- Beware the sucking sound of print
- Building audience
- Economic W’s of journalism
- Eye on design
- Find the early adopters
- Grocery bag news
- Myths of innovation
- Tapping into local communities
- What site managers need
- Your site – a link along the way
Beware the sucking sound of the newspaper
Stacy Lynch, a consultant and project manager for the Media Management Center, warns traditional news organizations against “the sucking sound of print” as they transition to online while attempting to maintain the newspaper.
“Print will take over every ounce of energy you have,” Lynch said. The brutal truth is there’s nothing in print that has no value. Everything has a little bit a value. Every cut hurts. You just have to figure out what hurts less.”
Rich Hirsch, Managing Editor/Multimedia at The Miami Herald agrees that the traditional newsroom is apt to be preoccupied with print at the expense of building online. “What we care about are nuances in print but we can’t quite find time to meet these gaping needs” on the Web.
Building audience
Bill Gannon, online operations director for LucasFilm Ltd, says news sites should not bother to try to attract people who have said they don’t want to go there. Instead, focus on people who can be converted and people who might possibly come to your site if you offered something they want.
”What readers are leaning your way or come to your web site only occasionally?” Gannon asks. Try to get them to come more often.
As for the core audience, the one that the site has already one, “You should not abandon them. You should also not be exclusively building the future of your online site for them,’’ he said. “You’ve already got them. They’re yours.”
“How news organizations empower community and listen will define their success. You have to really know your audience and provide the experience that they want.”
Five economic W’s of journalism
The five W’s have long shaped thinking about the basic content of a news story. James. T. Hamilton, a professor of economics at Duke University, offers five economic W’s for thinking about what constitutes news in the marketplace:
- Who cares about a particular piece of information
- What are they willing to pay to find it or what are others willing to pay to reach them?
- Where can media outlets or advertisers reach these people?
- When is it profitable to provide the information?
- Why is this profitable?
Hamilton offers a second list that broadly categorizes news and information:
- Producer information – What you need to help you do your job
- Consumer information – What you need to find a product
- Entertainment. Fun activities
- Civic information. What you need to make informed voter decisions
Consumers are willing to pay for the first three types of information. Unfortunately for the news industry, Hamilton contends, they generally are not willing to pay for No. 4, civic information. Hamilton believes that people are “willfully ignorant” when it comes to politics, in part because they realize their vote probably doesn’t matter. (Add to that the ubiquity of political headlines and you can see why traditional news organizations are struggling.) “That is what drives some of the problems you’re involved in,” Hamilton says.
Hamilton believes primary sources of funding for civic information must shift from the traditional model to foundation funding.
Learn more about these ideas in “All the News That’s Fit to Sell” by James T. Hamilton, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2006
Eye on design
Nora Paul of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota says her research reveals that few online users follow links to the end of the line on news sites:
100 people see a page
50 people actually notice a specific item
25 people take it a step further and “parse” it, or read the headline and the blurb
12.5 people take the next step, evaluating whether it’s worth more time
6.25 actually click through
With that kind of attrition, you can see why good design is imperative. Paul says the place where design have the most impact in engaging users to go farther users is between “See” and “Notice.”
Links: Paul’s presentation at the KDMC 2008 Leadership Conference.
Find the early adopters
Culture change is slow, challenging work, especially in news organizations that traditionally are among the most change-resistant workplaces ever studied.
Waving a magic wand and telling the organization and its members to change en masse won’t work. Instead it’s important to think about segments of the organization and how to engage them.
The Rogers Adoption/Innovation Curve shows how few people in a given organization are ready initially to initiate or embrace change.
The sweet spot is when the early majority joins in, bringing adoption to about half. It’s important to remember that a certain number – about 15 percent – may never adapt and, unfortunately, intensive and well-meaning efforts to bring them along may be a waste of time.
The key to culture change is to find the early adopters, the ones who will try new things on their own. Encourage them. Tout their work. Ask them to teach others. Build culture change brick by brick.
“So find those early adopters and corner them. Point them in inspiring directions and let them start to work out - on their own - where to go next,” advises Ryan Sholin of Gatehouse Media. “Because you can’t mandate mindset. But you can grow culture.”
Link: Rogers Adoption/Innovation Curve
Grocery bag news
Vin Crosbie likens the traditional newspaper business to a grocery store that is trying to sell bags already full of items (not necessarily of the choosing of the consumer.) That analogy goes to the heart of the challenge for traditional media: The mass audience with its mass consumption of the traditionally prescribed diet is ebbing away in favor of customized news and information.
The full grocery bag news model works pretty well when there are relatively few sources of news and people share many common interests. Fast forward to the digital age and just the opposite is true: People have infinite news sources (most of them free) and few shared interests.
Crosbie, managing partner of Digital Deliverance LLC, described the old formula for newsworthiness:
- Stories the editor thinks everyone should know about.
- Stories of the greatest common interest.
“The problem with that is that here in this room, in this hotel, in LA, how may common interests do we actually have? There aren’t that many of them,” Crosbie said.
The answer? Customization, says Crosbie.
“Newspapers are built to serve common interests. But those are relatively few. Newspapers are less good at serving group interests and rarely serve specific interests, which are highly diverse and fragmented,” he said.
As people grow more and more used to customizing the content they want, news organizations must get better at being front and center with content users want. The new grocery bag analogy: Consumers fill the bag with whatever they want. Here are our organization’s tasty, nutritious selections.
Myths of innovation
Krisztina “Z” Holly is Vice Provost for Innovation and Executive Director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation and her job is to stimulate innovation at UCS and in the larger community. Here is her list of seven myths of innovation:
- Myth 1 - Always keep your eye on the ball. “It’s really hard to notice other things if you keep your eye on the ball. You need to focus to get your work done. But you might miss things that come out of left field. It’s really hard to balance that.”
- Myth 2 - Failure is not an option. “We can be paralyzed by fear as well. Fear of failure is probably the biggest impediment to innovation.” Message to newsrooms: “The culture needs to embrace failure and trying.”
- Myth 3 - Everyone loves an innovator. “They’re rebels, they’re difficult to deal with sometimes. They’re not always fun to have around.” Message to newspaper editors: “It’s important that you as a leader embrace the irritant.”
The irritant may push against the “typical traps:”
“That will canabilize our business.”
“That’s not the way we do it around here.”
“We tried that and it didn’t work.”
“That will threaten our jobs.” - Myth 4 - Innovators are problem solvers. Actually, innovators ask “why?” In the music business, people might ask “How do we sell more CDs?” The innovator might ask, “How do we provide the best music listening experience?” (and Napster did it.).
- Myth 5 - Knowledge is Power. Organizations may know too much. Funny example: A remote wand with 52 buttons on it. The designer knew how to use every one and thought you might want too as well. Similarly, sometimes the customer knows too much - think photographers who said they would never want a digital camera and fast forward.
- Myth 6 - Innovation can be predicted. Actually, measurement and management may spell death of innovation. “When you try to manage it, you actually kill it.”
- Myth 7 - First place always wins. “It’s not the person who comes up with the idea first. It’s the one who delivers the product, delivers the experience that the market wants. Innovation builds on the successes and failures of the innovators before.” Example: iTunes didn’t invent mp3
Tapping into local communities
Mary Lou Fulton, Vice President for Audience Development at the Bakersfield Californian, offers this list of areas where a local online communities make sense:
- News - Give people a way to talk about local news, events and people. Segment news by category: Politics, Schools, Immigration.
- Geography - There are “natural” or established boundaries within geographic communities that provide common ground. Examples: Neighborhoods, School districts, Park districts, City council wards
- Life Stages & Events - When we go through a major event or change in life, we often want to ask others for information and advice. Examples: Weddings (local venues, entertainment, catering), Starting a family (local child care, pediatricians), Senior care (retirement communities, in-home care).
- Interests & Activities - What hobbies and interests are inherently related to geography? Examples: Golf, Outdoor recreation (camping, fishing), Bike riding, Fitness, Car clubs.
- Newcomers - Every community has recent arrivals that need lots of information and advice about: Neighborhoods, Schools, Local events, Health care.
- Volunteering - Local organizations are always looking for new members and volunteers. And people are trying to find volunteer opportunities that are the right fit.
- Faith - Faith is typically neglected in media coverage. Social media can get faith back into the conversation. Examples: Meet people who share your faith, Prayer requests, Church events.
- Arts & Music Scene - Local bands, theater, clubs and happy hours are natural gathering places.
- Local Business Reviews - If you need a plumber and don’t know one, what do you do? Ask people for advice! Local business ratings and reviews are growing in popularity. Start with restaurants. Everybody has an opinion about the best pizza in town.
- Local “Linked In” - Local businesses want to network, share information, and market their services to each other.
What site managers need
Ashley Wells, creative director at msnbc.com, notes that the people who run online news sites operate under tremendous pressure to build both audience and revenue while controlling costs. Wells says site managers need three things to accomplish these challenging goals:
- A flexible publishing platform with great editorial tools.
- A cross-functional team with cross-functional people.
- License to experiment with the intent to scale, or replicate, successful formats and practices.
Your site – A link along the way
While news organizations tend to focus heavily on their home page (the online version of Page One to traditionalists), most of their visitors are first landing on other pages of their sites, says Amy Mitchell, Deputy Director, Project for Excellence in Journalism.
That’s because they are searching by topic of interest more, and by a specific source less. (Those who are interested in a specific source may be including it in a feed, such as RSS.) That means every page on the site must devote some space to helping people find what they need or go where they want to go.
Mitchell’s message: Your story, your Web site is just one stop along the way. This means linking to other news and information, even that of competitors, has value because it increases the usefulness of the site. Most people come to the Web site through the back door, not the home page.
Links are another way people reach specific sites. Mitchell says news Web sites are getting over their reluctance to link outward. A 2007 survey showed 13 percent were linking. In 2008, the percentage had grown to nearly half.
Mitchell describes other ways in which the dynamics of the audience is changing, which dictates change for news organizations as well:
- News is a service more than a product. News is no longer a finished product since it is constantly updated and added to via links and e-mail alerts.
- The role of the journalist is becoming broader than telling stories. It’s important that new Web sites help people navigate and use information. “Give them the tools to make sense of that information and to use it.” Mitchell says.
- Brand matters less BUT franchise content—what you have that others, including investigative reporting—matters more.
Links: Mitchell's presentation (PPT) .
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