the newspaper business

In addition to all the news that is on our website, we like to think we provide some “long-tail” information: weather, movie show times, movie reviews, etc.Meh.Google has it - and it’s better.

• Weather? Just type in the search box weather (city name) 
• Movie show times? Horton Hears a Who (your zip code)
• Movie review? Not just one, but dozens, for the same flick? movie: Horton Hears a Who
• Flight status? Airline and Flight number
• Math? Calculations? Need to know 546 times 9? 546*9. How many kilos in a ton? How many kilos in a ton?

h/t

I don’t want to say that Chrysler LLC vice chairman sounds like Fox News Circus Clown in Residence. I have a lot of respect for Jim. But when asked about the economy and market volatility and plummeting consumer confidence, Jim suggested that the best thing folks could do is “stop reading the newspapers.“

(Emphasis mine)

So auto buyers read newspapers. He thinks newspapers are persuading people not to buy cars.
Taking him at his word, wouldn’t it make sense for car makers to advertise heavily in newspapers?

Can somebody explain how this logic is flawed?

Ah, convergence. The buzzword that was so hot five years ago and so quickly faded once the newspaper business in South Florida went south. One couldn’t pick up a trade rag, or read a trade blog without reading about Tampa and their “universal news desk” and the fantastic new building that would magically make TV reporters and newspaper reporters mind meld into robo-reporter.

At the same time, dreams of creating a new-style ‘multimedia reporter,’ adept at both television and newspapers, have fallen flat. After three years, only one print reporter regularly produces stories for the TV station, the top-rated in the market.       

But that hasn’t dissuaded the people in the Tribune company.Their PR machine is crowing.

Tribune Company today announced that it will join the broadcast and interactive operations of its Miami television station, WSFL-TV (CW39), with those of its Ft. Lauderdale-based newspaper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, under a single roof to create a media powerhouse serving readers, viewers and advertisers.  

Thats right… a powerhouse consisting of the CW and the Ft. Lauderdale newspaper is going to take over Miami as the leading news source. 

“This strategy is unprecedented in a major U.S. market,” said Howard Greenberg, Sun-Sentinel president and publisher. “This gives our print, broadcast and interactive operations the opportunity to work together to develop unique content and programming in a variety of areas. Plus, with this combination, there will be no better way for advertisers to reach more people with a consistent message.”  

Blah, blah, interative, blah, blah, reach, blah, blah, excited, blah blah, efficiency…

Straight from the pixels of one of America’s outstanding journalism reviews, WWD.com (Women’s Wear Daily website), comes the news that the Journal will be showing off a prototype magazine next week.

Days from now, the Journal will take prototypes for its upcoming quarterly glossy on the road, making a pitch to the coveted luxury advertiser resting on two major points: that the demographics of the paper are ripe for luxury marketers, and that new editor Tina Gaudoin possesses the experience and contacts to convincingly speak to the high-end audience.

The magazine will be aimed at $300,000+ income households and will debut in September with another issue in December. Plans are for it to go monthly. As Murdoch announced, he wants Dow Jones to compete head-to-head with the NYT.

Does your newspaper have a magazine?

Mr. Murdoch is having a birthday.

He’s built a media empire from two newspapers he inherited in Australia by doing the revolutionary. He gave the people what they wanted.

The only downside to his birthday is that his concept is still revolutionary.

Today the Murdoch owned New York Post didn’t disappoint it’s readers in the wake of Eliot Spitzer screwing around with whores.

As usual, Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, wrote a thoughtful and well reasoned post on how bloggers are different from MSM. Also he makes another observation which I found interesting.

Newspaper blogging is probably the worst marketing and branding move a newspaper can make. The barriers to entry for bloggers are non existent. There are no editorial standards. There are no accuracy standards. We bloggers can and do write whatever we damn well please. Historically newspapers have set some level of standards that they strived to adhere to. By taking on the branding, standard and posting habits of the blogosphere, newspapers have worked their way down to the least common demoninator of publishing in what appears to be an effort to troll for page views.

I think the standards he is looking for would have to be instilled in the reporter doing the blogging through education and experience. Having standards is not something you get from your workplace or your boss.

BTW: the Mavs have always been very open - even before Cuban. My daughter was sports editor of a high school paper in Indiana and got an interview with Steve Alford when he was with the Mavs.

UPDATE:

A blog is a blog is a blog is a blog. The NY Times Blogs on their website are blogs. People who have blogs have a hard enough time coming up with a definition of what blog is. Potential or even current readers have no real idea of what the term blog reflect in terms of quality or content.

much more… 

Is your newspaper producing a slick magazine?

If not, why not?

We are involved in two: From House to Home (FHTH) and Better Health and Living (BHL) both produced by PSA Magazines. Ours have limited local editorial content: but ALL local advertising.

We have produced a couple “magazines” as special sections, but they aren’t regular publications.

Advertisers love them and we think readers do too. After all, it’s a free bonus with their newspaper. We can tell our advertisers love them because we run FHTH quarterly and it’s 80 pages chock full of ads. BHL is sold out for the year since January.

So tell me again why your newspaper isn’t producing a magazine?

The first issue of USA Today’s Open Air magazine was in Friday’s newspaper.

It’s pretty, has pretty pictures, and I’m sure the writing is good. I can’t judge the writing because I didn’t read any of the stories. I scanned some of the shorter stories, but generally the magazine had stuff that I already had read: either in USA Today, or some other magazine.

Here are their feature stories:

• High-class hiking
• Spring break grows up
• Triathletes with a cause
• Reader photo
• The thrill of skeet

The feature stories were very generic. Name a high traffic tourist area and it was covered in the magazine, but only lightly covered. Some interesting personalities gave their insights to the tourist attractions, which was a different twist. The other features were the requisite “feel good” feature (triathletes) and unusual (skeet shooting.)

At sixty eight pages, about half ads, I’m sure it is highly profitable - and didn’t cannabalize from the regular newspaper.

I had to go to the website to find that it will be printed quarterly. It launched with no consumer marketing to back it up.

BTW: the ad for beef (above) is the most unintentionally gross ad I have seen. At first glance it looks like a river flowing through gorge. But it’s a very close up of a steak and the “river” is juices, with mushrooms the size of boulders. Gross.

All in all, very average for a magazine from a content and photography standpoint. From an ad standpoint, a winner.