Published by the New York Press Association NewsBeat · 09/07/2017 · Gideon Putnam Hotel,...

NewsBeat PANYPublished by the New York Press Associationon behalf of New York’s Community Newspapers

July 2017

SEPTEMBER 15 TH & 16 TH

BUFFALO, NY

F A L LPublishers’ & Editors’CONFERENCE

2017

Photo of Buffalo City Hall

2 NewsBeat July 2017

NewsBeatA NEWSLETTER FOR NEW YORK’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERSPublished by the New York Press Association621 Columbia Street Ext., Suite 100, Cohoes, NY 12047518.464.6483 • 518.464.6489 fax • www.nynewspapers.comExecutive Editor — Michelle K. Rea Layout & Design — Rich Hotaling

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Mark your calendar

Thursday, September 14, 2017NYPA/NYPS Boards of Directors MeetingsNYPA Foundation Board of Directors MeetingThe Westin Buffalo, Buffalo, NY

Friday & Saturday,September 15 & 16, 2017NYPA Fall ConferenceThe Westin Buffalo, Buffalo, NY

Friday, November 17, 2017NYPA/NYPS Board of Directors MeetingsNYPA Foundation Board of Directors MeetingStraus News, 333 Seventh Ave. (6th flr.), NYC

Tuesday, January 9, 2018NYPA Better Newspaper Contest Deadline

Thursday, April 12, 2018NYPA/NYPS Boards of Directors MeetingsNYPA Foundation Board of Directors MeetingGideon Putnam Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY

Friday & Saturday,April 13 & 14, 2018NYPA Spring Convention and TradeshowGideon Putnam Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY

C L I P & S A V ENYPA’s Fall Publishers’ & Editors’ Conference

Friday & Saturday, September 15th & 16thThe Westin, Buffalo

We know you don’t want to wish your summer away, but PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS for NYPA’s Fall Publishers’ and Editors Conference September 15th and 16th. We promise to deliver an amazing speaker lineup, a dazzling evening at the Wayne Gretzky Estates Winery and Distillery in the heart of Niagara-on-the-Lake, plenty of valuable networking time, an inspiring keynote speaker, and NYPA’s Annual Meeting and election of officers.

Here are some of the highlights:

SPEAKERS:

KEYNOTE: Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post, former public editor for the New York Times, and before that, editor of the Buffalo News, her hometown paper.

WORKSHOPS:

Al Getler: Helping Newspapers Execute Successful Marketing Strategies for Social Media,

Digital and Traditional Media

John Wihbey: Knowing the Numbers: Using and Interpreting Data, Statistics and Research in the Newsroom

Bill Church: The Future of Newsrooms: When Change is Not Enough

David Ho: News in Motion: Six Ways to be a Good Mobile EditorMobile Isn’t the Future: It Is Now

Edward Rosenthal: Picture Problems: Protecting Your Company from Copyright Trolls

Peter Wagner: Building a Better Community Newspaper – How to Take the Lead and Prosper

Saving Classifieds!!

Brad Thatcher: Changing the Local Media Narrative: Insights from a PR expert on how to reinvent and reposition your newspapers for your advertising community

Matt Sheehan: The Science of Storytelling: What science and research tell us about what resonates, what may not work as well as we expect, and how to design content to break through the clutter

Nick Birren: Solving the Production Problem: Meeting today’s video content needs better, faster, cheaper.

Plus, a blockbuster session on financial reporting — benchmarks, KPIs, expense ratios and more.

THE SOCIAL SCENE:

FRIDAY: Cocktails and dinner at Buffalo’s famed Pierce Arrow Museum, which boasts an incredible collection of automobiles, bicycles, and memorabilia symbolizing a time of amazing growth, prosperity, innovation and ingenuity in Buffalo’s industrial history.

SATURDAY: A fabulous evening of wine, whisky, gourmet dining, ice wine and cigars at the Wayne Gretzky Estates Winery and Distillery. We’ll enjoy a tasting of wine, whisky and grape based spirits and hors d’oeuvres, followed by a three-course dinner with winemaker’s pairings in the barrel cellar. We’ll end the evening toasting ice wine marshmallows over an open fire in the vineyard.

July 2017 NewsBeat 3

couple of years ago, at the fall publisher’s conference, a speaker from Ohio introduced us to a content sharing strategy that had been employed by seven

metropolitan dailies in that state, to include papers in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and others. Their strategy among papers that shared a lot of the same issues but largely didn’t compete with one another, was to band together to improve content and coverage in all the papers, to increase the effectiveness of their editorial voice, and to ensure comprehensive coverage of certain issues in the face of declining newsroom budgets.

Importantly, these efforts were driven not by the publishers, but by the editors in each of these markets, who developed a loose working relationship with each other, discussed topics of statewide interest and planned out how each would share in the responsibility of providing coverage. Stories were planned and executed, and each newspaper localized the content for their market and packaged the stories independently to ensure that a regional story maintained the local flavor of the paper it was published in.

In some cases, it allowed newspapers to expand what they were offering to readers. In others, it allowed them to redeploy their limited resources to more local content. An example these editors provided was coverage of pro football, where in the past each paper would send a columnist, reporter and photographer to games in Cincinnati and Cleveland. Now, they could band together on the game story, which is more universal, and send only the columnist to provide the local voice that their readers demanded.

Following that discussion, the New York Press Association board began discussing how we could provide our membership with a limited content-sharing mechanism that would achieve some of the same goals. What we decided to embark on was a platform that would provide editors with an opportunity to quickly and easily upload and download content that would have a regional or statewide appeal, and put protections

in place to ensure that competing newspapers were not scooping themselves by making their content available to others.

Last year, the board allocated a small amount of money to move the ball forward, and now, in conjunction with our partners at AdForce and the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, NewsToShare.org is up and going.

To make this as user-friendly as possible, we’ve created a list of content categories that are pretty universal in each of our newsrooms: government, education, business, healthcare, sports, etc. We’ve also put categories in to help bolster special section content like home & garden, rec & travel, real estate, and others.

For ease of use, we chose a WordPress platform, which is both simple to operate and already employed in many of the newsrooms across the state. We knew that if the process was difficult, it wouldn’t be used, so we streamlined the upload and download process in any way that we could. The goal was to make it so a story could be uploaded in a couple of minutes or less.

As a publisher and former editor, I’m sympathetic to competition concerns, so we’ve employed a list of embargoes and rules. This is your content – you’ve worked hard to create it – and you should have control over who, where and when it is republished. If you don’t want that content available to a competing publication, you can make that clear when the copy is uploaded. You can also dictate the attribution for your work. The goal is not to make our papers more homogenous, but to make them better.

The download functions are similarly easy. It is a simple copy and paste to download a story, and a right click and save as to download a photo. From there, you can bring the content into your publishing software and utilize it locally.

As we get this ramped up, users will receive email alerts with the latest content that has been uploaded to the site. This newsfeed will likely start as a weekly email, but as usage of the site grows, we hope it will become a daily endeavor.

I believe the benefits of this platform are self explanatory: to bolster our publications and sites with additional content and to provide greater audience and impact for your work.

As you work through this, if you have questions or concerns, you can email the nypa offices or me and we will try to work through those issues with you.

David Tyler is the president of the NYPA board of directors and the publisher of Eagle Newspapers in Syracuse. He can be reached at [email protected]

A

Newstoshare.org, NYPA’s content sharing platform, is up and running

By DAVE TYLER — NYPA President

Foundation Contributions

Donations Received From Amount

Adirondack Publishing Co..................200.00West Winfield Star................................25.00Litmor Publications...............................50.00Thousand Island Printing...................100.00Wallkill Valley Publishing.....................50.00Sag Harbor............................................50.00Sullivan County Democrat...................50.00Southampton Press............................100.00Sun & Record Newspaper..................100.00Straus News.....................................1,000.00Smithtown News................................500.00The Batavian.........................................50.00Patchogue Advance..............................50.00Linda Loomis.........................................50.00Grant Hamilton...................................500.00

Total................................................$2,875.00

The New York Press Association Foundation extends its sincere appreciation to the following news organizations and publishers who contributed to the Foundation this year. — Many thanks!!!


ewspapers can generate additional exceptional advertising revenue with a special section estate and funeral planning guide. When we

first started considering such a section we wrongly gave it the working title “Death and Dying”.

While that title clearly defined the purpose and direction of the project, we quickly realized the name lacked the sense of care and concern needed to sell the necessary advertising support to local funeral homes, grief counseling facilities, financial planners, bank trust departments, florists, headstone suppliers and a multitude of others working in that industry. After considerable thought we came up with the title “Looking beyond tomorrow” and that has seemed to be satisfactory to everyone involved.

At The N’West Iowa REVIEW we traditionally publish the “Looking beyond tomorrow” update every twenty-four to thirty-six months. We’ve found it works best published as a half tab or book size product. We distribute it with our Saturday paid circulation newspaper and later deliver copies to the majority of advertisers to share with their clients.

Most of the editorial material is collected through interviews with representatives of the businesses and professional services that regularly advertise in The N’West Iowa REVIEW. We make sure to involve a different interview source each time we publish to keep all our advertisers happy.

NFinding dollars beyond the obituaries

By PETER W. WAGNER


Some of the articles in our most recent edition included: possible options to transfer financial assets, the ways parents can help children cope, what factors to weigh when choosing life insurance, the value in preplanning a funeral, how the funeral service can ease a loss and the patient and family comfort provided by a hospice.

Many of the articles are accompanied by sidebars filled with lists of easy-to-use information. It is important to remember the book will be distributed to families in need for many months after it is published.

The advertising opportunities should be obvious. Along with the local funeral homes, the community hospitals, retirement and nursing homes are obvious.

But the list can be much longer than that: hospices, home medical supply firms, investment counselors, trust departments of local banks, pharmacies and even some forward thinking churches are good prospects. So are counseling services, florists, cemetery associations, catering firms and limo services.

At The N’West Iowa REVIEW we sell only process color modular advertising in our “Living beyond tomorrow” book. Once we determine the price for a page ad we compute 60% of that amount for a half page ad and 35% for a quarter page.

Be sure to always remind your advertisers that the book is an investment in more than just one week’s readership. Many local experts will be handing it out to individuals in need for many months to come.

— Peter W. Wagner is publisher of the award winning N’West Iowa REVIEW and

12 additional publications. He is often called “The Idea Man” and is a regular presenter at

state press association and publishing group conventions and seminars. You can contact him

regarding his programs “100 Ideas for Fun and Profit” or “Selling Print Advertising the Wagner Way” by emailing [email protected]

or calling his cell 712-348-3550 anytime.

A typical issue of “Looking Beyond Tomorrow” will include comments from a priest or pastor addressing end-of-life questions, a simple guide to estate planning, information on coping with grief, suggestions on life insurance distribution, a guide to advanced funeral planning, details on wills and the role of an executor, information on the use of a retirement home, nursing facility or hospice, organ donation and the importance of the role of the local church and minister.


By BEAH STROH

Why the Sunday print edition still reigns supreme for publishers

t’s Sunday morning, and I’m getting ready to read the news, but I’m not picking up my cell phone or booting up my laptop. I’m picking up my hefty 100-

plus page Sunday edition of my local newspaper.

As someone you would consider a millennial, you might find it hard to believe that’s how I choose to spend my Sunday mornings. Of course, since we no longer have to wait for the news of the world to come solely from the pages of a newspaper, and consequently, we seem to be busier than ever before, why spend what precious time we have with them?

Though I was never able to witness the golden age of newspapers, I can now attest to something else that still remains quite special — the Sunday newspaper experience.

It’s combing through the different sections, enjoying all the non-news related

I

components, such as the comics and the coupons, where the experience differentiates itself from any other day of the week. Each Sunday morning, my routine consists of devoting an hour or two away from other distractions, with complete focus on absorbing the news I may have missed out on during the week. Admittedly, I can often find myself falling completely behind the never-ending news cycle by Wednesday, but Sundays give me a chance to play catch up. It’s a part of the week I generally look forward to, and try to relish, in the midst of a busy schedule.

In other words, my Sunday newspaper experience is a concoction of everything I enjoy the most: reading a physical print product filled with news I can trust at a leisurely pace while finding the occasional dollar saving deal. However, as much as I’ve enjoyed having a paper waiting for me every Sunday, I couldn’t help but wonder why? And better yet, what are newspapers doing to maintain the quality of their Sunday print editions?

Rediscovering the Value of Print

To my surprise, one newspaper discovered several years ago that people like me weren’t necessarily as rare as one may think.

A few years ago, the staff at The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, was determined to figure out the digital side of things, particularly when it came to growing its online presence. Naturally, the general presumption was that they were doing what the readers in their market not only needed but wanted.

The newspaper’s leadership ultimately decided the best way to better understand

their audience was through several focus groups organized into three age groups: 29 and under, 30 to 50, and 50-plus. Each group was composed of at least a dozen or so people. For a month, every person was given the daily task of looking at the paper’s website as well as the print edition delivered to their front porch.

Another surprise? Those print coupons found inside the newspaper were preferred over the mobile versions, especially amongst the under 30 age group.

“A common response we got was that the act of going through the print coupons was almost like therapy,” Fuller said. “They didn’t want more stuff on their phone or have to print anything out. We received answers like that even though we know the interviewers were trying to push them more on the idea of digital.”

Suddenly, a new question arose for The Blade: What would happen if they tried to grow their Sunday print product? At least on paper, the trend had been anything but growth, with the Sunday circulation number steadily declining 4 to 6 percent every year up until that point. With the revelations brought to them by the focus groups, Fuller said the staff recognized it wasn’t too late to reverse course.

Since shifting their approach back toward growing their Sunday print edition, the paper’s circulation has risen from 98,156 in 2014 to just under 100,000 in 2016. Having been told firsthand how beneficial the coupons and inserts were for readers, The Blade made a concerted effort to shine a light on the considerable amount of savings during their marketing campaign that followed. Soon, billboards, social media, and even billing statements featured the slogan: “The paper that pays for itself.”


“Newspapers need to continue to capitalize on their Sunday print edition. It’s not only about the content that is valued by the reader but the whole experience itself,” Fuller said. “In today’s world people talk about not having time for this or that, but on Sundays there is usually time to look at the paper. Even if someone may not have the time during the day, they can save it for later that night or the next morning since it’s not necessarily all breaking news or deadline type news.”

Time Well Spent

If there was a day to maneuver through the congested, oversaturated news market, Sunday would be the best day to it. The time factor is there, but it’s just a matter of if newspapers can effectively capture the attention of potential readers and do so in a consistent manner.

At The Sunday Times in London, a recent advertising campaign accentuated why that valuable time should be spent with their Sunday paper. Called “It all starts with The Sunday Times,” the campaign appears across TV, radio, print, film and online platforms.

“Sundays are now a day of action rather than relaxation and we are now making decisions for the days, weeks and years ahead,” Catherine Newman, chief marketing officer, said in an announcement. “The Sunday Times is uniquely positioned to help its readers make those decisions by providing them with actionable information and ideas. That is why our readers are a uniquely engaged and loyal audience who spend over 93 minutes with the paper.”

Back in the U.S., newspapers are finding that the Sunday print product is still an attractive option for readers before they start the work week as well.

Lynn Hamilton first joined the Arkansas Democrat more than four decades ago, and was

there to witness what he describes as a “newspaper war” with the Arkansas Gazette. The “war” ended in 1991 when the assets of the Gazette were sold to WEHCO Media Inc., parent company of the Democrat. The paper was then renamed the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A considerable factor of importance for the surviving paper, Hamilton said, was the strength of the Sunday edition.

“The readership in that Sunday paper was a big part of the reason that we were able to survive that war,” said Hamilton, who now serves as president and general manager. “Frankly, it’s just traditional for us to put out a really good Sunday print product.”

He acknowledged that the paper had “more Sunday subscribers by far” compared to daily subscribers, and estimated that number to be somewhere between 140,000 and 145,000.

For Hamilton, the Sunday experience offers more than just the physical act of holding something in your hands.

“If you look at the trend on e-books, people have tried them and now sales of those devices are going down because a printed book is truly easier to read. We feel newspapers are the same way,” he said. “You can open up a broadsheet page and quickly see all the headlines in front of you instead of scrolling around on your iPad. Eventually, there may be some digital device that is invented that comes along that clearly is superior but it’s not out there yet.”

So what exactly makes their Sunday product standout? Sunday editor Terry Austin alluded to the trust their readers have, and can take comfort in, with the paper that arrives at their doorstep.

“We’ve always tried to do the same thing: Give readers as much world, national,

political, state, county and local news, sports and more as we possibly can, keeping it up to date and free of slant and misinformation. The rise of social media and internet sites makes that job much harder and all the more vital,” Austin said. “Our Sunday paper helps break through the minefield of distorted reports.”

A similar mantra rings true at the Dallas Morning News, where readers are provided with a sizeable amount of news content.

“When we compare our news hole to other newspapers in the country, we are very near if not at the top of the number of columns of news that we publish on Sundays throughout the year,” said Jim Moroney, publisher and CEO. “I think in a lot of ways that Sunday edition gives your subscribers a sense of how your business is doing, and the health of the paper as a whole.”

Meanwhile, some newspapers have expanded their Sunday print editions in neighboring markets.

Last November, the South Bend Tribunein Indiana began publication of the Elkhart Connection, a six to eight-page broadsheet consisting of columns, features and Q&As regarding the nearby city of Elkhart and Elkhart County. The special section is inserted into the Tribune’s Sunday paper and delivered to roughly 3,000 subscribers in Elkhart County.

“We chose the Sunday paper as the home of Elkhart Connection because of its broader circulation scope and expanded news, enterprise, sports and feature coverage,” said Michael Wanbaugh, local news editor. “Our top objective was to create a buzz in the Elkhart community with our coverage, and the feedback we’ve received thus far is encouraging.”


In Charleston, S.C., the Post and Courierlaunched a similar type Sunday print expansion in the Columbia and Myrtle Beach areas.

“Readership statistics show that people spend more time with the Sunday paper and you’ve seen publishers take advantage of that by offering more to read,” said publisher P.J. Browning. “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

The paper plans on printing an additional 5,000 copies for single copy purchase only before eventually offering home delivery in targeted areas within the two markets.

“Our Sunday edition continues to be the cornerstone of our franchise,” said Scott Embry, advertising director. “While it’s too early to estimate the long-term revenue impact, the expansion has provided us a platform to grow new and existing relationships.”

Connecting Emotionally with Readers and Advertisers

After just a few weeks of becoming accustomed to having my Sunday paper delivered to my door, I started to recognize that there was an emotional connection there, not just a thirst for news that played a part in making my experience so special.

Peter Noel Murray, Ph.D., who specializes in the psychological drivers of consumer behavior, noted that emotion is in indeed what drives all consumption, including where we choose to get our news.

“The fundamental question should always be what is the emotional connection between the consumer and the product? And what can be done with that to create strategies that work for the business?” Murray said. “I just have a feeling that this question hasn’t been asked with newspapers — maybe it has but I’m not aware of it.”

The physicality of the print experience can’t be overlooked either. According to Murray, studies have shown that people do enjoy sitting down and having something to hold in their hands to read. It’s an area of strength from a psychological point of view that print products continue to possess over digital media.

“That level of engagement creates a greater, more positive experience,” Murray said. “Plus, from an advertiser’s point of view, it has a lot of benefits when it comes to recall of a product.”

Although Murray hasn’t worked specifically with newspapers, he has witnessed firsthand how well his print magazine clients have connected with millennials.

“This younger audience is finding something in print magazines that is emotionally satisfying,” Murray said. “I think there is a sense that millennials are turning toward truth and validity with this notion of fake news. That is why nostalgia has hit a chord with them because there’s something that is taking the experience to a deeper level with a more firm foundation.”

The recent resurgence of vinyl record sales, which reached a 25-year high in 2016, is a prime example of a positive emotional experience, Murray said.

“For audiophiles, there is a specific quality that vinyl holds that has been lost in digital reproduction,” he said. “The same thing is possible for newspapers. This idea that there is an expected experience of reading a newspaper perceived to be different yet more wonderful than going on your computer or smartphone.”

In order to ensure that Sunday experience differentiates itself from the digital realm, Mario Garcia, CEO of Garcia Media, said publishers need to believe in what he refers to as the “luxury of paper.”

“To capture that experience the content has to be special — borrow from books and

magazines which always provided this more sedentary and meditative type of reading experience. Also make your Sunday product essential: prepare me for the week ahead, and remind me of the big topics of the past week that I may have missed,” Garcia said. “I must feel that reading this printed Sunday paper is going to help me, to advance me, to make me wiser — while having fun with it.”

When it comes to advertising, Garcia noted that thinking outside of the box remains just as critical. “Advertisers are waiting for Sunday papers to become more innovative. Try sponsored content, which can bring a world of new content of interest to readers, while allowing the newspaper to monetize via a different way of doing advertising.”

Garcia also emphasized the importance of not romanticizing print to a point where it becomes a detriment, but rather treat it is as part of the overall brand of the newspaper. The concept of a having a healthy Sunday print edition, alongside a strong digital presence during the week, comes to mind.

“I advise my clients to start giving their weekend/Sunday editions its proper identity now, for when there is no Monday-Friday print edition, a day that will come sooner or later for all, although not at the same time,” he said. “Concentrate on storytelling first, then telling stories differently in different platforms. The Sunday newspaper can be where the innovative laboratory begins to accomplish all of this.”

–— Reprinted by Editor & Publisher


By ONDREJ KREHEL

Cybercrime is on the rise and journalists are not immune to this trend as they investigate and handle highly sensitive

information. They are considered a soft target by cybercriminals since most of them are not concerned or aware that they should secure their information, devices and networks. By lacking user awareness and not practicing proper cyber hygiene, journalists, too, are exposed to many cyber risks such as ransomware attacks, phishing scams, and extortion.

The use of unsecure websites and networks leaves journalists’ work vulnerable to the possibility of a cyberattack as they provide a large attack surface. Public networks such as the Wi-Fi in a coffee shop, puts users’ data and devices at risk to cyberattack since most public Wi-Fi does not have any level of security. Cybercriminals can exploit network vulnerabilities through man-in-the- middle attacks. These man-in-the-middle attacks are used to access important information such as passwords, usernames, browsing

history, and snoop on unencrypted messages sent over the unsecure networks. While public Wi-Fi is one area of risk journalists should be aware of, this also holds true of networks in their own work environment. Journalists should ensure that the networks in the workplace are secured by knowledgeable and trained network administration personnel and that security is up-to-date with the latest anti-virus protection.

Journalists and advertising sales people tend to mine the internet to find leads, following any links that are likely to provide or lead to information that may provide value. This often lands them into traps laid by cybercriminals such as phishing attacks, which are carried out through fake emails, LinkedIn, and other social media accounts. These types of emails contain links that may lead to sites where malware can be downloaded into the journalist’s computer. Fake social media accounts use social engineering techniques to coerce users to download and install the malware into their devices. This type of malware can steal confidential information from the journalists’ devices and other devices on the network. The malware can encrypt the files and data on the devices making them inaccessible. To access the device and the files, the attackers then demand ransom from the journalist or media company, which may in turn cost the journalist his/her job. This virus can also destroy files and documents stored on the network. Investigative journalists are the most prevalent to this type of cyberattack.

Journalists should be aware of the potential cyberattacks and how they are most likely to take place. They should take initiative in knowing what kind of cyber-weaponry or spyware the hackers are using and how they work. This education will limit exposure to attacks and help in spotting these threats.

Some recommended tips for protecting yourself:

• Avoid the use of public networks, such as hotel Wi-Fi

• Implement virtual private networks (VPN) to avoid interception and spying of communication over the internet.

• Use instant messaging applications that encrypt the messages

• When searching the internet, use secure browsers which do not allow tracking by third parties

• Avoid having the same usernames and passwords for login credentials

• Passwords should be intricate and changed often

• Update software regularly and back up all important information

In case the journalists have been compromised, they should not rush to giving into the hackers’ demands. Instead, they should notify their network administrators. Network administrators should contact incident response professionals, such as LIFARS that specialize in identifying, tracking and remediating cyberattacks.

— Ondrej Krehel, CEO and Founder of LIFARS

Cybercrime is on the rise


CNN, Hearst: Mobile is media’s way forward

M obile is a big deal, two experts told the audience at INMA’s 2017 World Congress.

“I’m going to tell you why mobile is a big deal, because certainly no one has told you that before,” joked David Ho, vice president and executive editor of digital audience and news innovation at Hearst Newspapers.

Even though the word “mobile” is not in his title, Ho still considers himself a mobile editor: “I have spent years trying to convince people that mobile is a big deal.”

To emphasise the ubiquity of mobile devices, Ho asked the crowd how many mobile devices (devices with a SIM card) are in service around the world right now. Guesses ranged from 1 million to 2 trillion, but while the answer is somewhere in the middle, it is no small figure: 8 billion.

“That means that right now there are more mobile devices on Earth than people,” Ho said.

In this era, everyone knows mobile is important, Ho said, but they do not fundamentally understand why. Ho then asked everyone to unlock their phones and hand it to the person next to them. With the audience still holding some else’s phone, Ho asked them if they felt uncomfortable. They did.

“Good. Now hold on to that feeling because that feeling is why mobile is important,” he said.

When companies send news to mobile, he added, they send news directly into people’s lives in a very personal way.

Ho gave three levels of tips news media companies can take to move toward a better mobile culture.

Level 1:• “Mobile friendly webpages are

a necessity.”

Ho said if any organizations have a Web site that looks like a desktop Web site on a phone, they have a big problem: “If this is you I encourage you to go home and fix that right now.”

• You should have a news app, too.

“I think apps are really really important,” Ho said. “They are critical for notifications and notifications are in turn critical for the future of news.”

The big challenge with news apps is not cost, he added. It’s discovery.

• The one-platform world is dead.

“I’m sure everyone has someone in their organization that does not get it,” Ho said.

• News is an experience & the device is part of the story.

Ho told the audience that news is in a battle for time. It is news vs. Netflix, and news vs. Pokémon Go.

“We’re already kind of on the losing side here,” he said.

Level 2:• If a graphic doesn’t work on a phone, it

doesn’t work.

The energy put into making mobile work everywhere is wasted if graphics are bad.

• Mobile is social. Social is mobile.

“Facebook is a mobile company,” Ho said. “Let’s be honest. The vast majority of facebook usage happens on phones.”

News media companies must remember that anything that they do on social must be considered from the user’s point-of-view.

• You need the right mobile team.

Ho struggled to hire mobile editors when he first began working in mobile because they were not any.

“You still need experts,” he said. “You need people who understand the audience, who understand the technology.”

Level 3:• The real mobile first: plan, think, see mobile

at the start of every effort.

When mobile becomes an afterthought, bad things happen, Ho said: “But the real mobile-first is about embracing mobile across you organisations in every aspect you can imagine.”

• In the age of mobile, we’re all wire services.

Digital is a dirty word for some people, Ho said. But they understand what is important about being a wire service.

“A lot of orgs have thought adapting to that idea and that comes up a lot in the digital transition people are trying to make,” he said.

• Beyond the screen is “Dimensional Storytelling.”

“The news that we create for the most part is confined to flat, two-dimensional surfaces,” Ho said. “Pieces of paper or a screen of some kind.”

To expand the idea of what a phone is capable of, Ho suggested the audience check out a mobile game called “Black Box.”

David Ho, vice president and executive editor digital audience and news innovation at Hearst Newspapers, speaks on the priority of mobile.


The biggest myth in mobile news, Ho said, is that mobile = short.

“This is a very common idea, and it’s also wrong,” he said. “And it does a lot of harm.”

The idea that mobile must be short happens when someone in the news business gets “mobile religious,” he said. This happens when someone suddenly becomes obsessed with mobile after not paying attention to it for a long time.

The sign of a mobile religious, Ho said, is when someone says something like: “Have you seen all those people on the metro? They’re all on their phones. We’ve got to do something about this!”

What usually follows is a directive to make everything short. But the problem, Ho said, is that mobile does not equal short. Mobile equals relevance.

“Mobile is about things that matter to people,” he said. “It’s about filling needs and solving problems.”

The goal of mobile should be to fill a variety of needs. Sometimes that may require short content, but sometimes it may require a longer experience. This is crucial to understanding what mobile can be for the audience, Ho said, because it is past time to figure it out.

“Mobile is not the future, despite what you’ve heard,” he said. “Mobile is the present.”

To illustrate what mobile can be, CNN Senior Reporter Yusuf Omar went live as his wife Sumaiya Omar streamed a live video on the screen and on Facebook, Omar asked where the audience went last night to find news about the bombing of a concert last night in Manchester.

Omar looked for stories from people on the ground at the event.

“I’m here to tell you that the singular biggest revolution in mobile is the stories format,” he said.

On a platform like Snapchat, users can search for content real time. This content can be layered with photos, facts, and dates to help with verification. It also provides capabilities to curate and aggregate voices of people on the ground.

When he worked in South Africa, Omar trained 12 Millennials and armed them with phones. It is a strategy he used himself as a journalist on location: “I regard myself as a jeans journalist. Everything I need for journalism can fit in my jeans.”

What makes mobile journalism even easier, especially for those intimidated by social storytelling, is the stories format. Stories allow the user to tell a story from their point of view, edit in information, and edit snippets together in their feed. The simplicity of the stories format is why Omar uses it to train other journalists.

“We did it through the stories format because it’s as simple as holding down the red button,” he said.

The stories format itself is also a great way to reach audiences. The fast, digestible content can be easy to search and consume for users already plugged into their phones. It is about making content the audience wants, Omar said.

“I fundamentally believe a lot of us are not making the same type of mobile video we are consuming,” he said.

Using Kahoot.it, Omar took an interactive, live survey of people in the room.

1. In what format do you watch videos online? The majority (74) responded that they prefer landscape, and 50 responded vertical. Omar said this was surprising, as it contradicts audience data, but said perhaps the audience watches more long-form.

2. How long are the videos you consume? The majority (66) responded that they are usually one minute, 35 said usually about 30 second content, 20 responded it is usually 5 minutes, and 10 said content is usually 6 minutes. “That’s pretty much spot-on with analytics,” Omar said.

3. Do you skip or fast forward through videos? The majority (97) said yes, and 33 said no. “But the vast majority of the platforms we are using to watch video content are not built for that purpose,” Omar said.

4. Where do you watch videos online? The majority (112) responded they watch content on mobile, while 19 said desktop. “And that’s probably representative of your audience if you look at your data,” he said.

The point is to make sure news media is where the audience is, like Instagram, Omar said. Instagram and stories, he said, is an amalgamation of everything news media could want.

“If you want to know where the future of social media is going — we can look at what they’re prioritizing,” he said. “And right now they’re prioritizing stories.”CNN Senior Reporter Yusuf Omar went

live during his presentation about mobilr during Tuesday’s World Congree Session.

Continued on next page


The stories format on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat may seem contradictory to the news media’s drive to preserve news, Omar said, due to their ephemeral nature. But, he said, news has always been short-lived.

“It’s always gone straight away,” he said. “My mother used to use newspapers to clean windows.”

News in a social, mobile format is not about keeping control. The big idea is that the audience is in control of the narrative on these platforms when they get involved with news.

“That for me is the sea-change,” he said.

Omar shared 10 points to build good stories:

• Create suspense.

• Build engagement.

• Be native and niche.

• Have personality.

• Be consistent.

• Engage the thumb.

• Create hype.

• Storyboard.

• Swipe up.

• Be creative.

On the last point, Omar said creativity is at the heart of social storytelling.

“Be creative guys,” he said. “I can’t emphasise this enough. It is a creative space.”

The technology baked into the stories format, combined with outside apps, like Apple Clips, can help publishers create better journalism.

“This is about using mobile for going beyond cost-cutting, beyond speed, but to do things that quite simply traditional equipment can not achieve,” Omar said.

Mobile is the way to reach a news media audience in a personal, one-on-one way. This has not been possible before, and the trend toward social is not going anywhere: “We are talking about a future of mobile where everything is hyper, hyper, hyper, local.”

— Reprinted from inma

Continued from previous page

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By PETER W. WAGNER

T he challenge of selling newspaper, shopper and magazine ads can turn into an exasperating experience. There are moments when everything and

everyone seems to be working against you. You hit the street early, loaded down with powerful ideas and ready-to-work promotions but closes never come.

The successful sales representative can only turn his back on the difficult buyer, retreat to the nearest telephone booth and change into his “E Man” suit. Empowered with the strength of three important attributes that start with the letter “E” he returns to the store, confronts the customer again and creatively closes the sale.

Enthusiasm The enthusiastic salesperson will always have an edge

over the less dedicated salesman. The most successful sales representatives will admit their biggest orders were won a step at a time. They used enthusiasm to win the opportunity to make a presentation. Then they simply kept selling, restating the positive values of their product – sometimes over many visits – until the buyer ran out of objections.

Because most buyers prefer to be around enthusiastic people, developing that skill can be an important part of building long and lasting relationships. But it is important to make consistent calls on the potential buyers to get the best results.

The salesperson who builds relationships in less hectic times will always be more successful when it’s time to ask for an important order.

Because enthusiasm will close a sale when nothing else can, it is the most important skill a sales professional can possess. Enthusiasm is infectious. Merchants get caught up in the enthusiastic, honest presentation of a salesperson and begin to see the vision being offered. But to make enthusiasm work, it is necessary to sell the client face-to-face work when possible.

Enthusiasm can open doors, build relationships and close sales. So how do we build this priceless commodity within ourselves? There are two easy ways. The first is to thoroughly learn the power of the product you are selling. The more the print advertising salesperson knows about his publication and how it will benefit the customer, the easier it will be to help the customer use the paper to benefit his business. What are the strengths of the publication? Who are its subscribers and readers? Has anything been done to bolster readership recently? Are there areas of the newspaper targeted toward certain readers? Does it have a quality sports section aimed at men? An entertainment section popular among high school and college students? Know your demographics.

Secondly, the sales professional must believe that advertising truly can produce results. The more you truly believe in your paper, the easier you’ll be able to build the energy and self-confidence to close almost every sale. It also helps to regularly practice the following professional selling habits: Always act animated. Animation during your presentation shows your excitement about an idea and your dedication to your product. If you feel your enthusiasm beginning to ebb while trying to close a sale, it will often help to get animated. The action will give you control of the moment and give you time to rethink the best way to close the sale.

Give yourself frequent pep talks. Remind yourself you are good at what you do, that your product is the best option for your client and that you are going to succeed. Most importantly, if you feel yourself losing enthusiasm, get out on the street and make more calls. Often the positive interaction with your customers can work miracles when it comes to rebuilding your excitement in your publication and profession.

EducationBut enthusiasm is just one of the important selling

secrets that starts with the letter “E”. You also need an education. An education in the art of selling – prospecting, handling objections and the strengths and unique features of your different printed products. A good solid liberal arts education, sprinkled with a business or journalism emphasis, can be helpful. But many of today’s best advertising sales representatives have never had a day of formal college training. Instead they have acquired a solid “street” education.

During the last quarter-century, I’ve discovered that there are three kinds of sales people in this world. The first usually works too fast and the second too slow. The first type runs into the store and asks for an ad without building any relationship with the client. The salesperson knows nothing about the client: his products, fears or goals. The second type often talks the account to death, losing the business because he or she didn’t recognize the “ready-to-buy” signals and kept selling when it was time to ask for the order.

The third is the real professional. He gets in and out of the decision-maker’s office after spending just the right amount of time selling his publication or promotion. This professional has a thick file of background material on each of his accounts. He knows the customer’s birthday and wedding anniversary. He knows which of the client’s grandchildren play on the local basketball team and where buyer goes every summer for his family vacation. More importantly, this sales representative knows what

Start with the letter “E”!kind of advertising the customer finds effective. He knows when the big sales are scheduled and what kind of promotion the buyer always passes up.

The successful advertising representative possesses the same knowledge and commitment as a banker or certified public accountant. He exists to provide guidance to the store owner. The bulk of that information is obtained the old-fashioned way – by asking questions. The smart advertising sales professional spends more time listening than talking when with his customers.

Asking questions and storing away bits of information is an excellent way to take care of his customers and himself. It is easier and less expensive to keep existing good customers than it is to find new ones.

ExecutionThe third necessary “E” skill is execution. Combined

with enthusiasm and education, execution gives the salesperson ability to excel. All three are — enthusiasm, a “street” education and execution – are necessary to be an exceptional salesperson. They are the secret weapons of anyone who wants to wear the “E Man” suit.

Remember, a resourceful sales professional is ready with a number of different closes in order to make the sale. Resourceful advertising representatives never make a call without at least attempting a close. Getting a no puts you one step closer to getting a yes.

Perhaps you don’t want to be a super hero advertising salesperson. But I’m sure you do want to be successful; it’s why you’re reading this short piece.

You owe it to yourself and to your family to do a good job and earn a good living. And you owe it to your employer to work hard to improve your advertising sales skills. Your publishing company expects you to do your very best every day. That can be a terrible burden. If you live up to your potential today, you’ll be expected to sell even more tomorrow.

Your employer believes in you. That’s why you got the job in the first place. In return, they will expect you to subscribe to the goals of the company. They expect you to believe in the newspaper, the community and the role the publication plays in building a brighter future for everyone who lives in the area.

Finally, your publication can expect you to enjoy every your association with the company. Advertising sales can be a satisfying challenge or a drudgery. If it isn’t fun, it isn’t worth the effort. Incorporating enthusiasm, a “street” education and execution will help you stand out in an ever growing group of local media sales representatives.

THE ABC’S OF SELLING PRINT ADVERTISING


Back to the Future - of your family business

few years back, I worked with a client who was struggling to make some strategic decisions for his company. He had just taken over

his family’s business and, as is the case with many family businesses, was dealing with some challenging family dynamics set in motion well before he’d come aboard. Even though the defining event — the sudden exit of one of the principles years before — had happened when he was a young adult, the ripple effect of that event was still impacting the family’s choices and direction for the future. This got me thinking about the paths family businesses choose, leading me to ask myself, “Are family businesses often forced down a path as a result of past unresolved conflict in the family?”

As I thought more about this, I suddenly remembered the scene in the movie “Back to the Future II” where Doc Brown is explaining the space/time continuum path to Marty McFly, and how his going back to 1955 in the first

movie disrupted the universe: “Our only chance to repair the present is in the past, at the point where the timeline skewed into this tangent.” You may be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with family business?” It’s my contention that unresolved conflict in a family business acts very much like Doc Brown’s disruption of the space/time continuum; causing what I call a break in the family/time continuum that influences all subsequent decisions, affecting the path and direction of the family business going forward — and not always for the best. But if the family can “go back in time” in a sense, to resolve or at least honestly address this past conflict, it provides them an opportunity to make strategic decisions based on what is best for the family and the business, rather than having those choices dictated by an unresolved event in the past, as illustrated below.

Case Study –—Mismanaged Expectations

A good example of the damaging aftershocks created by a break in the family/time continuum was the Payton family, which had started as a mom and pop service business and went on to become a multimillion-dollar enterprise. The parents worked closely together, and all three of their children grew up to join them in the business. But when Dad unexpectedly died of a heart attack, Mom was left vulnerable and lonely – and fell in love with a man who had worked with her for years.

Not surprisingly, her adult kids didn’t take it well. Her oldest daughter, who was the heir apparent, was especially hurt and angry about what she saw as her mother’s betrayal. This had happened five years before they called me in for help, a call that was precipitated by Mom’s announcement that she and her new spouse were going to start a competing company, as he had left the family business because of the strife it caused with her kids. She’d delivered an ultimatum; either her new husband would be welcomed back, or she’d move on. What made it even more unwieldy was that she was still working with the family even as her new company was gearing up – and they were competing for the same clients! Now her daughter, who’d been in talks to buy her mother out, was caught in an untenable position between her siblings and Mom, stuck with the fallout of her mom’s choices and her own unresolved anger. That’s when I got the call.

In a meeting with the whole family (including Mom and Mom’s new

A

By DAVID KAROFSKY


husband), I went to the white board and drew the diagram I used above, explaining, “Our problem is that we are trying to build a strategy around where you are today, without reconciling what happened in past. If you can reconcile your past differences, hopefully we’ll be able to move you past the anger to a point before your Dad’s death and Mom’s new relationship changed the family dynamic.”

In a sense we went back in time: We began with very basic communication skills, so they could talk more honestly about their individual perspectives on how things had gotten so far out of whack, and why they felt the way they did. Just getting them all together in the same room was tough at first and required a lot of one-on-one work to bring about. It was a very emotional process — at some meetings, every family member in the room was openly weeping — and it took time, but we finally arrived at a point where Mom, her new husband and the kids agreed to merge the two competing businesses and move forward together. This outcome couldn’t have been achieved had we not gone back in time and reconciled the event that had pushed them off their path.

It’s important to note here that reconciling did not mean that everyone had to agree on what had happened or why. It meant talking openly and honestly about their feelings and working through them, then moving on.

Family feuds aren’t new; from Cain and Abel to the Hatfields and McCoys, people hold themselves hostage to an event that they might not even have had control over at the time, and which they themselves may not even remember. I’ve

seen families pulled apart over arguments that occurred a generation ago, who still hold completely different views on how the resulting schism went down. Yet, when they allow themselves to see the conflict through the other person’s eyes, it becomes possible to say, “I hear what you’re saying – I don’t agree but I understand – and I’m willing to move on for the good of the family and the business.” Everyone needs to be on the same team and in alignment to create one strategic direction that’s good for all.

Case Study — Irreconcilable Differences

Of course, not all family feuds have a desired resolution – at least, not one in which the business relationships remain intact. Sometimes we have to settle for keeping the family itself intact, because the dynamic has become so unhealthy and fraught with hard feelings that there’s no other way to resolve it.

We worked with the Bakers, a father and son whose very different working styles doomed their partnership from the start. Dad was a “go with his gut” kind of guy, whose loose management style had worked well for him and his very successful business. He’d been an absentee dad — his business had always come first — but saw bringing his son in as his junior partner and heir apparent as a way to make up for his admitted emotional negligence after a divorce had parted him from his son’s mother and drove a stake in the father/son relationship.

But the personalities of the two men worked against this partnership from day one. The son is as brilliant a guy as his dad, but the resemblance ends there. As loose and unstructured as his father’s working style is, the son’s is cerebral, literal and analytical. He was uncomfortable with the lack of defined roles in the business, and wanted to create new structures and processes for a sustainable future. His father, who needs to have input on everything from the social media to pricing and long term strategy, wasn’t willing to give up any of his control, and blamed his son for being so uptight and, as he saw it, ungrateful. After all, his son was already a millionaire thanks to Dad’s business abilities — and the people whose jobs he was trying to redefine were there before he was, helping build that fortune for him. Couldn’t he just learn to go along with the program and wait his turn to run things?

Unfortunately the son’s personality rubbed a lot of the key people in the company the wrong way, which only added to the friction. When a group of them came to Dad to ask him to intervene, the family called us in to help sort things out. For two years, we worked with them, trying different strategies to bring them together on common ground. But after many meetings and a lot of frank talk, it was clear that this partnership couldn’t be salvaged – and the only way that father and son could stay on good personal terms was to manage the son out of the business.

This event certainly shifted the strategic direction of the enterprise; now they’re without an heir apparent as Dad’s retirement looms on the horizon. The long-term planning for the future of the business has to change accordingly, and

Continued on next page


it’s a real challenge for Dad. It was tough to tell the son that he’s actually a better person when he’s not working for his father, but they both see now that it was the right move, as painful as it was. Neither one of them had the ability to move toward the middle; it was not a question of desire, nor was it question of who was at fault. The good news is that now they’re closer as a family than they ever were, and the son has started his own company in a different field.

What are some of the most common causes of breaks in the Family/Time Continuum?

• Poor communication: Family members are not able to communicate effectively with each other or to talk through their different perspectives; conversations that should be had are not, yet life and the business still move forward.

• Family conflict /lack of resolution: Resolution does not mean agreement – but it does mean agreeing to move forward. You’ve got to be able to make good business decisions, in which the past doesn’t dictate the future.

• Lack of strategic planning: Without a formal strategic plan in place, how do you know in what direction you should be taking the business? Good strategic planning can help prevent these kinds of family/time continuum events from happening. If, for instance a family doesn’t plan in advance for the death of a family member, it’s possible that the

business will shift in a direction that isn’t optimal when the event happens. The greatest benefit a strategic plan brings is creating alignment at the highest level of the family and organization, in a way that serves both.

• Unexpected death in the family: As in the Payton family, a sudden death brings emotional trauma along with other practical repercussions that can easily push the family off course.

• Poor definitions of roles and responsibilities: When you don’t have clear structure in an organization, it’s like a bad rowing crew that can’t pull together to win a race. Clear roles and responsibilities are essential to having members in the business all pulling in the same direction.

• Mismanaged expectations: As in the Baker family example, when people don’t share a common understanding of their place and power in the family business, or when the leader refuses to share any power with his heir apparent, it can lead to hard feelings that damage both the business and the family.

• Entitlement: We often see cases in which Mom and Dad have effectively given their kids power in the company without having set expectations around what they have to do to earn it. Thus, you get adult kids showing up for work at 10 and leaving at 4, coming and going as they wish. When parents are unwilling to address entitlement issues, they run the

risk of creating a break in the family/time continuum; the employees resent the kids, and the kids themselves aren’t capable of taking over when the time comes, risking the future of the business. When the process of onboarding an heir is more carefully managed, with roles and processes clear to everyone, it lets the family get out of the company’s way.

As we’ve seen, poor communication is most often the underlying current that drives conflict in a family business. Before making changes to an intended strategic direction in your business, I suggest you ask yourself “What is causing this shift; is it due to changing market or financial conditions, or is because of unresolved family dynamics?”

If it is the latter, I encourage you to address those family issues before making change in direction that may negatively impact your business down the line. You may still find yourself continuing down the altered path, but at least you be doing it knowing this is what is right for the family and the business.

— Reprinted from the Family Business Consulting Group

Continued from previous page


veryone from George Washington to Vince Lombardi has used a variation of “The best defense is a good offense.” Maybe it’s time for journalism to drop

its defensiveness and go on the offensive.

The popular theory is that “the media” is a black magic cabal whose members meet regularly to shake its secret handshake, ties its socks in inverted knots before tossing them into a bonfire and then decide “the liberal media agenda.” Survey after survey shows that the public believes we are biased and display a bias when we report the news. And now the most powerful official in America is reinforcing these beliefs.

Those who have worked inside newsrooms know that while there is often “group think” that needs to be challenged, most journalists are ethical, independent and are proud of working in an industry that helps strengthen American democracy.

We are not the enemy of the people. And we need to tell them why.

I opened my Sunday morning paper in Ventura County, Calif., and saw a remarkable example of how well we do this and how important we are.

If there is any profession under attack more frequently than the news media it is local

police agencies. The Ventura County Star assigned nine journalists to spend the night on patrol with police officers from agencies across the county. In addition to creating some compelling stories for the Sunday paper, the move exposed the police — and the public — to the journalists and how they do their jobs as disinterested observers.

This is important. In our fight back against being labeled as “fake news” purveyors and enemies of the American people, we need to tell the public just how ethical most journalists are and how they conduct their business without bias.

How many people have you surprised in your career by telling them what gifts you cannot accept? In other industries, it is the standard practice among vendors to reward good customers with gifts—tickets to sporting events, for instance. Journalists can’t take those gifts. The public does not know this. I had many news sources ask me, “How much will this story cost?”

What other industries appoint ombudsman or customer representatives assigned to right whatever wrongs the journalists might have committed? Ever tried to get a hospital or an auto dealer to admit they made a mistake? The “self-check” in many of these industries is that telephone survey after purchase that asks you to rate them from one to 10. It’s just not the same.

And can you name another industry that puts a physical and figurative wall between the part of the business that brings in the money (advertising) and the part of the business that brings in the customers (news)? We often take approaches that directly affect our bottom line and we do it with honor. Seasoned journalists have written articles that caused advertisers to stop advertising. And the journalists kept their jobs.

The antiseptic life of journalists would shock many Americans. The public should know that journalists cannot:

• Accept an honorarium while speaking to a group that has a political agenda and tries to influence you.

• Take even the slightest bit of information from another writer without properly acknowledging it.

• Serve on a non-profit board doing community good if that service would affect your news coverage or editorial writing.

• Engage in political activity either by participating in rallies or donating money.

• Make an investment based on the information you gather about a company while reporting the news.

• Threaten to use your position as a journalist to gain an advantage for yourself.

• Keep an arm’s length relationship with any member of the public (including influential news makers) who might try to influence your news coverage.

If only we could take our readers on a ride-along to show them that this is an important and even noble profession. But we will not win their trust by trying to outshout our opponents. We’ll win by convincing them that journalists work hard, honestly and without improper influence. We need to go on the offensive.

Tim Gallagher is president of The 20/20 Network, a public relations and strategic communications firm. He is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and publisher at The Albuquerque Tribune and the Ventura County Star newspapers. Reach him at [email protected].

— Repirinted from Editor and Publisher

E

Business of News: It’s Time to Remind Readers That Journalism is a Noble Profession

By TIM GALLAGHER


By MARK RITSON

7 reasons media advertising declined, 6 ways to recover

icking off the final day of the 2017 INMA World Congress Mark Ritson showed the audience what he calls the “Come to Jesus” chart, graphing

the changing composition of ad spend in Australia over time.

The Morgan Stanley chart displays the significant decline of ad spend in Australian print media. “If anything’s going to get you on your knees, it’s this chart,” said Ritson , a professor at Melbourne Business School and Singapore Management University. “This is a scary chart.”

Ritson shared seven factors he believes have driven these declines forward since the beginning of 2007. It is an important exercise, he said: “It sounds

Knegative, but I think it’s important to learn the lessons of where we went wrong if we’re going to fix things going forward.”

The factors are:

1. A truly gigantic disruption:The size of change, the speed at which it happened, and the specific impact on news media landed a powerful punch. “I’d argue that even Google would struggle to survive such a severe disruption.”

2. Death trope: Media’s constant conversation about the currently dying, or those expected to die in the near future. “We’re a very funereal discipline. Everyone’s dying.”

3. Advertisers: Clients often lean on their own habits and preferences to make decisions. Clients are biased, Ritson said, which is why they will support spending decisions even if there is no data to support it — especially when it comes to fads. “Why do advertisers spend money if they don’t know something is working or not? I’ll tell you why. Because they love new shit.” (The latest trend is Real Reality, 1. Ritson jokingly added.)

4. Arrogance: In a great phase in Australia called Rivers of Gold, a culture of over-confidence, poor leadership, and inefficient company structure left the industry unprepared. “We started to think we were better than we were, and that left us vulnerable to disruptors.”

5. Editors: Editors as executives created a poor leadership structure, Ritson said. “They weren’t the chiefs that we needed at the time.”

6. Giving stuff away for free: If he could go back in time, Ritson said he would go back to the World Editors Forum on May 14, 1994 — where they discussed for the first time the implications of digital on news media. “I’d tell them: I’ll give you two pieces of advice. Whatever you do, never give anything away for free. And always sign a contract.”

Mark Ritson Shares his “Coming to Jesus” chart that outlines why advertising has been declining.


PHOTO OF AN OLD DATSUN AD BY JOHN LLOYD USED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE.7. Newspapers: Ritson pointed to a

war between Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian that distracted the industry from the real threat. “We focused on our competitors and we missed the real competitive threat, until the duopoly was upon us.”

So what does “winning” look like in 2018? It is about admitting that it will never be 1995 again, Ritson advised. Advertising revenue can never reach what it once was, but news media can stop the advertising line on the chart from its current trajectory.

“The angle of decline is what we must work on,” Ritson said. “It’s not about winning. It’s about stopping more loss.”

Ritson outlined six steps that news media can take to shift focus from advertising and reach a flatline (the goal) for 2018:

1. Subscriptions. News media should focus on subscriptions and paywalls. “Our goal is to get everyone through a paywall,” Ritson said. “Everyone.” He also urged companies to focus on the core offering and not to fall in love with the “diversification myth.”

2. Defending current share, not gaining it. “You can’t grow a market and defend your share at the same time if you know what you’re doing,” he said. Saving money that a company would have otherwise lost is making money for the company. By continuing to

target big brands, news media companies are “wasting their bullets” trying to regain revenue that will never return. “There’s not a man or woman in this room that wouldn’t take a flat line for 2018, so keep that the goal.”

3. Kill your mastheads. To illustrate this point, Ritson gave an example of an animal with a gruesome survival strategy: the brown rat. Infamous for running the streets of New York City, this rat practices infanticide. Over a year period, Ritson said, a mother rat will have eaten one-half of her babies in times of perceived scarcity. Media companies must do the same with struggling mastheads. “You must kill in order to be successful.”

4. Be competitive. His advice is to go after Google and Facebook based on taxes, their ethics, and anything else you’ve got on them that you can call disgraceful. “It isn’t unfair,” he said. “It’s business.”

5. Target the right customer.Media agencies are relatively unimportant when it comes to decision-making. Only 15% of budget decisions are made by media agencies, while advertising clients have 85% of the influence on decision-making. “That should be your target,” he said. “You must focus on the clients.”

6. Position on the right things. The usual selling points used to persuade an ad client to spend on news are no longer working. Societal influence, the need for journalism, and fighting fake news are not good enough reasons for ad clients to put their money in news. Instead of guessing why advertisers want to partner with news, Ritson said it is important to just ask them.

In a survey about what is important to advertisers, there were certain answers that stood out. “Of all these different attributes, three of them were significantly important in driving a client’s media choice,” Ritson shared.

Target audience engages with ads in this media.

The client is confident that they are getting what they pay for.

The messages are trusted by the target audience.

In all of these tips, media should really focus on the importance of subscriptions in their business revenue models, and quit vying for ad dollars.

“Advertising won’t save the day,” Ritson said.

— Reprinted from inma


The perils of platforms

hen I hear the word “platform” I find myself thinking of those insanely elevated shoes, upon which

people of smaller stature can sometimes be found teetering, trying to simultaneously keep their balance and participate in the conversation that would otherwise take place above their heads.

Although I can understand why wearers of platform shoes would want to big themselves up, it doesn’t really leave them any better off. The shoes inevitably end up looking silly, and it doesn’t really make the wearer any taller. Sooner or later — following a sprained ankle, bruised ego, or change in fashion — the platforms end up being boxed up and discarded.

W It’s better, isn’t it, when we are able to feel comfortable as we are, rather than trying to be something we’re not?

This is a good analogy for publishers who have spent the better part of the last few decades trying on various platforms in order to feel like bigger players in the digital landscape. Like platform shoes which make it difficult to walk, digital platforms similarly haven’t gotten publishers very far.

When I worked for the New York newspaper, Newsday, in the early 1990s we were one of a number of publishers to sign agreements with one of the proprietary online services, Prodigy, to launch a digital edition of the newspaper. Some other publishers,

such as the San Jose Mercury News, signed with AOL to do the same, and a few — such as the Washington Post — signed up with the slick Interchange service from AT&T.

But publishers of that era had a good excuse — there was no World Wide Web to enable them to reach consumers directly, and so the only way to experiment with digital was to ride on top of someone else’s platform. Even then, it didn’t work out quite so well — technical limitations, miniscule revenue share, no ownership of the end user relationship, strategic shifts by the platform partner — all conspired to make the opportunity less than compelling, other than as a learning experience. Sometimes the platform even just went away.

Not much has changed today. Look at Facebook Live and its program to pay publishers for content. The New York Times has reportedly been paid more than $3 million to regularly produce videos for Live — but the output has been inconsistent in quality, leading the Times’ own public editor to criticise her newspaper for failing to maintain the brand standard. Additionally, the Times doesn’t own the end user relationship and it depends entirely on Facebook both for audience data and for ad sales against the content.

No wonder, then, that a Times spokesperson assured Columbia Journalism Review that “success is often less about numbers, and more about encouraging journalists to embrace a new platform.” Sure — if the platform’s

By EVAN RUDOWSKI


paying you $3 million, why the hell not. But the payola will last only as long as Facebook determines it’s worthwhile; after that, there’s not much reason for publishers to keep playing along. Really what the Times is doing on Facebook Live is just a high-tech version of custom publishing.

Not everyone is finding it worthwhile to stick with a Facebook dependency — the Guardian in April dropped out of the Facebook Instant Articles program, citing a lack of revenue. Facebook admitted that it needed to improve its revenue options for publishers.

Practically and strategically, publishers should be doing more than embracing new platforms — they ought to be operating under a business model that works. That’s probably why publishers are also beginning to migrate away from Medium, another platform that promised a new style of

publishing and plenty of ad revenue to go along with it.

Last year Medium was aggressively promoting its publisher program with a reported offer of a nearly $3 CPM which it would pay to publishers, funded via its own sponsorship sales efforts. By the beginning of this year, founder Ev Williams was calling ad-driven media on the internet a “broken system” and Medium was cutting its ad sales team. Sorry, publishers — but perhaps you’d like to try our new subscription model instead?

When Medium launched its publisher program, some were touting it as the new WordPress — but it wasn’t. WordPress is still the new WordPress. That’s because WordPress (or Drupal, Joomla or some of the other publishing solutions) enables publishers to be the platform. Publishers own their site. They own the user relationship. They can manage, change and adapt the underlying open-source technology.

They can run ads where they want and charge what they want. They get to implement their own subscription options.

Control and self-determination are really the bottom line. Publishers need to stop chasing after platforms and their audiences — those will never belong to the publisher, and will ultimately only be a distraction.

Like wearing platform shoes, publishers need to stop trying to big themselves up. The average publisher may be smaller than the big guys, but they’re unique. Publishers must embrace what makes them differentiated, and build healthy, direct relationships with an audience that really cares. That’s how publishers will stand proudly on their own two feet.

Evan Rudowski is a managing partner at Atlantic Leap.

— Reprinted from theMediaBriefing



When it comes to our freedoms, is a ‘C+’ grade good enough?

hen it comes to our core freedoms, is a “C+” grade good enough?

A new “First Amendment Report Card,” unveiled last week by the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute, gives our First Amendment freedoms — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — a barely passing grade.

The grades were assigned by 15 panelists from across the political spectrum, some of them experts on First Amendment issues overall, and some who focus on specific areas such as religion or press.

Assembly and petition — the rights to gather peaceably with like-minded people without government restriction or prosecution, and ask the government for changes in policies and practices — received the highest marks, at a “B-.” Religion and speech were graded at a “C+,” while press was given a “C.”

On press, for example, panelists pointed to President Trump’s campaign threat to “open up” libel laws in order to more easily sue media outlets; the administration blocking certain news organizations from attending White House briefings; the “fake news” phenomenon; and the president’s general enmity for the press.

Assembly and petition received the highest grades, with panelists noting that recent protests and political marches were classic demonstrations of both freedoms, and that the government took no action to crack down on them or the resulting media coverage.

W Perhaps you — or I, since I didn’t participate in the grading — might have rated the freedoms differently. Good. That would mean we were thinking critically about those basic freedoms, which define us as citizens and enable our democracy to function as such.

And no doubt some will say that in a contentious world, and with an electorate split straight down the middle on most issues, it would be too much to expect a more favorable assessment of the First Amendment.

But I’ll admit that a “C+” leaves me uneasy.

For too long, too many of us have either taken those freedoms for granted, assuming that they will always be there, or considered them in narrow ways (believing, for example, that freedom of speech is not for those with whom we disagree, or that so-called fringe faiths are not really covered by freedom of religion).

Many more of us live in ignorance of the freedoms that were so dearly won. Each year, when results of the First Amendment Center’s State of the First Amendment survey are released, the survey consistently finds that large numbers of Americans — sometimes more than one-third — cannot name a single freedom provided by the 225-year old amendment.

The report card, titled “The First Amendment in the Age of Trump,” nonetheless reflects issues that are not limited to the president’s first 100 days, or to the time he spends in office.

Some of those issues have been simmering for years. The tea party and the Occupy Wall Street movements raised

issues around speech, assembly and petition to new levels of awareness. The “culture wars” around matters of faith — from the silly, such as whether to call them “Christmas” or “Holiday” trees, to the very serious, such as federal policies that may discriminate against Muslims — have raged for decades, and show no signs of abating.

Surveys dating well back into the 1990s chart a growing public apprehension about the credibility, motives and bias of the news media, and a worrisome erosion of support for the press’s role as a “watchdog on government.” Amidst worsening public opinion, journalists have also had to contend with shrinking resources as they attempt to track government officials’ performance and measure government effectiveness.

The quarterly report card is not intended, and could not be, the final word on our First Amendment freedoms — the issues are too complex and the disputes too numerous, and filled with far too many twists and turns.

But the grading system will serve to call our attention, particularly over time, to a need to defend one or more freedoms from momentary threats and longer-term assaults on our free expression and religious liberty rights.

Stay tuned — a new First Amendment Report Card will be issued each quarter, prompting us all to take a closer look at how we understand, defend and practice our First Amendment freedoms. And maybe one day we’ll get to add another grading area — one where you and I and our fellow citizens get an “A” for effort.

(Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute. He can be reached at mailto:[email protected] .)

— Reprinted fron newsitme.com

By SEAN STROH

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