The Lowly Newspaper

What brings you here today? I would suggest that you are here, dear reader, because you have chosen to use the Internet as a source of information, opinionated thought, and entertainment. You are here because you are not reading a newspaper. You are here because there is something within your mind that says the unsolicited thoughts of a person you might never have met are somehow more interesting or valued than those in a publication you pay for that lands on your doorstep each morning (or, in the case of an increasing number of newspapers, on occasion).

Does that mean that newspapers are dying? Not necessarily. There are numerous ways that pundits like to try to quantify the death of traditional media such as newspapers. A few observations:

• 53 percent of digital news consumers access Web-native sources (such as Huffington Post, Yahoo! News, Drudge Report and others) for information. Only 43 percent use the more traditional sources for digital news, though in-depth reporting is still desired from these outlets (Source)

• Newspaper advertising has dropped more than 50 percent since 2005, though other media outlets have not been immune from the decline (Source)

• Fewer than one in ten Millennials read newspapers on a daily basis, preferring instead to obtain information and news from digital/online platforms (Source)

While these are all valid and concerning figures — there is no denying that this is an industry in a state of flux — they do not speak to the success or failure of newspapers on a local level. They do not speak to the efforts that your own community’s publications may be attempting to increase readership or create value for readers of all ages and socioeconomic groups. They can only speak from a thirty-thousand-foot view of the industry as a whole. They cannot speak to the tremendous opportunity for innovation that lies before local news outlets.

As technology consultant Alan Mutter notes: “Any serious effort on the part of publishers to migrate to digital publishing requires an understanding of the Digital Natives … who grew up in front of all kinds of screens” (Source: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2013/02/why-digital-natives-dont-like-newspapers.html). Some local and small-market newspapers, recognizing that they may be the only source of news in their communities, are working to gain an understanding of those Digital Natives and place a footprint in their world.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to serve as an intern for a local newspaper in Alabama with a Sunday circulation of about 20,000. I came into the experience as a Digital Native myself, someone that venture capitalist Mary Meeker would describe as “asset-light:” highly mobile, never subscribing to the newspaper, acclimated to digital trends. Sure, I had just finished coursework for an undergraduate degree in print journalism, but I came into my internship completely green behind the ears. I had never completed any work for a newspaper or publication of any kind. I had only worked briefly for one season as a softball team correspondent for my relatively small university’s newspaper.

My lack of traditional print journalism knowledge served as a conundrum for the newspaper’s editors. How does a newspaper with decades of experience in a tangible, printed realm, provide an opportunity for an intern whose own habits fly in the face of the journalistic institution they had built? My arrival caused the newspaper to consider its own need to innovate.

After a couple of weeks of consideration, we agreed upon a unique solution. My role would involve the development of a digital presence for the company to make the news relevant for younger minds with shorter attention spans. Our vision was capturing the attention of innovators and early adopters by making an old form of media relevant through the use of more modern methods of communication. We utilized two channels in our approach. First, I developed Twitter content for the newspaper. We did more than tweet links to printed stories, though. We elected to engage our community and invite them to share with us what was important to them. We encouraged users to send us pictures and answer discussion questions we posted. We asked for reaction to stories and for followers to send us news tips through social media.

We also decided to attempt something more ambitious, something only one other newspaper in the nation was doing at the time. We created a news webcast titled “Midday Update” and posted it at the top of our website before lunch each day. I wrote, anchored, and edited the webcast each day. Our goal was simple: Take the morning’s important stories and squeeze them into a ninety-second video. By giving viewers the day’s need-to-know information in a fast format, we created an additional touch point with our community and provided the more casual website visitors with a reason to dive deeper into the stories on our website.

By the end of my internship, our experiments into digital media had proven to be a hit. Midday Update was viewed more than two thousand times a day and gained a substantial following on social media. Capturing the equivalent of ten percent of the newspaper’s entire subscriber base in just a few months indicated to us that we were making significant headway in reaching Digital Natives and those “asset-light” individuals who may have never had significant interaction or interest in a newspaper. We shared the video via Facebook and Twitter, which resulted in additional views, likes, and comments. The webcast was so successful that the newspaper managed to sell advertising placement at the beginning of the video.

Sadly, the newspaper’s experiment into video ceased after I left because no one had the time or the ability to produce a video quickly. The newspaper’s Twitter and Facebook accounts remain the most-followed media source within its community to this day. Clearly, pushing the newspaper’s printed content into the digital realm was a gamble that has paid off and kept its name relevant among young people.

So, are newspapers dying? I would suggest that they are at a crossroads of two choices, both of which come with significant consequences. They can choose to remain the same and face the slow march into irrelevance as Digital Natives enter the workforce and turn away from a medium that most view as archaic. Or, they can choose to become a digital medium, remain relevant, but face the challenge of learning how to report the news with a leaner staff and a leaner budget. Ultimately, this choice also requires the industry to let go of itself for its own betterment.

“In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself,” Deepak Chopra once said. Perhaps in the letting go that must come in the years ahead, the once-great newspaper will be great again.