News From Frontlines of Online News Publishing
Here is an email I received the other day from R. Gregg, editor of the startup Raleigh (NC) Chronicle, and I thought I would share it with the PJNet.org:
First email said:
I have enjoyed the discussion of online news operations on your website and just wanted to comment since we currently run print and Internet operations.
Online news sites present publishers wonderful opportunities to reach their audiences in a rapidly distributed manner with literally unlimited space for stories, ability to use large amounts of photos, and low cost broadcasting of video on local subjects. The bad news is that it’s taking a while for local advertisers to migrate their dollars to online venues. The good news is that it takes substantially less capital to run a website than it does to design, print, and distribute a print edition, so profit margins will be higher.
In our experience, it is fairly easy to create an online presence at an extremely low cost and to even post video, so I am stunned when I hear large media firms saying they can’t figure out how to make their online operations work. I have seen some daily newspapers say they can’t afford to post videos on their website when it’s literally as simple as going down to BestBuy and purchasing a $200 camera.
Why is there such a disconnect between management and technology at big newspapers? I can’t answer that. In addition, large newspapers tend to forget that local news items are why people read their local newspaper, whether it’s presented through a computer internet connection or printed on paper. Papers still rely too heavily on national newswire stories to fill up copy.
In this Internet age when CNN, Yahoo.com, and countless other sites offer breaking and international news on the fly, I think newspapers would do well to report more on the communities they serve. However, with newspaper ownership increasingly separated from the actual newspaper offices, I’m not surprised to see that trend has continued.
Sincerely,
R. Gregg
Here is a second email I received after I asked if the Raleigh Chronicle is a start-up:
The Raleigh Chronicle is indeed a start-up that began one year ago in May of 2006. We are very small and it was intentional that are efforts are “pay as you go” as we have seen some efforts like BackFence.com, etc. get funding, flare up, and then die out. The paper was started by our newspaper family which has been in the print newspaper business in NC since 1993, running smaller community newspapers and a business newspaper. We have run print weeklies, but never a print daily. We have been using online video since 2001 on the Internet, putting several hundred locally produced TV shows and movies online.
As an extension of our interest in digital media, the Raleigh Chronicle was started as an experiment in “online-only” daily newspaper operations and is the first commercial daily in NC without a print component. Quite simply, we wanted to see if it could be done, gain experience using new technology, learn from our mistakes and then hopefully replicating our work online in other markets. Unlike some other daily newspapers that have been started, our paper has not been launched with any type of political agenda, other than to serve our readers. We do not wish to be identified strictly as either a Republican or Democrat newspaper.
We have seen several issues that need to be addressed for any online paper, not the least of which is finding out how to migrate local advertisers to the Internet. Other issues include how to generate an audience online, e-mail marketing, video usage, etc. No one can confidently predict that they will “make it” with online operations including ourselves, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
The newspaper was started in the Raleigh area for several reasons including our existing familiarity with the market, the high penetration of broadband Internet usage (over 80% or higher) in the Raleigh metro area, and because of the fact that there is only one other general interest newspaper in the city, the venerable News & Observer.
The Raleigh Chronicle joined the NC Press Association as an associate member in February 2007. In this market and others, it is our intent and goal to first and foremost serve the public interest since we are journalists first, citizens second, and businessmen third. Newspapers are a unique industry that protects the public and as one person said “there aren’t many professions specifically mentioned in the Constitution.”
The Raleigh Chronicle
http://www.raleighchronicle.com
