5. Differentiators,
circa 2006
The Daily You™
Customized content and advertising for each
user
Small staff to cover full metro
Content partner model
Open comment system
Social media / profiles
Emphasis on databases
Focused on one metro
6. Differentiators,
circa 2010
The Daily You™
Customized content and advertising for each
user
Small staff to cover full metro
Content partner model
Open comment system Starting to use
Social media / profiles news site to drive
(Emphasis on databases)
commerce
Focused on one metro
7. Where we were wrong
Very hard to sell local advertising as a new
brand
Citizen journalism is mostly a myth.
Can’t replace daily newspaper ... yet
We didn’t know the role so-called social
media would play
The average reader isn’t as web-savvy as we
thought.
People said we were too pessimistic about the
prospects of traditional media. Compared to
what’s happened, we weren’t pessimistic
enough.
14. Findings from annual Pew study
In its campaign coverage, the
press was more reactive and
The growing public debate over
passive and less of an
how to finance the news
enterprising investigator of the
industry may well be focusing
candidates than it once was.
on the wrong remedies while
other ideas go largely
unexplored.
Even if cable news does not keep
the audience gains of 2008, its
rise is accelerating another
change—the elevation of the
minute-by-minute judgment in
political journalism
20. "The journalist enjoys good
standing in his community. He is
even likely to be held in
awe." (page 47).
"If you are a college graduate in
journalism, you may land a job
before you even leave the
campus."
"By far the best idea is to go
directly to a newspaper and ask
the city editor for a job."
"By far the best idea is to go
directly to a newspaper and ask
the city editor for a job."
http://ow.ly/1zg2o
22. Findings from annual Pew study
The concept of
partnership, motivated in
part by desperation, is
becoming a major focus of
news investment and it
may offer prospects for
the financial future of
news. Power is shifting to
the individual
journalist and away,
by degrees, from
journalistic
institutions.
23.
24. The new rules
Content matters
Distribution matters, but original source does
not
Commodity is death
Be more local AND niche
The industrial age is over
The widget builder must sell, market, plan
There are no experts
“Compromised coverage” better than none
25. The primary
purveyor of news
and advertising is
no longer the news
company
(and that’s a good thing.)
28. Promising signs
Speed (of collection and correction)
More reporters (even if they aren’t pros)
Story is no longer basic unit
Tweet <----> Topical wiki
Multimedia is (relatively) easy
Better writing (believe it)
More sources sending us readers (Twitter @
Oscars)
News easier to find (Our sources post)
Access to data
Can prove financial worth of work
35. Focus on the right
problems
It’s the money, stupid.
Forget the dogma. And the ego.
Leave the comfort zone. Burn the lifeboats.
Stop worrying about the medium. Leverage
the media.
Don’t fear failure.
Focus on the “is” more than the “should.”
Serve demand.
Whatever the job, be an entrepreneur.
39. “And so the Internet had it for
lunch, because the Internet does not
have to schedule 17 meetings to
develop a strategy for impactfully
maximizing brand leverage in
emerging markets; the Internet does
not have to worry about how a
decision will affect one’s
management trajectory; the Internet
smells blood and leaps, and that has
turned the game around, for better
or worse. So we’re back to where
we were in 1904 – except that the
guys on the corner shouting
WUXTRY, WUXTRY aren’t grimy
urchins selling the paper – they’re
the people who wrote the damn
thing, too. “
Today, I&#x2019;m going to talk about the exciting and challenging times in which we are living. I, for one, am more optimistic about the future of our profession than I have ever been.
First, just a little bit about me and my company Pegasus News (aka PanLocal). So you&#x2019;ll know where I&#x2019;m coming from.
In 2004, I was running Texas Lawyer and looking for a new challenge. I was a newspaper junkie frustrated with my local paper -- not to pick on the DMN, as they were no worse than any major market paper. But when the morning paper was such a quick read because I&#x2019;d found most of what was relevant online the day before, I knew there was an opportunity.
So I took a week of vacation, spending the days reading about online and hyperlocal efforts. At night I&#x2019;d gather smart people -- journalists, ad sellers and readers to talk about what a newspaper looked like if created from whole cloth in the 21st century.
The end product was supposed to be a business plan for the second coming of the Dallas Times-Herald, but what it became was more of a vision document that we affectionately called &#x201C;the manifesto.&#x201D;
After fits and starts, struggling for funding and the like, we managed to launch first an entertainment site and then our full news site. We grew to more than 400,000 unique monthly visitors -- more than 90% local and sold to Fisher Communications, a NASDAQ-traded broadcaster in Seattle. They resold us to GAP Broadcasting, who owns radio stations in smaller markets. We&#x2019;re now rolling out &#x201C;light&#x201D; versions of Pegasus News in those markets under the brand &#x201C;The Daily You.&#x201D;
I don&#x2019;t want to spend a lot of time on this part -- I imagine it&#x2019;s the mindset of much of the industry right now, and I don&#x2019;t think any of us doubt that we&#x2019;re in a tough spot. But it wouldn&#x2019;t be a presentation if I didn&#x2019;t give a couple examples...
Newspapers and other media we&#x2019;ve counted on for some time are going out of business or into bankruptcy at an alarming rate.
Our newsrooms are getting smaller -- and our own jobs are at risk.
There&#x2019;s not a lot of good news. Perhaps if our firewall allows, we can read our about the last days on Twitter
There is no question we are looking at a chasm. And despite the title of this presentation, don&#x2019;t think that I&#x2019;m a pollyanna. I do believe that with the cuts and the disruption and the bankruptcies, we are entering a dark age, particularly for the sort of local journalism that we practice. I often tell people that if I were a local government official who wanted to pull some shenanigans, I&#x2019;d do it in the next four years. We don&#x2019;t know what&#x2019;s on the other side, but we know the bottom is ugly.
There are two ways to approach a chasm. This is one.