Three Things Newspaper Companies Need to do Now

Tomorrow, I will join the digital advisory board of a very large, and, assuming they’ve read this blog, very brave newspaper company.  After almost two years of firing my unsolicited opinions at the newspaper industry, I must say, it feels nice to actually be asked for them.

 Here’s some thoughts I’ve been having about newspapers lately:

1.  Newspapers need to stop swimming against the current of the Internet.  It’s a sure way to drown.

Wikipedia lists one of the 8 behaviours associated with downing as “trying to swim in a particular direction, but not making headway.” 

Watching newspapers committing to strategies that are sure to fail is to stand helplessly on the shore as they thrash against wave after wave of inevitable digital upheaval.

Where the Internet is about openness and abundance, newspapers are attempting to recreate scarcity by moving toward the closed environments of iPad apps and paywalls.

Where the Internet is about receiving information anywhere, anytime, News Corp is about to release “The Daily”, an iPad app whose publishing schedule follows an old-fashioned, once every 24 hours news cycle.

Where the Internet is collaborative, many newspapers are continuing to engage in one-way conversations.  In fact, to some, community interaction is considered a “gimmick” rather than the fundamental factor that has lead to the development of the web as we know it.  As Clay Shirky said recently: “We have greatly overestimated the value of access to information and underestimated the value of access to each other.”

I’m not saying don’t ever swim against the current.  Sometimes it’s necessary.  But that kind of risk should be undertaken by only the very strongest of swimmers.

2.  Newspaper executives need to determine an audaciously awesome vision for the future of their companies, and then align their organizations to make it happen.

It’s simple.  To be controlling and defensive is to contract.   To be open and visionary is to expand.

Have you ever noticed that there much of discussion about “the future of newspapers” but no real conversation about “a vision for newspapers”?  We all talk about how the Internet is changing things and how uncertain everything is and how uncomfortable that makes us all feel, but not about how awesome it could be.

Ah, vision.  What happened to that?

Many of the world’s best newspapers were founded on a vision.  The New York Times, the Guardian, and my old workplace the Toronto Star were the products of visionaries who wanted to change their cities and nations for the better.

But somewhere along the way, that changed.

Perhaps newspaper executives are too focused on very real short-term economic issues such as crushing debt and shrinking revenues to form an inspiring long-term vision.  Or perhaps the day-to-day 24-hour news cycle has created a culture where long-term thinking is not required or valued.  Or perhaps newspaper executives have simply been unable to adjust to the ever-shifting world of new media, the resulting lack of understanding and fear leading to paralysis. 

Having a clear vision and aligning resources to it works, even for media properties in the 21^st century.  It resulted in the Atlantic turning its first profit in decades in Q4 of last year. 

What if newspaper executives imagined the best possible outcomes for their newspapers and then aligned their organizations so that they had the means to achieve those outcomes?

And what if they created that vision without ever using the words “still”, “once again”, “regain” or “recapture”?

Perhaps a newspaper could become:

A platform that facilitates the coming together of individuals, organizations and governments to solve a city’s great problems: poverty, education reform, joblessness, environmental degradation, transportation, budget deficits…

A platform that facilitates interactions between consumers and businesses –whoever, whenever and wherever they are.

An interactive and continuously evolving guide to living, working, shopping, playing, parenting and doing business in a city.

Who knows?  But it’s time to start thinking about it.

3.  Journalists need to stop looking at new Internet developments as frightening or frivolous trends and start looking at them as tools that can be used to achieve a vision.

You cannot succeed on the Internet without using the tools that it affords.  In my opinion, refusing to use these tools is the same as refusing to use a telephone, tape recorder or word processor.

Social Media.  Many a journalist hates Twitter because “it’s not journalism”.  I honestly don’t know if it’s journalism or not.  What I do know is that it’s a fantastic tool for disseminating information, rallying communities and tracking trends.

Aggregation/Curation.  I can’t understand why newspapers have not sought to create a Huffington Post – like aggregation site around not just news but also vertical content areas such as parenting, health, automotive, sports, business, etc.  These sites would attract loyal and engaged users and deliver advertisers a healthy ROI with minimal cost to the publisher.

Online Gaming.  Newspapers could use online game dynamics to engage a community in solving a city’s large problems.  Before you dismiss the notion outright, watch Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk on how “Gaming can Make a Better World” and then consider the implications of Cubeduel’s “Who would you rather work with” game built on the LinkedIn platform.

If I were a newspaper executive trying to align my resources to achieve an audaciously awesome future, my next hires would be community managers, curators and game designers.

What would you tell a newspaper company executive team if you had the opportunity?

 

 

Comments

[Mattderienzo]

Perhaps a newspaper could become:

LOVE this:

"Perhaps a newspaper could become:

"A platform that facilitates the coming together of individuals, organizations and governments to solve a city’s great problems: poverty, education reform, joblessness, environmental degradation, transportation, budget deficits…

"A platform that facilitates interactions between consumers and businesses –whoever, whenever and wherever they are.

"An interactive and continuously evolving guide to living, working, shopping, playing, parenting and doing business in a city."

[Ed Weintrob]

Absolutely beautiful and on target.

I hope your advisory board can bring your newspaper aboard.

[Elaine]

American Press Institute's Newspaper Next project (disclosure: former employee) tried four years ago to articulate the need for a big vision, and yet here we are ... So why are so few companies actually doing it?

[No New Ideas]

Asking questions like "why didn't newspapers create HuffPo, or Twitter or Facebook or . . ." is a waste of everyone's time.

There is no digital model that works. Not here, not in Europe, not in Asia. You can have all the online interactions you can dream about and billions of pageviews (like some newspaper websites do) and you still won't be able to for your newsroom costs.

HuffPo is losing money, despite thousands of UNPAID contributors. So is Patch. So are all other online publishers.

Hope you can contribute more to the advisory board than tired cliches.

[yNot]

It's very convenient to overlook that more digital-only content providers shut down last year than traditional media companies. Being digital-first may sound progressive, but it's really not the solution.

Just consider YouTube. Google, despite paying nothing for content and despite it's massive global reach, has not yet made a penny of profit on YouTube. It's worth mentioning that YouTube exceeds 2.5 billion (yes, billion with a "B") video views each and every day. Scale is clearly not a problem. Cost of content is also not a problem, YouTube pays nothing for its content. So if Google, the largest web property, with a purely digital DNA, can't monetize free user-generated content, how do you expect any smaller content provider to pay for journalists and still figure out a way to make money?

[yNot]

TBD.com, launched with great fanfare by Politico's parent company last summer, is effectively shutting down.

So much for "digital-first" as a viable business model.

[Dennis]

I'm curious what you think of this report:

http://gigaom.com/2011/04/05/newspapers-and-social-media-still-not-really-getting-it/