When it comes to many newspaper’s presence on the web, newspapers are hitching horses to cars.
Here’s the thing that people get wrong about their web presence:
It’s not about building a second version of yourself, your business, or your industry online. It’s about starting fresh with a new platform to reach a new audience.
The New York Times gave Moveon.org a price break on the General Pretraeus / General Betray Us ad.
Two weeks later they admitted they made a mistake.
Why so long?
At first, I thought it was stalling. After some thought I can understand why it took so long.
First, the ad was scheduled on a Friday for a Monday insertion. Moveon.org was told by a NYT ad rep that the ad would cost $65,000. The ad ran Monday. By the end of the week, all hell broke loose as the price break became public.
The Times first said the price was appropriate because it was a “stand-by” rate for advertisers who didn’t care when the ad ran within the next seven days. A common practice among newspapers.
Then they backed off completely and said it was a mistake and never should have happened.
Why so long? Because they wanted to get it right. First they had to confirm there was a price break. A short call to billing would do that. They they had to start down the chain of command to determine the exact sequence of events, how they occured, why they occurred, and who was involved.
When they felt they had it right, they gave it to their public editor to make a column out of it.
Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, said, “We made a mistake.” She said the advertising representative failed to make it clear that for that rate The Times could not guarantee the Monday placement but left MoveOn.org with the understanding that the ad would run then. She added, “That was contrary to our policies.”
Those outside the business - and maybe some inside the business - will say its just the NYT showing its liberal bias.
I think its a case of haste makes waste. The ad rep was pressured by Moveon.org to get the ad in, he knew about the stand-by rate, thought it qualified and accepted the ad. I would wager that the ad rep slept well Friday night not realizing the furor that was about to be unleashed because he didn’t think to get management approval to accept the ad.
That quote sure shook up the newspaper and technology world. It was uttered by Craig Newmark, the “customer service rep & founder” of Craigslist.com.
Many, including myself, interpreted this as just another “nail in the coffin” statement that has been pretty popular on the technology and media blogs for the past six months.
I’d like to add my two cents to a couple points.
1. Newmark meant the guys who “literally” run the printing presses are screwed. The printing press operators, not the owners.
2. You can’t generalize about newspapers. Paul Van Hoesen says: CraigsList founder Craig Newmark would be more correctly quoted as “People who run major newspaper printing presses in North America are screwed.” (Remember: this is not an accurate interpretation of the quote according to Newmark.)
Addressing Van Hoesen’s assertion that “major newspapers” are screwed is probably accurate. Major newspapers - those in the top fifty markets are almost all owned by people not associated directly with the newspaper business. They are public companies (or companies owned by large investment firms.)
Craigslist.com did put a significant dent in their classified advertising by providing free classified ads online. However, the Daily News has been providing free ads for over 25 years for items priced less than $100 and for Lost and Found. As quickly as possible we put our ads online too. Well before Craigslist was on the scene.
We recognized these little ads as valuable readership. We also knew that a customer probably wouldn’t pay our regular rates for an item priced less than $100. (We also have a special rate for items priced less than $300.)
Major market newspapers didn’t consider the importance of classifieds as a readership item. But it wasn’t Craigslist that put the first dent in their classified advertising revenue. It was entrepreneurs who recognized that advertising WAS news to many readers. They started all advertising publications - shoppers - and gave away the classified ads as filler.
But the muckety-mucks at the big newspapers didn’t see that as a threat.
It was only when Craigslist came on the national scene in a big way with such a small investment that the larger papers started paying attention.
Too bad for them. We’re close enough to our customers that we will adopt quickly and efficiently to market demands. Major market newspapers require studies and committees and worst of all, they can’t do anything that will hurt next quarter’s profit projections.
Again, too bad for them. It seems they are in fact “screwed.”
