Anonymous@5:24 wrote the following this evening:
I am in management at another media company and I think posters here, in their complaints against Gannett management, often fail to see the big picture.
Newspapers are being phased out and Gannett, because of its size, will likely be in the forefront of this strategy. The future of information delivery is the Internet and mobile and the future of content generation is freelance, reader feedback and outsourcing.
The old model of hiring professional, fulltime photographers and reporters is dead. The photographers are already being phased out at some companies, with art provided by freelancers, services and readers who seek no pay.
Each site in the future will employ a handful of editors to organize and edit reader/freelance/service and, yes, robotic content. Traditional newspaper-type information of this sort will be a small part of any site with other information products and services providing major revenue streams.
Old-fashioned investigative journalism and watchdog reporting will be left to non-profit websites. A good example is what will be happening at the Carnegie-Knight News21 program at Arizona State, which is foundation supported.
While no media executive will admit it (bad for morale), this is the blueprint for the future. I will be very surprised if Gannett operates any print products except USA Today (a vanity product) in 10 years.
Earlier: Why would a non-Gannettoid read this blog? Because it's like the Perils of Pauline.
As always, other views are welcome. Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
I am in management at another media company and I think posters here, in their complaints against Gannett management, often fail to see the big picture.
The old model of hiring professional, fulltime photographers and reporters is dead. The photographers are already being phased out at some companies, with art provided by freelancers, services and readers who seek no pay.
Each site in the future will employ a handful of editors to organize and edit reader/freelance/service and, yes, robotic content. Traditional newspaper-type information of this sort will be a small part of any site with other information products and services providing major revenue streams.
Old-fashioned investigative journalism and watchdog reporting will be left to non-profit websites. A good example is what will be happening at the Carnegie-Knight News21 program at Arizona State, which is foundation supported.
While no media executive will admit it (bad for morale), this is the blueprint for the future. I will be very surprised if Gannett operates any print products except USA Today (a vanity product) in 10 years.
Earlier: Why would a non-Gannettoid read this blog? Because it's like the Perils of Pauline.
As always, other views are welcome. Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
I have thought that for some time. You nailed it, But I don't think papers will last 10 years, maybe 5. I am a Pressroom manager and have 14 years to go. Don't think I will retire a newspaper man.
ReplyDeleteI am in my 50s and @ usat today. how long do i have?
ReplyDelete5:24 tells it like it is. Few news organizations as we know them now will survive. NYT has a good shot and WSJ. Rest are turning into something most don't recognize and full of crap we won't want to pay for. Most of the online media champions are self-promoting blowhards trying to get someone to invest in them (prime example here: http://rjionline.org/blog/lies-i-told) Recession II is accelerating the death throes over next three years. Sadly, the news industry is a portrait of the modern American worker on steroids - downward economic mobility, part-time and freelancers without benefits. I'm dong my best a best to live a bit below my means, set money aside the best I can and retrain myself for anything but journalism. Good luck to us all.
ReplyDeleteUnless I'm mistaken, one element of the overall Passion Topics program is an even greater reliance on free, reader-produced content in the form news stories, blog posts, photos, etc. That's one of the ways newsrooms would plug holes left vacant by newsroom layoffs.
ReplyDeleteI don't think people are going to want most of this outsourced material -- media companies will have devalued information to the point that they will fail not matter what. That leaves an opening for someone, but I'm not sure what that business model will look like. I do know we will have an even dumber electorate than we do now. Great times to be a plutocrat.
ReplyDelete7:15 if you think like you did when you were hired then not long. But if you understand the digital platform then the future here or someplace else looks bright. What say you?
ReplyDeleteDevils advocate here. As a reader, why would I bother to read a "newspaper" or website or "Content Bowl" with out a professionally produced product? We have what you described now and they're called blogs (no affront to Jim). And with some exceptions, you get what you pay for. And given the state of the middle class, who have to struggle to make ends meet and maybe work 2 jobs in addition to family responsibilities, why would that person work for a profit making company like Gannett for free. I could see someone doing it once or twice on a lark (look mama, I'm on a major media site!), but not for long. Anyone who has a molecule of talent will look for a paying gig.
ReplyDeleteAnd while "robot writers" seem to be the way to get rid of those high paid reporters and their perks (sarcasm, here), as a consumer, I doubt I'd pay for such a product unless it was printed on something soft that could be multi-purposed in my toilet.
As has been said before, the problem is in the LACK of a BUSINESS PLAN for the internet world. As in there is no 21st century business plan. What our merry mail reader has described would keep the fiscal wolves from the door for a while, but not for long. Try again.
Mr. Exec:
ReplyDeleteI hear what you're saying, but I do think you're missing some of the big picture, too. As a successful journalist for a largish Gannett daily, I have spoken to hundreds of readers in the past year about stories I or my colleagues have written. They called or e-mailed us to interact. I get e-mail and calls from all over the country, people reacting to my stories, wanting to know even more information, or give me my next tip. I had a reader, a judge, recently tell me a recent story was better than anything the New York Times could have done. Another emphatically stated I and another reporter were the only two reasons he remained subscribers. the blog I contribute to gets hundreds of thousands of hits. No need for professional journalism? I beg to differ. My stories are sophisticated and intellectual. Yes, we have a huge problem with the younger readers, most of whom think the world exists on Facebook. But I don't think Gannett can survive offering Bowls of Content Chili. Anyone can do that, and they do. Look at AOL. Look at Yahoo! Neither readers nor advertisers won't care for or pay for mindless websites. And the good readers, the ones with disposable income, will spend their money elsewhere, yes even if it's a subscription to the New York Times or maybe a good local weekly or magazine.
Agreed, 9:38. The business model is a smoldering wreck and there's no scalable approach in which there are significant numbers of full-timers who earn livable wages. Lots of piecemeal experiments; some good, some awful. But it will mostly be chaos, and that will be very bad for our country.
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt newspapers are on the brink of extinction. No dispute there.
ReplyDeleteMy anti-Gannett feelings come from three realities:
* Gannnett leaders failed to foresee what is now happening in the news business. Their purchase of the Pulliam papers for $1.6 billion showed their recent commitment to old journalism. And yet the then leaders (McCorkindale, et al) were rewarded with millions, life-long health insurance, country club memberships and so forth.
* Gannett workers were left to pay the price for the strategic errors made by Gannett's VIPs, publishers and editors. Thousands were left without healthcare insurance, pay and a future because the GCI bosses, highly compensated for their vision, apparently did not know what they were doing. (The value of the current CEO's exit package alone would have covered years of health insurance for thousands of 60-year-old-plus workers cut by GCI).
* Citizens now get too little middle-of-the-road information about their government. Investigative reporting often costs papers more than it makes. Strong original reporting gets cut and the citizens and their communities lose.
Please don't label me a traditionalist tilting at windmills because I can't accept change. That is an insult.
You can label me as someone who is too damned smart to pretend I don't understand why so many people hate Gannett. The widespread disrepect is well-earned. Best we can do is pray for poetic justice on behalf of all the people hurt by GCI management's poor decisions.
Dispassionate views from outsiders make sense until you consider the human toll of GCI's incompetence.
This executive may be right but - right or wrong - it's clear that he chose the right career path. I say this because any media executive who simply accepts this as the future, without putting up a fight, is doing a disservice to his profession.
ReplyDeleteIf what he describes happens - and I don't doubt that it will - I will stop reading all but the non-profit sites that he describes. Why? Because they will be the only ones producing anything worth reading. Already sites like DemocracyNow are superior to most mainstream news organizations.
This exec might have well have written, "Big media is actively involved involved in the dissolution of America in an effort to make a few extra bucks. Why? Because the people that lead America's media organizations don't give a shit about the country or the people who live in it."
It's a sad day to be an American.
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ReplyDelete12:32. The Pulliam deal actually cost much more: $2.6 billion -- a full $1 billion more. From a June 28, 2000, press release::
ReplyDeleteGannett Co., Inc. and Central Newspapers, Inc. announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Gannett's acquisition of Central Newspapers, Inc. for an approximate cash purchase price of $2.6 billion.
In announcing the offer, Douglas H. McCorkindale, president and chief executive officer of Gannett said: "We are extremely pleased that the Central properties will become part of Gannett. We have held these properties in high esteem for many years and look forward to operating them in keeping with the high standards established by the Pulliam family. This transaction affords Gannett the rare opportunity to add two flagship newspapers to our operations."
Through its flagship newspapers The Arizona Republic and The Indianapolis Star, Central publishes the only major dailies in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area and central Indiana, and also operates those markets' leading local Internet portals, azcentral.com in Arizona and indy.com in Indianapolis. Central also owns and operates several smaller newspapers as well as other related media and information businesses.
It's so emotional to think that newspapers will die. I'd like to believe that they're going to evolve into something else. One perhaps hopeful idea is that they are printed one far few days a week -- one to four -- on the days that advertisers most want to reach the shoppers.
ReplyDelete2:16 pleaseeeee! Put up a fight? Horse drawn carts, trains, trans Atlantic cruises, record players, music stores, book stores, Microsoft, desk top computers, telephones with cords, My Space, ....... Newspapers. All things have their time in history. Get your head out of the "good old days" and embrace the future. You could cover page two in dollar bills and young folks aren't going to read them. So enough with leaders killed our business. The consumer's habits changed and are entire industry didn't see it. You can't go back no matter how you opine. Get on the digital express baby!!!!
ReplyDeleteWe are all on the digital express, baby, and can't make a decent living at it. That's the point. No one fears the technology. But there is no viable business model.
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ReplyDelete"You can label me as someone who is too damned smart to pretend I don't understand why so many people hate Gannett."
ReplyDeleteHas to be one of the most self-serving, B.S. lines in the history of the Internet. 12:32 and many others can't adapt, so they rail against the system. End of argument.
Nice in theory, and will probably be put into practice in some form or another by Gannett. But in typical Gannett fashion, it will be one size fits all and will only hasten the demise of local papers.
ReplyDeleteWe can't find stringers and correspondants now, and depending on a stable of them would be a farce. Our free reader provided blogs would barely qualify as infotainment, and more often than not are imported from another paper or spam anyway. We generate very little local content via readers, except for photos.
And before someone says I can't adapt, let me make clear I provide millions of web hits a year with my photo galleries. I tweet, I send breaking news updates, and when I had time I blogged. I update our website too, when I have to, when our web staff is busy putting up galleries of the MTV music awards.
The point is, we don't have enough people to do our jobs adequately, let alone enough stringers. All these internet plans are great, but in reality only plans for continued short term profit, and a murky long term future.
I was "invited" to attend a Passion Points brainstorming session at our site last week. Others there were mostly managers from departments throughout the newspaper. The announced purpose was to come up with a list of why people born in our community stay here, and why others move here from elsewhere. In other words, what does our community have that is unique and special to our audience? It was interesting to hear ideas from non-journalists -- until the production director spoke up and said he had received from a friend the list of Passion Points that another (larger and far-away) site had come up with. The publisher grabbed it, said "Looks good to me" and cut our meeting short. I didn't have much hope for this Passion Points program before, but I have none now.
ReplyDelete8:44 -- I have nothing against the "digital express." If you read my post, you'll see that I site DemocracyNow as a good source of information. It is, first and foremost, a digital news organization. The executive wrote that the future of mainstream news would be a combination of reader-generated, wire service, freelance and robotic content. I said, "I have no interest in that."
ReplyDeleteThe fight that I would like to see people like him/her make is the one for professional reporters turning out quality content. I could care less how it's distributed. If we move to what he's talking about, which I have no doubt that we will, it will be bad thing for all of America.
Why? Because when the only source real news is a handful of non-profit sites, corruption will become an even bigger problem than it is. And it's a pretty big problem now.
I could give a shit less about robotically created sports stories. I already have tons of sources for that information, including the sports teams themselves. I don't care about reader-generated content because most of its crap. Wire stories are great, but I pick one solid national source for those and read them. Wire stories are the same everywhere. That means the only thing local outlets will have of any value will be their freelance content, so they had better pick those freelancers carefully and pay them a shitload. Kind of defeats the purpose of getting rid of your professional staff, right?
12:32 Thank you for the intelligent posting on the demise of this company. I agree wholeheartedly with your three points. And I am on the same page as you with your closing:
ReplyDeletePlease don't label me a traditionalist tilting at windmills because I can't accept change. That is an insult.
You can label me as someone who is too damned smart to pretend I don't understand why so many people hate Gannett. The widespread disrepect is well-earned. Best we can do is pray for poetic justice on behalf of all the people hurt by GCI management's poor decisions.
Amen.
3:26: Your account of the meeting sounds like typical Gannett ahead for this "passion" push. Everyone copying each other. No one having an original thought. Or, maybe better put: No leaders *allowing* an original thought. Sad.
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ReplyDelete11:32 PM... what paper do you work at? I would like to read something interesting.
ReplyDeleteI get that technology is changing, and newspapers are fading away.
ReplyDeleteBut Gannett didn't have to make the change n emphasis so abruptly.
The newspapers were making a ton of money, and many of them are still profitable. Instead of just chopping jobs left and right, they should have retrained the workers to be digital-only content providers, making the Gannett paper websites even stronger in content, rather than just slapped together by overworked employees in their spare time from putting out the paper.
That's what the whole "Mojo" concept was supposed to be about. Remember "Mojos"? Another Gannett fad, in which people weren't even supposed to work in their offices, only from their cars. Doing videos and photo galleries, and blogging from the neighborhoods. They could have made their web sites strong. Nope, just keep chopping jobs.
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ReplyDeleteToo many people short-change the value of information. The kind of journalism practiced by Gannett and some other chains fails to provide the kind of actionable information that people -- readers, users, customers, whatever you want to call them -- are willing to pay for. As the information void grows, its absence will be noticed, and nimble alternate suppliers will fill the void. Much of it will be specialized information, but the deeds and shenanigans of city hall, the county courthouse, the local health care scene, etc. have a way of coming into demand, especially if written and visually presented in a compelling way. That is, in a way that Dubow and the other clowns at Gannett HQ will never grasp.
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