Online News
How (Not) to Protect the Small-Town Newspaper
By Jonathan Weber, 7-27-06
 | |
|
Back in the day, newspapers worried that offering news online would cannibalize sales of the print product. Eventually, though, most of them realized they didn't have much choice, and while there is still a lively and important debate about whether and how to charge for online news, the notion that you can protect the print franchise by offering only a crippled online product has been pretty thoroughly rejected.
Except, apparently, in Missoula, Montana.
The local daily, owned by Lee Enterprises, has come up with one the stranger ideas I've seen in a while: every day, it features three story headlines on its Web site which, when you click on them, take you to a page inviting you to subscribe to the print paper. You can't read the stories online, and you can't buy the stories online. Apparently they will send a special courier around with the paper if you want it that day and live close enough to the printing plant.
As an online competitor to that paper (the Missoulian), I actually welcome this approach. It's based on the assumption that newspapers have the same kind of market power today as they did five or ten years or twenty years ago, and thus can control how people get their news.
It's certainly true that there is a lot less competition in small towns than there is in big cities, which explains why many small and mid-sized papers charge subscription fees for their online editions. I'm not sure city-centric media observers even recognize how prevalent this is - in New West territory, just by way of example, the Spokane Spokesman Review, the Idaho Falls Post Register, and the Albuquerque Journal all charge for their online editions.
It seems obvious, though, that the proliferation of online media choices that has forced the hand of big-city papers will eventually do the same in the hinterlands. In an email to Bill Vaughn, a terrific local writer and enthusiastic rabble-rouser who has a site called DarkAcres.com, Missoulian publisher John VanStrydonck offers this defense of his business model: "On-line news sites have benefited by the subsidy they have received in form of free or discounted news that they get from print and broadcast media. At the Missoulian we employ 42 professional journalists who are paid professional wages. An online model alone will not support a staff of that size in a market the size of Missoula. They generate original content that is often reused by sites that contract with the Associated Press for their content, and is often used by other sites without our authorization or permission..."
Ah, so there's the crux of it: those online news people are just a bunch of thieves!
In fairness, I will say that the question of how journalism will be funded as the business model of the daily newspaper decays is a legitimate one. I can hardly claim that we have all the answers, though we do have a few ideas. Still, if you're interested in, say, "Fire Season Heats Up," which is in the Missoulian today but not available online, save yourself the trouble and read Courtney Lowery's fire coverage on NewWest.Net/Missoula. You don't have to fill out any forms or write any checks or smudge your hands with ink. Welcome to the 21st century.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
I live in Helena now, but like to stay up on Missoula news. Since I still travel there every month and alot of my shopping gets done there, I am still worth advertising to. Their paper is not readily available there and the website is useless. I hope that your advertisers realize this.
Thanks for the hard work guys.
In these relatively early stages of online news, we've already seen the seeds of what is to come. Most online providers have expanded coverage for those that will pay (off the top of my head: NY Times, WashPost, espn.com) and other's make us watch 30 second car commercials before we can get the news. Call me a cynic, but one has to wonder if in twenty years or so, sites like "New West" will be oned by one giant conglomerate and complaining about those thieves at the local paper.
Keep in mind that a number of publishers are still using some pretty old content management sytems to publish their web sites.
I can't speak for the Missoulian but it is possible that they don't even have the technical capabilty of delivering an RSS feed.
I work for a publisher with a similar problem and we're in the process of moving over to a more advanced platform that will allow RSS and other features that most online news readers demand these days - but it's very costly (time and money) to do.
Further, because the profit for the online news businesses are a drop in the bucket compared to print, convincing the power that be to invest in new online publishing technologies can be a difficult argument to make.
Food for thought.
(April 19)
"Currently our Publisher has requested we do not have an RSS feed but that could change - I will keep you posted if it does."
Why would a publisher make such a request? I can think of several possibilities, but none of them seem sufficient.
Especially when people want something for nothing. Look, even if you believe that the media, especially local newspapers, owe a certain public duty to provide good coverage (which I do), and even if you ignore the current trend toward greater and greater profitability for "shareholders" in the news "business" (wishful thinking), it costs money to produce a decent daily newspaper. And it costs money to produce quality web content. Having lived and visited around the country a fair bit, I can tell you that the Missoulian does a pretty good job for a paper of it's size, despite its dismal online content. So to hear people whine about having to pay for content or be subjected to ads...good grief, what world are you living in?
Besides, the way I look at it, I'm scamming the advertisers anyway, since they're paying big $$$ to put their message in front of me and I am simply, consciously, ignoring it. But sshh, don't tell them, they're paying for my news coverage.
"Why would a publisher make such a request?"
I can only think of two reasons - fear or ignorance.
My guess is that the publisher is either afraid of the idea of losing their perceived control of the content or simply doesn't understand the value of RSS feeds. At the very least, he/she could push out the article title and summary with a link back to the full article if they don't want to publish a full feed.
Who knows...
Also, I want to apologize for posting anonymously but it is best for me given my employment (although since NewWest is published using ExpressionEngine, they have access to my IP address and know darn well where I work). :)
I'm going to respond to Lauren: I don't know you, but I do know Jonathan, and I know he works very, very hard.
Just to clarify relating to McGregor's comment, I don't have any issue with asking people to pay for content and certainly have no problem with advertising. I just think it's foolish to try and force people to read print if they prefer to read online.
By the way, I've become a NewWest.net junkie. Love what all you HARDWORKING people are doing. Keep up the good work!
You still haven't addressed the fact that your content is pathetic, your commentary insipid, awful and shot through with the most inane and unthinking liberal cliches, and most of your "reporting" mere regurgitation, appended with occasional flecks of new information, of what real reporters have already accomplished -- which, by the way, is what gets done when you leave the office.
But this is the brave, new world of journalism, practiced by second-handers. Hey, I can link to stuff all day long too. Wow. Do you have medical?
"...your content is pathetic, your commentary insipid, awful and shot through with the most inane and unthinking liberal..."
These would be OPINIONS, not FACTS. And misguided opinions, in my opinion.
Perhaps lauren should look elsewhere for her online news content....unless her tirade has a purpose that she isn't letting on about?
Lauren (or whoever you are), to answer your question, we do in fact have medical. As to your gratuitous and insulting anonymous personal attacks, people are certainly free to decide for themselves if our journalism is worthy and worth their time (and lots of people apparently think it is). You're obviously entitled to your opinions, but if you're going to post here I'd ask that you skip the insults and and engage the conversation. Very irritating (and pointless for the readers) to get this kind of abuse from someone who hides behind a pseudonym.
Is the New West still considering print ventures? For sale or ad-supported? Different product type with different (longer form?) content or possibly going the other way than the subject of this article and using on-line content, neatly and colorfully compiled for use in a more leaisurely way that sitting in front of a computer screen (something I probably do too much of)? Utne Reader style, but your own content?
Print and online likely to co-exist for sometime since each has advantages. Print works good over breakfast, during commuting, or long trips or on porches or sitting outside somewhere nice. Online does great during the workday and freetime at home.
Perhaps someday (not too far off) each side moves closer together pushing content over broadband overnight (a paper and energy saver) and installed on a tablet for portability (smaller than a full sized, somewhat awkward newspaper). I could go for that at a consumer friendly price.
I am not an early adopter, obviously, I dont have a tablet though they are already out there and I havent used self-selected RSS feeds relying on aggregator sites.
But maybe I will start using the later and maybe go for a tech upgrade soon too. Lots of choices for time and money.
As an ink-stained wretch who reads both print and online newspapers, journals, blogs, etc., I'm still trying to figure out where all of this is going. I suspect that the future of journalism can be found in Baghdad or Lebanon, where a modest backpack can carry a wireless laptop stuffed with software, still/video camera, microphone, tape or digital recorder, a satellite dish and satellite cell phone -- everything one needs to capture images, sounds, words and a sense of what's going on -- all for transmission to a news bureau, cable or blogs.
As a freelance writer, former Lee staffer and frequent New West blogger, I have extremely mixed feelings about today's journalism: bloggers jumping into the pool, media ownership concentration and media fragmentation, the loss of common media experiences, the rich diversity of media that winds up preaching to the choir and alienating "others," the oft-Luddite tendencies of management, the wild creativity of computer geeks, the making-it-up-as-you-go process of new business plans, my own geeky limitations (I didn't know what RSS was just a few months ago), and my attempts to maintain journalistic objectivity while advocating greater understanding of natural resource issues.
Ten years from now, towards the close of my career, I think we'll still have print newspapers and multi-media versions of news and views online -- photos, video, radio interviews, blogs and much greater symbiotic interaction between editors,
reporters and bloggers, with ever greyer lines between the camps. Gonna be a fun ride!
Hmm, wonder who that might be. Sure doesn't sound like a woman, for starters. Maybe I'll have to inquire with Lee as to whether they approve of their employees engaging in this sort anonymous, ax-grinding slander.