Whap! Whap!

One of my theories for this site is that conservative politics and conservative use of technology go hand in hand. But here’s a technology kudo for that ultimate right-wing train wreck, The Washington Times.

The re-design of the print edition (see details here) is one of the best I’ve seen at integrating the print and online offerings. The print product in many ways becomes a jumping-off point and guide to the meat of the company, the website.

There are caveats attached to this kudo. The big one is that the digital edition the print product plugs is, well, not very good. washtimes.com makes the same mistake almost every newspaper website makes, leading with the print offerings. It does, however, include more-prominent links to online tools than many sites. The big problem is that the online tools tend to be as skimpy as the print product. There’s just not much there considering the market and budget of the paper, regardless of your politics.

(BTW … where are the email addresses for editors? Phone numbers are great, but email is a better option for everyone.)

Critics no doubt will argue that these changes are being made out of desperation, to save a rapidly sinking ship. I won’t argue that point, but I would remind other papers that the Times is sort of the canary in the coal mine. Its problems are worse than most papers, but only by degrees. Many of the rest of you are headed down the same path.

The early posters on the site hate the changes. Then again, the most vocal newspaper readers tend to hate any change (”Don’t mess with my ‘Nancy’ strip! It’s the best!”).

But don’t dismiss the blue tab gimmick and some of the other changes designed to help guide you to fuller coverage online. If implemented at a paper with more robust content, some of these ideas just might work …

Despite all the talk of newspapers as information companies, the current round of cost cutting makes it clear what publishers think their real business is: Running factories to turn out paper products.

I’m picking on Ottaway, but we’ve heard the same line from every publisher in the country. Classified revenue is tanking, so what to do? Lay off newsroom employees, of course. Here’s a graph from a Cape Cod Times story:

The Standard-Times newsroom absorbed more cuts than any other department, losing three full-time and three part-time employees. The other full-time employees are from the advertising and marketing departments. Two other positions, currently vacant, also were eliminated.

Why not instead try shedding the albatross that is dragging down the industry? Why not instead try beefing up what brings people to the paper in the first place?

A good place to start is with classifieds. Classifieds always have been the sacred cow because they were the cash cow. But lately they have started to look more like the lame, diseased cows we see being prodded into slaughterhouses.

Yet instead of intentionally shedding print classifieds to cut production costs, publishers shed newshole and the reporters who fill it.

And no, I’m not forgetting classifieds’ other contribution to newspapers: Drawing readers, especially younger readers. But the cold, hard fact is that they’re really not doing a very good job of that anymore, either.

So here’s the plan:

• Make private-party classifieds free. Slash the cost for contract advertisers.
• Charge for ads that require human intervention, for priority placement and other enhancements. Many Craigslist ads are poorly written. Maybe charge for expert advice on wording, which also then buys priority placement.
• Stop running daily classifieds as they exist today. Run all car ads one day a week, all real estate another, all garage sales another (or at least all that pay a small upcharge). That helps give the ads the bulk to compare to Auto Trader and other publications and gives readers a call to action to buy the paper on a specific day. It also slashes costs. (All ads would be available at all times online.)
• Instead of a big, gray page of liners, publish the ads on letter-sized paper inserted into the paper. That makes the ads more attractive and easier to carry while driving around to garage sales, open houses, etc. It also eliminated the need to balance sections, artificially fill the classified section, etc.

That’s a start. It’s a good way to break the obsession with the manufacturing process. It’s a way to start viewing classifieds as information, not a section. It reduces revenue, but that revenue is disappearing anyway; this at least helps preserve the bulk of information to draw eyeballs.

It’s a crazy plan, I know, but it might just help pull papers out of the death spiral so many are in right now.

Update: Somehow until today I have missed a new site called reinventingclassifieds.com. It’s run by Steve Outing, so most of you probably already know about it. If not, take a look.

We learn from Romenesko that the Record of Hackensack is “taking seriously” charges of liberal bias, and is requiring editors to seek out evidence of this left-wing plot.

So … will editors be required to look for incidents of conservative bias while they’re weeding out all this evil liberal bias?

Liberal bias is a meaningless phrase. For example, when the Virginian-Pilot refused to honor a high school artist because she sculpted a nude, the forums contained charges of “liberal bias.”

It’s an empty, meaningless phrase, yet publishers use it as an excuse to become ever more conservative at the same time the populace is becoming more liberal.

Papers get more conservative, liberal readers leave for the digital media, papers become even more conservative, so moderate readers leave …

I’m a sample of one, and this isn’t scientific. Yet every one of my conservative friends who complain about liberal bias subscribes to their local paper. My liberal friends complain just as loudly about conservative bias.

The difference is many of them have given up on newspapers, seeking out alternative newsweeklies and digital sources instead.

Getting even more conservative is only going to make it harder to attract young readers. It’s a suicidal business decision, yet publishers drink the Kool-Aid every day. And we wonder why papers are dying …

Editor and Publisher tackles an idea too often ignored among newspapers: Blowing up the newsroom.

E and P calls it Mobile Journalism, or MoJo. I think putting reporter and editors out in the field will result in better journalism, better morale and better employee health. Not to mention it could save big bucks for publishers. How many papers are struggling to finance fancy new buildings while laying off the people they built the buildings for? The two papers where I spent the bulk of my career (the Dayton Daily News and The Columbian) are both in that situation right now.

Some editors lament the loss of comradery such a move would create, and I’m sensitive to that. On the other hand, no one suggests that staffers never get together, and with technology it’s becoming easy to share tips and humor without being in the same room together. Frankly, I think not being cooped up together might have benefits, tearing down some of the GroupThink that plagues the industry.

I wouldn’t stop with the newsroom. In fact, Advertising and Circulation probably would be easier to disperse. I wouldn’t stop there, either. I would work toward distributing production to small plants or even to on-demand printers in kiosks and stores.

“Impossible!,” publishers will say, “We can’t have people spread out all over town!”

Then again, many of these same publishers are merging copy desks and outsourcing work to India …

Crosscut Seattle has a series of suggestions from former staffers on how to transform The Seattle Times. And folks, these people are out of their minds.

They must be, because so many of their suggestions for newspapers echo mine (of course, maybe that’s why most of us are former newspaper people …). Anyway, it’s good reading.

How many of your papers have established wikis to compile local and institutional history? Even if it’s behind a firewall, it’s great resource for your staffers. Papers throwing out … er, I mean buying out … their old timers, think of all the knowledge that’s walking out the door almost every day …

Number 1: A local historian. Reporters who have been around forever are great, but not enough. Hire a history wonk obsessed with your local area.

Number 2: A librarian. A real, dedicated professional who can catalog and archive your paper’s assets, such as reporters’ notes and unpublished correspondence. Sadly, you can hire a good librarian for a ridiculously low salary.

Why these positions in a time of cutbacks?

First, long-time residents are turned off by reporters and editors who know and care little about their communities. Aggressive historians and librarians can be invaluable as resources for reporters and as watchdogs for when you screw up.

Second, these positions can generate revenue and goodwill with your customers. Newspaper editors claim to be the best (and sometimes only) source of information about their towns or cities. They are delusional. Papers are usually unable or unwilling to provide any information beyond what they choose to print on a given day or leave online.

A case in point: I’m researching the history of a famous Native American in the Detroit area, Chief Sashabaw. The Sashabaw name is everywhere in Oakland County, on highways, schools, cemeteries, and more. Yet no one at any of the papers I have contacted back there knows, or cares, a thing about this man whose name they see or hear almost daily. They can’t find old stories they ran about incidents involving him. I would happily pay for information, but they have none to offer me.

OK, these positions probably won’t generate enough revenue to cover their cost, but then neither do reporters, photographers, etc. But when you add in the value they provide to your staff and the goodwill they can generate with your customers, they can be invaluable. Add to that the books and special sections they could contribute, and the proposition looks pretty attractive.

If newspapers don’t start investing in knowledge and the technology necessary to support it, their claim to being a source of information, rather than simply manufacturers of a paper product, will be laughed at by customers.

Made you look! You thought this was another post about race.

I’m actually back to technology. Specifically CBS’s purchase of CNET for $1.8 billion.

From an investor’s perspective, this looks like insanity. After reading CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves’ rationale for the takeover, it looks more like just plain old ignorance. Here’s from a New York Times story:

“We are not going to spend $1.6 billion on YouTube,” he told The New York Times, referring to the video-sharing site that Google had recently bought. “We are looking for the next YouTube and Quincy knows all the players.”

Mr. Moonves now appears to have decided that CBS needs to spend at least that much to build out its Internet presence and make it attractive to advertisers.

“There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks,” he said in a press release Thursday. “Together, CBS and CNET Networks will have significant additional exposure to the fastest-growing advertising sector and can accelerate our growth through a number of new content, promotion and advertising initiatives.”

How, exactly, is CNET “the next YouTube,” other than that they’re both accessible via the internet? No offense to CNET, but for the most part it would be just at home on paper as online. It’s a content site. To some extent YouTube is, too, but it’s of a form that couldn’t exist without the internet.

The most successful internet companies - eBay, MySpace, Facebook, CraigsList, Google, etc. - all harness the power of the medium. There are great content sites online, but for the most part they aren’t financially successful without the backing of a print, cable or broadcast entity.

Too many Old Media execs still cling to the hope that by putting up a website they’ll be the same as YouTube. Toss in some animated graphics and one of those blog thingies and we’re all set. Yahoo, among others, has taught us that if you create a front door that harnesses the power of the medium, people will come … and then stay for the content.

Newspaper execs stubbornly cling to their old model, time after time building websites that lead with flat content, hoping that maybe somehow people will search out the interactive elements and stay for a while.

Simply having a website doesn’t make CBS or the Washington Post or anyone else an internet company. Until the Old Media execs see this, they’ll continue to fail online and say “See, I told you, there’s no money to be made online.”

Now back to the discussion of race. I’m working a post called “They all look alike to Old Media …”

You might have no idea who Charles is, but thousands of copy editors do. He’s an editor at the New York Times now, but when I knew him he was at Newsday. He was a legend. I was an intern.

But Charles spent an enormous amount of time mentoring me, and he and his lovely wife (and accomplished author), Janet, hosted me on a couple of return trips to New York over the years.

Among other things, Charles has won numerous national awards for his headlines, and an editor at the Times calls him perhaps the greatest headline writer ever. He is.

Anyway, I just read a story from the Times on Charles’ retirement.

Here’s the kicker: Charles was the greatest headline writer ever at Newsday. But I beat him for headline of the month. The awards were announced after I left the paper, and I never would have known I had won … except that Charles made sure I found out.

Charles is a giant. He’s not famous to you, but he is to me. He represents everything good newspapers claim to be, but rarely are.

I said I hope the site grows on me as I use it more. It hasn’t.

Instead of being a bold leap forward for the newspaper industry, it’s a step back. The unique web content has been buried even deeper under the recycled newspaper stuff. There’s nothing to invite current readers to enjoy both the paper and the site, only an invitation to choose between the two, which is at best a zero-sum strategy.

Worse, there’s nothing to entice people who don’t read the paper to use the site. It’s another failure on the part of newspaper editors to understand why people are turning away from paper and to the web. It’s like the hideous Olive Software trend of simply digitizing the print product. That works for a tiny sliver of a site’s potential audience but misses the point of why people don’t read the paper.

Newspapers are designed for a strict and largely antiquated manufacturing process. The content is highly constrained, both temporally and spatially, and let’s face it: Much of what is printed is there just to fill the gaps around the ads. The result is a dull, flat experience for the reader.

A well-designed website allows editors to guide readers, but also allows readers to create their own experience. I like Google because the front door allows me total freedom to find only what I want, or to click on news for an editor’s judgment. Philly.com is all about editors guiding me through an experience of their creation.

And philly.com doesn’t even do that well. Navigation is confusing, and not just because it’s a change. Where is Attytood? I’ll find it, but I shouldn’t have to go searching down dead-end alleys.

Cross-browser functionality is a mess. I understand that most people use Explorer, folks, but some of us prefer Firefox, Safari, etc. In fact, Explorer is now a minority platform on WhapWhap, for example, if you exclude spiders. Yet the drop-down “Marketplace” menu and the top of philly.com doesn’t work in Firefox or Safari, as far as I can tell. That kind of mistake is common for us amateur developers, but an enterprise with the resources of philly.com can and should do better.

And for an editor-driven experience,  philly.com is pretty aimless. Here, for example, is my brother’s experience with the movie listings:

“I discovered that the old “find a movie — by neighborhood” function no longer existed. Instead, you need to write in your own search terms. By writing in “Center City,” I was able to pull up the schedules for the Ritz theaters — but not the Franklin Institute, nor I believe the small indie where I saw the excellent “Michael Clayton.” It also pulled up theaters in several, to me, far-flung suburbs. When I entered “University City” (my neighborhood), I got the schedules for several of the same suburban theaters, but not The Bridge, 5 blocks away from me.”

Not the end of the world, to be sure. But again, the editors miss the point. They brag that images of Philadelphia landmarks leave no doubt the site is local. But movie listings that feel like they were designed by someone who has never visited the city leave plenty of doubt.

I’m done piling on now. But the clock is ticking on newspapers’ chance to reclaim local web markets, and a retreat into the past like this one isn’t helping anyone.