Salt Lake City – Pursuit of Liberty

Newspaper Survival Tactics

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Some people who read what I have written about news media might think that I would like to see the demise of newspapers – they would be wrong. I do think that news organizations generally need to make some adjustments to better serve their purpose (am am assuming a purpose of informing their audience). As I read a story in the Deseret News about their growth I saw two happy bits of information that illustrate the kinds of changes that can help the industry to survive. (I take no position on the Deseret News specifically, it is just the example at hand.)

The first is that it is possible for multiple publications to compete and survive.

Joe Cannon, now in his third year as editor, set out to make the newspaper and its Web site more appealing to Mormon readers. The effort already has made the paper’s Web site unusually active for a news organization its size, with 17 million page views a month. Visitors tend to linger, and half of them are from outside Utah, affirming Cannon’s strategy even as online advertising revenues remain marginal.

His aim is to reach out to "a very large Mormon diaspora across the country" that "puts us into a much larger pond," said Cannon, who was on the board of the Deseret News for a decade before taking over as editor. . .

Cannon said by making news coverage "more Mormon" he means appealing to a market niche larger than Utah instead of just a circulation territory.

This shift in focus at the Deseret News suggests a possible approach that would allows competing papers to coexist within the same market. In some ways it is not the same market because The Tribune is catering to the geographic region while the Deseret News is catering to the dominant culture of the region – even outside the immediate vicinity of the paper. The evidence of this is in the statement that "[t]he Salt Lake Tribune still is profitable, and together with the Deseret News is expected to remain on the short list of two-newspaper towns."

The second piece of good news is that "[s]mall newspapers are generally holding their own because of unique demographics." This seems to validate things I have read suggesting that the quality of papers were falling as they tried to put more emphasis on non-local coverage. To me this would suggest, for example, that the Provo Daily Herald should have it’s "your town" coverage of outlying cities such as Lehi and Eagle Mountain replaced by local papers – possibly with a joint operating agreement between the various Utah County papers. I’ll bet that the Herald and the new local paper(s) would be better able to serve the population of Utah County than the current setup. (Similar to my previous disclaimer -this is nota complaint against the Herald, but it should offer hope to any areas that feel underserved by it that there is an alternative path available.)

Meeting the Mayor

I was invited to a blogger breakfast this morning with Mayor Becker. After digesting the surprise and wondering how they decided who to invite (there were only 7 bloggers there) I was excited to see what it would be like. Early on the question was asked if anyone present took a conservative perspective on their blog – I felt a bit lonely but I sure enjoyed meeting some of the bloggers that I have been interacting with for quite a while.

Three things really stuck out to me during the course of the morning. First (and least importantly), it’s nice to have someone else paying for breakfast. Second, I sat next to Glen Warchol and because of my recent interest in journalism and the interaction between reporters and politics, it was fascinating to watch as Glen fired off a number of questions and followups to the mayor to start things off. My respect for the art and skill of the information gathering side of reporting increased noticeably (nothing this morning really touched on the synthesizing and word-crafting side of reporting, but my blogging has already built up my appreciation for that aspect of the process). And the third thing that really stuck out to me? That’s what this is really all about . . .

One of the major topics this morning was the issue of transparency. I really think that this blogger breakfast is a part of the mayor’s transparency initiative – it’s another way for him to try to engage people and get them invoved and connected wtih their city government. Towards the end of the meeting Glen asked all of the bloggers if any of us had sought press credentials at the capital. It occurs to me that part of transparency is making sure that we make use of the options to get information that are already available to us. None of us had sought press credentials at the capital and Glen said we should give it a try. A few of us decided to look into it.

I called Ric Cantrel this afternoon to inquire and was told that the capital was pretty open to anyone who cared to visit, the meetings were generally open to the public and the elected officials wanted to get information out in any way that they could, and finally that they don’t have a policy one way or another on giving press credentials to bloggers. Ric expressed an interest in figuring out a manageable and reasonable policy on granting credentials to bloggers and suggested that it might be useful to meet with a group of bloggers to start hammering out such a policy. I trust that Ric is genuinely interested because he has been a significant force behind The Senate Site blog which is a good source for information – especially during the legislative session.

If anyone else is interested in taking part in the discussion let me know – I’ll keep you updated as I try to set things up.