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Rob Carrigan specializes in prepress systems for weekly newspapers. |
| Watching your garden, and newspaper, grow Managing newspapers is like managing a garden. You really can’t make things grow; you can only try to establish and maintain conditions that help the various plants take off and hopefully produce. You need to watch where you position specific varieties in your preplanning or the pumpkins will cross with the squash, and the corn will block the sun that the beans need. Likewise, with a newspaper, you don’t want your TMC shopper choking the main news product to death. Not too long ago, a publisher could simply scratch a shallow hole in the dirt, drop some seed money into it, make sure it received plenty of water and maybe spread a little manure over it now and then. With a little hard work and luck, that same publisher would be able to reap a substantial harvest. Today, with all the new fertilizers and other technology flying around, making the right choices to grow a newspaper is that much more complicated. Free versus paid Take, for example, the “free versus paid” discussion, which is somewhat akin to “volunteer” seeding versus planting. Because of churn ratios and other factors relating to the cost of circulation sales, some metro dailies are now paying more to maintain paid circulation than it would cost them to give everyone in a market a free paper. And they are losing the war as paid circulation continues to lose ground. At the same time, readers, and more importantly, advertisers, are becoming less impressed with paid circulation, especially when some of the best things in life now are free. In the words of Craig McMullin, executive director for the Association of Free Community Papers, “Give people something they need free and create an audience and the advertisers will pay the freight.” But that is not the complete answer for newspapers. Our competitors have also figured that out. The business models of Craigslist, Google and to some extent, eBay, all are based on the same principle. Redefining roles Additionally, even as newspapers redefine their marketing, the role of journalism itself is being recrafted. Dan Gillmor’s recent book, “We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People,” explores that possibility. “Technology has given us the communications toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost... Nothing like this has ever been remotely possible before.” Gillmor wrote. To Gillmor, news is no longer a lecture in which the media tells you what the news is. Instead, it’s a conversation, with blurred lines between producers and consumers of that news. Embracing change Gillmor’s suggestion: Media needs to embrace those changes by encouraging readers to become a big part of the process. Facilitate event blogs that let readers contribute and become a part of the coverage, he says. Ask for and post readers’ information, pictures and audio so they become extensions of limited staffs and resources. Today, a person with a cell phone or other digital device might be able to produce the photos or audio clips nearly as easy as the major players in the news business. The bright spot? The news industry’s traditional weeding function will help it survive. After all, with all the citizen reporting and info gathering taking place in the democratization of the news, it’s more necessary than ever for a good editor to take the hoe to those pesky mistakes, misinformation, hoaxes, spin doctoring and other weeds that can render the garden plot useless. Rob Carrigan specializes in prepress systems for weekly newspapers. He is the publisher of the Ute Pass Courier in Woodland Park, the Gold Rush in Cripple Creek and the Extra in Teller County, all ASP Westward LP weeklies in Colorado. He can be reached by e-mail at rcarrigan@ccnewspapers.com. |
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| The newspaper’s most
important ‘job to be done’ By Rob Carrigan It has been roughly one year since the American Press Institute introduced us to the idea that consumers don’t buy products. Instead, they hire them to get key jobs done in their lives. The concept, “Jobs to Be Done,” arose from the API’s Newspaper Next project. Newspaper execs alternately embraced the idea, puzzled over it, and in a few cases, outright rejected it. Depending on whom you talk to, the printed newspaper is either a dying breed or in the throes of being reinvented into a yet-to-be-determined entity. Yet according to the World Association of Newspapers, global newspaper circulation is up nearly 10 percent since 2002, although the group is careful to note that the North American marketplace is not participating in that growth. As Gregg Bergan, a columnist for the Denver Business Journal noted recently, “predicting the future of newspaper readership is possibly as confounding as Yogi Berra’s puzzling statement, ‘Nobody goes there anymore; it is too crowded.’” Good idea But the idea of readers hiring us to get a job done is a good one. Community newspapers should be reflective of the community they are in. If a paper manages to do that — and in a way that is better than anything else available — it will survive. Bill Haupt, president of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, brought that point home several years ago. “… A hometown or community newspaper will always be here to hold a mirror to the community. That means the good, the bad and the ugly, generally in that order. A good community newspaper reflects the essence of a community. An outstanding community challenges it to be better,” wrote Haupt. It is as Walter Williams, the first dean of the school of journalism at the University of Missouri, articulated before his death in 1935. “I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the Internet during the day, and view cable news in the evening. Ease of use, convenience, timeliness, relevance and, of course, quality of content serve as drivers in the selection process. In short, those readers migrate to the source that best gets the job done. Granted, consumer choice 75 years ago was far more limited, but to quote Walter Williams again: “I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of all readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanliness should prevail for all; that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of public service.” If we can somehow keep that in mind, no matter if our story-telling platform is the traditional newspaper, a blog, podcast or something that hasn’t even been developed yet, we will survive and prosper. We will continue to be hired. And in keeping all that in mind, I guess we have identified our primary “Job to Be Done.” Rob Carrigan is in the sales and business development group of weekly newspaper publisher Colorado Publishing Co., a Dolan Media Co. unit based in Colorado Springs. He can be reached at rob.carrigan@csmng.com. |
| Avoiding sink-or-swim
Training
is among the most neglected management functions at small papers today.
Instruction
at many of those papers consists of a combination of Baptism by fire,
sink-or-swim and the school of hard knocks.
Many publishers seem to agree with author Paul Dickson, who said,
“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the
pig.”
Well, most newspaper people are not pigs and training efforts pay off in the long run. The Virginia Press Association, in fact, recently published a top 10 list on why training is more important now, than ever. Denise Williams, director of professional development for VPA, said the list was culled from a variety of sources and considers the obvious benefits, such as boosting morale, emphasizing priorities, developing teamwork and bringing in or saving money. The No. 1 reason? “Training helps maintain and improve quality and productivity,” Williams said. “From the copy desk to the classified sales desk, newspapers are asking members to do more with less. “Without improved training, that’s almost a guarantee of declining quality. Readers notice declining quality and that leads to declining circulation. And that leads to declining revenue.” Take advantage of programs Williams suggests that all newspapers should take advantage of training programs offered by press associations and other trade groups. But they also shouldn’t forget individual expertise. “One of the things you can do is bring back a staff member that has gone on to bigger and better things - achieved some measure of success in their career - for instruction and inspiration,” she said. Mining experts among your own staff might also be an option. “For example, if you have an ad designer in your group with exceptional skills, perhaps he or she can conduct a half-day, in-house seminar for other papers in other locations,” Williams said. Another possibility might be enlisting nearby experts among consistent press contest winners in your area. Critiques by recognized and respected masters of the craft can be fun and useful. Eye partnerships Kevin Slimp, director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology (www.newspaperinstitute.com) at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said newspapers can also create partnerships that might include area J-schools, newspapers and the local press association. “In Tennessee, we’ve set up partnerships with many of the schools of journalism across the state. Basically, they provide space (sometimes labs, most of the time auditoriums) and we provide the training.” Slimp said the joint effort would train some 500 Tennessee newspaper staffers within the next year. In addition, Slimp has created a traveling lab that consists of laptop Macintosh and PC units that can be used to teach “just about anything we want to teach in a lab environment,” he said. The computers and software are funded by the Tennessee Press Association Foundation, the same group that originally funded the Institute of Newspaper Technology. Each year, the Foundation updates the traveling lab with additional computers - assuring that all computers are relatively new and can be distributed on a three-year rotation. But Slimp’s major program is the Institute itself, which draws newspaper designers and publishers from throughout the United States and Canada for intensive training over several days. Software companies that underwrite much of the cost sponsor the program, which Slimp described as “pretty much self-supporting.” The Tennessee Press Service, meanwhile, funds Slimp’s salary. Best things free And some of the best things in life are free. Industry Web portals and other “free” resources can be tapped for superior training curriculum. Examples include The Freedom Forum’s “Best Practices” books on news organization leadership and newspaper journalism, The Readership Institute’s Galleries, American Press Institute’s Journalist Toolbox, and Poynteronline (www.poynter.org). Trade publications and companion sites are also obvious and inexpensive training assets. Still, you’ll have to make sure your staffers understand the benefits of such extensive resources. It may, for example, be necessary to make assignments that introduce them to the concept. And if none of these suggestions work, you can always go back to Baptism by fire, sink-or-swim, or the school of hard knocks. |
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