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* The setup…

Billionaire investor Sam Zell told a group of newspaper executives Monday that the industry’s woes result partly from complacency in responding too slowly to rapid change in the business, comparing it to Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

Zell, who will become a major player in the industry when an $8.2-billion buyout of Tribune Co. that he led closes, said newspapers must become more disciplined and focused and do a better job selling their product.

“I think the newspaper industry has stood there and watched while other media enterprises have taken our bacon and run with it,” he told the annual meeting of the Inland Press Assn., a newspaper trade group representing about 1,200 papers in all 50 states. “It’s too much complacency.”

He cited the rise of the Internet, the cross-selling of different forms of media and the advent of 24-hour news channels as serious challenges that newspapers have not met well.

The industry as a whole, Zell said, has been “standing there and letting this happen while Rome is burning.”

Question: What one suggestion would you offer to help the newspaper industry get back on its feet?

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:22 am

Comments

Start treating their print editions as supplements to the online editions, rather than the other way around.

Comment by Lainer Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:26 am
Move from the liberal left to the middle of the political spectrum.

Comment by Patriot Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:28 am
Develop a local focus.
I don’t buy the Tribune to read articles about Iraq. I can get much better coverage from other sources.
Instead, I want to know more about what is happening in Chicago and in Cook County. The Tribune’s City Counsel coverage is almost non-existent. They have certain moments when they provide good local coverage but those moments are few and far between.

Comment by Skeeter Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:28 am
I like how the Tribune has blogs and multimedia now. Especially the video that show coverage of various stories about the Chicagoland area. I would like to see more papers or media outlets do that.

Comment by Levois Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:30 am
patriot, kind of hard to say the tribune is “left”
skeeter, i stopped watching local news because i don’t care how many dogs were dressed up like pumpkins yesterday in old town. if anything, a more international focus would attract me to a paper.
sam zell, good luck, bud. the newspaper will be a relic of the past within 20 years.

Comment by b-dogg Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:32 am
Patriot, if the Tribune (and most other papers) was any more middle of the road, it would be a dotted white line.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:35 am
The Internet finally put newspapers on a level playing field wiht the immediacy of radio and television, yet they refused to embrace it. Instead, as Zell noted, the print media watched as others took hold of what could have been their big advantage. Now they must play catch up, and so far most are not doing that very aggressively.

Comment by S. Illinois Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:38 am
I sort of agree with Zell. The newspapers are almost afraid of the internet and have forgotten some of the advantages of reading an actual paper.

Comment by Napoleon has left the building Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:43 am
The paper version can’t compete so it will need to align itself with the very things that will replace it: 24/7 immediate, news-at-a-click and ACCURATE info. Most papers are not NEWS but are editorial opinion and ads. If local papers didn’t list local movie/concert/arts + music events, they would be gone by now. If the big ones want to survive, they need to absorb, buy, become electronic current media. If they want to do well, they need to become honest and stop calling themselves NEWSpapers.

Comment by North of I-80 Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:50 am
They need to expnad the medium they use. Get into online newspapers where stories are posted instantly. provide e-mail/mobile phone stories. Subscribers indicate the content they are interested in, when a story breaks it is posted on the site and sent to a subscribers mobile at the same time.

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 9:54 am
I seldom get useful information from the papers. The information is typically after the fact and sensationalized. I want information that I can use. For instance if there is a public hearing about the proposed Children’s museum, I want to know about it beforehand with a guide to the key players and issues. Instead what we read is the sensationalized story after the fact. My impression is the media likes creating controversy because they think it sells papers.

Another example is the media will cover the lines at the post office for mailing back tax returns on April 15 rather than providing a summary of major changes in tax law before the fact.

Comment by Objective Dem Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 10:21 am
Give a pair of parakeets with each subscription.

Comment by A Citizen Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 10:24 am
The biggest problem newspapers have nowadays is consolidation. Look at what gatehouse has done here in Illinois. They buy papers and then the bean counters come in and reduce staff, water down the product and then they wonder why they can’t keep up with Internet-based media and cable TV news. A print version of a newspaper will be obsolete soon. The next generation of news consumerswill NOT read hand held newspapers. They’ll get their information electronically.

Comment by dupage boy Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 10:52 am
The Chicago Newspapers were the cheerleaders of the Daley Administration for far to long. Still to this day, Chicago Tribune silences it’s reporters. Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times has led the charge, reporting corruption and deserves credit for circulation sales of the Sun-Times. (I also enjoy what Rich Miller has to write) We need less trash like Michael Sneed’s gushing column about the Chicago Political elite. Chicago reporters need to turn up the heat and tell the truth, they need to control Mayor Daley’s wasteful spending habits.

Comment by Patrick McDonough Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 10:55 am
There is nothing newspapers can do that the Internet cannot. Portability? Get a laptop or a Blackberry. Want it printed out? Then print it out. Coupons? Print them out. Photos? Download them.

Newspapers are dead. If Zell can find another way to keep them alive, more power to him!

Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 10:58 am
Lainer: I agree.

But when Zell talks about addressing the threat from online competition, he’s not talking about competing. He’s talking about trying to force companies like Google from aggregating content, making it difficult to get new online.

There’s nothing forward-thinking about Zell at all. He’s still wedded to the idea that newspapers ought to base profits on the printing presses they own.

Personally, I see no downside at all the death of newspapers. Let these old dinosaurs die and replaced with online sources of news.

Comment by Billy Dennis Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 10:58 am
Print editions need to end up somewhere between the news-of-the-now they used to be (that’s relegated to cable tv and Internet these days) and the “in-depth” coverage of magazines. I put “in-depth” in quotes because even many magazines have turned to publishing cotton candy lately.

Stop copying and pasting press releases of any sort and start digging into those releases — ie, research and (duh) actually report.

This can be done with both a local focus and a national/int’l focus, and in the case of the Trib should be done with both.

Comment by Rob_N Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 11:10 am
Stop doing insane things like endorsing Todd Stroger..just take a pass if you dislike Peracia that bad…which is understandable.

A swimsuit issue and be mor elike the UK papers.

Comment by Wumpus Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 11:15 am
(who is on vacation)

Agree with dupage boy, stop the monopolizing buyouts. Too easy for these powerhouses to control the news instead of reporting it. Too many people believe “everything” they read, which isn’t always 100% factual. (Imagine that!) Enhanced local coverage. Political neutrality.

Big problem now with print is I’ve already heard or read via TV news and the web half of what is in the morning paper.

Comment by Fed Up State Employee Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 11:18 am
I suggest that the newspapers stop giving their product away on the internet and charge for viewing. Why should I have to pay for a product (print newspapers) whose content is largely free on the internet?

Comment by Roy Hobbs Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 11:19 am
First of all, stop considering yourself a newspaper. The sooner you consider yourself an organization that deals with information, not just news printed on paper, the more open you become to finding ways to monetize that information.

Also, forget just trying to react to the latest Internet trends, that’s always going to leave bulky companies behind the curve. Instead, create a research and development arm to your corporation to develop new online technologies in house and then license them to others.

Why aren’t news organizations recruiting programmers and engineers to develop the next big trend on the Internet? Imagine if Silicon Valley’s rising stars were brought into the fold at Dow Jones or Tribune Corp. instead of Yahoo! or Google.

The problem is that news organizations are too busy trying to keep up with technology that’s crushing them, rather than making strides internally to help them steer the masses.

And it’s the mentality of thinking “we’re a newspaper” that’s partially responsible for their own downward spiral.

Comment by Kiyoshi Martinez Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 12:11 pm
Newspapers only print what fits between the ads. They cut and paste to fill.

Reporters vary so greatly in quality. The demise of City News Bureau got rid of a great training vehicle for the newbies who come out of J-schools with an attitude and an already formed POV. They do not understand that real life is complicated, issues are complex and college is no place to develop a POV. Learn on the streets from all points of the compass.

Comment by Pete Speer Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 12:17 pm
They need to look at other media to figure out what to do. Television, Radio, even magazines, have figured out that the cost to the consumer must be marginal.

It’s simple, basic economics. Currently, the price of a newspaper subscription is greater than the value. Consumers are migrating away from newspapers because they have cheaper ways to get essentially the same product.

On the other hand, the cost of the Internet to advertisers is way overvalued. For most advertisers the Internet is a grossly ineffecient, overpriced medium.

Newspapers need to wake up and figure out that if they charge a nominal price for subscriptions (Say $25/year) they can guarantee their advertisers a much larger audience. Like magazines, they can target their efforts to specific demographics (offering even more deeply discounted professonal rates) and deliver readers who the advertisers want.

Newspapers have many advantages – No need for power, no need for any kind of electronic connection, they can’t break or lose the data, you can jump from page to page instantly and even look at multiple pages at once. The information is instantly retrievable and available whenever the customer wants it. If it’s lost, stolen or damaged, your loss is limited only to a single day’s files and it’s very cheap to replace.

Of course, they need to look for ways to cut costs and increase efficiencies, but the most important problem is that they have failed to recognize that they are charging more than the market value of their product. No industry can survive by following that model.

Comment by Old Elephant Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 1:02 pm
Originally posted by Kiyoshi Martinez:
First of all, stop considering yourself a newspaper. The sooner you consider yourself an organization that deals with information, not just news printed on paper, the more open you become to finding ways to monetize that information.

There’s the start of the answer. But the newspapers have to first get to that point to be able to survive.

Example: The average newspaper has an unbelievable depository of “institutional memory” available. Make it all digital (scanners; storage is dirt cheap), and make it open - available to the public after thirty days.

Then, if it was me, I’d make a point of creating & keeping and totally up-to-date real estate database from all my Counties in our service area. And I mean 100% weekly updates (parcel numbers, assessments, tax payments, GPS points, building permits, anything and everything I could get). Make every reporter go out to locate/develop sources of information. Develop the newspaper/blog equal of a “RE Insider” for the hottest RE gossip. Hey, if they really did it right, they could develop the RE equal of the “Capitol Fax” where they could charge a subscription fee.

Make access to the RE databases available to our advertisers (both print and internet). Don’t know all the ideas that people would come up with for the databases, but if you make the tools available, people will use them, and be very creative. And right now, that’s exactly what the newspaper business needs as Step 1 - creativity.

Will it work - I don’t know. But what’s a better alternative - doing what they are doing today, which sure looks to be a “Whole Lot of Nothing”?

Just a thought….

Comment by Judgment Day Is On The Way Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 1:26 pm
Focus on exclusive reports - local, national and international - and the slightly obscure. Don’t spend a lot of space reporting on things that the TV and internet rehash to death. Or, if so, approach it from a unique angle.

And keep up web editions and websites.

Most importantly, retain integrity. Don’t follow TV and internet down the gutter. I think people still look to newspapers for the real reporting - the real facts - the key/important information. People want papers to be the record, not the background noise while you’re doing dishes.

Comment by Left Leaner Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 1:39 pm
You will note that I didn’t say to get rid of the print editions completely. I believe they will still come in handy at times when the reader does not have access to a computer (i.e. power outages, riding the bus or train to work) or when a reader wants to clip an obituary, wedding announcement, team photograph, etc. for a keepsake. Perhaps these kind of stories and photos should become the meat and potatoes of the print editions, while breaking news goes to the online edition.

Comment by Lainer Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 2:02 pm
Left Leaner: I don’t buy the argument that a printed product equals credibility or integrity. I’d argue it’s more of a branding issue. When people see the nameplate for the Tribune, Sun-Times, NYT, WaPo, etc., they associate that name and logo design with the quality.

One mistake that news organizations are making is that they create brand confusion between their products online and in print. Not to pick on the Tribune, but look at their recent Web redesign. They changed their nameplate to be chicagotribune.com in a sans serif font. That makes zero sense to do that. Why retype what’s already in the address bar of every browser and hurt your branding? People recognize the Tribune for its reverse type nameplate of white on blue.

Instead of building continuity between products, news organizations keep trying to separate them apart through brand isolation. That makes zero sense.

Take a look at Google’s products, Yahoo!, Apple or even the New York Times, which has excellent branding. A lot of thought goes into their interface and branding, which is executed in their design. These companies create parallel products that people begin to trust and use, and that’s become part of their success.

Judgment Day: You’re dead on about the creation of niche products in your real estate example. The web should be thought of in terms of creating piles of information to be used in the long term, which people are calling the “long tail” effect. You might not see instant profits, but it’s a sound investment that will keep making money once you have the infrastructure set up.

Old Elephant: I disagree that Internet advertising is overvalued, I feel it’s the opposite. Right now lots of advertising is being sold by click thrus, which is absurd. When you see a billboard, or browse any printed publication, that advertisement is sold in the idea of display, visibility and exposure to a large audience. For some odd reason, the Internet has thrown that out the window.

The solution to this is to start selling ads based on page views and exposure, not click thrus. This also means changing the current display ad structure on most web sites, and consequently having better site design.

Comment by Kiyoshi Martinez Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 2:16 pm
1) Anytime someone talks to the “media” and you talk to that person later they will ALWAYS tell you that they were misquoted or that the reporter didn’t get the story straight. Therefore what needs to happen here is that Journalists/Reporters need to be better trained in getting the story “straight” and digging for more than just 1-2 usual sources. For example, if the Sports team is winning and they want a quote they always go to a bar. Why? Use some creativity.

#2) I have observed many times over the years that reporters/jouranlists are some of THE LAZIEST people around. Why? Because the paper is “always going to be there”. Well wake up newspeople! Newspapers are struggling! Get off your duffs and do some reporting and digging. This administration alone should provide enough fodder for the next 100 years.

3) Anytime you listen to “talk radio” all they do is rehash what is in the newspaper. Somehow newspapers need to capitalize on that.

4) Rich, sorry to disagree but our big city daily (St. Louis P-D) is about as left leaning as possible. Guess what? That plays well in the minority community but they ain’t buying the paper! You may be the “champion” of the small guy/disadvantaged but they don’t buy the paper and sure as heck don’t buy advertising.

5)Advertising Depts: Hire some competent reps and compensate them well instead of screwing with their compensation packages constantly. You must reward your stars and cut your slackers. Believe me when I tell you that newspaper reps are even lazier than the reporters!

That should be enough to get Sam going.

BTW quit spending $400 million on the Cubs. They were losing when payroll was $50 million and they lose now. Whats the diff?

Comment by BIG R.PH. Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 2:38 pm
Newspapers had one advantage over blogs and other more nimble Internet outlets: credibility.

But now that they’ve squandered credibility, I think Vanilla Man is right.

Newspapers are crunched between blogs and Craigslist.

If there’s a niche for newspapers, it’s becoming more specialized. But how’s a newspaper compete with a specialized blog which can deliver content more cheaply?

Credibility was the key advantage of the traditional media and they blew it.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 2:39 pm
I’m amazed that these dittoheads fail to see that the traditional media played a huge role in selling Bush’s disinformation campaign on Iraq.

Hello? McFly?

The traditional media has no credibility b/c of the role it’s played in lying to the public and generally protecting a criminal executive branch.

No amount of Right Wing hacks whining about “liberal media” is going to change the reality for the 60+% of the country that disapproves of the Bush administration.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 2:45 pm
It seems to me that newspapers should focus on the qualities that other media do not share. I would suggest that they hit investigative reporting hard. Television doesn’t do it much or very well and blogs aren’t set up to do it much at all. If papers turned to hard, shoe leather based news they would be addressing a media need that no one else can touch.

– SCAM

Comment by so-called "Austin Mayor" Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 3:23 pm
Newspapers should become more local. I can get national and world news on the internet or on TV from the news cable outlets. I want to go back to the days when there was a giant wedding item telling me the description of the dresses and tux. I want to see baby pictures. I want to read about the good old days. I want to see a huge weekly article about the activities at the local schools for the coming week. I want to see huge printouts about auctions in my area. I want volunteers to be in the spotlight. Gee, this sounds just like my local newspaper, The Observer, from Petersburg. I doubt it will ever go out of business because it publishes only weekly, is a great bang for your 60 cents, takes at least a couple of days to read, and gives us exactly what we want - LOCAL NEWS. It doesn’t try to be the be all newspaper for everyone. Community pride is what they adhere to and print. Maybe we just need more small town rags, or big city papers with small town mentalities. Try it, it’s really nice.

Comment by Just My Opinion Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 3:45 pm
3 words - Page Three Girls!

Comment by Concerned Voter Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 3:50 pm
If your mother says she loves you, check it out. Stop trying to be first to rush propaganda into print and start printing the truth, not as you interpret it, but as it is.

Comment by The Mad Hatter Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 3:57 pm
Working for an ad-supported, free distribution suburban newspaper I can see the writing on the wall. Lee bought the Post-Dispatch, gutted the newsroon, started inane *contests* to spike circulation during counts, and raised the single-copy price 50%. They have celebrated a decline as “not as bad as others.” I bought stock last year at $26 through the employee plan, now its about 15 bucks. Newspapers (print edition) will die with the Baby Boomers. Get your wireless devices now!!

Comment by Millstadt News Guy Tuesday, Oct 23, 07 @ 4:48 pm
My advice to newspaper executives: stop expecting the 15-20% profit margins that you achieved during a different era and accept a lower figure (like pretty much every other industry in existence).

Comment by Stating the Obvious Wednesday, Oct 24, 07 @ 12:46 pm
In-depth local coverage (ala Skeeter’s suggestion) and world news are the way to go for the real papers–and moderate the bias or more effectively report “both sides”. Also nix the sensationalism that has gotten way to carried away. They need to admit to themselves that while that type of coverage may be cheap and easy when it comes to spiking their sales, the public are fickle. They eventually get not only bored with that type of coverage, but begin to hold that type of coverage against the paper they buy.

Also, I wish someone would please do the public a favor by avoiding another debacle like the ridiculous “sensationalism” era I’m hoping we’re starting to come out of. (I’m also hoping that the rotten sales are an indicator of same.)

To do that, “alternative media” people have to start admitting to themselves that there are now supposedly two “types” of papers: the traditional and those that are published on-line with all sorts of bells and whistles that will keep you as entertained as a Gladiator fight.

While there’s obviously money to be made in the latter, they are not real papers, so stop calling them that. You also need to stop pretending that they will–and should–replace the real thing.

Sitting around at your computer all day long clicking on links to see Joey’s football score and trying to upload the most recent picture of Suzie’s cheerleading squad is not reading the paper, nor getting information about the world around you.

It’s a form of entertainment.

Comment by LG Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 1:53 pm
I’ll add, too, that Zell is right. “Rome IS burning” if you believe that most people would suggest that papers like the Trib be replaced by the type of paper “Just My Opinion” described.

The industry obviously needs to make a decision: assume the responsibility to find better and more positive ways to engage people on the important issues that are taking place in their towns, states, country, and world…or just cave in, take the easy way out, and let the Games begin.

Comment by LG Friday, Oct 26, 07 @ 3:27 pm