Community Newspapers Can Succeed Online Seven Experts Tell You How

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Community newspapers can succeed online Seven experts tell you how

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volume 53, no. 1 • spring 2012 grassroots editor • spring 2012 Believers, nonbelievers Editor: Dr. Chad Stebbins Graphic Designer: Liz Ford Grassroots Editor and fence straddlers: (USPS 227-040, ISSN 0017-3541) is published quarterly for $25 per year by the International Society of Weekly Community newspapers and the Web in 2012 Newspaper Editors, Institute of International Studies, Missouri Southern By Gary Sosniecki State University, 3950 East Newman Road, Joplin, MO 64801-1595. Periodicals post- age paid at Joplin, Mo., and at Put down your Grassroots Editor, boot up your computer, Google “Showalter’s game-changing play,” and additional mailing offices. watch the YouTube video by that name.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes Don’t worry, I’ll wait… to Grassroots Editor, Institute of If you’re not close to a computer, here’s the recap the Batesville Daily Guard posted to YouTube along with International Studies, Missouri Southern the video back on Oct. 16, 2010: State University, 3950 E. Newman Road, “With about a minute left in the game, Batesville’s Matthew Showalter picks up a Yellowjacket fumble and Joplin, MO 64801-1595. takes it 98 yards for a touchdown, giving the Pioneers a victory over Wynne on Friday.” Volume 53, Issue 1, Spring 2012 But the video is so much more. In the screaming words of announcer Ronald Richardson: “Ball goes on the Subscription Rate: $25 per year in ground! Batesville’s going to pick it up! He could go! He could go! Go Matthew, go Matthew go! Go Matthew the United States and Canada; $28 per year go! Oh, Matthew’s going to go! He’s going to score! Touchdown, Matthew Showalter! Touchdown, Matthew elsewhere. Showalter! Touchdown, Matthew Showalter! Wow! Oh-my-gosh! Whewhoohoo!”

Officers of the International Society “And there ain’t no flag!” chimes in color man Jason Sturgeon, who has been cheering in the background the of Weekly Newspaper Editors whole 98-yard run. What a great sports clip — arguably one of the best ever, more exciting than Russ Hodges’ call of Bobby President: Kris O’Leary The Star News Thompson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round The World” in 1951 (“The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pen- Medford, Wis. nant…”) and Jack Buck’s call of Ozzie Smith’s game-winning homer in the 1985 National League playoffs (“Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!”). Vice President: Cheryl Wormley And it wasn’t heard on radio. It wasn’t heard on TV. The Woodstock Independent Woodstock, Ill. “Showalter’s game-changing play” was live-streamed on www.guardonline.com, the website of the Batesville Daily Guard, an 8,500-circulation newspaper in northeast Arkansas. It lives on thanks to YouTube, where Executive Director: 292,000-plus people have viewed it the past year and a half. Dr. Chad Stebbins, Director, Institute of International Studies, Missouri Southern “The thing about that clip is that it made us qualify for revenue sharing (from YouTube),” says Ross Jones, State University, 3950 E. Newman Road, the technological jack-of-all-trades for the Daily Guard, which his family owns. Joplin, MO 64801-1595 Jones says Showalter’s touchdown was “totally unexpected,” considering time was running out and the ball Phone: (417) 625-9736 Fax: (417) 659-4445 was deep in Batesville territory. E-mail: [email protected] “It (the loss) would’ve ruined our perfect record for the season. The crowd knew that.” Jones is a “believer.” Let me explain: Board of Directors: Kelly Clemmer After four years in my new career helping newspapers succeed on the Internet (following 34 years as a Star News Inc. reporter, editor, general manager, publisher and three-time weekly-newspaper owner), I’ve concluded that com- Wainwright, Albert munity newspapers can be divided into three categories when it comes to the Web. Dave Gordon The believers, like Ross Jones, understand that they are in the content business, not the newspaper business, Professor Emeritus, and that they need to deliver that content — news and advertising — to the consumer by whatever means the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire consumer wants it if the newspaper is to protect the franchise it’s had for a century or more. Paul MacNeill The believers are energized by the new avenues the Internet presents for disseminating news and advertising. The Eastern Graphic And the believers understand that the Web should be a revenue stream, not a revenue drain. Montague, Prince Edward Island The nonbelievers — and I have some good friends in this group — don’t think they need a website. Gary Sosniecki TownNews.com, Moline, Ill. They worry it will hurt their print product. Andy Schotz They view a website as a revenue drain, not a revenue stream. The Herald-Mail They think they aren’t tech-savvy enough to maintain a website. Hagerstown, Md. And they don’t think they have enough time to maintain a website. Barry Wilson After owning weeklies for more than 20 years, that last excuse is the only one I accept. As Lucy Halverson, Asset Media Services then-incoming president of the South Dakota Newspaper Association, joked at the 2011 SDNA convention about Kiama, NSW, Australia being talked into buying her first weekly newspaper: “They had me convinced I could work half-days. They Immediate Past President: didn’t tell me which 12 hours it was.” Jeremy Condliffe Congleton Chronicle Congleton, Cheshire, England 1 grassroots editor • spring 2012

But Halverson has made the time to have websites at her two small weeklies, in your next print edition. the Chamberlain/Oacoma Sun and the Lyman County Herald. The Chamberlain • Make plans now for election night 2012. You’re already getting the results for site, www.chamberlainsun.com, has six local ads, an e-Edition, a webcam, a com- that week’s print edition. Get the key results online Tuesday night. When my wife munity calendar, an online poll and random profile pictures of its 705 Facebook and I published The Lebanon Daily Record, an afternoon paper, a decade ago in friends. And she wisely used her Lyman County site to announce a recent one-day Missouri, our goal was to get election results online before the local radio station delay in delivery of the Herald because of a blizzard. got them on the air. Halverson, too, is a believer. • You don’t have to live-stream high-school sports to have an impact online. My third category is the “fence straddlers.” After every game we covered at our last weekly, The Vandalia Leader in Missouri, Fence straddlers consider a website a necessary evil. If their state press associa- my wife and I uploaded a photo and cutline — or a brief story — about the game, tion hadn’t pushed them so hard, they never would have launched one. always mentioning that our next print edition would have a full report. The kids in Fence straddlers don’t believe they can make money from a website, so they Vandalia go to the Dairy Queen after games. Our web stats soared between 11 p.m. don’t try. (My rule of thumb: Divide the population of your town in two. That’s — when the Dairy Queen closed on Friday nights — and 1 a.m. as nearly every how much money a community newspaper can generate from its website per high-school kid in town went home and booted up a computer to see who was in month if it tries. Example: 2,000 population; $1,000 revenue.) the photo we posted online. And fence straddlers shovel the same content from their newspaper onto their The Webster County Citizen, a weekly my wife and I owned in Seymour, Mo., website, a practice that has proven to be suicidal. An Arkansas publisher I met last from 1988 to 1999, updated its website at 8:48 p.m. March 2 to announce that the year calls those “vomit sites” because the content is regurgitated. Seymour girls’ basketball team had just won its district championship. “Coverage in this week’s Citizen on sale Wednesday, March 7…” Perfect. The strategy I preach is that your website should complement your newspaper, not compete with it. News like that can’t wait for the next print edition. Nor news like this: The Navigator & Journal, a weekly that serves Albion and Grayville, Ill., posted a story Sure, you can’t help but duplicate some content. But you need to think of your on www.navigatorjournal.com at 12:18 a.m. Feb. 23 about a school-board decision website as a separate product, a complementary product with different content, as that night: “A veteran Grayville schoolteacher was terminated Wednesday night.” if you were publishing a magazine as well a newspaper. Thirteen paragraphs followed, then: “More details on Wednesday’s meeting will be Most readers of Grassroots Editor are from weekly newspapers. And weeklies published in next week’s Navigator.” Also perfect. have an advantage over dailies online, because there are six days they don’t publish Tornadoes swept through the Missouri Ozarks about 1 a.m. Feb. 29. By 5:44 in print. That’s six days where they can report the news online without worrying a.m., the weekly Buffalo Reflex had an update about the severe weather on www. about cannibalizing their print content. buffaloreflex.com: “One person has died and at least a dozen more have been The smart publisher of a weekly newspaper — a “believer” — will position his injured in Buffalo, after powerful storms ripped across the Ozarks overnight…” newspaper as a weekly in print and a daily online. One hour south and 26 minutes later, the tri-weekly Branson Tri-Lakes News Nobody does that better than my friends Brad Gentry and Jeff McNiell, pub- headlined on www.bransontrilakesnews.com: “Multiple injuries reported follow- lisher and editor of the Houston Herald, a 4,000-circulation weekly in south-cen- ing early morning storm.” tral Missouri. Its website, www.houstonherald.com, has an ever-changing block of The publishers of these newspapers are believers. breaking-news headlines in the top-middle of its home page. As I write this on a Saturday, there’s a three-paragraph report, posted at 10:47 a.m., about the sheriff’s So is publisher Paul Kosel in Groton, S.D., population 1,398, who has refined department and highway patrol “responding to a dispute where shots have been the concept of weekly in print, daily online, better than newspapers many times his fired.” No injuries reported. size. The Houston Herald understands fully what it means to protect its franchise. Kosel publishes the Groton Independent, a traditional weekly newspaper with, Besides its print and online vehicles, the Herald sends out text alerts and operates according to the South Dakota Newspaper Association directory, a print circulation an information channel on cable TV, “Texas County Today.” of 284. Gentry and McNiell also are believers in making money online. The past two He also publishes the Groton Daily Independent, an online-only daily newspa- summers, they have brought in outside help for selling banner advertising. The per that, Kosel told me a year ago, has a paid circulation of 260. results show on the Herald’s site and in its bank account. A daily email blast informs subscribers that the new edition of the Daily And in March, they became one of the first weekly newspapers in the U.S. to Independent is online. An index to the March 3 edition listed 12 topics, including institute “metered content” on a website. Readers may read 12 online articles in 30 the “City Council Agenda,” “Roncalli beats Groton in district title game” and an days without payment. Beyond that, they’ll need a monthly subscription of $1.25 ad for a local bar and grill. if they also are a print or e-Edition subscriber or $2.25 if they are a non-subscriber. Kosel has been publishing his daily online edition for more than a dozen years. Sound ambitious? Sure, especially considering that Houston’s population is only Oh, yes, there’s a competing print newspaper in town, the Groton Dakota Press, 2,038. But Gentry and McNiell are believers. which the SDNA directory says has a circulation of 323. The Dakota Press also has The Houston Herald updates its website daily. But changing the look of your a website. website even a couple times a week will increase traffic, and increased Web traffic Who says the great newspaper wars are over? — just like increased print circulation — will make it easier for you to sell advertis- Many community newspapers now use Facebook as a tool to drive readers to ing. their online and print editions. And it doesn’t take a lot of effort, even for the smallest staffs: Steve Russell, a 37-year newspaper veteran who now publishes The Mountain • Train your funeral homes to fax or email death notices to you at the same time Echo in Ironton, Mo., population 1,323, says his paper’s Facebook page has 1,927 they’re sent to the daily newspaper and radio stations. Post two sentences online fans, a number that exceeds mailed subscribers of the print edition (though not total announcing the death and when the service will be. paid circulation). • How often do you take pictures at your local school? At some weeklies, it’s “We use our FB page as much as any weekly newspaper I know, announcing every day. Always put a fresh photo online with the teaser that more photos will be breaking news and obit postings to the website as well as weather warnings and storm alerts, school closings and such,” he says.

2 grassroots editor • spring 2012

But Russell says Facebook also has its disadvantages, including providing a bigger video player, he plans to start. bigger forum for newspaper critics whose comments before were limited to the But videos contribute to the overall content on his site, which generates $50,000 local coffee shop, barber shop or beauty parlor. to $60,000 in revenue a year, almost tripling my rule of thumb for website revenue “Now these folks have an audience of nearly 2,000 people on a forum we pro- in a town New Hampton’s size. vide for them free of charge,” he says. “For the paper, it’s a no-win situation.” “It’s content,” Stanley says, explaining his success in driving online revenue. “If An example: Russell’s small staff covered two local festivals on the same week- you don’t put anything on (your website), why is anybody going to advertise on end, taking more than 100 pictures. Eighteen photos were published in the news- it?” paper, and 75 were uploaded to photo galleries on www.myironcountynews.com. And, even if he doesn’t make money directly from video, “I figure if I’m not The photo galleries were promoted on Facebook, which prompted a comment that doing it, somebody else is. I want to shut that door.” the previous editor would have run 75 photos in the print edition. Stanley isn’t alone in emphasizing high-school sports on his website. The “Within a few hours over 20 others had replied with everyone taking the side of Gazette-Democrat, a weekly published by ISWNE member Jerry Reppert in Anna, the complainer.” Ill., partners with a local radio station to broadcast Anna-Jonesboro Wildcat sports Steve Bonspiel, an ISWNE member who publishes The Eastern Door, a through www.annanews.com. The partnership expands the post-sunset reach of the weekly that serves the Mohawk community of Kahnawake in Quebec, frequently radio station’s game coverage. Past broadcasts are archived online for later listen- poses questions to his Facebook fans. ing. The evening of Feb. 29, Bonspiel asked: “Anyone have any editorial ideas for The People’s Tribune, a free, regional weekly in Bowling Green, Mo., and a this week? I’m kind of stuck and am raring to write.” former competitor of mine, takes that a step further, using its own announcing team Within two hours, he had 17 responses. to broadcast play-by-play of high-school games on www.thepeoplestribune.com in The next morning, I asked Bonspiel if he was going to use one of the suggested competition with local radio stations. “TribCast” sells its own commercials, also in topics. competition with local radio. “Possibly,” he replied, adding that, on deadline day with five hours to go, he still Which brings us back to the Batesville Daily Guard’s Ross Jones, who has live- hadn’t settled on an editorial subject. “But I will come through.” streamed Batesville High School football games online for three full seasons after a one-game test the year before. Believers know that video is another way for a website for a community newspaper to complement, rather than compete with, its print edition. As could be expected in the town of 9,400, the local radio station hasn’t been happy with the newspaper’s webcasts. And Jones says the school claims the live- General manager Ron Schott of The Vandalia Leader, a Missouri weekly my streaming reduces the draw at the game, though Jones thinks higher gas prices are wife and I owned from 2003 to 2007, posted video of all five candidates for state a contributing factor. representative introducing themselves at a forum two years ago. He also uploaded an audio recording of the entire forum. And, of course, he had a front-page story in “Our argument, of course, is that it gives people who can’t come the opportu- the following week’s print edition of The Leader. nity to see it.” I met Paul Keane, publisher of The Wayne County News, a 4,000-circulation The two announcers — staunch fans of Pioneer football — work the games free, weekly in Waynesboro, Miss., when I spoke to the Mississippi Press Association a Jones says. The four-person crew includes Jones, his wife and their 14-year-old few years ago. During football and basketball seasons, Keane’s website, www. son. The live-streaming is handled through the online service Ustream. “We’re thewaynecountynews.com, showcases “The Ticket,” a five-minute daily sports comfortably obsolete in our equipment,” Jones says with a laugh. show with a different, regular topic — “Plays of the Week,” “Practice Report,” etc. Commercials run during timeouts and at halftime. Advertisers are featured in the — each day. Keane told me The Ticket generated thousands of dollars of new lower corners of the screen and at the top, identifying the quarter and down. Jones revenue for his newspaper. says the Daily Guard sells four quarter sponsors, two half sponsors and one full- Few weekly-newspaper websites do more with video than the New Hampton game sponsor. Tribune, a 2,450-circulation twice-weekly in a northern Iowa town of 3,571. “We’re more or less breaking even,” Jones says. “We all do it for the challenge “I think we probably did 300 (videos) last year,” publisher Dave Stanley, of doing it.” another believer, says. “Anything from presidential candidates to fires to motor- But the newspaper does generate subscription revenue from its paywall. Stories vehicle accidents to sporting events — state wrestling, cross country, golf, track are teased with two or three free paragraphs; it costs $7.50 a month to read more. — basically any place we can take a video camera.” Besides football, www.guardonline.com has live-streamed concerts, though What makes a good video for a weekly-newspaper website? Jones is planning a multi-camera recording of an upcoming high-school band “Something people are interested in,” Stanley says. “In the case of sports events, concert. sometimes people can’t get there.” He also has uploaded 911 tapes with photos that match the action. “It really He recalls the thank-you calls he received from all over the country after he gives you a human face to the police department.” posted video of a local sports hall of fame induction ceremony. Jones understands how a website can complement a print newspaper. High-school wrestling is a big sport in Iowa. Stanley recently shot 35 videos in “People need to be fed the information,” he says. “They don’t want to work as four days at the state wrestling meet for www.nhtrib.com. hard as reading it anymore.” In the previous town where Stanley was a publisher, the high-school prom staged a “grand march,” where the 100 couples were introduced as they walked Gary Sosniecki, a 30-year ISWNE member, owned three weekly newspapers and down the same aisle in their finery. Stanley mounted a tripod and shot video of the published a small daily in Missouri during a 34-year newspaper career that also march, pausing between couples, then editing it into three to four segments of 10 included jobs in Tennessee, Illinois and Kansas. He currently is a regional sales minutes each. He also shot still photos. manager for a website vendor, specializing in weekly newspapers. Sosniecki con- Stanley says it’s hard to measure whether he makes money from his online ducts convention programs and workshops to press associations on community videos — he doesn’t sell sponsorships — but when his new site launches, with a newspapers and the Internet. He may be contacted at [email protected].

3 grassroots editor • spring 2012 15 favorite tips for a profitable website By Gary Sosniecki an opportunity you never had in print — to see how many people read each ad. Take advantage of that knowledge to help your advertisers succeed. Here are my 15 favorite tips for a profitable website: 10. Complement your newspaper, don’t compete with it. You can duplicate some 1. Believe in your site. Enthusiasm is contagious. With a positive attitude and a content safely with minimal impact on your print circulation, but also use your solid plan, you’re halfway home. site for supplemental material: extra photos of school events, news releases from the extension service, video clips from basketball games, columns from your state 2. Protect your franchise. If you don’t take the lead on the Internet in your town, legislators, sermons from local preachers. Which brings me to… someone else will. Anyone you’ve ticked off with a news story — or anyone who thinks you’re making too much money — can start a website in competition with 11. Keep it current. News updates generate more traffic, which helps your adver- you for a few hundred dollars. And national news aggregators like Topix, American tisers. Breaking news is what sets your website apart from your print product. Even Towns and others already have websites in your town, maybe even using your own the smallest weekly newspaper, with minimal effort, can post some breaking news news to compete with you. between print editions to keep readers coming back: death notices, school sports, extreme weather, school closings, boil orders, election results. Make your weekly 3. Know your market. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all technology. Just because paper a daily paper online. something worked for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. Be flexible, be creative, and don’t be afraid to experiment with your website. 12. Be the “You Tube” of your town. Credit this tip to the Grand Island Inde- pendent’s Jack Sheard, who gave a great presentation on online video at the 2008 4. Bigger is better: Use IAB ad sizes. If you sold ads in the 1980s, you remember National Newspaper Association convention. Jack’s suggestions for video subjects when newspapers adopted Standard Advertising Units (SAU) to make it easier for include news events, weather, sports, press conferences, band concerts, gradua- advertisers to place ads in multiple newspapers. The same standardization in ad tions, parades, festivals and other school events. sizes has come to online, with the same goal. And the ad sizes recommended by the Interactive Advertising Bureau are bigger than what were common on newspaper 13. Think outside the box, even if we don’t know the size of the Internet box yet. Web sites a decade ago. The bigger sizes are more effective for your advertisers. Who is to say that the next great idea for making money with newspaper websites won’t come from you? 5. If you want to sell online ads, keep enough free content to lure readers. To paraphrase a speaker I heard a couple of years ago, if you’re going to hook readers, 14. Promote, promote, promote. Never miss a chance to promote your website have some bait on that hook. And if you’re going to hook advertisers, you need in your newspaper, and vice versa. Keep a supply of ready-made house ads — from some readers. If you insist on locking down your site, don’t lock down so much 1x1 fillers to full-page road maps of your site’s features — and run them frequently. that you invite free competitors. Include your domain in folio lines, Yellow Page ads and billboards. The Advance- Monticellonian in Monticello, Ark., displays its website on a big-screen TV visible 6. Make them click it. Impressions are good, clickthrus are better. Top-of-mind to customers who visit its office. awareness is great, but when a reader clicks on a banner ad, it’s like walking through the front door of the advertiser’s business. Create that “urge to click” in 15. You paid for it, use it. Don’t waste the features built into your site. I hate your banner ads. Best example I’ve seen was for a car dealer in Alberta: “Shop in when newspapers don’t use their online poll. A good local poll question, changed your underwear! Search our site now.” Irresistible! every week, is a great way to build traffic to your site. If you can’t think of a poll question, use this one courtesy of David Keller of the Morgan County Herald, Mc- 7. Appeal to young decision-makers. They “get it.” Sometimes you’re selling to Connelsville, Ohio: “Coke” or “Pepsi.” Here’s another: “Ginger” or “Mary Ann.” young people who, unfortunately, don’t believe in newspapers as much as we do. Make sure you ask about online. 8. Sell after the sale. Online traffic reports reinforce to your advertiser how smart Gary Sosniecki, a 30-year ISWNE member, owned three weekly newspapers and he or she is for buying with you. They also make you look like the Internet expert published a small daily in Missouri during a 34-year newspaper career that also in your community. Make sure your advertisers get online traffic reports monthly. included jobs in Tennessee, Illinois and Kansas. He currently is a regional sales manager for a website vendor, specializing in weekly newspapers. Sosniecki con- 9. Monitor performance. Tweak before the customer tells you to. If the advertiser ducts convention programs and workshops to press associations on community isn’t getting acceptable traffic — see No. 8 — change the ad. Online stats give you newspapers and the Internet. He may be contacted at [email protected]. Paid or metered website access: What others are saying By Bruce Valpy cess to our PDFs week in and week out as well as our HTML stories before street Managing editor publication. Northern News Services Ltd. Everything we do goes on the Web in one fashion or another and we release Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada stories to Google within 24 hours of street publication. As someone pointed out, www.nnsl.com Google generally distributes single stories as opposed to a complete news package so it has not eroded the integrity of either our paid online or street sales. Editor’s note: Bruce Valpy’s comments appeared in a recent ISWNE Hotline discus- We send out headlines for every paper and provide them for free and have many sion about weekly newspapers charging for access to their websites. other free products on our webpage including news briefs, picture slideshows, all our specials (with paid links) and specialty pages. There are many flashy options for Northern News Services has had a subscription service since 1996. It has worked PDF publication but they can be fickle. We have found the bare Adobe product is out very well, generating significant revenue. Our experience has been rather than much easier to navigate (like a newspaper) and of course cheaper which is always hurting newsstand sales, we have a loyal and solid online audience that wants ac- nice. We don’t have a mobile app yet but our webpage displays nice on the various pads.

4 grassroots editor • spring 2012 Metered content online is an answer By Eric Meyer online access nearly a decade ago. Over the years, they have experimented with and gradually introduced numerous tweaks in an attempt to perfect their formula. For decades, the newspaper industry clamored to escape what it and market The results are clear: Metered content online isn’t the answer, but it is an answer analysts viewed as an outdated manufacturing model. — and it can be an important answer if executed well. Scarce natural resources and massive amounts of labor were poured into dirty, Step 1 is to assess how and why people use — and, more important, routinely temperamental and ever-more-costly machines, creating at minimal cost to con- come back to — your product. sumers a physical product delivered with skyrocketing costs and plunging reliabil- The economy of the news business long has been based not on the value of ity by the vagaries of a disintegrating Postal Service and small armies of impossi- individual news stories but rather on readers’ expectation that they will discover, ble-to-manage carriers. with the least effort possible, something of at least minimal interest whenever and In the Internet the industry thought it had found its savior — only to quickly however they access a publication. learn that salvation comes at a price. Freed of many of the costs of physically pro- Business types call it aggregation; it’s one of the underpinnings of Google’s ducing and distributing its product, the industry no longer could command its empire. Pointy-headed media researchers call it the Theory of Predictable customary share of advertising dollars within the online segment of the market. Efficiency, an offshoot of various consumer psychology and design theories. Instead, all but a few pennies were snatched up by hosting and design firms that Despite the clamor that online is the industry’s future, in almost every real-world performed most of the heavy lifting needed to deliver advertisers’ full messages to scenario, online is a non-preferred alternative to traditional delivery. their potential customers. Among all news consumers, the gap between the percentage exposed to a All the newspaper industry could provide was a referral service — and not a medium and the percentage who consult it every day is almost twice as large for very good one at that. Ad networks and nouveau-riche sharpshooters like Google online news as it is for printed news — 27 percentage points for print vs. 50 per- provided rifle-shot demographics, specifically gauging consumer willingness to centage points online. buy, while the typical newspaper was left using little more than a scattergun, While a typical news consumer spends as much as 20 minutes reading a single blindly aiming at everyone while targeting no one. In an increasingly diverse soci- issue in print, she or he spends less than 7 minutes reading a whole month’s worth ety, it was a suicidal weakness. of issues online. It took most of a decade and a precipitous decline in circulation and advertising, Even so-called Digital Natives — young people who cannot recall a time when concurrent with over-leveraged ownership, for major metropolitan newspapers to computers were not part of their lives — invariably click “print” whenever they realize that charging for content online, just as news organizations do in print, find large amounts of text they seek online. would be the latest in a series of silver bullets fired into the rampaging beast of change that for decades has tormented the industry. Print has numerous advantages over online, only some of which will go away with the eventual perfection of tablet computers. However, just as a 1948 prophecy to my father’s journalism classes — that newspapers would cease to exist within 10 years, replaced by facsimile — proved Print offers a much larger field of vision, extremely important to the casual false, so too is it ridiculous to presume that paid models for online news content information browsers who form an estimated 98.5 percent of the audience for news. will stop the beast. If modern entry-point design and such tools as alternative story forms are employed instead of filling all that space with unwelcoming text, print offers more lures and Paid access nonetheless is one of a range of small ideas worth trying as the can, with some thought, be much more efficient for readers to skim. industry seeks to establish a new and viable, albeit much more complicated, economic model. Print also is “pushed” at readers, meaning it injects itself into daily routines by arriving on doorsteps, in mailboxes or on newsstands readers regularly pass by. The industry’s big boys, now beginning their experimentation with so-called pay Online has to be “pulled” in; readers must intentionally choose to consult a spe- walls and metered content, would be well advised to look to their country cousins cific website, typing in its address or clicking on its bookmark. for advice. Print offers higher resolution and navigation that is more intuitive. Pick up your Just as community newspapers were among the first to adopt cold type, offset favorite newspaper, close your eyes and try to find the most important sports story printing, pagination and outsourced printing, so too are they in the vanguard of of the day without looking. Try doing the same with your favorite newspaper’s news organizations that are beginning to understand that being professional in website. journalism, as in any field, requires being paid for your work. All these factors and more need to be understood if a publisher hopes to induce Salary negotiations are tricky to say the least. Never have consumers been will- a habit worthy of earning readers’ hard-earned money. Google and others have long ing to pay much for general news and information. Cable and satellite bills itemize understood this. They provide tools that “push” news at readers while the readers all manner of entertainment and “reality” channels but never break out news chan- tend to routine tasks such as searching or checking e-mail. Google’s design is nels as a separate charge. Adjusted for inflation, even a penny-press newspaper predictably but deceptively simple, adding to a very plain layout very sophisticated from 1830 would cost $2.02 today. Indeed, 10 pounds of printed newspaper costs search and aggregation tools to ensure readers will believe they always will get considerably less than 10 pounds of blank newsprint — or, for that matter, 10 something of at least minimal value in exchange for minimal effort. pounds of toilet paper. In a purely economic sense, adding news diminishes paper’s value. A decade or so ago, newspapers could have created similar tools. Now, however, they need to do whatever they can to improve “push” and design factors before Still, negotiations can be managed successfully — especially at newspapers that considering charging. do something the big boys cannot: provide news about a specific, relatively unified geographic community rather than a fractiously diverse metropolitan area. Instead of featuring a predetermined block of headlines, my weeklies — the Marion County Record, Hillsboro Star-Journal and Peabody Gazette-Bulletin — The three Kansas weeklies that I publish, which I regard somewhat as a real- use main-menu space to display a list of most-read stories. One of the primary world laboratory for my day job as a journalism professor, began charging for reasons readers consult a community newspaper is to ensure that they know about

5 grassroots editor • spring 2012 whatever their neighbors and coworkers will be talking about. Giving them the that allows them to pay for access with a credit card. Login information is a com- ability to know what other readers are reading increases the predictable efficiency bination of the customer’s serial number in the papers’ subscriber database and the of the site. customer’s ZIP+4 postal code. This enables the papers to use the same circulation All three papers use a common and very simple design. While the design seems management software to update both print and online subscriber lists. nowhere near as glitzy as what many other newspapers use, it employs fairly Before switching to a pay system in 2002, the papers required registration but sophisticated Web 2.0 AJAX techniques to present everything on a single page, not payment. A real-time, main-page “guest book,” displaying for all to see the reusing space rather than forcing readers to load separate pages and navigate unfa- most recent readers by name, broke down resistance and encouraged registration. miliar space. While most sites are redesigned as frequently as TV shows come and More important, the data collected provided meaningful clues about who was using go on Saturday nights, these websites have intentionally remained predictably the the site and their possible reasons for doing so. same with only minor enhancements. As might be surmised, a great number of online readers were either distant mail To facilitate “push” readership, the sites include a main-page form that allows subscribers, using the site to avoid frustrating postal delays, or readers who sub- all readers — paying or otherwise — to sign up to receive links to and headlines scribed at home but were checking the site from work, often from offices far out of for all stories and the first two paragraphs of most featured stories by e-mail when- town. For them, web access was merely a way to extend the print newspapers’ ever the site is updated. The same programming that generates the automatic timely reach. At the same time, the papers discovered that they were losing print e-mails also posts highlights on the papers’ Facebook page, with more than 1,000 subscribers in distant areas because of postal delays. By making online access free friends, and tweets them on Twitter. to all print subscribers, the newspapers were able to shore up postal losses and add The site eschews horizontal banner ads that adorn the top of most newspapers’ value to print subscriptions, especially among a growing demographic of people web pages — in part to reduce clutter and in part because research indicates that commuting to work outside the papers’ local sales territory. the top of the page is the least efficient ad position. Readers are not stupid. They Establishing a price point for others who might seek online-only access was the come to a site for a reason. They are not going to be persuaded to go somewhere next challenge. Again, propriety research indicated that readers typically were will- else before they have satisfied whatever curiosity brought them there in the first ing to pay about half what they paid for a print newspaper. With print subscriptions place. The most effective ad positions — up to eight times more effective — are selling for $39, $44 and $49, depending on the distance from the home community, those seen after initial consumption of news content. Thus, the three papers display an initial price point of $20 was established. It later was raised to $25 with no their ads at right and keep them on the screen at all times so that whenever readers noticeable impact. satisfy their initial curiosity, the ads will be there to interest them. The ads, like the No direct links to individual stories exist nor can they be discerned from the site itself, also make extensive use of AJAX and animation techniques to reuse site’s main menu, Moreover, user IDs are combined with hidden information about space within them. the computer used. The site’s custom software forces intentionally annoying re- Multimedia — the silver bullet that was fired just before metered access became registration anytime a user changes computers. Although the pay wall and metering en vogue — also is eschewed. Research indicates readers love to look at kittens’ could be defeated as easily as can a typical newspaper vending box, these features antics on YouTube but consult multimedia for news relatively rarely. Journalists act as deterrents to unauthorized sharing of paid access. and a handful of news junkies like it. Most readers are like Joe Friday: Just the facts, To facilitate sampling, a special “share” button is available at the bottom of each ma’am. story. It creates a permanent, direct URL so that readers may share an individual Some things were not ignored, however. The sites possess a sophisticated, real- story with others. In addition, 16 sharing links to various social media sites are time weather page and even flash an automatic alert at the top of their main pages offered on the “share” page. A special house ad appears on all shared pages encour- whenever severe weather threatens — something of particular value in the papers’ aging readers to “go straight to the source” and subscribe. home state of Kansas. All shared stories are available free, without metering. So too are all links that The sites also make aggressive use of breaking news updates but are careful not the sites provide via automated “pings,” site indexes and RSS feeds to leading to scoop print editions. Breaking news is posted when it is assumed most readers search and aggregation engines (primarily Google, Bing and Topix.net). The idea will hear that something has happened and wonder what it was. Enterprise stories is to use the tools of search engine optimization, or SEO, to cast as wide and free a are rarely treated as breaking news, except when public safety is at issue. Routine net as possible and never create a situation in which Mom and Dad send Grandma material is never posted as it becomes available. The papers do not want to discour- a link about Junior’s sports heroics only to find that Grandma is pay-walled out of age the habit of checking for such things in print or when a full online update occurs the site. Once on the sites, however, if Grandma tries to read the rest of any of the each week. papers, she falls within the metering, which is designed to impact habitual use only. The sites also employ a highly readable typography reminiscent of print — a Also behind the pay-wall is access to full PDFs of each print issue. The papers serifed Roman body type in a justified column of optimal width. investigated interactive page-turning Flash animations that mimic the look, feel and With the design facilitating efficient, casual information browsing, the next task even sound of print readership but found these even less popular than PDFs, which was to determine why people would buy online access and what their purchases are accessed by only 1.3 percent of paying readers. A more popular feature also might do to sales in print. kept behind the pay-wall is the ability to search the past 10 or so years of newspaper Proprietary research I performed while operating a worldwide news site that I archives. established and later sold indicated that 80 percent of site visitors were there just Results of this approach are told in nearly a decade of data about site usage and for a single piece of content. They had no reason to even consider returning. The print and online subscription sales. remaining 20 percent were equally divided into two groups — those trying out the Although erecting a pay wall — metered or otherwise — might be expected to site as a sampler, either for the print version or the online version itself, and those reduce traffic, charted site traffic shows no change in the slope of the site’s growth using it primarily because it was cheaper than paying for a subscription in print. when it switched from free to pay. Moreover, in the first year after a series of The question was how to turn the second group into paying readers while not improvements were made in 2009 to increase the site’s design efficiency, the num- disturbing the value the site possessed as an introductory version of the base prod- ber of unique human visitors grew by 300 percent, the number of human visits uct. Metered access was the obvious answer. The sites require browser cookies and grew by 530 percent and the average number of visits monthly grew from less than set one that counts the number of visits and the number of stories read. After three two to more than three. visits and 10 stories — numbers that change periodically lest cheaters get too used During that period, a fair number of online-only subscriptions were sold; in total, to them — they insist that readers log in as paying customers and display a form they now account for 3.2 percent of all subscriptions. More important, print sub-

6 grassroots editor • spring 2012 scriptions, bundled with online access, increased 9.9 percent during that period, a according to two independent firms that independently analyze such data. My three time of severe circulation losses at most papers. weeklies rank No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4 on those lists. A whopping 88.4 percent of site traffic now arrives via bookmarks or direct Not every paper is likely to achieve the same results, of course. Our push to entry of the sites’ URLs in a browser “location” field; 7.3 percent arrives via search generate paying readers online was part of an overall strategy to make our papers engines and 4.1 percent via aggregators or other jump stations. The amount of time worth paying for. Depending on how one counts staff members, the news staff at the typical user spends on the site now approaches 28 minutes a month — four the three weeklies is three to four times the size of their advertising staff. Each news times the 7 minutes that the typical reader spends on an average daily newspaper’s staffer is expected to create multiple enterprising news-features, not based on meet- website, even though it has far more issues per month. ings or events, each week, and the papers operate under a no-overset rule, meaning Overall, these findings strongly suggest that a carefully implemented plan for they will routinely go up pages to accommodate news even if advertising support metered access can not only monetize site traffic but also increase a site’s ability to is not present. Canned news releases are never used in special sections; if the papers attract habitual readers and enhance rather than cannibalize print subscription rev- cannot create original, compelling editorial matter, they will not attempt to sell a enue. section. In terms of the newspapers’ reach, the results have been even more impressive. Technical and marketing insights may help, but ultimately what makes pay- Last month, my three newspapers served about 15,000 readers in print, assuming a walls work is that you have content that is unique and worth paying for behind the standard pass-around rate — an impressive number if you consider that their prime wall. circulation territory is a county with only 12,000 residents. More impressive are the numbers served online. Independent analysis of server Eric Meyer ([email protected]), a veteran of 18 years as a news, photo and logs indicates that papers are reaching much larger and ever-increasing numbers graphics editor at the Milwaukee Journal, is a tenured associate professor of jour- online: 15,716 different human users in December, 22,840 in January and 37,790 nalism at the University of Illinois in addition to serving as president of Hoch in February. Publishing Co. Inc. in Marion, Kan., and publisher of its three weeklies. His father, Most impressive is that all this has happened despite the fact that the three papers the late Bill Meyer, won the Eugene Cervi Award in 2002. face very stiff competition from a very good total-market-coverage weekly distrib- • Marion County Record: http://marionrecord.com/ uted free to every household in the county the papers serve. The competitor’s free • Hillsboro Star-Journal: http://starj.com/ website — also very nice — ranks as the county’s third most visited news site • Peabody Gazette-Bulletin: http://peabodykansas.com/ Paid or metered website access: What others are saying By John Stevenson With our redesign, recognizing that our numbers would drop precipitously if we Editor and publisher put our site behind a paywall, we kept the site free and utilized improved technol- The Randolph Leader ogy to add features not available to the print edition such as video and photo gal- Roanoke, Alabama leries and online yellow pages, in which we also sell advertising. This keeps traffic TheRandolphLeader.com strong and advertisers happy. We still provide complete local sports and obits and selected news stories, but on longer news stories that run in our print edition now Editor’s note: John Stevenson’s comments appeared in a recent ISWNE Hotline we usually give only a portion of the story online and end it with the line “For more discussion about weekly newspapers charging for access to their websites. of this story see the March 21 issue of The Randolph Leader.” Then they have the option of buying a paper from a news rack or clicking on the e-edition icon and providing credit card information to get instant access. Our first website was completely free, but we had the foresight not to put everything online that was in the print edition. Instead we gave selected news stories Technology has made the e-edition a valuable buy, even for print subscribers. — published on the Web before our weekly print edition came out if we deemed In addition to page-turn features, stories break to the proper page with the click of the story’s immediacy and newsworthiness sufficient — along with complete local a button and the entire paper is key word searchable. Photos that run in grayscale sports stories and obituaries. (We don’t charge for obits so we get nearly all obits in the print edition are in color in the e-edition. Complete past issues are archived that involve people with any type of local connection. Rather than being just a his- and can be recalled. In addition, an archive search for specific stories can be done torical document as was often the case with our weekly paper, people visit our free using key words. site every day to learn who died and when visitation and services would be.) We Print subscribers pay $29 a year in county, $39 elsewhere. sold advertising on our free site based on our strong number of monthly visitors and E-edition subscribers pay $29 a year anywhere. page views for the rural area in which we are located. We have never put commu- Those who want both add $10 to the appropriate print subscription rate. nity news, general school news, and other “refrigerator”-type news on our free site.

7 grassroots editor • spring 2012 A radical thought: Ask folks to pay for the news they’re reading

By Tim L. Waltner included the nagging concern of profitability. We started out with a handful of banner ads, a paid business listing. Hosting sev- Should newspapers charge for access to online news? eral local sites, including the city, chamber of commerce and development corpora- That question has been floating out there since newspapers began seeing the tion, provided revenue for us to help cover our costs. In fact, it was the extension of explosion of information on the Web and feeling the need to embrace the emerging that “information portal for our communities” that Marc Wilson had been preach- technology. ing that prompted me to approach those community entities and offer to provide them an online presence. The prevailing conventional wisdom early on was that news should be free — that people won’t pay for online news. But after looking at how that There were several dynamics at work in our decision to host the city/develop- worked in our situation, we went against that popular thinking. We con- ment corporation/chamber/organization websites. It was a way to protect our role cluded that model didn’t fit our operation and in 2003 we limited full ac- as the information source for the community and advertising/sponsorship revenue cess to our online news to only subscribers. It’s been interesting to watch over to support that. It was a natural extension of the services we provide to our com- the past decade that more and more newspapers have come to see it our way. munity. It was a new version of the job printing services newspapers had used to supplement their operations over the years. It gave us a presence as a partner seeking to assist other entities in the community. And the fees we charge for those ser- * * * vices have provided more than half the revenue for our online presence. The Freeman Courier, a small rural weekly newspaper in rural South Dakota — With our new, revamped and expanded site up and running, we felt pretty good. circulation 1,500 — launched its online presence with a very basic website in the People told us they like our online presence. late 1990s. It was essentially an experiment, a novelty, a project that enlisted the IT services of my daughter’s college classmate. What got our attention, however, was the number of people who proudly told me they had dropped their paid subscriptions because they could now read us online But it was in 1999 when Marc Wilson and I met as presenters at a “newspaper for free. boot camp” for Montana publishers and editors that I came to see an online edition as an important extension of our print product. I was there to talk about the role of a Most were out of state and, I’m sure, frustrated by the erratic postal delivery and newspaper in the community and Marc was there to talk about the emerging online happy to avoid the delay in getting their local news. But the point was clear; they potential for newspapers. had stopped paying for the news we were providing. Marc is a former weekly newspaper publisher who, in 1989, helped start a com- Putting it another way, not only were we not getting paid for the news pany (today TownNews.com) to assist newspapers with developing technology. Its they were reading, we were actually losing revenue. Given our circum- focus became online support and his presentation changed my mind. He helped me stances — limited opportunity for online advertising revenue and the loss see that having an online presence was, in fact, part of the role a newspaper should of paid print subscribers — we decided to seriously look at all our options. play in the community. The phrase that resonated with me was Marc’s challenge that “we need to be the * * * information portal for our communities.” It made perfect sense; that’s what com- Historically, newspapers have relied on three revenue sources — advertising, munity newspapers have been for centuries as print products. I accepted Marc’s subscriptions and related services like job printing. For the Freeman Courier, like challenge that if we are going to serve our communities, we need to protect and many smaller papers in recent decades, advertising and subscription revenue have maintain that role as we adapt to emerging technology. become the core revenue stream. And very quickly, with that background, I strug- We made a commitment to provide a stronger online presence for our commu- gled to see exactly how our online edition would fit into a profitable business plan. nity. The mantra I was hearing from publishers with far more experience and ex- We contracted with Marc’s company to create a totally new Freeman Courier pertise than me was that you can’t charge readers for online news. That meant the website and significantly expanded our online presence and what we made avail- revenue stream for our online edition would be either supplemented by our print able to our online readers. product or by online advertising — or a combination of both. We posted about a dozen news, feature and sports stories, obituaries, our edito- And the more I looked at that reality, the stronger I felt that we just don’t fit the rial page content and several photos as an online version of our print product every “give it away free” model that seemingly everyone was following blindly. week. We provided sports updates, election results and the occasional “breaking We didn’t have the traffic to provide significant revenue from national advertis- news” throughout the week. We added links to a wide range of local, regional and ers. We had few local businesses that had established a significant online presence national sites of interest to our readers. that translated to online advertising on our site. And we chose the address “freemansd.com” to reflect the community-focused For rural communities like ours, with a shrinking retail sector and declining nature of our presence — in the words of Marc Wilson — the “information portal” population, maintaining advertising revenue for our print products is a growing for the Freeman community. challenge. I feared the advertising dollars would shift rather than grow if we aggres- While the underlying mission was obvious — to serve our readers’ desire for sively pushed them to use online ads. information about their community — the direction of that emerging technology And the more I looked at our situation and all the dynamics at play, I concluded would take both us and our readers was less clear. And from the beginning, that has we should move to a paid model for our online news.

8 grassroots editor • spring 2012

Conventional wisdom said that it wouldn’t work. Conventional wisdom said There is no question that our print product continues to be our primary vehicle people wouldn’t pay for online content. But, I reasoned, we have a franchise on the for news. But the fact that our print subscribers have online access gives them the news of interest to the people with ties to Freeman — whether they live in the area best of both worlds. And it positions us to be able adapt as technology and readers’ or 1,000 miles away. We’ve invested our resources in producing a new custom- habits evolve. made product every week to a unique niche market. There is value to that news. We Our print subscription list continues to decline. We’re down about 10 percent don’t provide the news in our print product free to readers. Why should we provide from 2003; that largely reflects the loss of population in our readership area. Our the news in our online product free to readers? rural counties are among the 41 of the 66 South Dakota counties that saw a decline I was also troubled by the fact that we were giving away our online news thanks in population in the 2010 Census. Our population is aging as well and that poses a to people who are paying for it by subscribing to our paper or advertising in it. We challenge. The overwhelming majority of our readers wants print and don’t much concluded it’s unfair to us, our readers and our advertisers to simply put the news care about online access. Our younger readers, while they continue to want the (that others are paying for) online free for anyone to take. print product, also want to read online. That’s why we’re planning the next steps, That’s what we told our readers in a column that I wrote for our editorial page in which include an e-edition. Another dynamic is the growing problems and cost of September 2003, a month before we made the change. mail delivery, which makes e-editions increasingly attractive, particularly for our In part, I said “After providing online news at no charge for three years, we’ve out-of-state-subscribers. concluded that in fairness to those of you who are subscribers, we need to convert We’re taking a deliberate approach in launching our e-edition as we explore how the news and opinion site to a subscriber site. that will change our online site and how we adapt it to best serve our community. “It won’t cost those of you who are subscribers an extra cent to read the news * * * online if you choose — and we know many of you do. Our decision to go with a paid site in 2003 prompted as much discussion from “But, we’ve been asking ourselves in recent months, why should those who my newspaper colleagues as it did from our readers. I was stirring up the waters and don’t pay read online for free? I was clearly in the minority. And as a small weekly newspaper publisher, I lacked “The truth is, of course, that no one reads for free; someone is paying for it. the big picture experience of the overwhelming majority of my fellow newspaper publishers and editors who were preaching, “you can’t charge for news.” “And we believe we should not have to increase the subscription rates of print subscribers just so others can read for free.” Although my decision went counter to the advice of the folks at TownNews.com in 2003, they worked with me in changing portions of the site to require a password We began promoting the upcoming change both in print and online. and in setting up a registration form to allow subscribers to log in. They also helped We explained that: set up an online subscription form and credit card payment system. • The main page would remain free and offer headlines and short news capsules. It was a new venture for both of us and it went remarkably smooth. • Most of the site, including banner and classified ads, our business directory, Other than several redesigns and the addition of a few additional features over community links and the city/development site would remain free. the year — for example, we now offer our print advertisers the option of running • The news — including expanded news updates — and opinion pages would their display ads as “featured ads” in our online edition and we now have a photo require a password. gallery (both are free) — our paid site has functioned pretty much the same as it has • Every print subscriber would receive a unique user ID and password that would since we launched it in 2003. provide access to the paid portion of the site. But the conversation in the industry has changed dramatically in the nine years • An online-only subscription was available at about half the cost of a print sub- since we launched our paid online edition. A growing number of newspapers scription. have moved to a paid model. And in addition to changes in reader experiences • Readers could now subscribe (either for print or online-only) using an online and expectations the emergence of new technology — e-editions, tablets and smart form and credit card. phones, for example — is also changing the dynamic. And on Oct. 15, 2003, we made the change. From the start, I told people that we made a business decision that worked for us when decided to establish a paid site. It has protected and bolstered our print We had a few questions from readers before the change. We had a few questions subscription list. We feel we are being fair to our subscribers and our advertisers by from readers after the change. We were surprised how little criticism we heard. not asking them to subsidize a free news site. Several people told us they felt we made the right choice. Some even told us they wondered why we waited so long to make the change. There were a couple of criti- I’ve also said from the start that I don’t think there is a one-size fits all model cal letters and emails. We responded to every one, explaining our rationale. for how newspapers provide online services to their readers. And, as it is with any successful venture, a willingness to adapt is essential. Newspapers have a long- In the three months after we went from free to paid, we picked up 71 new print standing and proud tradition of offering consistency, credibility and a connected- subscribers and 14 online-only subscribers. We viewed the bump in subscriptions ness with the communities they serve. shortly after we went “paid” as an indication that people had been reading it for free and thus had let their subscriptions lapse. It confirmed our suspicions that we In today’s glut of information on multiple platforms, that consistency, credibil- were heading down the wrong path if we continued to give our news away and it ity and connectedness is valuable currency. I’m pleased that a growing number of affirmed our decision to go with a subscription model. people have recognized that it’s too valuable to simply give it away. And we now knew that all those who were reading our news stories had paid for the privilege. Tim L. Waltner is publisher of the Freeman (S.D.) Courier. He began his newspaper The numbers since that time have been relatively stable. In recent years, we’ve career with the Courier as news editor in 1973. He purchased the weekly in 1984. been averaging about 30 online-only subscribers. Interestingly, about a third of He can be contacted at [email protected]. those who start online-only end up converting to print (which includes online).

9 grassroots editor • spring 2012 We adopted the Internet — and now they won’t let us give it back! Lighthouse Publishing’s adventures in the online revenue game By Lynn Hennigar They had to carry at least two cameras and struggled with when to shoot video, when to shoot stills and how not to miss the story while figuring it all out. Now Lighthouse Publishing was an early Internet adopter. Every seminar I went to our reporters are trained in how and when to shoot video and all have been given a was telling us we had to be online — no one was clear as to why or how, but all Canon Powershot SX20 IS. were adamant that an online presence was essential to our survival as a newspaper. Everything we have added to our site was first someone’s great idea and then So off we went and started our first website. That site has since morphed into our was incorporated through trial and error. Over the years we have initiated a num- signature site, southshorenow.ca. ber of video features including a weekly video news update, a sports panel and a Our industry wage scale and small-town location prevent us from “buying” a women’s issues show. We have a business directory with classifieds; a social media website by hiring highly experienced website gurus. There’s no cappuccino ma- component, southshorelive.ca; a news archive that goes back to 1999; and an ar- chine next to a foosball table in our office. But we have found ways to innovate. chive of our videos as well. Some ideas failed and some, such as our e-newsletters, succeeded. We offer a weekly news update, a weekly entertainment update and, of Lighthouse’s philosophy for our website is pretty much the same for all things — course, special breaking news alerts to subscribers who sign up for our newsletter play, have fun, don’t be afraid to fail and, above all, be ready to take on a challenge. services. We have over 2,500 subscribers to date. We embrace change. Lighthouse has a wonderful team of people and we work very hard to keep them. Fortunately, the South Shore of Nova Scotia offers a great Where’s the money? Lighthouse was incredibly lucky to find an advertiser who lifestyle that is appealing to many professionals seeking modern amenities close to shared our vision and was willing to be part of our website early on. As our website pristine beaches and forests. There is space here to breathe. We can’t compete with traffic has increased we’ve been able to increase our rates and add additional adver- the wages offered by the competition that surrounds us so we provide a workplace tisers to that space. We now take a maximum of three advertisers in rotation on our that is positive, is creative and encourages our team to try new things. We work hard top banner and we charge $350 per week for this, including high-quality ad design. to make available the latest software, the latest hardware and lots of opportunity to This spot appears on all pages of our site. We also have two cube ads, each with up experiment. The results have been encouraging. to five rotating ads, available for $200 per week. We are also very good at encouraging the hidden talents and hobbies of our staff I’d love to be able to say we’re making lots of money. In truth our revenue of and putting them to good use, thus benefitting the company and the employee. For $24,000 is less than 1 percent of total sales, but it is steadily growing. example, we have two advertising sales consultants with backgrounds in radio an- There’s much debate about whether to use a dedicated online sales team or add nouncing. You’ll hear their voices throughout our videos and in any radio advertis- to the work of regular sales consultants. We’ve chosen the latter. I don’t believe the ing we do (see links next page). slow uptake in our market is due to anything our salespeople haven’t done or aren’t In 2007 we hired someone to oversee and expand our Newspapers In Education trying. Our team is engaged in everything we do, including our website, and they program and to engage with our youth community. Tim is a licensed teacher and understand our goals. Unfortunately many of our advertisers simply aren’t there also a videographer. Over time he has become our video department, along with yet. Many haven’t engaged with technology the way perhaps we think they should. being the face of all things youth-related. You’ll find Tim’s great work throughout Our biggest issue isn’t underperforming salespeople but advertisers who think cut- our website. ting their advertising budget is the right move and Facebook will be their marketing salvation. This is a tough market. Over the years we’ve tried the “bring in the out- Our only dedicated website person, Carolyn, is a self-starter — thank goodness. side expert” approach to educate our advertisers but without success. She’s quick to make suggestions, manages all our online resources — including Facebook and Twitter — and is a certified Google Adwords representative. Things aren’t all bleak revenue-wise. We’re starting to get advertisers asking us about getting online. Regional advertisers have begun to buy our ads and are Lighthouse believes in professional development and is willing to pay for any paying our rates, not just for remnant space. In the last few years we’ve done more training that could be considered even remotely job-related. As an independent video projects for outside clients and this area continues to grow. We’re looking at publisher, just keeping up with change is a challenge. I’d be lost without the help providing digital signage and working with some outside partners to increase both and enthusiasm of our team. the quality and capability of our video department. We are now fully HD capable From the beginning our goal with southshorenow.ca was to be the go-to website and have two freelancers who work on a contract basis. for our area. We wanted to be the media source people consulted at the first whiff of Our goal hasn’t changed. We want to maintain our readership and our leadership a breaking news story. Our primary goal is to be “always first” and our secondary in this area. At the same time we’re trying to work smarter by automating the updat- goal is to be a one-stop shop for everything happening on and involving the South ing of our news and breaking news. Shore. Additionally, like many publications, we are exploring the possibility of a pay- Southshorenow.ca has grown over time. Once just a place to replicate the news- wall. We’re still very much in the preliminary stage but I expect this is an area paper, it now includes breaking news, blogs (many by our own staff), video and which we will start to experiment with this year. We’re already starting to talk about more. In the beginning our reporters shot video using an experimentation method. how a metered paywall might be implemented. Paywalls are part of the discussions

10 grassroots editor • spring 2012 at our Newspapers Canada conference in Toronto and following that event I expect South Shore’s most complete free business directory with over 6,000 businesses our team to look at how we might start to play with this concept — initially I expect listed: http://www.southshoredirectory.ca us to look at metering our archive and perhaps build out from there. YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/southshorenowca While adopting the Internet may not be for the faint of heart, we have chosen to Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/southshorenow be positioned at the front of the digital wave, rather than waiting to play catch-up as Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/southshorenow/171604385422 the computer chips fall where they may. Free classifieds: http://www.southshoredirectory.ca Free digital newspaper which reads the news for the partially sighted: http:// About Lighthouse Publishing www.southshorenow.ca/digital Lighthouse Publishing serves a readership area of about 50,000 people spread Our self-promotion videos: http://www.southshorenow.ca/videos/ads/ across several municipal units in southwestern Nova Scotia. We print our own paper and have two offices — one in Bridgewater and a small satellite office in We also offer advertising opportunities on southshoredirectory.ca starting from Lunenburg. Lighthouse publishes the weekly newspaper, the Lunenburg County just $45 per week Progress Bulletin — circulation 10,200 — and a weekly shopper, The Lighthouse Video services: we charge $75/hr for HD production. Our team does multiple Log — circulation 27,000. Lighthouse has an editorial team of six plus an editor camera shoots, edits in Final Cut Pro X and offers product for community and cor- and a proofreader. Additionally, we have one person dedicated to all things online porate video use, as well as for digital signage. As a guide to estimating production and two more people who also work on our website but do other things. Lighthouse cost, a basic rule of thumb for video production is, for every hour of video shot, has used various consultants in the past and now works with an IT specialist one there are at least three hours of post. day or so a week. Website stats: Lynn Hennigar is president of Lighthouse Publishing in Bridgewater, Nova Sco- 40,000 unique visitors per month tia and a past president of the Canadian Community Newspapers Association 200,000 page views per month (CCNA). She can be contacted at [email protected]. Our video page: http://www.southshorenow.tv Paid or metered website access: What others are saying By Terry Smith I’m not sure why so many papers believe it helps them to create a pay wall Editor that often accomplishes nothing more than building an insurmountable obstacle The Athens News between readers and their news product. I’m an avid reader of online news, and Athens, Ohio believe my habits as an online consumer are not uncommon. If I see a pay wall at www.athensnews.com a news site, I’ll instantly try to find a free alternative for that information. I don’t want to pay if I don’t have to, and moreover, I don’t want to mess with dealing with Editor’s note: Terry Smith’s comments appeared in a recent ISWNE Hotline discus- registration, logging in, etc. sion about weekly newspapers charging for access to their websites. How does this translate into online ad revenue? Well, I’ll admit that’s a work in progress, but I’m also confident that we wouldn’t have any online readers — or We’re a free twice-weekly alternative/community newspaper, and our website is certainly not enough to monetize the site — if we made them register and pay for completely free. We wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re in a very competitive content that they can get for free in our print editions. environment with a local daily, and they do meter their content behind a paywall. Finally, as a twice-weekly competing with a daily, we now have the ability to As a result of our advantage in access, and our relatively quick turn-around time on post stories immediately and scoop the competition. Before we had a website, we posting breaking stories, we’ve vastly improved our brand in local news. And this couldn’t do that. If we forced people to register and pay, we’d largely lose that reputational improvement translates into stronger print readership as well. advantage.

11 grassroots editor • spring 2012 Can newspapers make money online? Absolutely

By Gary Wood here at http://shop.yankton.net/ss/. These sections stay online for one full year — great value and money well spent by the advertiser. We use the same tool for both As the first and oldest daily newspaper in the Dakota territories, established as a of our shopper/TMC products the Missouri Valley Shopper online at http://www. weekly June 6, 1861, the Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan once again found itself missourivalleyshopper.com and the Broadcaster Press seen at this link http://www. first, the first newspaper to go online in the state of South Dakota. That was back in broadcasteronline.com. what seems to be the “old” days now — 1997. As we discussed these ideas among the staff, an idea began to take shape. We I began my career in Yankton as publisher of the Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan sell the value of ROP ads online and show the charge for them on the advertiser’s (the daily) and the Vermillion Plain Talk (the weekly) in September 2003. While monthly invoice as a percentage of the total cost. We now have an opportunity to both newspapers had an online presence, the staffs at both newspapers were not increase that percentage annually as advertisers see more value in the online ROP really offering the value of online advertising to businesses in their respective com- ads. Eventually we will bill print and online ROP ads showing the cost at 50 percent munities. The need was apparent that online sales opportunity needed to be taught for print and 50 percent for online. While we’re not close to that yet, we’re on our to the staffs. The idea was to start slowly and pick the low-hanging fruit. Granted, way to creating more value for the online portion than the print in order to keep there was some revenue being generated from online but it was time to kick it up a these ad dollars to support our legacy business structure of providing the best local notch and really make a difference. coverage of our communities. We hear so many pundits saying that newspaper are dying. It’s true, some have While we were generating some employment ad dollars online, we got serious gone out of business, but the small daily and weekly community newspaper in most about online employment advertising in late 2004 or early 2005. This is when we markets are thriving due to great local news, sports and other content found no- improved our “Top Jobs” section and made it something our employment advertis- where but in their local community newspaper. Readership is higher than ever and ers find highly beneficial. Our Top Jobs section can be viewed here www.yankton. with strong demographics of the readership now coming from the online product. net/shared-content/topads/moreads.php?moduleid=3584&stereotype=1. Our print products remain strong but our online newspapers grow stronger every Soon after, we added what was once Yahoo Hot Jobs but has now become Mon- month, every year. ster Jobs. This has become an integral part of the employers’ advertising package, Are you ready to face the challenges of our industry head on? Here are just a and all employment ads are quoted as one rate with the ad running in all four of our few of the things we’ve done to get us to the point of now generating 16 percent print products (the daily paper, the weekly paper and two shopper/TMC publica- of our ad revenues from online advertising (note this is online advertising only and tions), posted on Top Jobs, and as a part of the Monster Jobs consortium, they get does not include any online circulation revenues as we’ve just started offering an posted here http://www.yankton.net/jobs/ as well. Whether the business is trying to e-edition in late 2011). fill a part-time or full-time position, blue collar job or professional, every employment advertiser gets local and then national exposure for the jobs they’re attempting One of the very first sources of revenue for the daily was building and hosting to fill. The response has been outstanding for employers. websites for local merchants. Even though many newspapers started with this most have told me they stopped because it’s not “profitable.” On the other hand, we con- Now that many or our advertisers (not all but maybe someday) have begun to see tinue to have great success with this venture building, hosting, and advertising these and feel the benefits on advertising online, we begin to sell what is called an Impact merchant websites on our sites to maximize traffic, page views and click-through Ad (thanks to the Blinder Group for this one) in the “B” position of the websites. rates for the business. To see the types of websites we build and host, you can go to This ad sells on an “impression” basis for $59 a week with a one-year contract that www.yanktonmedia.com. guarantees the advertiser a minimum of 50,000 impressions per 30 days. We have 10 positions available on the daily paper website and three available on the weekly The first thing we did was in January 2004. We decided then to push the enve- paper site. They remain at least 90 percent sold-out monthly and have now for the lope with a substantial rate increase at both newspapers. This was done in large part last four years. to begin generating immediate revenue from the ROP ads run in the print products that would now go in the online newspapers. We started with an outside firm help- Now that the ad reps and advertisers see benefit in the CPM (cost per thousand) ing us post all ROP ads from the print product to the newspapers’ websites but model, we’ve begun to have success selling the standard Internet Advertising Bu- have since developed our own very dynamic ROP online tool to display ads in an reau (IAB) size ads in the A, B, C and D positions on both newspaper websites. interactive PDF format; you can view that tool here http://shop.yankton.net/rop/ or We continue to innovate, always trying new things while watching closely our http://www.plaintalk.net/rop. At the same time we started breaking out the cost of investments into these ventures. Not all have been profitable, but many have, and the online portion for every ad on our advertiser monthly invoice to begin training because of that, we will continue to find best practices of others, create some of our them on the value on placing their ads on our websites. own best practices and ALWAYS be training our ad reps to sell the value of online As you can see, we provide the advertiser with a robust tool that allows the advertising to our advertisers. Based on the online revenue numbers, I’d say that as user to do so many things like “email to a friend” or “download and print.” It was a group they’ve done an outstanding job! a challenge for us to convince many of the advertisers to see any value in this, but Remember the power of the combination of your print and online products. In we stuck to it and it has now become an integral part of their marketing campaigns. most community newspaper markets, as in ours, this combination offers the adver- I have spoken with many of our smaller advertisers who tell me their print/online tiser the broadest reach to the consumer, and that is something we need to make ROP ad will many times show up on a Google search above their own website sure the advertiser is aware of every day. Put this immensely powerful tool to work thanks to the traffic we drive to their ads from our websites. These ROP ads stay for you today! online for up to seven days, adding more value. At the same time, we went after the special sections for online with the same idea Gary Wood is the editor and publisher of the Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan of breaking out the cost for the online portion. Again, we started with an outside and Vermillion Plain Talk in South Dakota. He can be contacted at vendor but developed our own PDF format tool to display these as you can see [email protected].

12 grassroots editor • spring 2012 How to create $40,000 in new revenue in one year By Robert M. Williams Jr. center in southeast Georgia. The three newspapers have between 9,000 and 10,000 circulation together and serve counties of just under 40,000 total population. The Our group of rural community weeklies in Georgia borrowed a marketing idea same “Half Price Hot Deals” web page is part of each newspaper’s website. from metro dailies in the fall of 2010 and created roughly $40,000 in new revenue The support vendor charges nothing to set up the site and train staff to upload over 12 months. the deals. It charges a small fee per transaction to the newspaper and the readers Three of five newspapers in the SouthFire Newspapers Group, based in Blacks- purchasing the deals to get its money back. hear, Ga., followed a tip given by a friendly metro daily publisher and began using Some of the positive aspects: the newspapers’ websites to sell a promotion dubbed “Half Price Hot Deals.” • Turns your website into a revenue-generator. The idea is not new now, in 2012, and many similar promotions have started • Boosts traffic to the website and related social media pages, such as Facebook. to wane, like Groupon, because they cost merchants too much to participate. Our • Seems to attract many traditional non-advertisers or poor advertisers. (95 per- promotion has leveled off but is still providing good income, plus positive feedback cent of our sales have been to people who spent little or nothing with us in the from merchants and readers. previous year.) The promo barters advertising packages for the right to sell discount certificates • In a tight economy, readers appreciate special discount pricing — and so do from the newspaper’s website redeemable at restaurants, spas, clothing stores and merchants. other retailers. Such programs are common with big-city dailies, TV and radio sta- • Boosts your print advertising and utilizes your electronic capabilities as a tool tions, but haven’t yet caught on widely in smaller newspaper markets. to promote greater print use and response. Here’s how it works: • It puts your newspaper in a position to capitalize on opportunities previously Advertisers buy ad packages offering print advertising, website placement, e- only available to the electronic crowd. Example: selling advance tickets to area mail marketing and Facebook promotions in varying amounts from $500 to $5,000. concerts, plays, shows, etc., to cover the cost of advertising. The advertiser pays no cash but signs an authorization allowing the newspaper to Cautionary or negative aspects: sell “Half Price Hot Deals” certificates in an amount equal to the ad package price. The certificates offer food, services or product of a set amount and the newspaper • Like any sort of barter, you want to try to avoid converting cash customers markets the certificates at half the retail value. when you can, although it can be a supplement. (We have even convinced severely past due accounts to let us sell certificates to pay off their balance.) Some of our most popular sellers have been restaurants where three $10 certificates are bought for just $15 or a grocery store that sold certificates for $50 in • Merchants must educate their employees about how to be “welcoming” when groceries for just $25. someone shows up with a discount certificate and not act like “What is this...?” Store employees need to be trained to up-sell, etc. Who would not buy a deal offering $50 in groceries for only $25? We only offered five of them initially, but they sold out in less than three minutes and the • Merchants need to be educated about how to structure the half-price deals so grocer was pretty impressed with that, plus the buzz around town such a deal gen- they will be marketable. One quick-lube place wanted to offer a $30 deal for $15 erated. but it was three $10 discount certificates for oil changes. Three oil changes will only occur over several months, perhaps a year. Buyers aren’t as likely to buy a small The ad packages are structured so more of the revenue goes toward paying for discount they have to hold for that long to get their value. A better deal is half price print advertising the customer receives because that’s where most of the cost is. on one lube and oil change or package it with tire rotation/wash, etc., to make the Providing electronic benefits such as e-mail blasts and Facebook postings have less value higher. Most merchants understand the appeal of a heavy discount to have a overhead expense. chance at gaining a lasting customer. I modeled our program exactly like one at the daily. The publisher even let us We tell advertisers we can guarantee bringing people through their door, just as copy his contract and promo materials. We had to scale down the cost and adjust we always have, but it is in their hands as to whether that person becomes a regular the advertising offered to what we could handle coming out only one day a week customer. Experienced merchants understand this. with our print product. Some deals simply won’t sell because the business isn’t popular enough or the The key is to understand the pacing of providing the advertising for a period to market is too thin. If a business has never advertised before and is barely keeping match the revenue stream as closely as possible. the doors open, chances are their lot is already cast and this promotion won’t save We were all excited when customers, surprisingly, signed up for our $5,000 them. packages. We quickly realized, however, it would take a while in our size market to Some items just aren’t attractive for this sort of promotion. Attempts to sell dis- generate that many certificate sales. It can be done, and has been done often — but count certificates for a new set of tires, for example, failed miserably. not in just a few weeks. Stop 10 people on the street, and maybe one will say he needs to buy tires. Stop Startup costs were steep, but now have been trimmed substantially. Our cost was 10, and all 10 will say they’d like to have a discount on where to eat lunch that day. high at first because we didn’t want to make a similar mistake to one made 30 years ago. The newspaper sucks all the air out of your room. By that, I mean adding an I am tweaking the program so it is easier to track and weed out slow sellers. Still, extensive new advertising program on, and just expecting the same staff to start it it’s hard to find fault with a program that goes from zero income to producing an up and make it successful, can be unrealistic. average of $800 a week from our newspapers’ websites. To view the Hot Deal site, go to www.theblacksheartimes.com and click on the Hot Deals promo at the top. I contracted with a freelance salesperson and joined her in selling the first packages to get the program up and running. We later cut that person’s time back from five days a week to just two and, eventually eliminated her entirely and turned it Robert M. Williams Jr. is chairman and publisher of the SouthFire Newspaper over to our regular sales staff. The program, in our size market, won’t sustain pay- Group in Blackshear, Ga. He can be contacted at rwilliams@theblacksheartimes. ing for five days of sales and retention effort by itself. com. Three of my five newspapers are close in proximity and surround a retail trade

13 grassroots editor • spring 2012 Social media will provide a return on investment By Roger Harnack would you feel if they suddenly told you to buy the rest of the story? On social media, that’s the chilling effect direct sales efforts have on readers. Newspapers have long held onto the idea of engaging readers through in-depth Now take the same conversation and rather than trying to direct sell you on a reporting, opinion pages and polls. topic, they tell you where you can learn more. If you’re truly interested, you’ll Indeed, well-written stories seek comment on the news of the day. Polls reflect take the time to pursue the lead. a desire to put happenings into perspective and opinion pages keep the dialogue Subtlety allows you to both carry on a conversation with your Facebook read- flowing. ers and still provide them the information they are looking for. Facebook and other social media platforms are a logical extension of that en- It gives you an opportunity to brand your newspaper as the place to go for gagement. So, why then do newspaper editors and publishers fear the information information. evolution that’s taking place around us? But be careful how you dole out the information. Are we afraid of losing our relevancy because anyone and everyone can report Facebook and other social media users are sharing their lives and viewing the on neighborhood events? Are we afraid amateur photographers have replaced our lives of others. industry’s trained professionals? It’s too easy to provide a short response that comes across terse, or cold, to Those objections can be overcome by integrating social media — especially social media users. Facebook — into our newsrooms, circulation promotions and all aspects of our Take time to exchange pleasantries. business. Remember the golden rule: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say A successful newspaper will find a way to adapt these platforms to the benefit anything. of employees, readers and advertisers. Say please and thank you to readers. In short, share the human experience At The Chronicle, our staff has found a way to use social media not only to with them. You can provide news and information, while maintaining your polite interact with readers, but to promote our publications and special projects. professionalism, even if the discussion deteriorates into something more, shall we We direct readers to breaking news stories on our website. We give the top say personal. news of the week’s publications and encourage web users to pick up a print copy. Take a breath, relax and be the courteous voice of your community. It will help And we even “sell” participation into special projects like our March Madness you brand your newspaper in the positive, helpful light you want it to be. bracket competition, community events and more. Sometimes, that’s easier said than done. You’re probably telling yourself that’s what print pages are for. That’s what Social media can be a lot of fun and a great opportunity for your newspaper. paid advertising is for. And you’re right. But it can also be a double-edged sword. Your newspaper is “invited” into your readers’ homes every week. Social media is meant to be a conversation, and people expect you to “talk” to Here’s the difference — Facbeook and other social media give you direct them, now. access to your readers’ hopes and fears, friends, families and colleagues. In short, In moving into the realm of Facebook, make sure you have staffers with time Facebook and other social media give you the best branding opportunity our busi- to communicate to your social media friends, fans and followers. Have someone ness has had since the invention of the printing press. dedicated to answering questions, posting updates about breaking news stories on Social media is opening doors our newsrooms and advertising clients hereto- your websites and generally helping readers find the information they want, or a fore never thought was possible. It’s now up to us to capitalize on the opportunity. source where they can get it. A well-planned, integrative approach to social media can only help you grow At different times, you’ll have to also protect your readers from those who will readership, website traffic, visibility and eventually, revenue. use your Facebook or social media profile to sell goods and services. For a successful venture, there are a few things we need to remember about Delete those sales pitches as quickly as possible to keep your social media social media. Users are: brand friendly, helpful and focused. • There to socialize. You’ll also need someone on staff to try to guide conservations in a civil man- • Looking for information. ner. • Sharing their own lives with their friends, families and the world. Occasionally, you’ll need to talk to a reader about language, tone or attacks • Searching for the human experience without the risk of leaving home. on others. Do that through private messaging. Remind them you are providing a The trick to using Facebook and other social media to improve your business is service intended for use by all audiences. Remind them, politely, that you can take to be subtle. that privilege away. Take care not to directly sell your newspaper, website or your advertisers. A Be careful here, even privately prodding a reader toward a more civil conversa- trained circulation staff will be able to use stories to sell the newspaper without tion can become a battle that you do not want spilling over onto your social media actually telling a Facebook user to buy it. profile. For example, telling web users that they can read all about a hot topic in this As a last resort, delete comments that are inappropriate or obscene. If you push week’s print edition works better than directly telling someone to buy the news- the delete button too hastily, someone will scream censorship. And that’s not a paper. label you want attached to your social brand. Think about it this way: If you are having a conversation with a friend, how This is only the tip of the social media iceberg, and I’m sure it already sounds

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14 grassroots editor • spring 2012 Policies and practices vary when it comes to accident photos By Bill Reader Mike Buffington of Mainstreet Newspapers in Jefferson, Ga., also advocated for photographers to take photos even of scenes that are unlikely to be published. There’s an oxymoronic quality to the phrase “journalistic standards,” particu- “We tell our people to shoot the photos and we’ll sort out what gets published later; larly when a group of journalists tries to decide exactly what those “standards” sometimes, those that are unsuitable for publishing we make available to the local should be. A rather lengthy dialogue among ISWNE members via the “Hotline” public safety folks for their internal training.” email listserv exemplifies that with regard to a common practice in community The photojournalist’s behavior at such a scene often can affect long-term rapport journalism, the publication of photos from serious car accidents. with local emergency crews, some respondents noted. Pugh recalled covering an The conversation began on Feb. 21, 2012, when publisher/editor Kevin Weed- accident in which a car was hit by a train. When he arrived, the emergency respond- mark of The World-Spectator of Moosomin, Saskatchewan, asked this about “high- ers asked him not to take photos. “I grumbled about censorship and freedom of the way accident photos”: “Are there different policies for fatal accidents as opposed press (not thinking about the fact that I was trespassing on railroad property) until I to non-fatals?” The post received more than two dozen responses covering a broad got back to the squad,” Pugh wrote. “There, under a sheet held down with pieces of array of ethical, legal and practical considerations, including a few cautionary an- ballast stone, was a lump under a sheet. Ladies and Gentlemen, I can guarantee you ecdotes. there was not enough under that lump to be a full person. I simply told the rescue people, ‘I have no problem not taking a picture of this.’ My respect points went up The simple answer to Weedmark’s question was “yes” — there are many differ- a couple of notches, I’m sure.” ent policies on the issue. Terry Smith, editor of The Athens News in southeastern Ohio, said that was a About the only consensus from the participants is that any published photos dilemma facing him when he covered an accidental horse-and-rider drowning should not depict dead bodies. But even with that, standards vary. David Pugh of early in his career (the horse slipped while taking a drink from a pond, pulling the the Archbold Buckeye of northwestern Ohio wrote: “We don’t show bodies, not in 12-year-old rider into the water as well). Smith was on scene when the mother was the open, not covered with sheets, not in body bags…My guidelines are more about weeping next to the body of her drowned son. “I had to decide whether to shoot the showing mangled steel and heroic rescue workers than it is about victims.” scene (knowing full well that my editor wouldn’t run a photo showing the body), A few editors said they would run photos of covered bodies, and Roger Harnack or else show some discretion (and win the respect of the sheriff and other cops and of The Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle in north-central Washington state add- EMTs at the scene). I was still trying to establish myself, and decided there was no ed: “We also print photos that contain blood, but do not show the body.” Follow-up benefit to taking a photo that we wouldn’t use, and then start off on the wrong foot is important, he stressed in a later post: “In the case of a fatal crash, we try to hu- with these local first responders. Looking back, if I had to do it again, I would have manize the story. Rather than only have crash photos and a story as told generally tried to finesse the shot, somehow showing the mother and possibly the shoes of the by law enforcement, we contact the family, friends and neighbors and ask for pho- boy. But I didn’t think quickly enough at the time.” tos of the victim in their everyday life. We talk to them to try the story of who our Thomas V. Ward, publisher of The Valley Breeze in Lincoln, R.I., argued for community has lost. It’s not easy. But after that story comes out, we often get ‘thank giving the photographer more discretion: “Have all the policies you want; the pho- yous’ for letting readers know the victim was more than just another fatality.” tojournalist is in charge. Have a clear understanding with him/her. As a young pho- A number of editors argued that the challenge is to balance sensitivity for the tojournalist who covered all accidents, fatal and otherwise, I was sometimes a bit victims and their families against their responsibility to inform the public. Some- upset by what I saw at a fatal. Generally, I waited until a sheet covered the body times, grisly photos are necessary to raise awareness about particularly dangerous before I shot a photo…A wise editor pulled me aside and told me ‘You are the first roads. Patric Hedlund of The Mountain Enterprise and The New Mountain Pioneer editor. If the scene is too harsh, don’t take the picture. Then we can’t make a poor in Frazier Park, Calif., summarizes the issue for her community: “We work on the choice and decision.’ And so I’d wait until the body was covered.” notorious Grapevine section of California’s Interstate 5. We sometimes have hor- rific big rig crashes and fires…Editorially, we work hard to show how serious these crashes can be, and the jeopardy passenger vehicles faced when tractor trailers lose ‘Why run them at all?’ their brakes on the steep Grapevine inclines. We show people being taken away A few participants questioned the value of running pictures of vehicle accidents. on stretchers, cars crunched into impossibly small lumps of twisted metal and first “Why should we run these photos at all?” asked Diane Chiddister of the Yellow responder personnel working to free people with the Jaws of Life. There have been Springs News in west-central Ohio. Chiddister said the community does not often times when we have had photos of casualties. We will sometime show something have such tragic accidents, and running the news with other police items inside the to give the information, and the sense of the tragedy, without compromising the newspaper seems to work in her community. “While some of you have made good dignity of the deceased.” cases for the educational value in running crash photos, it’s likely that we also know they sell papers. In short, it’s sensationalism. Can’t we do better than this?” ‘The photojournalist is in charge’ Hedlund responded with a lengthy explanation that in her community, located just off Interstate 5 between Bakersfield and Los Angeles on the edge of the Los One point made by Hedlund, Harnack and others is that photographers must be Padres National Forest, traffic accidents are a persistent problem: aware of the newspapers’ policies, but not all agreed that the role of the photographer is to avoid taking photos that are unlikely to be published. “We take a pretty strong interest in what takes place on the public roadways here. First, because everyone who lives in these mountains is endangered when people Harnack argued for photographers to take all manner of photos, regardless of are ignorant about the risks associated with driving incautiously or inebriated on whether some would not be published: “We tell our photo staff to shoot everything. winding, icy mountain roads,” Hedlund wrote. “Second, we have developers and The reason: A photographer should not be making a decision on-scene that would politicians who are trying to pretend they don’t understand how much additional tie the hands of editors. In short, we don’t want photographers ‘setting’ policy on risk there is to the commuting public when they put a warehouse-dense ‘inland what is published.” port’ just north of our communities, increasing to 77,000 a day the number of ve-

15 grassroots editor • spring 2012 hicles passing our middle school. About 17,000 of those are 18-wheelers. Hazmat credible, timely, relevant, accurate and forthcoming while doing the least amount accidents, with flipped trucks just 150 yards from the classrooms, happen several of harm.” times a year. To report thoroughly about these events is not sensationalism. To NOT Samantha Swindler of the Headlight Herald in coastal Tillamook, Ore., added report about them is misfeasance.” that public interest in accident photos is a reality of the business: “The point is you Ann Marie Gonsalves of The Valley Voice in Hellertown, southeastern Pennsyl- have to be accountable in a small town. So you’re either going to explain your vania, added a similar note: “I live in a one main road town. When a crash occurs on decision to the grieving family, or to the folks out in the community. Pick which that road, it shuts down, and that is news considering 20,000 cars pass on it daily… conversation you are most comfortable having — because you will have it, if not We have many traffic and pedestrian problems in this town and ongoing coverage in your office than at the grocery. ‘Why did you run that wreck photo?’ or ‘Why helps in getting state bigwigs to take notice. This in turn helps for getting funding didn’t you run a photo of that wreck?’ The conversation that you’re willing to have? to make the road safer. That is not sensationalism or filler, that is working to make There’s your answer.” our community better.” As with so many other challenges in the field of community journalism, the one The tragic nature of fatal accidents makes them difficult to cover, but they still sure standard regarding accident photos is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. should be covered, wrote Kim McCully-Mobley of The Ozarkian Spirit in Aurora, Mo. “No matter how gruesome some of the stories we cover are, there are always ISWNE member Bill Reader is an associate professor in the E.W. Scripps School of life lessons in the midst of them. We don’t have to editorialize about these lessons, Journalism at Ohio University. He can be contacted at [email protected]. To read unless we choose to do so. We only have to show the facts and most people can sort all of the comments from this and other ISWNE listserv discussions, go to www. the rest out for themselves. Their lives can change in an instant. With choices al- iswne.org and click on the “Hotline” tab. ways come consequences. We are all in this old world together. We should try to be

Social media provides a return from page 14 like a lot of work. It isn’t. of reader. Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms make posting and editing quick Social media, at this time, may not have a direct revenue stream. and easy. Dedicating a staffer to spend a few minutes here and there will likely be But by showing your online advertising clients increased website visits, more plenty. page views and bandwidth growth, you are showing them more customers. Those And there are free web programs available, like HootSuite, which will automat- new and repeat customers have a dollar value for their business. ically update multiple social platforms when you post to one. And they have a dollar value that you will have to tap to improve your newspa- Your publisher is sure to remind you that time is money. per’s own bottom line. At some point, he or she is going to expect a return on the investment into social platforms. Assure your publisher the return is there, but it may not initially Roger Harnack is the editor and publisher of The Omak-Okanogan County have a dollar amount attached to it. Chronicle in Omak, Wash. His newspaper serves more than 6,000 people through Spending time on social media is spending time marketing your newspaper. Facebook and Twitter, which has resulted in a 50 percent increase in average You’re protecting your brand and market. You’re directing readers to your web- monthly website traffic in less than two years. He can be contacted at rharnack@ site, where you probably sell through direct advertising and online subscriptions. omakchronicle.com. And you’re keeping pace with technology, and therefore, your next generation

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