Scott Swanson
A lot has changed in the newspaper world, not just in recent years, but in even recent months.
People often ask me how The New Era is doing. The answer is that, like all newspapers in this recession, we’re surviving but we’re needing to recreate ourselves.
More on that after a little historical background, but the short answer is that we are getting ready to activate a paywall on our website, sweethomenews.com. Read on and I’ll explain why.
I’m going to be very candid because Sweet Home has an interest in the survival of its newspaper. Despite the weakened condition of print journalism today, it’s still the best watchdog citizens have against excesses at any level of business, government or society – even here in Sweet Home. Even in today’s world, emboldened enemies of the public good still don’t enjoy having the light of public attention shining upon them. That’s what we do.
The New Era has served this community since 1929, long before we Swansons arrived to operate it, and we hope it will be here long after we’re gone – not just because that would be good for us, but because it would be good for Sweet Home.
It’s no secret that newspapers have fallen on hard times. We keep hearing news of this paper closing its doors or that paper cutting back. I have many former colleagues who have lost their jobs as reporters and editors, thanks to staff cuts.
It wasn’t that long ago that your local newspaper (speaking generally) wasn’t too worried about survival. Grocery and department stores invested in full-page ads in the paper because they knew that loyal readers would see them. If you had to sell your lawnmower, you paid a few bucks and bought a classified ad. (There was no Craigslist.) If you hit hard times and your home got foreclosed, the powers that be were required to post notice of that in the local paper.
All that added up to income and newspapers made money – so much money, in fact, that they started becoming a good investment for the Wall Street types. Back in the 1970s and ‘80s, many newspapers were riding high and investors loved the returns.
The problem with all of that, in my opinion, is that the industry became so successful in the business sense that it attracted the wrong people, investors with the wrong perspective.
Granted, I was trained as a print journalist, so that colors my views, but for true journalists, the purpose of newspapers has never been primarily profit.
Profit is certainly necessary, of course, but service to the readers and advertisers is just as important. If we’re not serving readers with quality news coverage, and if we’re not helping advertisers reach those readers, the whole thing falls apart. So the first big problem newspapers experienced was their own success.
With the advent of the Internet, newspapers faced other challenges. Craigslist, of course, is one of them. But so was the new world of free web access. So were news sites that rolled out all the wire stories we saw in our daily newspaper – instantaneously. We didn’t have to wait for Yahoo.com or CNN.com, and when we did see the same stories the next morning in our daily papers, it wasn’t really news.
Another big challenge was simply how to put a local news presence on the Web. The Internet was like the Wild West in a lot of ways. Users expected everything to be free and there were few rules. It presented a lot of new challenges.
Newspapers quickly realized they needed to build websites just to stay abreast of the technology, but they didn’t feel right about charging for it, since most other websites weren’t. So, for the first decade of newspaper on-line presences, almost nobody charged for anything, trying to stay profitable on the Web by selling ads.
The problem, though, was everybody else was selling ads too. And even though readership on newspaper sites is excellent, comparatively speaking, advertising revenue hasn’t been.
Then the recession hit, resulting in even less advertising revenue as many businesses started cutting back in their marketing.
On top of that, more locally, newspapers in Oregon have seen deep declines in advertising for foreclosures, thanks to a court ruling last summer that changed, at least temporarily, the way foreclosures were processed, sending them through the courts. Judicial foreclosures do not require public notices in newspapers, so that was one more revenue stream that disappeared for the press in Oregon. The state Supreme Court overturned that ruling earlier this month, so we’ll see what happens next.
So, between the recession, competition from other would-be advertising vehicles, rising costs of paper, fuel, postage and everything else, loss of classified and legal advertising revenue and so on, you don’t have to have an MBA to figure out why things are tough on Press Row right now.
Newspapers are scrambling to figure out not only how best to serve customers but how to stay in the black – to keep paying those staff members who provide the news.
That’s why, in June, the Oregonian announced it is cutting its home delivery back to four days a week. While the newspaper’s mother company, Advance Publication Inc. owned by the Newhouse family, has already done this elsewhere – most notably in New Orleans, observers are wondering how the company can retain its subscribers with significantly less of a product.
In Eugene, the Register-Guard announced in May that it was putting up a paywall on its website. Other local newspapers have gone that route too, and now we are too.
That brings us to the real point of this column: what’s next for your local newspaper. The answer is that The New Era is also about to initiate a pay wall as we increase our offerings.
We initially planned to do this in May but we slammed on the brakes because we were also upgrading the site at that time and ran into some timing issues that were beyond our control and that were creating glitches. It became clear that we weren’t ready to charge anybody for services that weren’t what we wanted them to be.
Basically, we’re re-inventing The New Era as not just a newspaper but as a news service to our subscribers – print and on-line. The service will be subscription-based not only for readers of our print edition, which will continue to be published as it has for the last 84 years, but for our web edition.
Print subscribers will be able to access our on-line news at no extra charge. Those who are not print subscribers will be able to access the on-line edition for a $20 annual introductory rate – or $5 for a two-month trial run.
Print subscribers will need to register by going to sweethomenews.com and pulling down on the Subscribe button. On-line readers who wish to subscribe will also need to do so. Fill out the form, give us your choice of password, and we will process it.
Because we have a significant number of subscribers and our response isn’t automated yet, we’re going to delay the actual activation of the pay wall until we have given subscribers a chance to register. That way, when the wall goes up, you will have your key in hand.
As we impose charges or raise subscription rates, our goal is to improve our service. Those who read our news online have already noticed that it is being posted much earlier in the week than previously and we will begin posting what we believe are important breaking news stories – City Council meetings, some sports, accidents and other events or incidents – anywhere from minutes to a day after they occur.
We will also have the capability of sending e-mail alerts to subscribers when breaking news is occurring or when it has been posted. Those who request that will receive those alerts.
Also, subscribers will have access to all of our archives, photo galleries (with the ability to copy photos) and extended versions of some news or sports articles.
Obviously, some of this is market-driven – the necessity of making a profit so we can write checks and pay our bills.
But we are also taking advantage of technology that’s available and, as we become proficient at using it, we plan to improve the quality and methods we use to deliver the news to you.