
The Elite Newspaper of the Future - robg
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4605
======
mixmax
To me it seems pretty obvious that newspapers should not compete on gossip and
up to the minute news, but rather on commenting, in-depth analysis and
investigative reporting. The latter is not easy to find on a consistent basis
on the Internet, and there is a clear market for it.

The economist, for example, does exactly this - and their circulation has
grown 95% in the last ten years.

~~~
brandnewlow
What you and this post are talking about is transitioning toward being an
intelligence service, not an all you can eat info buffet.

The Economist provides actionable intelligence on what's happening in the
world. It truly is "news you can use."

Example: Back when I was applying to be a CIA agent (i pulled out after
passing the first few steps) the interviewers routinely told me to read the
Economist from cover to cover. The CIA considers it the definitive,
authoritative consumer news product, full of information you can act on.

Same with the other example mentioned here, Consumer Reports.

That said, even if that's where newspapers go, they're still overstaffed. You
don't need 1,000 reporters to break down what's happening in Chicago that week
in a useful way.

The link economy that Jeff Jarvis blogs about so much (BuzzMachine.com - a
must-read for people interested in the future of news) means you don't need as
many people to re-report all the stuff your competitor reported.

Over at my humble Chicago news startup, I'm laying the groundwork for what I
believe is the next sustainable metro news model.

Three pieces: 1\. A crowd-powered, local link aggregator. Digg for Chicago, to
be succinct. Open-source your tip line. Let your readers vote up, discuss and
share neat, weird and important local links.

2\. A blog network. Stick 2-3 local experts on every topic that newspapers
typically assign beat reporters to. Have them aggregate, comment and
contextualize 2-3 times a week. Create conversations around hot topics. We
started a blog about Lollapalooza over the summer and posted to it just for
4-days. It was a big hit for us and was noticed by every news organization
covering the festival.

3\. Hard-hitting, impactful reporting/features that draw on what's hot from
the link aggregator and the blogs. Once a week we publish something that you
absolutely have to know to stay ahead of the conversation. To use blogger
lingo, this should be linkbait of the highest caliber.

Anyway, I agree with the assessment in this article. You can either go low-
brow (The Chicago Tribune now has a CollegeHumor-style blog that their interns
run...it's awful) or you can go high.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
_... an intelligence service ..._

That was the exact phrase that popped into my head after reading the subhead.

Now for one of those nutty, wild-assed guesses: what do you think about
_Anathem_?

~~~
brandnewlow
Sorry, haven't read it! Or any Stephensen, actually.

 _forfeits in geek card_

------
shafqat
This is a great read, and highlights a common thought circulating in the media
industry: investigative journalism is dying because of cost cutting in
newsrooms. But that is exactly the kind of journalism that can save
newspapers. Rather than focusing on keeping the main thing the main thing,
newspapers are effectively cutting off their oxygen supply.

On a note related to my startup (NewsCred), I found it very interesting that
the author could empirically prove that trust in a newspaper directly leads to
increased ad rates and circulation.

~~~
unalone
I think it's a good sign that there ARE sites like NewsCred. Anything that
aims for credibility and quality above everything else is a trend in the right
direction.

~~~
shafqat
Thanks - there are certainly a lot of challenges, but so far things have gone
great and we have hundreds of thousands of readers who have been supporting
us. Thanks for the hat tip.

------
tristmegistus
Eacy day it publishes the Wall St. Journal has three page one articles that to
a large extent provide in-depth reporting. They spend the time and money to
fully report and edit these stories. Reporters I know are jealous of the time
WSJ reports can spend developing these stories.

The point I take from this is that the kind of deep reporting papers need to
differentiate themselves is not cheap or easy.

------
omouse
So basically what the Economist, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, etc
have been doing?

~~~
dzohrob
don't forget the new yorker. the best $1 i spend a week. (for reference, the
sunday NYT is $6 with home delivery.)

------
13ren
_[Craig Newmark of craigslist] is what business school people call a "bad
competitor" because he appears more interested in serving society than making
money._

 _He does make money by charging certain kinds of users, but the bulk of his
service is free. He is like Henry Ford who, after introducing the Model T,
lowered prices, increased wages and concentrated on market share rather than
maximizing profit. When challenged by shareholders unhappy that their
dividends weren't higher, he replied that they should view his company as "an
instrument of service rather than as a machine for making money."_

startup relevance: I've seen growth at the expense of profit painted as
megalomaniacal empire-building, and I felt the strain of the selfishness of
it, but not recognized it intellectually. Growth can sometimes be justified
economically, if it can improve future profitability, so it's not "growth vs.
profit" but "future vs. now" (i.e. an investment). There's security in not
maximizing immediate profits, too - craigslist isn't going out of business any
time soon; and the goodwill generated by "leaving money on the table" is
arguably worth something.

------
gamble
Print news is thriving - it's merely the ink-and-paper medium that's in
decline. The challenge is to monetize that audience. I believe we'll continue
to see a bifurcation between those that specialize in analysis (The Economist,
WSJ, NYT) and opinion. (Huffington Post, Town Hall, Politico) It's the local
papers that provide little beyond repackaging the newswires with a bit of
local content that may not have a future.

------
ojbyrne
There is a fairly successful business that was started in my part of the world
(formerly my part of the world) - Nova Scotia, Canada -
<http://www.novascotiabusinessjournal.com/> that's very similar to this.

You'll note there's nearly nothing available on their web site.

