Newspapers Aren't Dead Yet

Extra, extra: Newspapers aren't dead yet

Rem Rieder, USA TODAY


Painfully slowly, not all that surely, but still, a new business model for newspapers is taking shape.

It's hardly time to uncork the Champagne. The challenges remain formidable. But after years of steady, ominous decline in the face of digital disruption, the long-derided dinosaurs are showing signs that they may not be leaving the building anytime soon.

The business will be smaller. The sky-high profits of years past are as over as the Spice Girls. But oblivion is not necessarily part of the equation.

The core question for newspapers in recent years has been, where is the money going to come from? The Internet blew up their lucrative advertising monopolies. Craigslist took their classifieds. And while newspaper websites significantly increased the size of their audiences, digital advertising, once seen as the holy grail, has been profoundly disappointing.

There are two major elements in the emerging survival strategy:

• Circulation revenue is increasing. The key: Charging for digital content. Newspapers are now making money from digital-only subscriptions and, more important, bundled subscriptions that give readers access to information in a multitude of ways.

• Newspapers are leveraging their skills to bring in revenue from activities other than journalism. Most significant is providing marketing services to local businesses trying to figure out how to flourish in a transforming environment. But newspapers are also earning money through e-commerce and hosting events.

"We are beginning to see a glimmer of a 2018 business model, one that is at least stable and at best shows some growth," says news industry analyst Ken Doctor, author of Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends That Will Shape the News You Get. He adds, "We have pieces of the puzzle."

The outlines of the future are sketched out in an important report released Monday by the Newspaper Association of America. Commendably, the study made a concerted effort to, for the first time, tally up money flowing in via the new revenue streams. The result is a much more accurate picture of the industry's health.

It's a sign of how grim things have been that a report indicating revenue declined by 2% could be considered a hopeful sign. But it was the smallest drop in six years.

While advertising, once the lifeline of newspapers, continued to plummet (by 6% last year), circulation revenue was up 5%, the first year of growth since 2003. New ventures, such as marketing services, brought in $3 billion, and revenue from sources the NAA hadn't counted before, such as niche publications, brought in nearly as much.

The study underscores what a huge mistake it was for the industry to give away its content on the Internet for all of those years. Now about 400 papers are charging, and many more, including The Washington Post, will start doing so this year. "The key is the metered paywall (which allows readers to access a number of articles before they have to pay), and it works," Doctor says. By 2015 he believes such arrangements will be the default position for newspapers both in the United States and elsewhere.

To Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, a critical finding is that after years of decline, "now things are growing" in certain categories. At this point, he says, the newspaper business "is a mature industry and an emerging industry at the same time."

Newspapers were awfully slow to react to the ramifications of the digital revolution. "We're beginning to see signs of adaptation," says Rosenstiel, who worked on the report (API is now under the aegis of the NAA). "Skeptics might say it's been a long time coming, but it's coming."

Rosenstiel, the longtime director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, thinks the mobile market offers newspapers a bright opportunity for future growth. "Before, newspapers saw technology as a threat," he says. "Mobile gives them a second bite. It could be very significant."

Media analyst John Morton, a longtime columnist for American Journalism Review, takes the long view. He points out that newspapers have been challenged before and lived to tell about it, citing the advent of television as an example. TV pretty much wiped out the metropolitan evening paper, and is one of the reasons there were once about 1,800 daily papers and now there are 1,400.

The digital juggernaut, Morton says, "is not going to kill the industry. But it's certainly going to change it."

Rieder is editor and senior vice president of American Journalism Review.

Today's Christian Woman launching weekly digital edition

Today's Christian Woman Launches Weekly Digital Issue

CAROL STREAM, Ill., Oct. 10, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- Today's Christian Woman (TCW), a Christianity Today publication, announced today the launch of its weekly, themed digital issue, providing women timely, relevant content in a compact format that is easy to read and quick to access. First launched in the mid-seventies, Today's Christian Woman now offers a diverse look at a single theme or topic relevant to Christian women every week -- on your laptop, smartphone, and iPad app.

Increasing from bi-monthly to weekly issues ensures women have access to fresh ideas and information when and where they choose to read. Every week the compact, digital issue covers a single theme from diverse angles. Themes range from sexuality to creativity to identity, vocation, calling, and more. The issues are simple and sleek, designed to remove clutter and distraction from the reading experience. The inaugural issue, Let's Talk about Sex, is a Christian perspective on romance, cultivating healthy sexuality, and healing from the past.

"Today's Christian Woman equips and inspires women to live out their faith wherever God places them," says Carol Thompson, executive vice president and publisher of Today's Christian Woman. "Our new weekly, compact issue is designed to speak clearly and frequently into the lives of women, delivering the inspiration they need to impact the world."

For more information about Today's Christian Woman or to obtain a subscription, visit TodaysChristianWoman.com.

Arizona Republic editors to reporters: Do your work at Starbucks or McDonald's

Arizona Republic editors to reporters: Do your work at Starbucks or McDonald's

Jim Poulin/Phoenix Business Journal

The Arizona Republic is telling many reporters that they need to work remotely.


Starbucks and McDonald’s will soon be the new offices for roughly 20 community reporters at The Arizona Republic.

Top Republic editors met with reporters from the Mesa, Scottsdale and Phoenix community sections Thursday to tell the reporters they were getting laptops. They would become “mobile reporters” without any traditional desk in an office, according to multiple reporters who wished to remain anonymous.

Because Starbucks and McDonald’s have free Wi-Fi, those were the two places editors suggested reporters take advantage of as they work out in the field.

Some reporters said they could work from home, but others said they were being asked not to work from home and instead be out in the field as much as possible. Reporters are being asked to take home their files, and keep them in their car or at home.

Complete story here: http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2013/10/03/arizona-republic-editors-to-reporters.html?ana=twt