Different Strokes for Different Folks

Newspapers Are a Joke But They Can Teach You Marketing
By Michael Port

You may have seen this “joke” before. It’s a good one – because there is truth in it.
There’s also a marketing lesson in it. See if you can find it. I’ll reveal it at the end of the joke.

1.The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2.The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3.The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4.USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5.The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country — if they could find the time — and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it.

6.The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.

7.The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8.The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9.The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10.The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country, or galaxy.

11.The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12.The Minneapolis Star Tribune is read by people who have recently caught a walleye ice fishing and need something in which to wrap it.

Think about it. Each paper speaks to the world view of a particular “group” of people. If you are part of the group that reads that Wall Street Journal and you see someone else reading The Journal you feel connected to them. You are part of the same group, or as Seth Godin would say, tribe.

This is the job of the marketer – to make you feel like you’re part of something, that your world view is right and is shared by others who are also right.

USA Today Make Dramatic Staffing Moves

This is an excerpt from a larger article reproduced from Daily Finance. To read the entire article, click here.

USA Today Plans 130 Layoffs in Push Toward Mobile News

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

USA Today, the nation's second largest newspaper, is making the most dramatic overhaul of its staff in its 28-year history as it de-emphasizes its print edition and ramps up its effort to reach more readers and advertisers on mobile devices.

The makeover outlined Thursday will result in about 130 layoffs this fall, USA Today Publisher Dave Hunke told The Associated Press. That translates into a 9% reduction in USA Today's work force of 1,500 employees. Hunke didn't specify which departments would be hardest hit.

The management shake-up affects both the newspaper's business operations and newsroom.

Like most newspapers, Gannett's (GCI) USA Today has been cutting back in recent years to offset a steep drop in advertising that is depleting its main source of income. To compound the problem, fewer readers are paying for newspapers as free news proliferates on the Web.

A 'Radical' Reorganigation

Those challenges triggered the most dramatic reorganization since USA Today first hit the streets in 1982 with a then-unique blend of shorter stories surrounded by colorful graphics and pictures.

"This is pretty radical," Hunke said of the shake-up. "This gets us ready for our next quarter century."

In the first wave of change, USA Today, which is based in McLean, Va., will no longer have separate managing editors overseeing its News, Sports, Money and Life sections.

The newsroom instead will be broken up into a cluster of "content rings" each headed up by editors who will be appointed later this year. The newly created content group will be overseen by Susan Weiss, who had been managing editor of the Life section. As executive editor of content, Weiss will report to USA Today Editor John Hillkirk.

"We'll focus less on print ... and more on producing content for all platforms (Web, mobile, iPad and other digital formats)," according to a slide show presented Thursday to USA Today's staff. The AP obtained copy of the presentation.

Conflict of Interest?

In a move that may raise conflict-of-interest questions, Weiss will have a "collaborative relationship" with USA Today's newly appointed vice president of business development, Rudd Davis, according to one slide.

Training for Journalism Jobs That Don't Yet Exist

From Daily Finance:

Journalism Schools' Dilemma: How to Train Students for Jobs That Don't Yet Exist?

By BRUCE KENNEDY

I walked into the distinctive Armory Building at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Thursday morning not knowing what to expect. The Armory Building is the home of the university's School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC), and several hours earlier, it had announced its plans to begin the J-school's "program discontinuance." In other words, the journalism school is being retooled: It could end up being shut down, or replaced by something altogether different.

I should mention this news affects me personally: The announcement came two days after I began to teach a course at SJMC.

In a statement, University Chancellor Phil DiStefano says the school's goal is to "strategically realign existing academic strengths and resources" in order to ensure that whatever comes after the SJMC will "meet the needs of our students, the labor market and our rapidly changing global society."

It's hardly news that journalism and the media industry have undergone profound and, for some news professionals, bitter changes over the past decade. A lot of journalism schools are attempting to rise to those challenges. They've been tweaking their formats to include courses focusing on information and communication technologies, so-called "citizen journalism," the blogosphere and social networking. From my limited perspective, it appeared the SJMC was changing with the times as well.

I came on board to teach "Multimedia Journalism for the Non-Major," also known as "backpack journalism." It's an inaugural course and has both journalism and international affairs students, who want to prepare for the uncertain media landscape that will confront them after graduation. They want to be efficient, self-reliant content producers, who can report, write, shoot and edit their stories solo.


But how does a teacher train students for future employment in an industry that's in the middle of a revolution, and in which finding steady work is far from certain?

The Skills it Will Take to Compete

David Hazinski, associate professor and head of the digital and broadcast news department at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, says it's important to prepare students for the changes awaiting them by focusing on core skills and more technology operations training.

"Journalism isn't hardware," he said in an email. "It is content and context. Someone is still going to have to go to that fire and shoot some video, interview the mayor, and analyze that stock report. Someone is still going to have to package it, if for no other reason than to save audiences time. Writing, interviewing, editing and working under pressure will still be needed skills. Ethics and standards will become even more important as the sea of opinion grows deeper. The content and context will be distributed over many platforms but someone has to be at the top of the information food chain. Those people will be skilled journalists, not technicians."

Hazinski, a former NBC correspondent, says many journalism educators are caught up in the bureaucracy of their work -- while teaching outmoded methods.

"We've let teaching schedules, research interests and heredity guide planning," he complains. "We're still following industry models even though the industries have gotten lost and the audience spread out. Race car drivers need to know how cars perform, not how to design the engines." And these "information students," he argues, will need to be grounded in a wide spectrum of fields -- writing, liberal arts, business, videography, editing and even performing -- if they are to successfully compete in the new media environment.

"A program like that doesn't exist today," he notes, "and I'm not sure academia, with its traditional structure, can even come up with it."

Popularity of Journalism Programs Is Up, Despite the Uncertainty

I asked my new class for their thoughts about the dramatic changes facing their journalism program. One student, Dana Anderson, responded later in the day by email (it had been a busy day for everyone), saying she's troubled by what's ahead for the SJMC, but also excited that her chosen field is apparently evolving in a new direction.

"Technology seems to be promoting a new level of individualism in journalism while at the same time enabling greater collaboration," she wrote. "I think journalism has the potential to become more influential. I also believe that it is crucial for journalists to be equipped with the necessary skills to not only stay current but to also shape the future of news production."

Other educators note that, nationally, journalism's popularity is growing despite the industry's uncertainties. "Enrollment is up, skill sets are up, new schools being opened," says Kip Wotkyns, assistant professor of journalism at Metropolitan State College of Denver. "Take a step back and look across any number of academic disciplines -- they're all in radical states of change."

Wotkyns says journalism educators are adapting to the sometimes mind-boggling changes facing their students and the industry. While the future business model of journalism has yet to be resolved, he says, "schools have to face this dilemma of quickly-developing market spaces all the time. I tell my students that in their lifetimes, research has shown that they will have eight distinctly different careers. The stunning part is that four of those careers don't even exist yet. So things like critical speaking skills, foreign language skills, literacy, reporting and writing skills will prepare them for whatever they face. It makes investing in a college education worthwhile."

In Battle of Weeklies, Local Focus is the Key

In Battle of the Weeklies, Local Focus Is the Key

The San Francisco Bay Guardian, a 44-year-old alternative weekly newspaper, is thinner than it used to be, but it remains determinedly local, and that is its major strength.

By Jonathan Weber

Bruce Brugmann, who founded the San Francisco Bay Guardian 44 years ago, could be doing a lot worse in his lion-in-winter years.

His paper, which helped define the genre known as the alt-weekly, lives on, much thinner than it used to be and not making any money, but remarkably faithful to its own idiosyncrasies. He now owns his own building in Potrero Hill, and his talented No.2, the executive editor Tim Redmond, remains at his side after more than 25 years.

If Brugmann was relaxed, even genial, when I met him for breakfast last week, it was most likely because of the warm glow from a recent huge victory in his six-year legal war with the rival SF Weekly. An appellate court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that found the Weekly guilty of anticompetitive conduct for selling advertising below cost in an effort to drive the Guardian out of business. The Weekly now owes the Guardian some $22 million.

Yet as Brugmann knows as well as anyone, there is nothing genial about the local newspaper business. His baroque courtroom battle with the Weekly only spotlights a question that looms over alt-weeklies everywhere: Is there a future for their kind of journalism, whose days of highest impact seem to have passed?

Brugmann, a one-time infantryman, has a simple strategy: keep marching. “We'd never give up print -- I'm a newspaper guy,” he said. “We're a valuable resource, kind of irreplaceable.”

From one perspective, the keep-doing-what-we've-always-done approach looks hopeless. Surely, innovation is required, lest the rest of the business go the way of the lucrative classified and personal ads that long ago migrated to the Internet. Plenty of people around town consider the Guardian an anachronism and would hardly miss it if it weren't around.

But consistency and sense of place have their merits. When you pick up the paper, with its solid reporting on local politics and strong point of view, you know what to expect. A well-defined sensibility, deep local roots and a focus on its one and only market give the publication staying power.

Brugmann's legal team worked the local angle in court, framing the case as independent, local business vs. voracious, out-of-town chain. Village Voice Media, which owns SF Weekly and 13 other weeklies around the country, is the end result of a string of acquisitions by New Times, based in Phoenix, and the pugilistic style of Michael Lacey, the New Times co-founder, evidently did not endear him to the jury.

Alt-weeklies share an editorial formula that marries anti-establishment politics with heavy entertainment coverage and listings. But as David Brewster, the Seattle Weekly founder, notes, they have also long reflected the personality of their founders and the culture of their communities. The in-your-face, libertarian-leaning approach of New Times was perfect for Phoenix, just as Mr. Brugmann's old-school leftism was a fit for San Francisco.

In the Internet era, there are plenty of options for those attracted to an alternative sensibility. But even if the Salons of the world capture some of that audience, there's still a place for the distinctively local approach -- and chains, by their nature, find that harder to cultivate.

The SF Weekly is in many ways a richer, more contemporary paper than the Bay Guardian. But its most recent issue, as an example, features a cover story -- about the persecution of border migrants -- that's part of a chainwide project and doesn't have much to do with San Francisco.

Lacey said in an e-mail that Village Voice Media is profitable, and Bill Jensen, the company's new media director, said Web traffic had quadrupled since 2007 and there were now a half-dozen new revenue streams from online and mobile. . (Though half of the Weekly's ad revenues are being diverted to an escrow account, Lacey remains contemptuous of the legal verdict and vows to appeal.)

Many alt-weeklies can probably get along fine for a while by keeping editorial costs down, relying on entertainment and lifestyle advertising and building their Internet presence.

But a strong local voice and brand identity are key to possible new strategies in areas like live events production and participatory journalism. Even on the Internet, where scale matters, local coverage remains a promising frontier. This is an issue close to my heart, as the success of The Bay Citizen depends on our ability to build close ties to the community by cultivating a distinctively local journalistic approach.

After all these years, Brugmann and the Bay Guardian, whatever their weaknesses, remain steadfast in their local focus. For that, they may yet be rewarded.

This column also appears in the Bay Area edition of the New York Times.

Jonathan Weber Jonathan is Editor-in-Chief of The Bay Citizen. Before joining as the founding editor of The Bay Citizen, Jonathan served as CEO and editor-in-chief of New West Publishing, the Missoula, Montana-based media company that he founded ...

The Typo Hunter

This is an excerpt from a current story in the Washington Post. To read the entire article, click here.

Wiping out typos across the country

By Andrea Sachs, Washington Post Staff Writer

Tourists in Washington are always looking for something: monuments, the Mall, the president, their hotel. On a visit last week, Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson were no different, except that they were seeking something smaller and more subtle, a prize that could win you favors from an English teacher but has no place on a traditional postcard.

"We are with the Typo Eradication Advancement League," Deck said to a surprised waiter at Bistro Bistro in Dupont Circle, presenting a business card. The 30-year-old in the Indiana Jones-style hat explained that he had noticed a missing 'p' in the "red snapper" written on the menu board outside. "It reads 'snaper,'???" he added helpfully.

The TEALsters offered to fix the mistake, using the correction kit that dangled from Deck's waist. The waiter graciously accepted the assistance, admitting that he himself had probably omitted the consonant, his focus wavering because he was fasting. He then asked whether Deck, the designated artist of the two, could "put some decoration" on the board as well. Chalk in hand, Deck plugged in the missing letter, then sketched a small fish beside the name of the dish. Another typo banished.

"Once you start, it's really hard to stop," said Deck of his multi-state typo pursuit. "It's in some part of my brain at all times, but it's not interfering with my enjoyment of places."

Two years ago, Deck heard the call of the road, a siren that strangely sounded like a stern grammarian. Groomed as an editor, he was sensitive to the literary mistakes that litter our nation's signs, menus and placards. Living in Somerville, Mass., he was constantly mocked by a sign that read, "No Tresspassing."

To redress these errors, he embarked on a 21/2-month-long, 33-state journey with a rotation of friends who would help him clean up the grammatical trash. One pal, Herson, joined him for two legs: Silver Spring to Los Angeles, and Madison, Wis., to Somerville. The two pals from Dartmouth College spun their experiences into the new book "The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" (Crown, $23.99).

Baptist Journalism Conference

The Southern Baptists hold an excellent collegiate journalism conference each year. My hope is that, with planning, some Grace students may be able to attend in the future. Here are the introductory paragraphs--to explore the site, click here.

Welcome to the 2010 Baptist Press Collegiate Journalism Conference site. We are looking forward to a new year and hope to see you there. The conference will take place October 7-9, 2010 at the Southern Baptist Convention building. Please register by September 1, 2010 to ensure your seat at the conference.

Join us for an enriching time of worship, Christian fellowship, professional networking and skill-building workshops. Take advantage of every opportunity to grow spiritually and professionally these few days … and have fun exploring a little bit of Music City while you Pursue Excellence.

What Should a Christian Do With the Secular Media?

Here's a half-lighthearted, half-serious look at Christians and the secular media by longtime journalist Dan Wooding. This is an excerpt--to read the entire article click here.

(ANS) -- I will never forget the day that my father, the Rev. Alf Wooding, took me on one side in our home in Birmingham, England, and told me that he needed to have a “chat” with me.

Thinking he was going to talk about the “birds and the bees” I settled down for what I thought would be a most embarrassing conversation. But I was in for quite a surprise when he said, “Son, I want to warn you about getting involved with the press. They are very wicked people and they drink, smoke and swear as well.”

My Dad, at the time, was the pastor of the Sparkbook Mission in this industrial city, and had previously been a pioneer SIM missionary in Nigeria, West Africa, where he met my mother, Anne, who was also from Liverpool. They were married in 1939 in the walled city of Kano and I came along in December, 1940, in a missionary hospital in the small Nigerian town of Vom located in Plateau state.

He told me that his big dream for me was to become a pastor like himself, so when I had expressed the desire to become a journalist, he became very concerned about what I was getting myself into.

Although it was a bit of a misquote, he pointed out a verse in Luke 19 verse 3 which read, says “And he [Zacchaeus] sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press…” (Geneva Study Bible).

Jobs in Journalism Growing

From Journalism 2.0:

Jobs in journalism growing

Did you go to journalism school to become an online community manager? Probably not, but that is one of the hottest jobs on the market these days and you can’t launch a successful digital news business without it.

The era of specialization is dead, but a new class of jobs and roles at new era news businesses offer exciting opportunities for journalists and communicators who are interested in new thinking and new approaches.

In terms of jobs, journalistic occupations are outperforming the overall economy, according to Michael Mandel, former chief economist at BusinessWeek and founder of Visible Economy LLC. That certainly seems counterintuitive to anyone who has heard about, or directly experienced, layoffs at newspapers and TV stations in the past five years. A shift in journalistic employment to nontraditional companies such as Yahoo and AOL, plus an increase in self-employed journalists has created surprising growth.

Drawing from numbers based on the Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of roughly 60,000 households conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau, Mandel found the overall number of employed journalists increased by 19% from 2007-2010.

Over a comparable time period, Mandel notes, employment in newspaper publishing has fallen 26%; periodical employment is down 16%; and radio and television broadcasting is down 11%.

Journalists are getting jobs. Just not in the traditional industries or at the companies you would expect.

And those traditional news companies that are hiring? They aren’t looking for the same old thing any longer. A spirit of innovation is mandatory, previous experience is not. If you are willing to learn new ways of communicating to – and with – an audience, including inventing some of your own, you’re ready for a job in a new era news business.

Luddites need not apply. New skills can be learned, but those individuals who have shown a previous proclivity toward trying new types of digital communication will separate themselves from the pack.

Indeed, here’s a piece of a job posting from July 30, 2010 on the Tribune website:

The TV revolution is upon us – and the new Tribune Company is leading the resistance. We’re recruiting a solid team of anti-establishment producer/editors, “preditors”, to collaborate on a groundbreaking morning news/infotainment format unlike anything ever attempted on local TV. Don’t sell us on your solid newsroom experience. We don’t care. Or your exclusive, breaking news coverage. We’ll pass. Or your excellence at writing readable copy for plastic anchorpeople. Not interested.

Sell us on this:

-Your personal relationship with the internet, blogs, video-sharing, iPads, Droids, Blackberries, Blueteeth, Facebook & Twitter, and all things Modern Culture

-You’re in sync with the pulse of the streets, not the PC, Capital “J” journalism world

It’s a new era, whether you’re looking for work in journalism at a traditional company or ready to explore the emerging world of journalism outside newspapers and TV stations. The career path is no longer well-defined, however. In addition to new skills, you will need a new adaptability to find your way. Just know that, if you have an open mind and an innovative spirit, the possibilities are out there.

Magazine Newsstand Sales Slide

Magazine newsstand sales still sliding, but improve over last year

By ANDREW VANACORE , Associated Press

NEW YORK - U.S. magazine sales at newsstands and other retail outlets continued to slip in the first half of 2010, though the latest figures marked an improvement for an industry hard-hit by the recession.

So-called single-copy sales fell 5.6 percent to roughly 32.5 million in the January-June period compared with the previous year. The decline had been 9 percent in the last six months of 2009 and 12 percent in the first half of 2009, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The single-copy sales at newsstands and other retailers are an important gauge because publishers charge full prices for them. Subscriptions are typically discounted so publishers can boost the overall circulation they can promise advertisers.

The number of magazine subscriptions fell 2 percent in the latest period to 267 million, making for an overall sales decline of 2.3 percent to about 314 million copies.

The downturn last year was painful for magazines. Along with circulation declines, the U.S. consumer magazine industry lost more than a quarter of its advertising pages, which constitute the main source of revenue at most publishers.

Although the latest figures show most titles continue to suffer at the newsstand, some saw the beginnings of a rebound in the first half of 2010.

Hearst Corp.'s Cosmopolitan, still the top seller, saw newsstand sales edge up 1.5 percent over the same period a year ago to 1.6 million copies.

People Stylewatch, published by Time Inc., was up 15 percent to more than 572,000 copies. Women's Health, owned by Rodale Inc., jumped 10 percent to nearly 368,000, and Hearst's Seventeen was up 5.8 percent to about 340,000.