The Elite Newspaper of the Future

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4605

by robg • 18 years ago

36 20 18 years ago

mixmax2• 18 years ago

To me it seems pretty obvious that newspapers should not compete on gossip and up to the minute news, but rather on commenting, in-depth analysis and investigative reporting. The latter is not easy to find on a consistent basis on the Internet, and there is a clear market for it.

The economist, for example, does exactly this - and their circulation has grown 95% in the last ten years.

robg• 18 years ago

You know, when I read this I thought exactly of the Economist. And what's funny there - not only do I love their content and perspective, but I also look forward to receiving it in the mail. That and Consumer Reports seem to transcend the web, for me, based on the authority with which they seem to report.

mixmax2• 18 years ago

Same here - my edition of the economist takes up it's residence next to the toilet every week. It seems to be perfectly tailored for a weeks worth of toilet-reading.

brandnewlow3• 18 years ago

What you and this post are talking about is transitioning toward being an intelligence service, not an all you can eat info buffet.

The Economist provides actionable intelligence on what's happening in the world. It truly is "news you can use."

Example: Back when I was applying to be a CIA agent (i pulled out after passing the first few steps) the interviewers routinely told me to read the Economist from cover to cover. The CIA considers it the definitive, authoritative consumer news product, full of information you can act on.

Same with the other example mentioned here, Consumer Reports.

That said, even if that's where newspapers go, they're still overstaffed. You don't need 1,000 reporters to break down what's happening in Chicago that week in a useful way.

The link economy that Jeff Jarvis blogs about so much (BuzzMachine.com - a must-read for people interested in the future of news) means you don't need as many people to re-report all the stuff your competitor reported.

Over at my humble Chicago news startup, I'm laying the groundwork for what I believe is the next sustainable metro news model.

Three pieces: 1. A crowd-powered, local link aggregator. Digg for Chicago, to be succinct. Open-source your tip line. Let your readers vote up, discuss and share neat, weird and important local links.

2. A blog network. Stick 2-3 local experts on every topic that newspapers typically assign beat reporters to. Have them aggregate, comment and contextualize 2-3 times a week. Create conversations around hot topics. We started a blog about Lollapalooza over the summer and posted to it just for 4-days. It was a big hit for us and was noticed by every news organization covering the festival.

3. Hard-hitting, impactful reporting/features that draw on what's hot from the link aggregator and the blogs. Once a week we publish something that you absolutely have to know to stay ahead of the conversation. To use blogger lingo, this should be linkbait of the highest caliber.

Anyway, I agree with the assessment in this article. You can either go low-brow (The Chicago Tribune now has a CollegeHumor-style blog that their interns run...it's awful) or you can go high.

unalone3• 18 years ago

Some of the stuff you mention sounds very similar to now NewsVine works. Letting people blog directly on the site, for instance, and delivering local news. That said, good luck on your start-up!

mnemonicsloth• 18 years ago

... an intelligence service ...

That was the exact phrase that popped into my head after reading the subhead.

Now for one of those nutty, wild-assed guesses: what do you think about Anathem?

netcan• 18 years ago

Sure that's good advice for the young, entrepreneurial would be editor. It means there are niche markets out there. Some of them are big. Some of them are lucrative.

It's not a realistic suggestions for the doomed giants. The economist sells to people wiling to pay full price for a good read. That's closer to JK Rowling's business model then most newspapers.

The papers make (made) money largely on services that are no longer necessary (from them) or no longer need to be bundled. Those that are left are now more competitive. Much more. Top that off with the fact that online ads don't pay as well & probably never will. Their business model has been pulled from under them.

SarahToton• 18 years ago

Even online, there are many meta-journalist columns that attempt to offer added analysis and investigative reporting. One of the issues online is, of course, finding these sources, which are often more hidden than The Economist (a London magazine founded in 1843). Columbia Journalism Review (http://www.cjr.org/) is a rare institutional effort to do this.

While in-depth (or at least, accurate) analysis should be key to ALL journalism, many newspapers have strayed from, well, their local roots. Offering detailed analysis of local events (aka serving a niche market), as opposed to competing with major online blogs or The Economist, may breathe life into the printing press not to mention the newspaper website.

ojbyrne• 18 years ago

There is a fairly successful business that was started in my part of the world (formerly my part of the world) - Nova Scotia, Canada - http://www.novascotiabusinessjournal.com/ that's very similar to this.

You'll note there's nearly nothing available on their web site.

omouse• 18 years ago

So basically what the Economist, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, etc have been doing?

dzohrob• 18 years ago

don't forget the new yorker. the best $1 i spend a week. (for reference, the sunday NYT is $6 with home delivery.)

shafqat2• 18 years ago

This is a great read, and highlights a common thought circulating in the media industry: investigative journalism is dying because of cost cutting in newsrooms. But that is exactly the kind of journalism that can save newspapers. Rather than focusing on keeping the main thing the main thing, newspapers are effectively cutting off their oxygen supply.

On a note related to my startup (NewsCred), I found it very interesting that the author could empirically prove that trust in a newspaper directly leads to increased ad rates and circulation.

unalone3• 18 years ago

I think it's a good sign that there ARE sites like NewsCred. Anything that aims for credibility and quality above everything else is a trend in the right direction.

shafqat2• 18 years ago

Thanks - there are certainly a lot of challenges, but so far things have gone great and we have hundreds of thousands of readers who have been supporting us. Thanks for the hat tip.

tristmegistus• 18 years ago

Eacy day it publishes the Wall St. Journal has three page one articles that to a large extent provide in-depth reporting. They spend the time and money to fully report and edit these stories. Reporters I know are jealous of the time WSJ reports can spend developing these stories.

The point I take from this is that the kind of deep reporting papers need to differentiate themselves is not cheap or easy.

gamble• 18 years ago

Print news is thriving - it's merely the ink-and-paper medium that's in decline. The challenge is to monetize that audience. I believe we'll continue to see a bifurcation between those that specialize in analysis (The Economist, WSJ, NYT) and opinion. (Huffington Post, Town Hall, Politico) It's the local papers that provide little beyond repackaging the newswires with a bit of local content that may not have a future.

13ren• 18 years ago

[Craig Newmark of craigslist] is what business school people call a "bad competitor" because he appears more interested in serving society than making money.

He does make money by charging certain kinds of users, but the bulk of his service is free. He is like Henry Ford who, after introducing the Model T, lowered prices, increased wages and concentrated on market share rather than maximizing profit. When challenged by shareholders unhappy that their dividends weren't higher, he replied that they should view his company as "an instrument of service rather than as a machine for making money."

startup relevance: I've seen growth at the expense of profit painted as megalomaniacal empire-building, and I felt the strain of the selfishness of it, but not recognized it intellectually. Growth can sometimes be justified economically, if it can improve future profitability, so it's not "growth vs. profit" but "future vs. now" (i.e. an investment). There's security in not maximizing immediate profits, too - craigslist isn't going out of business any time soon; and the goodwill generated by "leaving money on the table" is arguably worth something.

The Elite Newspaper of the Future

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