‘For many readers, the paragraph is a dinosaur’
Today’s Washington Post includes a nice story on how small papers are still doing quite well.
The most intresting part, however, was buried deep in the story. Frank Ahrens reports:
Freedom has made the Shelby (N.C.) Star the chain’s laboratory paper, and the 15,000-circulation daily has run with the mandate.
Under editor Skip Foster, the Star last spring began abandoning the paragraph story form for a barebones rundown that simply lists who, what, when, where and why an event happened. The Star’s front page on the morning after November’s midterm elections, for example, displayed only one succinct headline, “Dems Dominate,” and no stories. Instead, the page explained three local races in bite-size info-nuggets.
“For many readers,” Foster has said, “the paragraph is a dinosaur.”
…Foster, who became the Star’s publisher this month, cannot yet quantify whether his paper’s radical changes have bolstered circulation or ad revenue, though his Web viewership has grown by 80 percent over the past year, he said.
Interesting stuff. Score one for the “alternative story form” movement.
The main part of the story is great, too — especially if you like small papers:
The average daily circulation of all U.S. newspapers has declined since 1987. The smallest papers, however — community weeklies and dailies with circulation of less than 50,000 — have been a bright spot in a darkened industry. As the Internet dramatically transforms the largest papers in the business — siphoning classified advertising and commoditizing national news — many small papers are weathering the decline with relative ease, and some are even prospering.
Why? Small papers face less competition from other media outlets, are insulated from ad slumps that have hammered big papers, employ smaller staffs of lower-salaried journalists and have a zealous devotion to local news, both in print and online, industry experts agree. Also, there is less competition on the Web for local news.
Read it for yourself in today’s Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030702408.html
This item via Romenesko:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45
March 9th, 2007 at 2:15 am
[...] ‘For many readers, the paragraph is a dinosaur’. Smalltown newspapers are doing better than the big guys for a number of reasons, according to a Washington Post article. But what Charles Apple found interesting was news of one newspaper that seems to be taking redefining the story to a whole new level. [...]
March 9th, 2007 at 8:27 am
The Post overlooks the fact that small newspapers have their own issues (pardon the pun), particularly where advertisers are concerned. They are less likely to run investigative stories, especially when a major advertiser is involved, and they’re also more susceptible to advertiser-driven news content (think about those pesky progress sections, folks).
When one large advertiser pulls back, it causes problems. Unlike a larger paper, the loss of (or pullback of some advertising from) just one car dealer alone can bring pain at a community newspaper.
Granted, smaller papers have smaller staffs and they don’t carry heavy payrolls. That’s because they don’t have the reach, nor have budgets big enough to justify a 200 newsroom. They can also adapt to change faster than larger, more bureaucratic newsrooms. But they lack the resources, unless they’re owned by a larger group or partnered with other news organizations. This is where the large papers have the leg up… and with the impending demise of the major metro comes the greater need for more wire service offerings for those smaller papers.
I likened it to someone the other day with the metaphor that only cockroaches would survive a nuclear blast, but it didn’t quite make sense, and it insults small papers….
The metro papers (and mind you, I’ve been at large metros and small papers alike) have to face the reality they can’t broadcast anymore. It’s time to microzone, as arduous as that sounds, and as unrealistic as it might seem for some major newsrooms.
Enough of my incoherent rambling. Fact is, small papers have issues of their own, and while they will do well in the changing media landscape, it’s not as though everything’s wine and roses for them. And it never will be.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I meant “200-plus.” The plus sign didn’t work for me….
March 9th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Douglas is right. As former publisher of three weeklies, and a board member of the Kansas Press Association, I have to say the weeklies don’t have it as well as was being made out in the Post article — especially the independent weeklies.
Smaller papers are by no means more insulated from advertising slumps, especially as chains like Wal-Mart and Dollar Store, who mostly don’t advertise, drive out the local grocery stores and hardware stores. It’s hard to publish community newspapers in smaller towns when the downtown is a collection of empty store fronts — which is what many smaller publishers are facing in Central and Western Kansas towns. Let’s not even get into cash flow problems when your biggest advertisers lock their doors for the last time.
The advantage the Post was pointing out is temporary. Many smaller, independent community newspaper owners have made good livings for themselves — and rightly so. But many have the advantage of having their properties paid off. As they begin to retire, they are beginning to realize how difficult a proposition it is to find a like-minded independent potential owner that can afford to live off the scraps left over after paying off the debt of a newspaper purchase while trying to afford rising printing bills and increasing postage cost. (Let’s remember that postal delivery is the main way many small papers are circulated.)