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