Sunshine Week approaching

In just a few weeks, news media and concerned citizens around the country will be celebrating a week dedicated to the importance of government transparency and openness. A print ad is available right now at sunshine.org.

You might also want to consider putting a link on your Web site to a 30-second video produced by the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation for Sunshine Week 2009. Of course, you may also view it below:

What money-making sites have in common

First, yes we realize it has been a while since the last post here. The NCPA Winter Institute had us extremely busy lately. That's not an excuse, just an explanation.

So to get back on the horse, let's talk about the latest buzz on charging people for online content. The topic is either the 300-pound gorilla, the elephant in the room, the road to the promised land or the end of time. You pick the cliche that works best for you.

Like it or not, expect the discussion to continue on this issue. The topic was even broached last week during the roundtables part of the NCPA annual meeting. Editors and publishers were curious as to what their counterparts were thinking about this.

Might I suggest that before you spend too much time on this, first read the recent article by Jack Shafer in Slate.

Shafer makes the point that success in getting people to pay for content is not easy, but he did find common elements in the sites that are working. He writes that those sites have at least one of three things going for them:

1. They are so amazing as to be irreplaceable.
2. They are beautifully designed and executed and extremely easy to use.
3. They are stupendously authoritative.

A site such as ConsumerReports.org would represent that third category.

But perhaps his most interesting comments are about iTunes. Despite the recording industry's best (or is that worst?) efforts, there are still plenty of places to locate free music on the Internet. Yet, iTunes makes money for Apple. Shafer speculates that part of the success comes from iTunes being an application not tied to traditional Web browsers.

Can a leap be made from iTunes to newspapers? Quite possibly, but it will take some money and plenty of geeks (sorry if that term offends).

At any rate, be sure to read the Slate column.

A money back guarantee

Now here is some inventive thinking from up in Maine. The Sun Journal of Lewiston is focusing on saving money for their readers. And the kicker is, the paper is putting its money where its mouth is (so to speak).

For six months the paper plans to print money- saving tips on its front page every day. The idea is that by the end of six months, the tips could save readers up to $1,000.

The editor is sure that readers will save at least double the cost of a subscription ($97). If you don't save the $194, the paper will pay a reader the difference between what they did save and $97.

You can read more about the plan here.

This kind of program reminds me of one of the key experiences the Readership Institute told us about a few years ago: Looking out for my best interests. In these days, what could be looking out for our readers' best interests more than helping them pinch their pennies effectively.

Are you willing to give your readers a guarantee such as the folks in Lewiston, Maine?

Does video + video = money?

Our thanks to Steve Gunn of The Charlotte Observer for making us aware of this item. Steve writes:

A couple of students at Stanford are looking at ways to put videos within videos, which the newspaper industry could adapt to put ads into videos online -- even those not on their own website. Whether this particular thing is the answer or not, this is a very interesting idea and raises others, including simply embedding advertising text on the bottom of a video put up by a newspaper -- even when its not on their site. It seems to me a small paper might find this really something to think about trying.

Here is a video from Stanford University about the process.



The technology is indeed cool, but I can foresee a huge ethics debate on this for newspaper Web sites. Most every newsroom would agree that adding elements such as those shown in the video into still photography is a huge taboo. What about when it's video?

I'm thinking papers could find a way of incorporating this technology into videos while making it clear that what you are seeing is a paid advertisement, not a part of the news video itself. Confining the ads to a space that is consistent on every video, such as across the bottom, might be one way to do that.

Certainly newspapers should be interested in beginning the discussion and finding a way of marrying the advertising with the news content without sacrificing our reputation and trust.

Thanks again, Steve!

Well, there goes that excuse

We've seen it in more and more newspapers during the past several years -- 1A advertising. Can't say that we ever really cared for it, but as the advertising market has tightened it becomes harder to defend an ad-less front page.

And now comes word of the venerable New York Times selling space on its front. Today's paper includes an advertisement from CBS across the bottom, 2 and a half inches tall.

And guess what? The sun came up this morning. (OK, actually it's really cloudy and foggy here, but it's still daylight and the sky is gray, not black, so that means the sun did come up.)

Many of our member papers already have 1A ads. For those newsrooms that still have the entire front page to themselves, it's probably time to come to grips with a new future. As a matter of fact, it might be prudent to offer up the space with solutions that can make you and an advertiser happy.

Besides, you can't use the New York Times as an excuse anymore.

A mother lode of ideas!

Here we are at the end of one year and the beginning of another one. We know how difficult it can be during this period to think up ideas that haven't been already done to death.

But we've got a great gift for you (if you don't already have one).

APME recently published its book of ideas from its members. "Great Ideas" came from editor submissions for the 2008 AMPE conference.

Now, lest you think there couldn't be any ideas in here for your newspaper, guess again. There are 70 pages of ideas with two to three ideas per page. We didn't count them up, but that's close to 200 ideas.

The book is divided into 12 topics including Projects, Sports, Business & Finance, Building Readership, Multimedia Storytelling and Change. Each entry includes a short description and contact information for the submitting paper.

You can get your own copy of the report by clicking here.

And please don't forget we're always looking for new ideas from our own NCPA members. Just send us an e-mail and share with your colleagues.

Making money from news

There's an interesting column by a Peter Osnos, who is a senior fellow for media at The Century Foundation, online now about news media returning to the idea of making money for their information.

In case you haven't heard of The Century Foundation (don't worry, we hadn't either), its Web site says this:

The Century Foundation, founded in 1919 by the progressive businessman Edward A. Filene, is a nonprofit public policy research institution committed to the belief that a mix of effective government, open democracy, and free markets is the most effective solution to the major challenges facing the United States.

Here is one paragraph from Osnos' column. Read the entire column by clicking here.

What has happened with the Internet so far is that the suppliers of hardware, software, and transmission (search engines and aggregators) have built business models that effectively shut out revenue streams for the creators of the information that is being delivered. What has become absolutely clear in 2008 is that this new model for delivering information is a debilitating blow to the creation of quality news content. The companies making money from the internet—Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, and so on—are entitled to the riches they’ve amassed from their ingenuity and entrepreneurial skill. But as a society, we’ve got to figure out how news gathering and information distribution will be paid for from now on.

Osnos offers his own ideas on how to accomplish that. Whether anyone is willing to try out these ideas is anyone's guess.

What are your thoughts on his ideas? Add your comments below.

P.S. By clicking on the link at the top of this column, not only will it take you to a short bio of Osnos, but an index of previous columns, including one titled "Support Your Local Newspaper."

Outing's advice to CEOs

Steve Outing, who writes a column for Editor & Publisher, recently opined on the API "Crisis Summit" with 50 newspaper CEO-types. It's not difficult to tell that Outing isn't expecting a lot out of these Crisis meetings.

From the times I've read Outing's columns, he doesn't seem to be the type of person who minds poking his finger in the eyes of people he believes to be short-sighted or even blind to the world of new media.

I don't agree with everything he writes, but a lot of it makes perfect sense.

To read Outing's full column, click here.

For purposes of this blog entry (and possibly entice you to read the whole column), below is a list of his main pieces of advice to the CEOs (and certainly it can be used by people at the individual newspaper level too):

1. Issue an edict: Digital is first!
2. Consolidate print and online editing functions
3. Print edition: Don't bother chasing young people
4. Print edition: Focus on the core demographic
5. Guide older print loyalists to a life online
6. Reduce the number of print editions
7. Online: Broaden definition of news to include micro-personal
8. Hire a social VP
9. Experiment, fail, experiment more
10. Leverage your remaining staffers, and augment them
11. Consider retirement

A lot of these points make sense, particularly the advice given in items 3 and 4.

The problem with Outing's list is the absence of ways to make money. Yes, his column does talk some about the money issue, but not enough. Regardless, the column is worth a read.

What do you think about this list? Does any of it make sense to you? Let's get a discussion going on the topic! Add your comments by clicking on the Comments link below this post.

Delivery vs. information

This past week, E&P picked up the story of The News & Observer getting out of the trucking business. Penske Logistics will take over the job of delivering bundles to the nine distribution centers and other sites outside the immediate region.

The independent contracts we know as carriers, still have their contracts to deliver directly to subscribers. People getting the N&O delivered to their homes will still deal with the same people.

Still, 17 full-time jobs and many more part-time jobs will be eliminated from the N&O payroll. (Publisher Orage Quarles believes many of those people will get jobs with Penske.)

Here's another way of looking at this other than just cutting FTEs from a payroll: This move actually follows what some people in the industry have been talking about for a few years, that we are in the information business, not the ink, paper and delivery business.

Through the years, newspapers became good at delivering physical products to physical locations. But other businesses also excel at delivery. What no one else excels at is providing reliable news and information, being a watchdog of government and connecting buyers and sellers. Focusing on those parts of the business that no one else can do makes real sense to this blogger.