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Gang:

I'm grateful to Steve for bringing another aspect of this discussion to the
table, because I am preparing to do some stuff with rural newspapers that
address some of these issues directly. So I will be watching the responses
as closely as he is.

I'm in a fairly unusual position, having moved from small and medium sized
newspapers to a TV-affiliated Web newsroom that operated on a
minute-by-minute news cycle. And I put together a short book (still
unpublished) that seeks to counsel television news directors on some of
these same concerns -- and believe me they are just as worried and excited
about what the Web represents to their future as are newspapers.

So, given all that, my initial reaction is to say what I wrote to all those
TV station news directors: The medium is not the message. Don't get lost in
thinking that it is.

What I mean by that, of course, is it should be meaningless whether a
newspaper is printed on paper, whether it delivers only text, whether the
material in it arrives at 6:30 a.m. or at 5:30 p.m. What makes it tick is
the information inside it. Newspaper managers who view themselves as
newspaper managers, will, I think, be in for a tough haul. I think they
need to think of themselves as information handlers who use whatever means
they have at their disposal to get the best information they can to
whichever audience wants it.

Already the boundaries are falling apart. This morning in the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune, I saw in the print edition an italicized paragraph at the end
of a story that teased readers to their Web page, where they would be given
access to a associated video segment. A few of the syndicates, notably
Tribune Media, are looking at ways to evolve features from the Sunday
funnies to make them work on the Web, using Shockwave software, taking them
to the next level of interactivity and effectiveness. Publishers are
learning to use the power of their medium to cross promote their Web sites
from their newspapers, and vice versa, the TV has a huge advantage with its
mammoth reach.

I can't really say if I think that newspapers as printed entities will ever
cease. I rather think they'll continue. For the next four decades at least
there will be people like me who grew up accustomed to taking a newspaper
with them to the bathroom, onto the bus, to the breakfast table. Those are
ingrained habits, and they are a way for people to sort of "center"
themselves for the day ahead. However, it won't be long before it will be
possible to do all those things with the Web. Who knows that in two
decades, it won't be common for newspapers to load their material into
wrist-watch sized computer browsers that can use holographic projection to
display a "page" in the air, so that can be read like a piece of paper,
regardless of where you are? And cleanly too -- no wrinkled pages and no
ink smudges on your tie. If something like that were to happen, and to
actually work, what use is there for expensive newsprint? But, what sounds
like a pipe dream might be a pipe dream, so I don't have a firm opinion
about the longevity of newspapers as printed devices.

No matter what, though, I think it's pretty clear that the paper versions
of newspapers will keep getting less important than they are now, because
there are simply things the Web can do better. There are interactive angles
that newspapers can fish that they can't touch in their traditional medium.
There are new areas of news content -- video, audio, polling, etc. -- that
simply aren't possible in print. I think it is quite likely that print
editions will swap places with paper editions in their importance rankings.
Already, I feel more comfortable getting my news on the Web than from the
newspaper. If the video stuff dished up by the likes of CBS and WRAL-TV
worked better, I might never look at my TV again. Those are extremely
powerful statements.

Steve asks: 

"Will it become more TV-like in order to compete with other (including new)
media -- in terms of shorter stories, less of the long, investigative,
interpretive stuff of which have been newspapers' core strength?"

To which Howard replies: 

"This is my worry -- that newspaper publishers believe the only way to make
money is to reach the broadest audience possible...."

I think this is possible, and I think the new media will provide the final
answers to the mystery of how intelligent and depth-hungry our audiences
are really. But my thinking is different than Howard's, maybe a l'm bit
more optimistic. I think the Internet's strength isn't about playing to the
mass: It's about playing to the individual. I think those operations that
shoot for the online masses too much will imperil themselves by fixing on a
like-minded audience that may not really exist. The material on the Web is
so closely linked to choices, and even stupid people have varying tastes.
Smart people have even more widely divergent tastes. Will I select that
link to a background story, or to a related site that's mentioned in the
story? Will I choose to answer that poll form, or participate in that
discussion? Will I take the time to listen to that audio or video segment?
Will I click that definition link? Or will I read only a brief synopsis,
play a quick radio feed, and move on?

The Web is about choices, so the answer is to provide choices, lots of
wise, well-organized choices. This may mean a simultaneous dumbing down and
smartening-up, so to speak. Perhaps newspapers give readers two options
with each important story: the USA Today styles news bite, and the longer,
more elaborate investigative version, much in the way the many Web site now
offer text-only and graphics-intensive versions of their pages; a simple
news nugget and thumbnail image may be the common bridge between the two. I
share the shudders that might be arching across Howard's back, because this
is a risk. It means letting dumb people remain dumb. And like Howard, I
think, I buy into the notion that a newspaper is an educator in the
community. So allowing people this luxury is disquieting.

Still, if we're honest with ourselves, we'd probably agree that people who
pick up the newspaper to read a 5,000-word investigative piece on
corruption in the county government probably aren't getting to the end 
anyway. So let's give them the stuff that the consultants have been trying
to stuff down newspaper's necks since at least 1987, the quick and dirty
version. But let's also offer those who want it the version we can be most
proud of -- and win our awards with. But let's be smart even in that longer
piece. It is a plain fact that you can use an HTML table to present
contextual information in a block form that communicates more efficiently
than a pile of words containing the same info. Let's not be too noble to
incorporate these. 

The bigger question about this approach is will advertising finances
support those extra efforts? It does mean extra writing and editing,
meaning more costs. I don't know the answer. That's why I share some of
Howard's bugaboos. But it does seem that the lowered costs of production
should help make it possible that the finances might work. 

At the core of the way I approach the Internet, I firmly believe it is
about multiple options, and that its audience is and will remain dedicated
to that proposition. If I'm wrong, the Web will prove once and for all the
validity of all those evil consultant's prophesies from the late '80s, when
all they wanted on our front pages was fast, happy McNewsNuggets.

I've rambled enough. Hope I kept a reader or two to the end of this
monolith.

Kevin Featherly


    


    





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Subject: Re:  Banner Sizes From: "kevin.f"  Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 00:13:20 EDT
How the Web Was Won
Subject: Re:  Banner Sizes
From: "kevin.f" 
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 00:13:20 EDT

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