Below the Fold

The Santa Barbara News-Press: Another U.S. Newspaper Commits Suicide

We hear the talk and read the statistics: Newspapers are dying, circulation is eroding and readers are turning to blogs and mobile media for their news.

Then there is Santa Barbara, California. I lived in Santa Barbara for five years and worked in the area as a full-time journalist and later as a consultant to local politicians, including current Mayor Marty Blum. In this breezy coastal town, the newspaper is as much a part of the community as beach volleyball and bar hopping on State Street. This is a place where morning coffee is nothing without the newspaper, where journalists still enjoy a modicum of respect.

But all is not well in what was once journalism paradise. Six top editors and a long-time columnist (community icon Barney Brantingham) left the 151-year-old News-Press last week because of the owner and publisher’s alleged meddling in editorial decisions. The journalists claim owner Wendy McCaw and interim publisher Travis Armstrong (a former editorial writer) censored or killed news stories for personal or other reasons outside the conventions of journalistic integrity.

So at a time of newspaper layoffs, declining profits and growing uncertainty, the journalists walked. Their co-workers yelled epithets at the publisher. Heaven is now hell and no one knows when or how it will end.

The Los Angeles Times called the resignations an “editorial bloodbath.” I prefer to call it suicide, brought on, in part, by many of the same societal and technological shifts that are causing other papers to die more natural deaths.

News is bigger than ever, but journalism has become small. Reporters and editors with integrity, like those at the News-Press, now take a back seat to business and corporate interests who, in part because of pressures to assuage advertisers and subscribers, are loathe to run “bad” news.

"Brand" is Dead – Can Local News Be Far Behind?
I’ve said that newspapers have lost their brand identities, and that the “brand value” now lies with the individual journalist and not the institution for which he or she works. The News-Press, however, still had a strong brand within the community. It was the main source of local political news and local businesses still relied on the paper for advertising.

But the powers behind the News-Press misjudged their community. People in Santa Barbara want journalism – real journalism. They don’t cancel subscriptions because the paper runs a “negative” story. Advertisers don’t pull their ads because of something Brantingham writes. The paper is a friend at the table, not an enemy at the gate.

"We need a strong daily newspaper," Marshall Rose, executive director of the Downtown Organization, told the Times. "Business relies on the News-Press to provide current events and as a print medium to advertise.”

Added Cathy McGee, a waitress at local hangout Joe’s Café: "It's sad, because you don't have enough time to check things out at the City Council yourself," she said. "You depend on the newspaper to tell you that."

What’s really sad is you couldn’t read these or any other quotes in the News-Press. According to News-Press reporters, Armstrong killed a staff written story about the resignations. Instead, Armstrong wrote a “note to our readers” in which he said the newspaper would maintain “both the standards of journalism as well as the standards of this community with respect to personal privacy, fairness and good taste." The only other official comments came from the paper’s public relations person, who is based in San Francisco and had not been to the newsroom to assess the situation in person (for some interesting local perspective, check out the Santa Barbara Independent’s Media Blog.)

Is It Time for Citizen Journalism?
Santa Barbara takes its journalism in full – the good and the bad.

The question now is can it take the ugly, or will it become like other small cities that have little to no local news? Will Santa Barbara turn to the Internet and start a citizen journalism project, or will the once knowledgeable residents become part of the Great Uninformed? Will other media like The Independent fill the gaps, either real or perceived, and how will that affect local news and community culture?

One thing is certain: Santa Barbara now knows firsthand what many of us have experienced for some time. Print is not dead, but newspapers are dying. And it is not just from outside forces like the Internet, but from internal business objectives at odds with covering the news. Newspapers are killing themselves and they are doing it in full public view.

The future of news should be the brightest its ever been, with the ability to publish anytime anywhere, and to engage the public as part of the process. This should be newspapers’ renaissance – instead it is the Dark Ages, and the Santa Barbara News-Press is now one more reminder of just how bleak the journalism profession has become.

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The Brand Illusion of News

The Big Four are no more.

According a recent survey published in Ad Age magazine, only one in four 12-to 34-year-olds can name the four major traditional broadcast networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox (sorry CW, you’re not in the club yet.) What networks can they name? MTV, Cartoon Network and Comedy Central. It’s enough to make you wonder how we still have a Republic.

The most popular activity for this group is going on the Internet, with TV watching coming in fourth. In other words, they watch YouTube more than the “boob tube.”

The survey is interesting but not terribly surprising. If you tell a teenager about a great story he should read in the newspaper, he’ll ask you for the URL. The Internet, TiVo and IPods have expanded media choice and control, yet they have also homogenized differences among television networks, newspapers and radio. On the Internet, all media looks the same.

But there is another reason for the devolution of media brands. Yes, the Internet and time-shifting devices have played a part in the loss of brand luster and identity. In terms of news, however, the issue is not so much one of content overload or “brand killing” technologies like RSS.

The problem with news is that most network news programs and newspapers are going after that same audience of 12-to-34-year-olds. And in trying to stand out, the news media end up being the same – running the same stories, with the same angles and same opinions, vainly trying to appeal to and retain the same audience by not offending or challenging them.

Journalists like to say, “If it bleeds, it leads.” But in today’s environment of news as profit machine, there is now a just as important corollary: “If it pays, it plays.” 

Brands “Interrupted”
How is an 18-year-old supposed to tell the difference between the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times when he reads an article via his MyYahoo page? Other than the name or logo, there is no real difference.

The Los Angeles Times is now a newspaper by committee, having replaced voice with an illusion of balance. The Times is a brand interrupted, no longer sure of its own place so instead it is trying to appeal to everyone while offending no one – or a least no one with the disposable income coveted by advertisers.

The same is true for the “Big Four” broadcast networks – and let’s throw in CNN for good measure.

What makes a CBS news story different from an NBC story? Where is ABC without the tenacity of a Ted Koppel? CNN wasn’t making enough money being CNN, so it decided to become Fox and add the kind of vitriol necessary to meet the demands of modern broadcast news – namely, just shout louder than the other guy. It’s sad to think that the same network that gave us Bernard Shaw and John Holliman now gives us Nancy Grace and Lou Dobbs.

No wonder people refer to any news organization as “the media” – that’s what happens when you go from “brand” to “bland.” I’m not sure if this trend is a credit to capitalism or a discredit to the American news consumer, but either way, it is a harbinger of the future of news.

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The New Journalism Rules: Learning to Fly in the Modern Mediasphere™

At first glance, The Naples (Fla.) Daily News web site looks like any other newspaper site: Articles include a local twist to a national story on declining home sales; a car crash that killed a local resident; and a cold front moving into the sunny Gulf Coast enclave of 20,000 retirees and not-so-idle rich.

But look deeper and you quickly learn that this is no ordinary newspaper web site: It is print gone wild. The site features online video, audio and podcasts; blogs and photo galleries; and news alerts about local high school football games delivered to subscribers’ mobile phones.

We have seen the future of news, and it is in South Florida – and, by the way, in Delaware, where the News Journal produces a daily, network broadcast quality video news show online; and it is in Columbia, Missouri, where the Missourian newspaper is available for download in PDF or QuickTime format, and the online “My Missourian” is produced almost entirely by local citizen journalists.

These are just some of the old media/new media marriages that, instead of diminishing the print product, actually enhance it with features not available in the version that lands on the driveway. And if newspapers are to survive in today’s Modern Mediasphere™, they need to embrace the “all media is multimedia” mantra, involve the news consumer and deliver the news in new, compelling, personal ways.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, “old media” is not dying – but it is changing.

•    According to the most recent Pew Internet Study, more than 50 million Americans get their news online each day, up from 27 million less than three years ago.

•    The New York Times combined its print and online newsrooms into one staff, smashing the wall between journalism old and new; USA Today followed suit;

•    The Los Angeles Times eliminated most of its daily stock market tables, rationalizing that most people nowadays go online for that information. And the paper just began offering daily summaries of news available only on its web site, directing readers to put down the paper and pick up the mouse for more information and special web-only features;

•    VCast from Verizon Wireless now delivers CNN, ESPN and NBC News daily to mobile phones, and live sporting events are coming soon.

Still not convinced? Just follow the money – according to an article in Red Herring magazine, while media giant Knight-Ridder’s traditional revenue rose 3.1 percent in 2005, revenue in its digital division grew nearly 55 percent. And venture capitalists have poured about 50 million dollars into new media companies that enable readers to organize, rank and edit the news within a kind of volunteer journalism co-op.

Social Media Rules
There obviously are many changes afoot, and big dollars to be had in the “zeros and ones” of digital data. But what we are seeing is not one media form replacing the other, but rather a sense of cooperation, mutual dependence, and excitement about the future of news.

Why else would The New York Times buy About.Com, a “non news” site? Maybe because “About” gives the Times’ content a consumer-focused kick – not to mention millions of new users. Other major “old media” companies now own pieces of the new media pie, from news aggregators like Topix.Net to job boards and online shopping portals.

The most intriguing “mashups” of old and new media, however, are the Web 2.0 social networks – sites where news from mainstream media, citizen journalists and bloggers is submitted, organized and voted on by thousands of amateur editors, also known as “the audience.”

Audience: The Missing Ingredient
The content of social news sites like Newsvine and Digg is not much different than that of traditional sites, except for one very important thing – the audience now has a voice. And, therefore, the content becomes both more powerful and personal.

The audience is as much a part of the mediasphere as anything else, with as much to say and, because of new publishing tools, the ability to say it and be heard.

This is what “old” media needs to focus on the most. Not technology or how to use the new tools of the web, although providing news in different ways such as video and podcasts, or via personalization like text messaging, is still critical to engage and attract today’s and tomorrow’s audiences.

What truly matters is the ability for media to listen, involve and engage these audiences, and the willingness to share the news with them. As a journalist you may write a story, but it doesn’t belong to you. And the more journalists who involve the audience before, during and after the process, the better those stories will be. Bloggers understand this – after all, blogging is all about sharing information and connecting with others. Journalists need to do the same.

Newspapers and mainstream broadcast media can’t survive without the online audiences made possible by social networks, and sites like Newsvine, Digg and even Google News can’t survive without the content and vast resources supplied by mainstream media news organizations.

There is room for both in the Modern Mediasphere -- and as communicators and marketers, we now also need to put the audience front and center. We should have been doing this all along, but better late than never.

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Online Community Newspapers for Sale: Out2 Media Group Is Out To Nurture “Hyper-Local” Citizen Journalism

Want to own your own online newspaper? Bob Leonard, CEO of Out2 Media Group, may have a deal for you.

He will set you up with a “hyper-local” local online presence. He will train you to be a newspaperman and a businessman. And he wants your reporters to get paid.

Leonard believes all media is local, even when it is online. That’s why next week, Leonard plans to roll out more than 13,400 online newspaper “franchises” and introduce per-article payments to citizen journalist contributors.

“Our objective was always to create a newspaper,” said Leonard, whose Florida-based company has been in the online media space since 1997. “But the changes in the last year have accelerated our actions.

“We always believed that (print) newspapers will diminish, but that there would be an evolution that will take place,” Leonard said. “We don’t want to replace traditional newspapers, but what we have is a product with a foothold in place, and evolutionary momentum.”

This isn’t new to Out2. What’s changed is the prevalence of low-cost publishing tools, the availability of Internet access in rural areas and small towns across the United States (where citizen journalism is more needed), and a growing distrust of mainstream media as well as dwindling professional resources. News abhors a vacuum, and citizen journalism sites from Northwest Voice in California to H20 Town in Massachusetts are filling the void.

New Media Meets ‘Old School’
Out2 is taking the concept further – in a sense, applying a more “traditional” model of local ownership and paying freelancers than a pure online model where anyone anywhere can contribute and work is done on a purely volunteer basis.

Out2 “reporters” will earn $5 per published article. The idea, according to the company, is to “reward contributors and further encourage citizen journalism for local and community-based coverage.” In other words, while reporting on the local sewer project or the high school wrestling match requires passion and an interest in writing, a little extra cash doesn’t hurt, either. And if there is more good local coverage, then online eyeballs will increase and advertising and e-commerce dollars will follow – or so goes the theory.

Franchisees get a piece of the online pie, although they also need to make a capital investment, work to sell the ads and keep the content fresh. This includes reprinting local government press releases verbatim, which is less news than it is dictation from an unchecked source. And then there are the issues of accuracy and legal liability, which are problems for all news organizations that accept public-generated content.

Nevertheless, Leonard believes this is the only way to make hyper-local journalism work.

“We don’t edit or censor, but I believe the quality will improve over time,” Leonard said. “Once someone posted a story about a local football team beating another, but it wasn’t true and the story was corrected within minutes by the community.

“You need to live in the town you cover in order to be a franchisee,” he said. “If you want to be the local media, you have to be local.”

No Blogging, No RSS ‘Stealing’
Leonard believes in the newspaper model – so much so that Out2 publications shy away from modern “Web 2.0” engagement tools like blogs and RSS (syndication) feeds.

“We like the newspaper model, it’s very cost-effective,” Leonard said. “ I don’t believe in the Internet model -- blogs are the hula-hoop of the day.

“We also don’t believe in RSS,” he continued. “There is no deep linking in Out2 – why have a newspaper than allows you to just buy the sports page? I don’t want someone to be able to come in and steal our newspaper, so I don’t like RSS.”

Whether the public feels similarly remains to be seen. Out2 is confident, but being a good communicator today means reaching people in ways that make sense to their own lives, not to a company’s balance sheet. If I am at a high school football game and want to know how the team across town did, I can’t pull out my computer and go online. I can, however, get an alert on my mobile phone – Naplesnews.Com is doing this in Florida with some success.

But after nine years in business and a planned expansion over the next few months, Leonard is in it for the long haul. And his success, as well as success for other citizen journalism ventures, will have little to do with business models or whether you can get RSS feeds.

It will be about relevance. It will be about quality. And it will be about trust – you can't pay for it, but you can and should earn it.

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“Unbundled Journalists” Revisited: Reporters -- and Good Journalism -- are What Matter Most

If the web is alive, as Newsweek proclaims, then conversation is the oxygen that makes it so. But conversation also has a nasty habit of making you think, and a recent comment from John Cass of Backbone Media has had me thinking to the point of obsession, like that song you can’t seem to get out of your head.

In a comment on my post titled “Unbundled Journalists: Every Reporter is a Freelancer – and a Brand,” Cass said in part:

“I honestly don't know if a journalist can survive a change of brand…I think that while media institutions are successful when they give more freedom to journalists, it’s the combination of talented individuals and a company that provides a structure that supports a journalist is really the winning combination,” Cass said.

My position in the column was that journalists today are, in the words of Terry Heaton, becoming “unbundled.” I wrote that “the same self-publishing and social networking tools that are empowering consumers today are also allowing reporters to break the surly bonds of their media masters…In this new model, reporters, not newspapers or networks, are the brands.”

I still believe this to be true, but Cass makes a good point: Does a journalist need the structure and stability of an organization to be successful and credible? Sure, CNN gives Anderson Cooper the freedom to blog, but would he have as much of an audience or impact if he left CNN tomorrow and launched “AndersonCooper360.Blogspot.com”?

Switching media teams can be disastrous, as Scott Baradell pointed out in his comment on the same post. Tucker Carslon hasn’t been the same since his banishment to television news purgatory, also known as MSNBC (“hell” is the exclusive domain of Fox News.) When Rocketboom has more daily audience than you, the fall from grace is pretty much complete.

Yet the ability of journalists to transcend their media containers comes down to the journalists themselves. First of all, people like Tucker Carlson and Nancy Grace are not journalists, they are personalities and "hosts"– they need the security of news organizations to do their shtick, otherwise they become nothing more than irate AM talk radio callers.

Bill O’Reilly is a journalist – he was a pretty good one back in the day – but his “brand” is inexorably tied to Fox. It’s possible he could go the syndicated television route and not lose his core audience, but O’Reilly without Fox would still be like a shark without his teeth.

Nevertheless, some journalists have personal brands strong enough to make it work.

Award-winning journalist Frank Deford writes for Sports Illustrated, broadcasts for National Public Radio, reports for HBO and publishes books and freelance articles. He has written screenplays for movies and television. Frank Deford could publish on napkins and he would still attract an audience.

Bill Moyers became a stronger brand by leaving the world of corporate television news and focusing on public broadcasting and publishing. And let’s not forget one of the biggest “journalist brands” of all, Walter Cronkite.

The larger question, I believe, is can a journalist that is just starting out today create a personal brand without the initial support of a large mainstream news organization. In other words, if Deford began his career as a blogger and citizen journalist, would we all know his name and his work?

Part of the answer again depends again on the journalist. It also depends on what we will consider to be “mainstream media” in the near future. With more than 60 million users, who’s to say the next great journalist won’t come from MySpace (which is owned by Fox.) The next media star may come from Blogburst, or rise to prominence via Newsvine.

The path for the next generation of journalists is unclear. But a path exists – and good journalism will find its way.

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Death by Google: What News Must Do to Earn Back its Brand

CARNAGE IN IRAQ, tears over missing teens, stories of lost hope in New Orleans.

Cue the music. Run the graphics package. Lights, camera, action.

We have seen this so much we have come to expect it – the “big” news story arriving with its own jingle and logo. Newspapers do the same with special sections, charts and point-of-purchase ad strips.

President Bush may have coined “War on Terror,” but the news media branded it.

I am not opposed to these tactics in general. In a world of boundless choice, branding is essential. If you want to get the public’s attention, you need to bang the drums and get Wolf Blitzer to report live from the scene, because if Wolf or Anderson Cooper is there the story must be important. Those guys don’t put on the trench coats and get their feet muddy for stories about universal health insurance.

As I’ve said before, journalists today have more “brand value” than media organizations. Sure, people still read the New York Times because it’s the New York Times, but in the post Jayson Blair and Judy Miller era, we read the Times with newly opened eyes. We know the checks and balances that assure one of the strongest brand promises in journalism history are fallible, and that reporters today have much more control and influence that perhaps we once thought.

But does the branding of news go deeper than the journalist? What about the story itself?

Google News, Not “Google’s News”
Go to Google News and search for “Iraq.” You see results from media outlets throughout the world, from China and Australia, from the United Kingdom and the United States. But there are no stories produced  by “Google.”

Now go to Yahoo! News and look at the home page. With the notable exception of correspondent Kevin Sites and his  “HotZone” coverage, the content is predominantly from wire services and newspapers, a homogenous mix of news and opinion virtually unrecognizable from the other.

On the Internet, all news media look the same.

I know there are exceptions to this and I admit to oversimplification to make a point (I used to be a columnist, I can’t help it.) For example, the same Google search on Iraq brings up the “Healing Iraq” blog, an inspired exercise in citizen journalism.

Nevertheless, most of the news online is without character or spirit, much less brand. Google doesn’t display newspaper mastheads or cable TV-style graphics. The consumer is reading Google News, but it’s not Google’s News.

The only thing left to brand – to give a media outlet any identity to the news consumer – is the story itself. The story, therefore, becomes the brand.

Making a Final Stand
The news story is a media organization’s last line of defense, the best path toward preserving a unique identity and voice.

If I go to the Washington Post online, then the Post can open its brand doors and invite me in right away. If I find a Post article via Google I still go to the Washington Post web site, but my first encounter with the Post is from Google – so my relationship now is with Google, not the paper.

The brand becomes more diluted when I read news alerts via RSS; with full-text feeds I never have to visit the Post web site. Then there are e-mail alerts, SMS (text messaging) and other modern conveniences that deliver information and nothing more. News is adrift.

Maybe this is a long-winded way to say that yes, the future of news is all about content – that stories about Iraq, Aruba or Katrina need to stand up without the crutch of multimedia fanfare. Maybe we need to put more stock into what the news is telling us, not who is delivering the message. Maybe we need to demand context and perspective, not jingles or graphics packages.

Maybe newspapers aren’t dying – maybe news is. And maybe it’s not too late to save both.

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citizen journalism

“Unbundled” Journalists: Every Reporter is a Freelancer – and a Brand

In a previous post I said that newspapers have failed because they have lost their brand identities. Newspapers – not all, but the majority – sacrificed voice for profit, and ended up with neither.

But that’s only part of the story. In fact, I buried the lead.

Newspapers – and broadcast media – used to be the brands that mattered. Reporters were “employees” who served their organizations – their only outlets for expression were through their employers, and if their employers didn’t agree, then that was the end.

Editors ruled. But not anymore.

The same self-publishing and social networking tools that are empowering consumers today are also allowing reporters to break the surly bonds of their media masters. Just as forms of media are now unbundled (see Terry Heaton’s insightful work in this area), journalists, too, are becoming unbundled from mainstream news organizations.

If every citizen is a reporter, then every reporter is a freelancer, able to speak his or her mind in multiple formats directly to and with the audience. Reporters don’t work for organizations anymore – they work for us.

•    Do you watch CNN or do you watch Anderson Cooper?

•    Do you read “the NBC blogs” or do you read Brian Williams?

•    Do you subscribe (via mail) to BusinessWeek or do you subscribe (via RSS) to Stephen Baker?

Journalists rule.

In this new model, reporters, not newspapers or networks, are the brands. If they left we would follow. Our relationship and trust network involves them, not the organization for which they work. They are the brands that matter.

With Brand Comes Responsibility
Brands, however, are earned through practice, not conferred via circumstance. Modern trends and shifting demographics put reporters in the driver’s seat, but it is up to journalists to maintain and grow that trust network. It is up to them to prove that our trust is well placed and has not been merely transferred to another group of false prophets.

Here’s how:

• When you get a story wrong, say that you got it wrong. Not a year later (New York Times), but when you first discover that you blew it.

• Recognize the difference between “journalism” and “coverage.” You were trained to think and ask questions, not take dictation. Anyone can take notes – your job demands more.

• Be in your own audience. You don’t write about institutions, you write about people – you are always writing about people. If you separate yourself from your audience and don’t involve them before, during and after your stories, then you are doing a disservice to all involved.

• Don’t confuse analysis with opinion. We need you to provide insight and context – we can get the “news” from Yahoo, what we need is the perspective and meaning. You can do this without proffering an opinion (yes, you can.)

• Cover stories that need to be covered – no matter what. Yes, some cartoons can be offensive. But when people start dying because of them, that’s a story – pictures and all.

I believe journalists are up to this challenge; it is in their genetic code. It is time for them to switch that journalism gene back on and take their brand responsibility seriously.

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New Rules for the Modern Journalist

Few would argue that institutional journalism has lost its way. But journalists are not institutions; they have minds, ideas, passion, prejudice and purpose. They have the tools necessary to bring journalism back from the abyss – but not the will.

That’s too bad, because for journalism to regain its conscience and credibility – to save itself – it can’t look to the institutions. Only journalists can save journalism, and so far they have failed.

There are some exceptions of course; there always are. Nevertheless, it’s the rule I’m concerned about, as are many ordinary citizens who eat from the trough of homogenized news, forced either to swallow the muck whole or seek alternative forms of information nutrition – some healthy, some not.

And despite the rise of the Internet and blogs, most Americans still get their news the old-fashioned way – via the mainstream mass media. And the news we get is less representative of what Americans want to know about, and more representative of what those in power want Americans to know about.

Yet I am a believer. I believe there is still time to reshape mass media for the modern age and make real journalism matter again.

The Rules
The best journalism schools teach the Chicago Manual of Style, reporting techniques and how to write a tight headline. These are all important – but the rest of what they teach, by and large, is crap.

Why? Because no matter how good the teacher or the program, the rest can’t be taught. This is the difference between vocation and profession – between good stenography and good journalism. The former requires training; the latter requires talent, drive and conscience.

The latter is what matters. And for journalism to matter, modern journalists need to live by the following rules:

• Be accurate, not objective.

• Be honest and open – when you are right and especially when you are wrong.

• Be responsible for your sources, your stories and your actions – editors won’t protect you, nor should they.

• Listen to your audiences and learn from them – as Dan Gillmor says, they know more than you do.

• Stop reporting the news – start sharing it.

• Name names.

• Don’t be led – lead instead.

• Ask questions – then question the answers.

• Celebrate change; abhor conformity.

• Reach people where they are, not where you want them to be.

• Be a citizen first, journalist second.

• Follow your heart, not just the story.

• Be right, not first.

• Be there for the First Amendment, or it may no longer be there for you.

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Making Newspapers Matter: The Journey Back to Brand

(Note: This is the first in an occasional series of posts about newspapers, their loss of “voice” and relevance, and how they can regain both. You can find these posts under the category “Journalism Next.”)

I read a newspaper this morning. Stop the presses.

My primary computer is being repaired so I don’t have access to my RSS reader and my 60 or so feeds.  I can’t sync my iPod to download all my Podcast shows. I don’t watch television news unless there is a major event or crisis, I don’t have time to go to multiple web sites or set up the custom Google home page I should have set up months ago. I catch National Public Radio in the car or sometimes at the office, but it’s hard to multitask with Nina Totenberg talking about the Supreme Court and Congressional hearings.

So I read a newspaper and tried not to think of it as nostalgia. the paper felt warm and comforting, like the college sweatshirt you won’t throw away no matter how many stains it has. The sweatshirt isn’t about clothing; it’s about time and place. Another time, a simpler place.

The newspaper, too, has little to do with actual news and much to do with familiarity. That’s why, despite all the essays and death knells from leading industry professionals, many of those same professionals are trying to save newspapers.

Wither the Printed Word
Yes, Jeff Jarvis says newspapers and other print publications are “where words go to die.” Yet he works to help newspapers, to keep them relevant in print and online. He is passionate about journalism and protective of journalists. The same goes for Tim Porter, whose often “tough love” approach is meant to wake newspapers up, not drive them away.

There are countless others – Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor, Leonard Witt, Steve Outing, Terry Heaton. They all agree newspapers have failed, but they are not ready to dance on the grave of print.

They may never admit it – and it may be impossible to understand if you have never worked in the news business – but I believe a part of them would miss the ink that rubs off on their fingers after reading the Sunday paper. They would open their doors and stare at their driveways out of habit, searching for the gray bundle that was always waiting – a world of words and ideas literally laid at their doorsteps.

Today’s world of words and ideas, however, doesn’t sit still long enough to rest quietly on a porch. This is why the Internet, blogs and other modern tools are on the rise and newspaper circulations are in decline.

Yet today’s speed and breadth of information alone is not why newspapers are dying. In fact, newspapers aren’t dying at all – quality journalism is. And as goes quality and focus, so goes the brand.

Bringing it Back to Brand
Why are some blogs popular? They are perceived as being authentic and having a focus -- a clear point of view. They are more about listening and connecting than lecturing. Blogs aren’t afraid of any man or government, and embrace their audiences as equals with conversations that are relevant and accessible.

Now look at newspapers (forgive me, I’m generalizing here). They are perceived as being sanitized and too often unquestioning. They lack focus and relevance, especially on the local level. They speak from bureaus and offices – to people rather than with them. Newspaper management knocked down the wall between editorial and advertising, and replaced it with a wall between the paper and the reader.

Okay, so what makes a brand? Authenticity. Passion. Personality. Quality and trust. Meaning on a personal, emotional level.

Newspapers have failed not because of CraigsList, or the Internet, or bloggers, or citizen journalists, or content that is “unbundled.” Newspapers have failed because they have lost their brand identities. They have forgotten what made them household names in their communities in the first place. They have become “Hyper Global” in a world that needs more “Hyper Local” coverage. And that has led to many empty driveways and doorsteps.

Quality journalism can’t operate in this environment – and neither can newspapers. Newspapers have tried so hard to be “objective” and not ruffle any feathers (especially those of their corporate owners) that they have lost value and credibility in readers' eyes. By trying to serve everyone they have served very few, and they are paying the price.

While formats need to and will continue to expand, newspaper content needs to contract. If newspapers can regain their focus, purpose and voice, they will regain readers. It’s that simple – and that scary.

Let the Los Angeles Times web site give me the up-to-the-minute news; let the print edition give me perspective and analysis. Let the web tell me about Baghdad; let the paper tell me about City Hall. And let both question authority and go back to being the people’s voice, and include us in the conversation.

I read the newspaper this morning. My fingers smell like newsprint. I hated the story on page 3.

I can’t wait until tomorrow.

Newspapers Media News Media Journalism

PR and Journalism Bloggers in the “Echo Chamber”

I like to think that my colleagues and peers are smarter than me, work harder than me, and with the exception of Craig Newmark and any L.A. Weekly reporter, are infinitely better looking than me (I tried to post my photo but TypePad kept replacing it with a picture of an engorged Ferret, which bore an eerie resemblance to my High School Yearbook portrait.)

I still believe this to be true – at least the “smarter” part anyway. But in the past few days I have come to realize that in the world of modern media and the new journalism, there are far more questions than answers among experienced communicators and journalists. There is awareness of great change yet uncertainty over its meaning. They know things will be different, they’re just not sure if they need to care before they can start living off their 401Ks.

Filling the “Conversation Gap”
This week my business partner, Linda, delivered a presentation to a group of public relations and marketing professionals about blogs, RSS (content sydication) and podcasting. We figured blogs would be the shortest section – everyone knows the power of blogs by now, right? Instead, blogs took up the bulk of the presentation, with these pros asking sincere questions about what a blog is (“is it like a chat room?” one person asked), whether they are important and how could they possibly be used in communications – in “real life.”

RSS blew the group away (“What will happen to PRNewswire?” someone said.) By the time Linda got to podcasting the audience was spent, and many went home that night either to start their own blogs or curl into a ball by the fireplace and quietly weep.

At the same event, a reporter told us that while she knew what a blog was, most of the other reporters at her paper were either unaware or unconcerned. Those that knew about blogs were anxious about their careers, wondering if they could last long enough before blogs, Craigslist and other factors cost them their jobs.

The next day, Canadian PR practitioner David Jones posted a comment on Linda’s new blog, the Modern Mediasphere, and urged Linda to help make sense of “Web 2.0.” Jones said:

“With so much discussion on so-called PR blogs about who's blogging, who's using RSS, who's podcasting and all the cool new web 2.0 tools coming online every day, I've found there is a real gap in the conversation. It sounds like you're going to answer the inevitable ‘so what?’ question that those who have yet to drink the Web 2.0 Kool-Aid seem to ask either directly or with blank stares.”

Abandoning the Echo Chamber
We talk about Big Media being in an echo chamber (especially in relation to early coverage of post-9/11 Iraq), but I have seen the echo chamber, and we are it.

Most PR people and journalists don’t read the PR and journalism blogs, only PR and journalism bloggers do. We talk to each other and wax poetic about Web 2.0 in a world where our colleagues are still trying to master their Outlook inboxes.

And you know what? That’s just fine. The online community is still a community, so it's logical that we would spend most of our time talking to each other. We need to learn, too.

So let’s not stop – but as we move ahead, let’s also work extra hard to educate our colleagues (yes, that also means our competitors, just get over it.) Let’s keep asking ourselves “What does it mean?” and “What is it good for?” before proselytizing our gospel to the great unwashed.

It’s easy to get swept up in the early adopter vortex and look at blogs in our rear-view mirrors. But remember what those mirrors say: “Objects are closer than they appear.”

Newspapers Media Marketing News Media Journalism PR Public Relations

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