Oct. 21, 2009
Research compiled by Clyde Bentley
Usually my inbox is filled with reports on the latest online statistics or stories about the latest digital gadget. But the traditional print-on-paper edition was much in the news this month
Roll the presses -- The Web gets the buzz, but print gets the readers according to two University of Texas researchers. Iris Chyi and Seth Lewis examined 68 local newspapers with Web sites and compared how well the two formats reached local residents. Using comScore metrics, Chyi and Lewis calculated that the newspaper Web sites reached only 15 percent of local Internet users. Only 24% of the sites reached more than a fifth of the local Internet users. The Web penetration averaged 23% of the newspaper's paid circulation. The study was published in the fall edition of Newspaper Research Journal.
The statistics cited by the Longhorns fall in line with other data that comes out of the newspaper industry's re-examination of its primary platforms. In April, Nieman Reports blogger Martin Langeveld estimated that only 3% of newspaper reading is done on the Web. My own less-formal look at newspaper sites shows page views of the top local story of the day are generally less than 10% of the paid circulation of the paper. While there is plenty of debatable air in all those figures, they would need to multiply several fold to let a newspaper ditch heavy metal and dead trees.
Expose yourself -- Even though my Mom was a Londoner, I still find myself taken aback by British humor. That said, I had to laugh over the edgy approach Fleet Street took to promote print editions this month. In a TV commercial running in the UK, a shadowy B-movie hack throws open his raincoat to flash the message "Expose yourself to 23 million people tomorrow." The Independent reported that the campaign by the Newspaper Marketing Agency is based on research showing the share of display advertising in UK papers for brand-based product is growing, partly based on the high level of engagement by readers.
One at a time -- In Germany a pair of entrepreneurs is combining digital and paper to create a personalized print edition delivered to readers daily. Next month InterTi GmbH Berlin will begin production on niiu on a special high speed/short-run press that allows personalization down to the subscribers' social networking sites. Beyond its use of whizzbang technology, InterTi bucks a major online presumption by aiming specifically at young readers. “Even young people prefer to read on paper," said co-founder Wanja Oberhof. "With the ‘niiu’ concept we bridge the gap between web and print." Oberhof and partner Hendrik Tiedemann also avoided another norm of digital start-ups -- they are doing it sans outside investors.
More footpower -- Only 54% of Americans read print newspapers regularly, but the Pew Research Center says the newspaper is the source of most of our news. "In every community in America I have studied in 26 years as a press critic, the newspaper in town has more boots on the ground--more reporters and editors--than anyone else--usually than all others combined," said Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism Director Tom Rosentiel. The problem with newspapers is not audience, Rosentiel said, but revenue. Combined print/online readership is on the rise, but ad income is declining. His advice on saving journalism has less to do with investigative reporting than ensuring those reporters' boots are still on the ground to gather news, not just talk about it.
And so? -- For me, the best summation of this re-examination of the print part of our profession came from Dayrl Lindsey, the American editor of Germany's der Spiegel online international edition. Speaking at the Online News Association convention earlier this month, Lindsey derided the concept of "Web first" journalism. The strategy of der Spiegel is instead "content first." His staff looks at each story to determine whether readers are best served by breaking it on the Web, holding it for print or releasing at the same time. It's not the format that brings the audience to the news media, it's the value of the information it carries.
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