5 Ways Newspapers Can Flourish in the Internet Age

I was going to write a blog posting full of doom and gloom for the newspaper industry. However, in thinking about it, newspapers have had substantial benefits for the U.S. for several years. So rather than join the Internet journalists on the newspaper death-march articles, I thought I would put my Internet savvy-ness, my MBA education and my God-given gift of future insight into helping newspapers turn their situation around.

In looking at our local newspaper, the Grand Rapids Press (which quite honestly I have not purchased for the purpose of reading it myself for several years) I could tell you reasons which would make me buy one to read. A. I placed an advertisement in it and wanted to make sure it was printed correctly. B. There was an article about someone or something I have a strong interest in printed in the paper, such as a family member or friends family member. C. There was an article about ME in the paper. D. There was an article I Wrote in the paper. E. There was something printed in large format in the paper that I wanted that I could not print on my home printer.

So lets put these in context. Reason #1 - Advertising. Because the paper in our town, the Grand Rapids Press, still has a substantial following of the old folks, it still pays to advertise in it. I really hate to do so for several reasons. 1. It is very expensive. 2. They cripple it - they will cross-post advertisements into an online classifieds, but they do not enable hyperlinks. In other words, they have the text of the link in the online classifieds, but if you click on it nothing happens. Why do they do that? Do they think that by doing a half-assed job of creating a classified website they are going to slow down the advance of the Internet and save themselves? Stupid - stupid - stupid, they just make people not want to use their website. 3. Pictures are b&w, small and lame, and expensive. 4. No video. 5. No search. 6. No ability to copy, paste and email to my friends and family. This makes http://CraigsList.com look like the Golden Child in comparison.

How to solve these issues? 1. Reduce the cost of advertising. 2. Enable hyperlinks in the online version of the classifieds, charge for this privilege if you need to, how about $5.00/hyperlink. Print the hyperlinks in the paper edition in bright blue. 3. Color photos, higher resolution and larger. 5. Provide for video capability on the online version, and have a staff that can take someone's lame cell-phone video and jazz it up for online distribution.

For B, C & D above, allow people to submit articles, stories and pictures through the Internet. Tell them that you will print them if they meet certain criteria, and tell them the specific issue they will be printed in so that they can buy several copies and give them to friends and relatives. The kind of disrespect show with the "maybe we will print it, maybe we won't, and we won't tell you when" attitude shown with editorials is unreliable, unwanted and doesn't cut it any more.

Print quality user submitted content intermingled with professionally written content in the paper. Provide ratings on submissions the day after in a separate column. Rate by editors rating, readers rating, and any other ratings which make sense.

Most of all, involve your readers. Make an effort to get writers representing every school, every neighborhood, every organization, every business over 10 employees and have them write. Apply an editorial process to their writings and give them validity by publishing them on newsprint. Then be sure to tell their constituents when their content will be published so they can buy copies of the paper - for themselves, their family, friends, customers, parents, membership.

This would result in something that little resembles the paper of today, perhaps would take a larger effort, and would result in much more content being published. There may be many more specialty papers instead of one main publication. One for schools in a region, one for neighborhoods in a region, one for organizations in a city. But it would be content of the people, by the people, for the people. Essentially a publishing clearinghouse. It would sell papers. And its my understanding that if things don't change, you won't be selling papers for much longer.