A Newspaper Chain Sees Its Future (Deck Chair Re-arrangement Alert/Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

WaPo ^ | December 4, 2006 | Frank Ahrens

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FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Could this be the future of newspapering?

Darkness falls on a chilly Winn-Dixie parking lot in a dodgy part of North Fort Myers just before Thanksgiving. Chuck Myron sits in his little gray Nissan and types on an IBM ThinkPad laptop plugged into the car's cigarette lighter. The glow of the screen illuminates his face.

Myron, 27, is a reporter for the Fort Myers News-Press and one of its fleet of mobile journalists, or "mojos." The mojos have high-tech tools -- ThinkPads, digital audio recorders, digital still and video cameras -- but no desk, no chair, no nameplate, no land line, no office. They spend their time on the road looking for stories, filing several a day for the newspaper's Web site, and often for the print edition, too. Their guiding principle: A constantly updated stream of intensely local, fresh Web content -- regardless of its traditional news value -- is key to building online and newspaper readership.

Myron and his colleagues are part of a great experiment being conducted by their corporate parent, McLean-based newspaper giant Gannett, which is trying to remake the very definition of a newspaper. Losing readers and revenue to the Internet and other media, newspapers are struggling to stay relevant and even afloat. Gannett's answer is radical.

The chain's papers are redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up "hyper-local," street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Web sites are fed with reader-generated content, such as pictures of their kids with Santa. In short, Gannett -- at its 90 papers, including USA Today -- is trying everything it can think of to create Web sites that will attract more readers.

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Raoul's First Law of Journalism
BIAS = LAYOFFS

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Ping

[dhuffman@awod.com]

An observation; the ads section dominate. commercial interests are working against the readers interest in killing the MSM.

Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns. Merry CHRISTmas

[finnigan2]

"An observation; the ads section dominate. commercial interests are working against the readers interest in killing the MSM. "

- In our city of approx. 1 million, the major paper is part of the Southam chain. Most of their international news is still ripped off of the AP wire service (one day old stuff) while national stories are covered by a small cadre of 50 and 60 year old hacks and hackettes whose writings are unimaginative and predictable. They haven't had an original thought on anything since college and, what's more, they must share office space since they all have the same view on every topic. One lone guy is left to cover municipal issues and he is OK in that he at least goes to council meetings and bothers to research his topics.
However, in the past year I've noticed a change in the paper which I presume is Southam's attempt to deal with declining revenues. Each and every day the paper now weighs about twice as much as a year ago and the reason is it is stuffed with literally dozens of adverts and flyers.
God knows how much the paper gets for acting as the printer and delivery boy for all this dreck, but it must be beginning to rival subscriptions as a source of income.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Not to stereotype too much, but judging by the photo in the article and the attitude of everyone toward doing this "immediate" type of reporting, the people in this effort are traditional newspaper types, meaning this approach will also fail. As long as the reporters view the world through liberal-tinged glasses, they'll continue to decline. Raoul is right.

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Raoul is right.

Dr. Raoul Law is right up there with ManLaw, imo...

[DustyMoment]

Their guiding principle: A constantly updated stream of intensely local, fresh Web content -- regardless of its traditional news value -- is key to building online and newspaper readership.

"Their guiding principle: A constantly updated stream of intensely local, fresh Web content -- regardless of truthfulness or any news value -- is key to building online and newspaper readership."

Fixed it.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Try to ask 'em about, 'why their subscription rates are so high (should be free)?'

I tried it with the Chuckton, SC (Charleston), Posted & Currying, they threw so much 'sand' on the floor for the softshoe that ... I moved.

Either we are equal or we are not. Good people ought to be armed where they will, with wits and guns. Merry CHRISTmas