Category Archives: Media

Crying Over Spilt Milk

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Did you see the main op-ed pieces in yesterday's (Feb. 8, 2009) Winston-Salem Journal?  Two pieces involving newspaper navel gazing.  One was a piece titled "The Crisis Facing American Newspapers" by a guy at an investment bank that said the following public policy changes need to happen for newspapers to be saved:

  • Allow adjacent newspapers to merge or consolidate (ex. the Winston-Salem Journal could merge with the Yadkin Ripple)
  • Eliminate local media cross ownership restrictions 
  • Allow in-market mergers (ex. The New York Times and The New York Post could merge. Not likely, but potentially highly entertaining to watch). 
  • Grant the industry anti-trust exemption for a limited time 

I have to say that I agree with the basic premise of the first three, but it's the fourth one that cracked me up.  Here's the entire reasoning for the anti-trust exemption:

Newspapers should be granted a finite (36-month) anti-trust law exemption to permit deployment of an industry-wide system to track and charge for re-use of their content. Whether that is accomplished through a "rights society" as with music publishers, or through the use of electronic watermarks, which could facilitate digitized tracking and usage charges, publishers cannot continue the practice of paying for the editorial staffs to source the news and then have it used for free by competing Web aggregators. There are numerous organizations that already have infrastructure in place to serve this purpose. The Associated Press already has existing license fee and "pay-per-click" payment structures.

He's kidding right?  Right when the music industry is abandoning digital rights management because they saw how ineffective it was and how much it ticked off their customers the newspaper industry is going to try virtually the same thing?  I do understand where he's coming from, after all newspaper folks have always felt that TV news wouldn't exist without them.  Still, I have to point out the following:
  • Now that they've let go a huge chunk of their reporters who exactly do they think they are in saying that they are producing the vast chunk of the news?
  • How many newspapers link out to their sources when they get a story from a blog or some other online source?  The answer is very few.  They may cite the source but often it's a generic "a local website" citation that gives almost zero credit to the source.  What's good for the goose, etc., etc.
  • Do they really believe that Google hurts them more than helping them by indexing their site and stories?  If so where's the data to back this up? 
  • Do they really think that adding friction to the flow of information will help them? 

Sadly the newspaper industry is making the same mistake that the music industry made, only 10 years late.  They aren't recognizing the market for what it is.  They aren't realizing that whether or not there's a printed form of journalism is irrelevant.  Paper is a delivery vehicle, same as the airwaves and the internet.  They also need to understand that if they pursue the whole watermark thing all they are going to do is minimize their own exposure and tick off their customers.  What's important for them to understand is that instead of building walls around their news gardens they need to learn how to take their expertise and their (diminishingly) unique place in society and use every tool available to reach their audience.

I've said this ad nauseum: for about a generataion the newspaper's advantage has not resided in the printing press but in the press room.  The one thing they had that no one else did was a stable of people who new their city inside and out, new the players, had the connections, and received the phone calls with the hot inside tip.  Any monkey can type, but professional journalists know what to type.  Whether it's on paper, on a screen, in video or audio, its the what's said or written that's most valuable, not how it's presented.  There will always be people who prefer paper, but there will also be people who hate to read and what their information presenting visually or verbally.  Newspaper companies would be well advised to catch that clue before it's too late.

BTW, what they need to know to succeed in the future can be found here from Lex Alexander.

Costco + Clif Bar Recall + Blog = Interview with MSNBC

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Not long after I blogged about my love for Costco and the fact that it had been only deepened by a robo-call I'd received from them informing me of the Clif Bar recall, I received an email from an MSNBC reporter named JoNel Aleccia asking me if I'd be available for a phone interview.  The results of the interview can be found in her article Dial-a-recall? Stores use cards to warn buyers.  She was quite nice and she got the parts of our conversation that she used right, except she has my age at 45 and I'm only a young 42.  That's okay, because I look 55.

One thing she mentions is that I received a call about Zone Perfect Bars, which I didn't mention in my first post.  That's because Costco followed up with a second call to inform us about the Zone Bar recall and I emailed that tidbit to the reporter last night.  Of course I'm most appreciative of the call.

One thing I'll point out is that I think I gave Ms. Aleccia a term she used in the story.  She mentions "relationship marketing" and I think she might have gleaned that from our conversation.  She'd asked me if I was troubled at all about retailers collecting data about their customers and using it to track their purchases.  I said I wasn't and that a big reason was I'd spent a good chunk of my career in direct marketing and had even founded and run a newsletter called "Relationship Marketing" that explored how companies use customer data to improve customer retention and profitability.  I also told her I was surprised that more companies don't do this considering how long loyalty programs and customer databases have been around.

Of course I'm going to use this as a case study when I talk to clients about the influence of blogs.  I asked Ms. Aleccia how she came across my blog and she said she'd done a search on a term like "loyalty card recall" and my post popped right up.  She also said that she finds bloggers to be good sources for human anecdotes because they write about their lives in such detail.  Knowing that blogs are grist for the media mill I'd advise company's to pay close attention to them.

Mulhern’s New Digs and Gig

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Mike Mulhern, the Winston-Salem Journal's ex-NASCAR reporter, has his new website up and running.  He tells me that this is phase one and that phase two of his site promises more features.  As it is right now he has a Breaking Now/Hot Scoop section, The Pit Bull's Daily Briefing and Mike's Take: NASCAR In Depth.  He's also posting video via YouTube, which is a great idea.  Looks like he's off to a flying running start.

Go get 'em Mike.

New Local Media Hierarchy

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As I last posted the Winston-Salem Journal showed me a little love on Saturday by printing an excerpt from one of my blog posts in their "Bits & Pieces" section of their editorial page on Saturday.  A commenter noted that I should see a spike in traffic to my site, which I assumed as well.  Here's the thing: my traffic went up this last Saturday and Sunday compared to the previous weekend, but only a little and it was still lower than the traffic I had on Friday.  In other words there was a little more traffic, but not enough that I'd say that the Journal's love had a real impact.  

On the other hand when Esbee links to me I see my traffic double, minimum.  I'm not trying to slam the paper here, after all I'd assume that Esbee's readers are more likely to follow a link to another blog than people who read the paper or visit the paper's website are to actively go and find my blog.  Still I think it shows that in the evolving world of online media the media hierarchy is different than in the offline world.  I hope local advertisers and marketers are paying attention.

Oh, and a word of advice to the Journal: there are these little things called hyperlinks that have been used online as long as there's been an online.  You might want to consider using them in your stories seeing as it's considered good manners in the online realm AND the search engines give you credit for it.

News Juxtaposition

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JournalWeirdUpdate
I just received my daily email news update from the Winston-Salem Journal and their lead headline is the crash of a Charlotte-bound US Airways flight into the Hudson River in New York.  Not to make light of that story, which hopefully will find that no one was seriously injured since early reports seem to indicate that the plane seemed to stay atop the water until rescue boats could get to it, but it's what's under the headline and the accompanying photo that was kind of jarring.  It's this sentence: "Also, Midfielder Michael Lahoud of Wake Forest went as the No. 9 pick, to Club Deportivo Chivas USA, based outside Los Angeles."  That's followed by the link to the "Full Story" which is the airplane crash story. (Click on the picture to the left to see what it looked like).

It looks like the wrong description was attached to the headline, which is too bad for Lahoud since it's a happy occassion for him.  It's also a tad confusing because until you click through to the story you think maybe he was on the plane or something.  Why else would he be mentioned?  I suspect that what happened was that the MLS draft story was the lead until the plane crashed and they had to do a last minute switch and forgot to change the description.

But let's end on a positive: kudos to the Journal for highlighting two of Wake's soccer players getting drafted.  All too often the Deacon soccer program is forgotten despite being a national powerhouse.

Abasto

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This is kind of cool: I just read a press release about a new business-to-business magazine being launched by Hispanic Marketing Consultants here in Winston-Salem and targeted to Hispanic store owners and at the bottom I see that a buddy of mine is their contact for buying ad space.  Danny Gelatt is a good guy and we've mixed it up on the tennis courts over the last couple of years.  Here's the scoop on Abasto:

The idea for Abasto magazine came from entrepreneur Dan Calhoun, principal of Hispanic Marketing Consultants. "Our company has worked with a lot of Hispanic business owners who work very hard and have been successful. But we found that there was a knowledge gap for them, one that prohibited them to grow their businesses into greater profitability. First and foremost, our job is to give them the essentials of best business practices that they can apply to their companies. 

"But we also paid attention to the fact that many manufacturers and distributors of Hispanic foods have not had a way to communicate efficiently to this large and growing Hispanic population of business owners," Calhoun continues. "These groups have been virtually untapped — and now this magazine becomes the platform to connect. It's a perfect way to accelerate sales to this significant audience." 

For more information, contact Francisco Camara at editor@abasto.us or 877.817.3674. To discuss advertising opportunities, contact Danny Gelatt at dannyg@abasto.us or 877.817.3674.

Newspapers Have Faced Hard Times Before

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Mark Cuban wrote an interesting piece about pro sports teams forming a company that would essentially provide beat writers that would cover local sports teams in exchange for a certain number of pages being dedicated to pro sports in each paper.  Newspapers would maintain editorial control, but they wouldn't have to pay the writers.  He provides much more detail in his post and it's a worthwhile read, but almost as interesting was a Time article he linked to at the end.  Here's an excerpt:

Consolidation. As a result, the era when newspapers produced some of
America's great fortunes (e.g., Hearst, E. W. Scripps, Pulitzer, et
al.) is past. Publishers who like to consider themselves primarily
"editorial men" find themselves spending more and more time on business
affairs. Even such dailies as the wealthy, institutionalized New York
Times, which has about 4,700 employees on its payroll, have been hard
hit. Last year's ten-day newspaper strike (TIME, Dec. 7 et seq.) says
Times Publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, wiped out "virtually all, and I
mean that literally, of the anticipated profit from 1953 operations."
The Times has also been forced to pare down its voluminous news space,
e.g., it recently cut its foreign news 10%.

One of the few U.S. newspaper companies that publicly report their
profits, the Boston Herald-Traveler Corp. has seen its profits fall off
from $1,270,813 in 1946 to $526,283 last year. In cities where there
are monopolies, the papers are doing better. Greensboro, N.C.'s
Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Co., which helps finance 23 papers
all over the U.S., reports that the profit margin of its papers in
competitive cities has slipped to less than 5%, while in monopoly
cities it is nearly 18%.

High costs have already taken their toll. Last year 22 dailies were
suspended or merged, leaving 82% of all U.S. towns and cities that have
newspapers with only one daily (v. about 40% in 1900). The Washington
Times-Herald recently found rising costs too much to bear, sold out to
Eugene Meyer and Philip Graham of the Washington Post. High costs have
also made starting a big, new daily virtually impossible without
millions in reserve capital.

If you paid close attention to the details you probably noticed some strange names associated with the newspapers and you're probably wondering why you never heard about the newspaper strike.  It's because the article ran in 1954, but it sounds eerily similar to something you'd read today.  Later in the article the author talks about newspaper companies finding some cushion in their radio and television stations, much like current newspaper companies are looking for a cushion in their online operations.

If you have a couple of minutes it really is an interesting read.

Reporter Who Gets It Is Gone

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One of the "mainstream media" people I've met who really gets the new frontier of media is Lex Alexander a reporter for the Greensboro News & Record.  Actually he's now an ex-reporter for the News & Record because yesterday he wrote a farewell post on the paper's health blog:

I'm
taking a company buyout and leaving the News & Record and Landmark
Communications, and today was my last day of work. I do not know
whether anyone will succeed me. In the meantime, if you need to inquire
about a health/medical story or pass on some information, please
contact City Editor Teresa Prout at 336.373.7082 or
teresa.prout@news-record.com. If you have a health item for our
calendar, please contact Carl Wilson at 336.373.7145 or
carl.wilson@news-record.com

Thanks to all who have read and commented here or who have talked to
me for stories. Engaging with readers and sources has been the best
part of this job. My best wishes to you all.

Times truly are tough for newspapers and I think this is going to be a bad loss for the N&R.  I've had the chance to speak with Lex a few times and I think he understands as well as anyone what developments like the evolution of blogs and other forms of "conversation media" mean for the news industry.  He's a big part of why the News & Record's web presence, as imperfect as it is, is still superior to other newspapers of similar size in this region.

Hopefully Lex is moving on to great things.