The Gannett Newspaper Division Print Task Force's 14-page report offered 10 recommendations centered around a renewed emphasis on hard news aimed at the most likely long-term demographic for papers: those 78 million baby boomers. (I know: duh.)
Retiring newspaper division Chair Sue Clark-Johnson sent the recommendations to publishers sometime in the last month or so. They're circulating among some editors now.
I bet her newly appointed successor, Arizona Republic Chair Robert Dickey (left), has signed on. Heck, he may have been involved in the report's creation. (Tennessean Publisher Ellen Leifeld led the task force.) Otherwise, Clark-Johnson wouldn't have bothered broadcasting the recommendations.In her cover letter, she issued the mildest of directives: "Both the task force members and I want to stress the fact that while these are good guidelines, you need to assess your own community and audience, and apply and adapt these guidelines accordingly. So by all means, do that. But I believe this comprehensive report will provide help and insight as we move forward on our quest to build audiences and retain readers.''
Maybe Dickey will start digging into the new job after Clark-Johnson leaves in May, and discover all sorts of crap he didn't expect, forcing him to reorder his priorities. But if he starts asking your publisher questions that show he's really interested in hard news and boomers -- well, get ready for your editor and your advertising director to get really interested, too.
Dickey is the new boss for I think every one of the 85 daily newspaper publishers. (An exception: I'm pretty sure USA Today's Craig Moon reports to CEO Craig Dubow.) That's a whole lot of highly-paid executives looking to please the new guy.
Now, what do you think? Use this link to e-mail feedback; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the sidebar, upper right. Or leave a note in the comments section, below.
Ethics 101: Loose lips
The task force's confidential report was leaked to me, causing much comment on whether I should be retailing such stuff.
Well, good. But why wasn't or hasn't this been adopted in Phoenix? What's all that new with the report?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this is ten years too late. Distil it down into nuggets...what does this mean to the local operating publisher?
Wouldn't these ideas have come up with the countless number of annual off-site planning meetings?
Forget the dividend idea. You have to feed the beast.
Newsroom people have been fuming about this for years ... everyone over the age of 30 who answers the telephone in the newsroom anyway, because the boomers and their elders have always had the most buy-in to their daily paper.
ReplyDeleteInstead, corporate has been chasing the 18-35 age group, people with no time or money for getting news in newspaper form.
Perhaps the introduction of the online product is our final recognition that kids get their news on TV and the Internet (so give it to them there) and it is long past time that Gannett pay some attention to its most loyal newspaper readers -- boomers.
If that means the daily newspaper becomes a niche product, so be it.
I thought that News 2000 and Silverman, etc., had addressed these plans and objectives??? Why not tap Paulsen to be the genius?
ReplyDeleteSeems Gannett has been down this road before.
Changing subjects...in all honesty...what has been the Dubow legacy? Or the Johnson legacy for that matter? Taking credit for appreciation in stock price...is also a function of economic conditions, the broad market, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I doubt whether even a Singleton could have made a difference...or a Pruitt. Your choice.
Rocks or sissors!
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI think you provide a valuable alternate channel for the goings-on in Gannett, so don't let the content police deter you. We, the workers bees in my larger-circ paper, have neither seen nor heard about these recommendations. We find it very perplexing that the company that has eviscerated its papers of news with attitude and acclimated readers to ephemeral fluff is rediscovering the merits of hard news and investigative reporting. You can get whatever survey results you want simply by stacking the survey sample with the kind of people you want to attract. Three years ago, that resulted in Real Life, Real News. Now we're back to square one with Hard News, Investigative News. How we're going to carry that off is a big mystery because most of the people capable of leading and doing investigations are gone, not only at my paper but others I know of. Does this mean that the RLRN fluff writers will be trained in investigative reporting? Does it mean Gannett papers will start poaching good reporters and editors from other papers? Does this mean that the Mothers Day centerpiece is off this year? Jim, I'd like to see you post the full report. Surely there is a homeless person out there in Frisco with programming skills who can turn your doc into a pdf.
OK; it's a deal: I'll create .pdfs of the report. As I mentioned before, I'll e-mail a copy to anyone who requests one at gannettblog@gmail.com.
ReplyDeleteyou mean that someone at corporate belatedly realized that maybe it wasn't a good idea to piss off people who have the habit of reading the paper, the money to buy it, the time to devote to it and the disposable income to patronize advertisers?
ReplyDeletewell, as another poster said, good luck providing them with solid info . . . all the experienced people who knew what happened 10 or 20 years ago, because they were from our state or city, rather than rootless corporate gypsies, have been driven out, bought out or hired away by charities and school systems that used to pay worse than newspapers.
and now, back to beauty products, britney and ball games -- the things that really matter.
It's sad that newspapers don't recognize the needs of their mature readers.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a monthly consumer column for The Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune for more than 18 years. I received an e-mail in January announcing that my column was being canceled due to budget cuts.
Now I write a blog for boomer consumers called The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com.