"We work for the readers"

Another philosophical nugget of new media vs. old media wisdom...this one is from Kathleen McCoy, AME for interactivity at the Anchorage Daily News (thanks to Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine for pointing this one out). She is building a hyperlocal high school sports Web site. In her blog, she explains why she is doing it:

"Because I believe that community news organizations like the one I work for will soon (now, even) include a blend of us and them. Them is the people who live and work in the communities we report on. Us is, well, the fewer and fewer of us left in American print newsrooms. We need them to build connection in our pages, the glue of community. They need us to hold powerful people's feet to the fire: government officials, school administrators, business people. We work for the readers. So if they can contribute some of the content that binds a community - names, faces, achievements, good work - then the newspaper's reporters can focus on their role, getting at the hard and complicated truth, facts people need to know."

Excellent point. Let willing contributors take some of the burden off of reporters who--let's face facts--hate doing that stuff anyway.

I sense a trend with these hyperlocal sports sites. Shaw Newspapers' suburban Chicago papers were among the first (if not the first) to launch such a site: mchenrycountysports.com. Of course, the Lawrence Journal-World in Kansas does it as well as anyone with its Game site. I've written about both sites for Inland Press Association.

Disruption in Minnesota

Disruption in Minnesota
Keep an eye on Minnesota. Former Minneapolis Star Tribune Publisher Joel Kramer will launch MinnPost.com, an Internet-based daily, later this year. He has amassed more than $1 million in funding and picked up 25 top-notch journalists to contribute. Ken Doctor, a former VP at Knight Ridder and former St. Paul Pioneer Press ME, notes on his “Content Bridges” blog that Kramer’s effort stands out from other attempts that have flamed out recently. First, his backing comes from “old journalism” families (such as Cowles) and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. But most importantly, Winter says, is that the site will be oriented around news, not opinion, and the journalists who have signed on to contribute are names that resonate regionally.

Here is an example of “disruptive innovation” at work. The major print media players have lost (through a variety of means) dozens of journalists just in the last couple of years. MinnPost (as the disruptive innovator) saw this as a weakness in the established competition—the sustaining innovators. Remember who wins these battles?

Of course, MinnPost has a long way to go to unseat the Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, City Paper and others. It certainly has to find a way to sustain itself. But it is starting off in the right direction—by focusing on news that people need and getting true journalists to write it.

Change in Blue Springs

In 2002, The Examiner editions in Independence and Blue Springs, Mo., combined in what they called an "enhanced" edition. The move made sense as both cities had grown and the lines between the two had grown quite close. So came The Eastern Jackson County Examiner.

News out of Missouri now is that the paper is splitting in two again. Starting today, readers will be getting either the Blue Springs Examiner or Independence Examiner. This moves heralds an increased focus on local news. The new Examiners will be nearly 100 percent local news and sports (just some notes from the state Capitol and KC Royals/Chiefs news). Less news will be pulled from Associated Press.
Again, this is a smart move. They acknowledge that they are the best source for local information and that local information is the reason readers subscribe. A couple neat features are of interest:

• Quick 5 - five questions with a local newsmaker or average citizen about life in the community.
  
• Five-on-Five - a new feature in the sports section with questions to five local athletes or coaches.
  
• Tabloid Monday - Monday's edition is printed as a tab.

Good luck to the Examiner. It's making the right move.

Offer opportunities, not jobs

A young colleague in the industry recently interviewed for a reporting position at a small community newspaper. Almost the entire newsroom had recently been "poached" by bigger, more prestigious papers, largely because the paper made a name for itself for its award-winning editorial content. My colleague isn't interested in the position either. There is little appeal for him to leave where he is currently working to toil in a small community writing stories about school boards and TIF districts.

Sad as it may be, this is typical. Community papers have a hard time holding on to talent. It will probably always be this way. However, I've long thought that community papers--especially smaller ones--can do much more to present journalism school graduates with opportunities. Dull beat work crushes the ambitions of fresh reporters. Here are some ways newspapers (of any size) can motivate reporters:
Sell the importance of what they cover--tell them that readers rely on their information. Tap into the social responsibility aspect of journalism. Make them feel proud to deliver information to readers.
Give them time to devote to an investigative series or expanded profile. Every true journalist longs to do what Woodward and Bernstein did on some level. They want to write important stories that have impact.
Put them in charge of something. A four-page special section or wrap. A contest. A column. A calendar page. They can handle it.
Send them somewhere. Get them out of the community. In my newspaper days, I traveled to the state capital to cover legislators, to nearby counties to cover court cases with local ties, and even to another state to hear former Pres. George Bush speak. It made my job a little more exciting and beyond the routine.
Educate them. Show them that you care about their careers and development. Yes, you risk training them and then losing them, but you can also gain loyalty, appreciation, and motivation that just might keep them there another six months or a year.
Call them something different. Magazines do it...their reporters are associate editors. It seems ridiculous, but it means something. It shows value. Add "senior" or "chief" to reporter titles for staffers that stay on.
Most importantly, listen to them. They have ideas. Even if their idea won't work, explain why (and not just "We've always done it this way.") Just knowing that their ideas are valued enough to be considered is a motivator.

Be disruptive

Continuing the Newspaper Next theme...I wrote a more recent story for Inland about some newspaper groups funding innovations. The groups all cited the Newspaper Next innovation model as an inspiration and influence. One source expressed some disappointment, however, that the ideas proposed for funding, while good, were not as "disruptive" as he had hoped. What he meant was the proposals were too similar to what the newspapers were already doing and lacked the qualities of "disruptive innovation," one of the keys to the Newspaper Next method.

Put simply, disruptive innovation in the newspaper industry would be the emergence of free classifieds and free newspapers. Disruptive innovations share some common characteristics, as pointed out by Newspaper Next:

• The products are "just good enough" for consumers.
  
• The products offer consumers new benefits, such as convenience or lower cost, that make up for any quality issues.
  
• They tap new markets that existing products do not reach (again, think free dailies and free classifieds).
  
• They often have a lower cost than existing products.
  
• They enter the market through a competitive weakness.

I certainly applaud the proactive moves newspapers have been making in recent years, but many of the innovations I see at newspapers don't follow this disruptive model. They are still too tied to the existing print or online products. One way N2 suggests working past this is focusing on consumers' jobs to be done. N2 lists four questions that are helpful in interviewing consumers for their jobs to be done: What is a problem you are struggling to solve today? When do you encounter this problem? What frustrates you with current solutions? What would be an ideal solution?

I would add these: Where do you currently look for solutions? Who do you trust for solutions? Answers to these questions can pinpoint where consumers are getting jobs done and who they turn to for help.

API's Elaine Clisham spoke about Newspaper Next's innovation method at Inland's Special Sections and New Revenue Conference this past week...watch Inland's Web site for a review of her presentation.

Go ahead and fail

The Newspaper Next project, American Press Institute's brilliant initiative introduced last year, is a lot simpler to grasp than the massive report API published would lead you to believe. It can be summed up in the headline from column by Doug Hall in the latest issue of BusinessWeek's SmallBiz magazine: "Fail Fast, Fail Cheap."

Hall's advice--get your idea about 50% right, then let customers tell you what your mistakes are. Do it all again until you know you can get it right or know that it will fail completely. Hall says the innovation process tends to be the complete opposite of this: a company will invest thousands of dollars and many months in developing an idea, then refine it to near-perfection, and finally ship it out. Then--and only then--the fatal flaws are recognized and it is too late to do anything about them.

Newspapers are notoriously slow to develop new products and can't seem to embrace the risk-taking necessary to create truly innovative solutions. This philosophy--espoused so brilliantly in the Newspaper Next teachings--gives newspapers a way to minimize risk. To learn more about the Newspaper Next innovation process, read my story here.