Wall Street Journal becomes US's largest circulation newspaper

It's now official that the Wall Street Journal has passed USA Today as the nation's largest newspaper. Interestingly, it resulted from not only a big drop by USA Today (reasons include a price increase but more important is a change in the distribution agreement with Marriott Hotels), but also an increase by the Wall Street Journal.

I'll make a prediction now: Conventional wisdom says that Rupert Murdoch is making a big mistake with his plans to take more of the WSJ online material behind a pay barrier. I predict it'll be a big success, adding greatly to the newspaper's profitability and sparking a flock of followers. The increase in its circulation shows that consumers will pay for content, if they're offered content worth paying for.

Dallas newspaper tries another revenue strategy -- raising prices and adding staff and content

Another newspaper strategy to survive is having success, although it's early yet. The Dallas Morning News' new strategy is to hire more reporters, add pages back to the newspaper -- and charge more for it with the extra circulation revenue making up for lost advertising. This story does a nice job of outlining all the various elements that are in play here, including some specialty publications. It's good to see another organization fighting back.

Continuing another strategy, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel once again is holding its lead print story away from its online unit until Monday. Co-author Crocker Stephenson also used Twitter to promote it with tweets Friday and Saturday. My only problem with this strategy is that while the story, part of the newspaper's series on what it calls a "fractured" child care system, is excellent and important, I don't think its pull is important enough to make people buy the Sunday paper just to read it a day early. Nor do I think that it will draw significant new viewers on Monday. So why put it online at all? Why not use your online operation as a news-driven unit with teases to the print publication? We tease the other way all the time. I believe people use print media differently than they do online. So why not capitalize on that difference.

New York Times looks at the future of newspapers

       For those (oh so many) people out there who say that newspapers are dead, I offer proof not that they'll live forever, but that intelligent newspaper management still lives.  Editor & Publisher reports on the New York Times' Research & Development unit, which is approaching the future the right way -- by looking not only at how news is delivered (paper or digital) but how it's used. 

       I'll give you one example. One morning my wife and I were discussing what we would do if the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel were to go online-only.  Sure, we expect the Wall Street Journal and Times to continue in print, which would give us a nice roundup of what happened the day before, but, my wife asked, "where would I get my sudoku and word games?" Each morning, after reading the news, she take a short break and does all the games in the newspaper (I do the crosswords). I also make sure I read the comics every morning. In short, the way we use the news includes more than just looking at the news. By the way, both my wife and I live on computers, probably putting in from six to 10 hours a day at a minimum. And both of use check multiple news sites throughout the day.

       The good news is that the Times, and other media sources, are looking at the future and fighting back. Can I tell you what the media future will be? Not at all, but I can assure you that there will be one.

FTC blogging rule continue to draw fire

I've been looking, but I haven't found anyone who likes the latest FTC attempt to rein in Internet abuses. One of the most devastating comes from Slate's Jack Shafer who sees the potential for intimidation as greater than anything else he's seen. For example, he writes, "If you received a gratis novel from the publicity department of a publisher and posted a tweet about it without disclosing that the book was a freebie, you become an "endorser" in the FTC's view."

Furthermore, Shafer says, "The guidelines have to be read to be believed. They are written so broadly that if you blog about a good and service in such a way that the FTC construes as an endorsement, the commission has a predicate to investigate."

Frankly, I think the case is a bit overstated, but he's correct that the rules could be abused, just as free speech laws have been abused at the last four major political conventions (thousands of demonstrators arrested, but never charged and released after the conventions were over). We Americans do seem to write broad laws (this is just a rule, but it works like a law) that can be abused, and, alas, someone always seems to go too far.

If you want to read more on this subject, there's lots more out there. Simple searches of news aggregater sites will find plenty.

Operation impossible, courtesy of the FTC

FTC moves to limit online endorsements with what, frankly, are confusing and totally workable rules calling on new media bloggers, et al., to disclose any free merchandise from manufacturers being endorsed. Some are concerned that the rules could be used to limit journalists.

Vanity Fair looks at Rupert Mudoch and his "war on the Internet"

     Nice piece in Vanity Fair about Rupert Murdoch's "war on the Internet." Writer Michael Wolff says Murdoch will be taking his newspapers off free Internet just because he wants to; that it's not practical.  Wolff covers Murdoch's history of imposing his will, then finishes by suggesting that the 78-year-old Murdoch might just be trying to stretch out newspapers until he retires.  Wolff clearly believes that newspapers can't put the pay genie back in the bottle.

     As usual, Wolff doesn't say who is going to pay for news on the Internet after newspapers are gone.

London newspaper switch to free model

     Here's an imaginative idea for helping newspapers survive, make them free.  For several years, I've been suggesting that one business plan for mid-sized newspapers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would be to offer total market coverage in a one-section newspaper with other sections available for a fee. This would serve the advertisers who need wider markets than the very limited markets available online.

      Now there's a model to follow. Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev is turning the London Evening Standard into a free newspaper, increasing its circulation from 250,000 to 600,000 papers a day. Yes, it's going to lose a lot of circulation money, but it expects to more than make up for it with increased advertising.

      The model I've proposed would continue to pick up its subscription revenue because most current subscribers would continue to subscribe, but vastly increase its advertising revenue by offering total market coverage in its free section.  Certainly adding coverage would increase costs, but I suspect that -- especially if the free papers strongly promoted offerings available behind pay windows, both online and in print -- you'd see a much stronger revenue model emerge.

Gasp! Newspaper subscribers seem to like their papers

Today must be my day for finding really interesting stories that I find fascinating but disagree with the conclusions. This one comes from Ad Age (one of my favorite magazines). It reports that newspaper "subscribers are sticking with their papers for longer -- and frequently paying more." It goes on to report that cancellations are way down, and draws the conclusion that the reason is that publishers have gotten better at managing their subscriptions.

For example, the story goes: "publishers got much smarter about the way they sell subscriptions, for one thing, de-emphasizing or even abandoning home delivery to areas that cost more to service but didn't mean much to advertisers." I realize I'm kind of slow sometimes, but how does limiting home delivery help keep subscriptions up? It does report publishers are more open to discounts and continuing low rates for subscribers who were attracted by promotions.

But, how's this for an alternative explanation: We consumers really like printed newspapers? We are willing to pay for them? We find it much more fulfilling to read print? We like the puzzles, games, agate, agony columns and the like that "clutter up print," according to some of the new media types. I'd even go a step farther based on my experience last week of finding myself cut off by my local newspaper because I changed credit cards. Oh, yes. They did send me a postcard telling me that my subscription was running out. I got it five days after the first day without a paper being delivered. The point is that the consumers may be reacting and supporting a product they like -- despite publishers' stupid cutbacks, poor service and shrinking news content. It's still better than online-only.

Should we just kill all newspapers and be done with it?

Funny how these things work out. Yesterday I was talking with a class of freshmen journalism students about the need to get input from all points of view to have an informed opinion or even a sense of what is happening. Today, Newsweek runs a vitriolic column from one of the smug new media types, in this case Daniel Lyons, about how newspapers should be gone and the sooner we get rid of them the better. It makes my point exactly.

Most of it is composed of misguided history, mistaken assumptions and the certainty that he is right and the millions of people who still read paper newspapers are just too dumb to get it. But there is a lot of truth in much of his column. Yes, newspaper companies have been arrogant and smug (it takes one to know one, I say to Lyons, and, yes, I am smug as well on lots of things, but this is an area I wouldn't claim to be the end-all, be-all). Yes, they didn't adapt quickly enough. Yes, they lived for years with a monopoly just printing money. But, yes, they serve some functions besides just delivering news, and many of these functions aren't being covered by new media (or broadcast).

For example, Lyons points to the reporting by Politico, Gawker, the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast as evidence that newspapers aren't needed. Would any of them be as good without the reporting of the New York Times, Washington Post and their ilk? I asked a friend who contributes to the Huffington Post. He says he couldn't do what he does without the newspapers. And I don't really remember any of them reporting on the Milwaukee Common Council recently.

The bottom line is that, yes, I need to read alternative viewpoints. And I do. But I also need far more real information -- facts, for example -- than I am getting from the online-only sites or broadcast. Perhaps Lyons is correct that if we just get those dinosaur print newspapers out of the way that, somehow, all the new media sites will become so profitable that they'll pour the money into reporting that is currently being spent by newspapers. And, somehow, advertisers will actually start making enough money from their Internet advertising that they'll spend enough advertising to start paying for actual paid reporting. But neither of those things is happening now, nor is it likely they will happen in the near future.

Americans object to advertiser online tracking

    A new study finds that two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking by advertisers, and that number rises the more they know about what's happening.  As I've commented in the past, hubris (especially the kind taught in our business schools) is the biggest danger to new media growth.  That's hubris as in assuming that it doesn't really matter what people think, they will just line up like sheep no matter the invasions of privacy. (And, yes, I know that Google tracks my e-mail keystrokes; I just haven't decided what to do about it.)

Gay Talese on how tape recorders killed journalism

Author Gay Talese on "How the tape recorder killed journalism." It's a six-minute video.

Public view of press accuracy hits 20-year low

New Pew Research report says public's view of press accuracy is at its lowest point in two decades. Perception of accuracy, professionalism and willingness to admit mistakes are way down (-26%, -13 and -13 over the 20-year period covered), and the partisan split is much larger than ever with its usual results of Fox News and Wall Street Journal on one side and the rest of television and the New York Times on the other. Notable is that neither of the newspapers scores well. In fact, newspapers are hit hard in the survey with respondents believing that local television stations are much more likely to uncover local news than local newspapers. I realize that contra-factual finding can cast doubt on the survey respondents' understanding of reality, but it's the perceptions that count.