.FLYINGHEAD THE FLEXIBLE ENTERPRISE
.TITLE Can the Internet save newspapers?
.AUTHOR Jorge Sosa
.SUMMARY When we think of the Internet and newspapers, we normally think about how the Internet is killing newspapers. Craig’s List, for example, is taking away classified ad revenue from papers across the country. But in this article, newspaper journalist and favorite Computing Unplugged contributor Jorge Sosa looks at some ways the Internet might actually serve to save newspapers and make them even more relevant to the communities they serve.
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.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 About this article
When we think of the Internet and newspapers, we normally think about how the Internet is killing newspapers. Craig’s List, for example, is taking away classified ad revenue from papers across the country. But in this article, newspaper journalist and favorite Computing Unplugged contributor Jorge Sosa looks at some ways the Internet might actually serve to save newspapers and make them even more relevant to the communities they serve.
.END_SIDEBAR
Four years ago, I stumbled upon bliss. I landed the job of my dreams, almost through dumb luck. Four years ago, I became a journalist.
For someone like me – blessed with a restless sense of curiosity and aptitude for slapping words together somewhat coherently – journalism is heaven. There’s just one problem. For almost as long as I’ve been writing for a small town newspaper, I’ve been hearing that newspapers are dying.
.CALLOUT Frankly, with the economy as foul as it is, a shortsighted pessimist could argue almost all industries are dying.
I don’t know if that’s true. I certainly don’t want it to be true. Frankly, with the economy as foul as it is, a shortsighted pessimist could argue almost all industries are dying. That, of course, is nonsense. But countless industries seem to be reaching a point where they must restructure, retool and reinvent themselves to survive.
I don’t know of anyone who’s found the magic elixir to revitalize the newspaper business. But on the night of November 4, 2008, I caught a whiff of something that seemed pretty darned promising. On Election Night, two hours after local polls had closed, I saw a community spontaneously erupt into being.
.H1 An online eruption
The newspaper I work for serves Hutchinson, a west central Minnesota town of about 14,000 people, and its surrounding environs. Given the size of our market, it’s astounding that an online story featuring local election results racked up almost 14,000 page views within a few days. I’m not crazy enough to believe that every man, woman and child in town was reading our election results story. But we did see an undeniably intense burst of traffic.
What brought about this tidal wave of hits? It started simply enough. At about 9:30 p.m., the first local results began trickling in from a couple voting precincts. Our county auditor’s office started issuing the precinct vote tallies, which I posted on our newspaper’s Web site.
Within about 20 minutes, the first commenters began popping out of the virtual shadows. An online reader asked if we’d be posting the results of a school board race for a neighboring district. It was a simple matter for me to oblige.
A few minutes later, a presumably conservative site visitor lamented the victory of presidential candidate Barack Obama. But the real burning issue of the night would be one with a more intensely local focus.
The Hutchinson School District had a $58 million building proposal on the ballot. As the night drew on and vote tallies streamed in precinct-by-precinct, it became obvious the school vote had failed.
Now that really got people talking.
There were sighs of relief from "no" voters and cries of anguish from "yes" voters. There was finger-pointing and much venting of steam. And it just wouldn’t quit. After a brief lull during the wee morning hours of November 5, early birds starting commenting again and the conversation was fast and furious for about the next two weeks.
The Hutchinson School Board had avoided stepping into the online fray in the months leading up to the controversial vote. But the flood of commentary from our site readers wasn’t drying up. School Board members eventually began posting online too, attempting to bridge the divide with voters who had shot the building proposal down.
Meanwhile, I was taken aback. I hadn’t anticipated that the list of vote tallies I began posting Election Night would become one of our most-viewed online stories ever. The story truly took on a life of its own. Reaction to the original story became the story itself. Our page views skyrocketed as a vocal minority kept adding their two cents, and a silent majority kept coming back to follow the discussion.
Eventually, the conversation evolved beyond an often acrimonious debate, as our site visitors began grappling with potential solutions to the district’s unresolved building problems. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t saved the world yet. But the whole process showed me how the Web might just save the newspaper business.
To be perfectly clear, I didn’t have a Moses moment. At no point did I feel like I was standing on the mountain, gazing upon the Promised Land of perpetual profitability. But, I no longer feel like I’m condemned to wander aimlessly in an alien media wilderness.
Based on what I’ve seen, I believe the successful newspapers of the future will leverage the Internet by offering at least four critical services: hyperlocal breaking news, news on demand, homegrown punditry, and meeting the newsmakers.
.H1 Hyperlocal breaking news
For diehard newshounds, the most important service journalists can provide is up-to-the-minute, accurate coverage on what’s happening in their communities. This is our core mission and our stock in trade.
Journalists used to rely on the printed medium for getting breaking news out. It was pretty common for big city dailies to offer a morning and evening edition of their newspapers, to supply newshounds with the freshest information. Evening editions died out as radio and TV stations offered increasingly timely news coverage.
Now, the Internet offers an immediacy that broadcast and print mediums can’t match. Just as newspaper companies adapted to their changing environment by dropping evening editions, it’s a no-brainer that they’ll need to use the Internet to break news stories.
Often this means (gasp!) giving the news away for free. Will this remove the incentive for people to actually buy the paper? Perhaps, for some readers. But, if newspapers keep the breaking news online and offer more in-depth analysis in their print editions, perhaps both platforms will retain enough value to encourage knowledge-hungry readers to follow both the print and online editions.
.H1 News on demand
While the Internet allows newspapers to publish news as it happens, it’s not just a one-way communication device. Readers can now interact with journalists in real-time, as the first commenter on Election Night did with me. The reader wanted information that I wasn’t originally planning on posting. But I was able to provide it on-demand, once I knew there was a need for it.
When readers have questions about local events, journalists can get them the answers. It’s what we’re paid to do. We have time, expertise and access to sources, so we can give readers the information they want, and usually when they want it.
It’s a bit like the collaborative site Yahoo! Answers, with one critical exception. Instead of drawing on a community of anonymous self-proclaimed experts, newspapers depend on reporters who have to take credit (or blame) for their work. We journalists live and die by our reputation for delivering reliable, accurate and fair information.
.H1 Homegrown punditry
Newspapers have long had a tradition of publishing letters to the editor. These often contain thesis statements with some evidence and logical arguments to back them up.
Online comments have a different feel. They remind me more of the off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness infotainment you get from cable news network pundits. The difference is, the self-appointed pundits on community newspaper Web sites are ordinary people.
They might mix in substantial portions of hyperbole and unsubstantiated "facts" among their talking points. But from this roiling stew of chatter and gossip, you can sometimes glean some common sense answers to the problems facing our communities.
If nothing else, people seem to have a good time debating the local issues of the day. For many, following the online water-cooler banter is addictive, harmless fun.
.H1 Meeting the newsmakers
For a handful of brave public officials, such as Hutchinson’s mayor and several of its School Board members, our newspaper Web site can provide a direct avenue of communication with their constituents.
Some officials seem averse to the anonymous and often freewheeling nature of online discourse. But I believe that by engaging the cyber-saavy portion of the electorate on their own terms, community leaders perform a vital service.
The newsmakers and leaders in our communities ought to have a clear sense of what people are saying and feeling about the decisions they make. As a neutral, unbiased party, the newspaper seems like the ideal meeting ground for hashing out these concerns.
This form of discussion works especially well in a small town. I suspect, or at least hope, that elected and appointed officials in small communities have a strong sense of their local roots. On a national scale, I don’t think that sense is there. I can’t see, say, Defense Secretary Robert Gates hopping into a newspaper Web site’s chat room to find out what folks in Podunk think about national security.
But, the idea of an online chat with your elected official is not one that only works in a tiny media market. For instance, St. Cloud, a regional economic center about 50 miles of north of Hutchinson, boasts a population of about 66,000. St. Cloud’s daily newspaper counts one of its local school board members as a registered blogger.
.H1 Print won’t die
All this focus on the Internet might belie the fact that I still like to get my news the old-fashioned way: from a newspaper. There’s something quiet and contemplative about this centuries-old medium, which lacks the blinking distractions of animated ad banners and the tempting tangents of hypertext.
I know I’m not alone in feeling that way, so for the foreseeable future, I think that newsprint is here to stay. I’m also equally convinced that newspapers will have to continually search for new ways to deliver information to their online audiences.
Of course, they must somehow find a way to make a comfortable profit off whatever new models they adopt. Even in the best of economic times, isn’t that always the catch?
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Read the [[http://www.hutchinsonleader.com/|Hutchinson Leader]].
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
