Denominational Papers Must Adjust, Also

Baptist newspapers adapt to changing industry

By Bob Allen
Wednesday, 01 April 2009

DALLAS (ABP) -- Hard times have fallen on the newspaper industry, and the Baptist journalism world isn't being spared.

Recently the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Convention sent out a letter announcing it is ceasing publication of the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Witness, a tabloid-sized paper with about 1,300 subscribers. It was published 10 times a year.

In the letter, quoted by the Deseret News, convention Executive Director Rob Lee said after several attempts to increase circulation and make the newspaper financially viable, Utah-Idaho Baptist leaders are seeking "alternative ways" to communicate with churches.

That puts the tiny paper in company of historic and respected newspapers such as the Christian Science Monitor, whose printing presses fell silent March 27. The Boston-based Monitor, winner of seven Pulitzer Prizes, announced plans in October to eliminate its print edition, ending a 100-year run as a daily newspaper and making it the first national newspaper in the United States to move exclusively to a web-based operation.

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism says newspapers' advertising revenues have fallen 23 percent in the last two years. Nearly one in every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 are now unemployed or working in different industries and media -- and 2009 may be the worst year yet for newspapers and the people they employ.

At the same time, audience migration to the Internet is accelerating. One survey found the number of Americans who go online for news increased 19 percent in the last two years, and traffic to the top 50 news sites rose 27 percent in 2008 alone.

The Pew report doesn't subscribe to the theory that death of the industry is imminent -- overall it remained profitable in 2008 -- but says the old model of relying on advertising revenue to finance journalism is no longer adequate. Experts believe the recent economic downturn has made even shorter the time left for newspapers to solve the industry's problems.

The recession is already starting to kill off some financially vulnerable papers.

The Denver-based Rocky Mountain News stopped its presses Feb. 27, just short of what would have been the 150th anniversary of one of the oldest newspapers in the American West. Losing $14 million a year, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer followed suit March 17, going online-only after 146 years in print. Denver and Seattle joined the ever-growing ranks of American cities with only one daily newspaper.

For 42 Baptist newspapers historically connected with state conventions affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, these market forces come on top of a number of challenges that have faced them in recent years. The obstacles include audience polarization brought on by decades of denominational controversy, rising costs for printing, ever-increasing postage rates and changing congregational priorities.

For years Southern Baptist churches have, on average, been giving decreasing percentages of their budgets to state and national denominational bodies. That's a double whammy for newspapers that rely on subscriptions in addition to convention subsidies.

Historically, local Baptist congregations typically bought bulk subscriptions to Baptist state newspapers for their members, including them as line items in church budgets. That often means that, when a Baptist newspaper loses a subscriber, the paper has actually lost dozens or hundreds of paid subscriptions.

In their heyday, editors of the Baptist state newspapers envisioned a goal of having a Baptist paper in every Baptist household. From a zenith of 1.8 million subscribing households in 1977, their combined circulation has declined ever since -- dropping, in 2007, below 1 million for the first time since 1953.

The trend has prompted recent innovations.

BaptistLIFE, the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware newspaper that has been around under various names for more than 150 years, began 2009 as a hybrid online-and-print publication. While the paper will continue to publish 11 issues a year, only five will be printed and mailed.

Issues scheduled in March, May, July, September and November will be Web-only. Subscribers receive an e-mail notice when the issue goes online, with excerpts and links to full articles. E-mail will also be used for breaking news and extra features.

The Baptist Standard, the news journal of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has been publishing since 1892. They recently launched E3, a digital-replica edition published along with the print newspaper. The name stands for "Enhanced Electronic Edition."

Technology allows readers to leaf through facsimiles of the print pages online in a fashion similar to how newspapers and magazines have been read for centuries. But the new edition also allows for readers to experience enhanced content, such as interactive Web and e-mail links, video, audio and photo slide shows.

(The Baptist Standard is part of New Voice Media, a publishing and content-sharing partnership that includes Associated Baptist Press and three historic state Baptist papers.)

Digital publishing, Standard leaders point out, offers advantages such as the speed of electronic delivery and environmental friendliness, conserving paper that otherwise usually ends up in landfills.

It also saves the costs of printing and mailing the paper versions of the newspapers replaced by the electronic issues. As an introductory offer, the Standard is charging $8 a year for its E3 edition -- a third the cost of an individual print subscription and just over half the church bulk-subscription rate of $15 per household.

Brad Russell, the Standard's marketing director, said the newspaper will continue delivering print editions as long as readers support them, but that E3 "provides an economic model that is sustainable in the face of a perfect storm of skyrocketing print production and mailing costs, a 'free' Internet news culture, and the migration from print to digital media by younger readers."

Editor Marv Knox said the newspaper staff has received "positive response" in the three months since launching E3. "Readers tell us they like the idea of an electronic publication that actually looks like a newspaper," Knox said. And the enhancements "add depth and quality far beyond what anyone can offer in a printed publication."

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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.