuries that newspapers are feeling now are not related to readership losses. Rather it is coming from loss of advertising revenue -- especially classifieds from large declines in auto (very little metal is moving anywhere), real estate (again, home sales are down) and employment (no jobs to advertise).
This is to suggest that our financial woes are cyclical and tied to the present economy and not an overall abandonment of newspapers.

Will readers pay for

Here's an interesting twist on the notion of paying for the news. The public proposes the stories and then chips in to pay for journalists to investigate. Click here to see the LA Times' James Rainey's take on Spot.us.

Newspapers are very much alive

OK, enough is enough. Frankly, I've stood on the sidelines for far too long listening the ongoing litany about how newspapers are dying. They point to the depressed advertising market and the bankruptcy filings of Star-Tribune and Chicago Tribune as evidence. "Nobody reads newspapers anymore," we're told by newspaper writers no less. National Public Radio says newspapers are struggling to find a viable business model. Gloomy TV news anchors project their reports as though they are on a death watch of news.
The problem with all of this hand wringing is the premise is wrong, dead wrong.
And finally some newspaper executives are starting to fight back. You may have noticed the newspaper advertisement Monday after the Super Bowl that said more people (100 million) will read a newspaper in one day than all of those who watched the Super Bowl (95 million). This is being touted by a grassroots effort call the Newspaper Project with a website at http://www.newspaperproject.org (It should be noted that one of the founders of this group is the CEO of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., the parent company to The Free Press.)
Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, has taken to the columns to point out there is now a demand for journalism and for newspapers. Link to NYT column
Thank heaven we are starting to hear the other side.
Newspapers, especially community newspapers like The Free Press, are very much alive. And our business model is sound -- cover your community, watchdog your government, design effective advertising the moves traffic through the door and do it every day.
We are not losing readership. In fact, our daily circulation GAINED in our annual audited report. And our website traffic continues to grow and add to those readership numbers.
“The roar of misinformation swirling around newspapers is deafening,” said Donna Barrett, CNHI’s president and CEO. “We must cut through the noise to set the record straight.”
That's not to say we aren't affected by the economy or the changes in our media habits. We are adapting and adjusting just like everyone else. We will continue to experiment and because of our size we can be nimble in our execution.
But the basics, the blocking and tackling of newspapers, remains the same -- to inform and educate our readers. To bring results for our advertisers like no other medium. The need for newspapers, for journalism, was never more urgent than now during these difficult times. That's why I'm bullish on community newspapers and have stuck with this business for more than 30 years.