Occasionally C-SPAN will run one of the journo conferences/gripefests, and it is fun to watch them keen and moan about the decline of the esteemed profession.
But behind all of it - and this really is what makes it so amusing - is that they cannot and will not admit that they are somewhat of an indulgence.
Yes, a newspaper needs good stories and good reporting to keep it popular, but what pays the bills is advertising, not scoops.
Journos resent this, and they are always trying to keep it under wraps.
I’m not so sure that advertising is the wave of the future for newspapers. It may be far more important to keep the size of the paper down, lowering costs, and focus more on subscriptions and newsstand sales.
But the price for doing this is much greater news density. Cover the front page with one or two sentence bullets, and maximize content that is difficult to get elsewhere. The selling point is that people can read what you have written in a few minutes, or they can spend three or more hours surfing the Internet. Trade purchase price for convenience.
The Internet is full of non-copyrighted original content, both nationally and Internationally. So get reporters to focus on State, and mostly local news. The news wires are too expensive and corrupt, so set up a subscription indy website that works on a news upload-download ratio, with news stories and organizations rated for quality by other users.
Reporters get assigned “beats” like in the old days. Either subjects, like “the crime and fire beat”, or sections of town. It is up to them to develop news sources in their beat, talking to people, getting connected, so they know who to call with news tips.
It might even be worth it for a reporter to develop a “granny” network, where retirees get nominal sums via paypal for good stories. The zinger is that paying them a dollar for a story will probably make a profit, because they will not only buy a newspaper, but get their friends to buy copies, to see the story they were responsible for. The top contributors get small novelty “attaboys”, like “cub reporter” badges.
Every day, the paper runs bits on boy scouts, local people who get awards, and upcoming social events and parties. Births, weddings and obits you can put on line, free to subscribers. This lets subscribers add on all sorts of pictures, lots of text, with do it yourself pages that are easy to print out.
It costs you a tiny amount, and they get serious ego stroking.
The idea is to build huge goodwill in the community, so people buy the paper because it is about them and their interests. Require advertisers to include good deals, like coupons for major sales of loss leader products, not just the routine stuff. It’s worth it to the paper to give advertisers special rates if people are buying the paper just for those coupons, and it’s worth it to the advertisers as well if everybody actually reads their advertisements while looking for deals.