This is the second of a series of session notes from Webcom 09 where I am also presenting. Here is the session description for Case Study: Who killed the Rocky Mountain News? John was the former editor of the Rocky Mountain News that closed. He now writes the blog, Temple Talk. “Colorado's oldest newspaper died just days short of its 150th anniversary. The economic collapse may have been all that was needed to sink the Rocky Mountain News. But it already was struggling because of the societal shift to the Internet. Craigslist and other Web sites sapped its classified revenues.
Cell phones and computer screens were more of a draw for a rapidly growing percentage of the population than any printed page the paper's clever designers could conjure. Its journalists were slow to accept that their world had changed. Its advertising department was used to taking orders, not to helping businesses grow using the latest tools. Executives were torn - even frozen - over the prospect of potentially "cannibalizing" their print business online. The tension between trying to maintain the paper's once-lucrative print franchise and building a new online business was unbearable. In the end, the Rocky did neither. And now it's a memory in the Wayback Machine. It won't be the last metro daily to make that claim. But there are lessons in its demise that could help others survive and thrive in the Internet era.”
John began with the story about they produced a documentary on the paper’s demise. The video was started when the outcome was not sure. He said that the Web was a factor but also the economic collapse and the fact that Denver could not support two general interest papers.
He then offered business lessons going forward for the Web era. He was the editor of the paper for 11 years and publisher for seven. He said that when all your revenue comes form print, it is difficult to turn to other sources. The paper was founded in 1859 and was Colorado’s oldest paper. It had great loyalty in the local area. The company that owned the paper also started the Food Network and is now worth billions so they were smart people. It also had the largest circulation in the area. Lesson One: You have to know business you were in. They thought they were in the newspaper business. In the newspaper business you think about tomorrow. On the Web you have to think about now and forever. I find that this is also the case with blogs but with Twitter it is only now.
The paper also thought they were in control but really consumers were in control. John felt if they had built online tools to establish greater connection with the community the paper would have survived. They thought their competition was another paper but really it was for attention though various media. It is hard for a general interest communication vehicle in an era of increasing fragmentation. The long tail helped sweep them away. Craig’s List was one factor along with Yelp, Wikipedia, YouTube, and many others.
During the 2004 US election YouTube did not exist. In the 2008 YouTube was involved with the best presidential debate. Rocky Mountain News went online in 1995. They thought the goal was to strengthen the paper when actually it was a new medium to develop on its own. It re-launched in 1996. They still described the web site as a complement to the paper. This is not a web strategy.
Another lesson: “keep the new venture free from the rules of the old.” Next lesson, “people running the new business need to be free regardless of impact on the old business.” John gave the example of Yelp that has 25 million users. He said that editors would not have liked giving prominence to user generated content with typos. In 2000, the two Denver papers combined business operations. The agreement did not mention the Web. However, the print classified ad revenue alone went down 100 million a year for several years. They also upgraded their print facilities and won national awards.
Another lesson, “if you want to compete in a medium, you have to understand it.” They built a great web site with no SEO considerations and no one could find it. Next lesson: measure, measure, measure. The Web allows you to measure, take advantage of this. You also need to do R&D to find innovative new offerings and not just try to get more money for current offerings.
I have watched our own local paper, the Boston Globe, struggle and almost fold. It is still going and I hope it learns the lessons John conveyed to continue. You can find the text of John’a talk on his blog. I later did a talk on Blogging in the Age of Twitter. I said that John’s talk was a good precursor and could be called newspapers in the age of social media.
Post Script - Here is John's talk on his blog: Temple Talk.
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