Kiyoshi Martinez – nerdlusus blog the geek wants out

Chicago Journalism Town Hall: Ideas to help news organizations bring in revenue

I attended the Chicago Journalism Town Hall, which gathered together 350+ people in some way related to the media in the Windy City along with a panel to discuss (supposedly) the future of journalism in the city knowing the current challenging climate.

I went because I’d hoped there would be some substantive discussion and brainstorming about how to actually make money using the Internet. I wanted to see if anyone out there was really innovating on that end, because in the end journalism organizations need money. If the cash isn’t there, then the craft won’t continue in a vibrant and robust form.

Unfortunately, the discussion didn’t center around this idea, or at least viable ideas for making money. The topic of micropayments came up and was extremely popular among both several panelists and audience members that seemed to think this was the magic bullet. I wished that the panelists had done their homework and done reading on the topic — a good place to start would be this blog post which lists almost every article on the paywall and micropayment debate — before they were given the microphone to advocate for it.

I had no intentions of actually wanting to stand up and talk to the room. I was quite content to live-tweet the event (#chij — also see #cjth), but interestingly enough Eric Zorn noticed my tweets criticizing the micropayment model while sitting on the panel and asked for me to speak.

I took the opportunity to point out that Web sites for both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times offer really poor advertising solutions for advertisers, which means they’re not going to get high advertising rates and therefore not capitalize on the vast amount of ad inventory they have but can’t sell. In turn, they’re forced to run remnant ads, which have very low CPM values and you end up with ads that feature belly fat and mortgage rates (yes, I’m aware that’s a link to an Onion story, which rightfully mocks those ads for the trash they are: bad content on your site).

I added that sites should take a page from the Gawker Media playbook, which offers very robust advertising solutions that attracts advertisers, ads value by getting more reader attention and doesn’t interfere negatively with user experience. I would also add that there should be less clutter on the front page, which distracts from the advertisements and causes banner blindness. To me, Gawker Media founder, Nick Denton, nails it about what news organizations should be doing:

“Forget about the writing — the most important thing we do is creative services,” in which Gawker Media helps agencies produce glossy advertisements. (MarketWatch)

Love or hate Denton’s sites, I think he’s got a lot of credible ideas. Just read his 2009 media plan or interviews he’s given. And while Gawker Media’s shuttered a few titles, sold others and had its round of layoffs like everyone else, I think the approach taken to giving advertisers customized advertising solutions should be a priority. Your advertising product should be as good as your editorial product, if not better.

Beyond offering better advertising solutions, I have a few other ideas that I think are worth mentioning and all of them involve somehow offering a better product that might generate revenue. I give these all away for free — unless you’re one of the people at the Chicago Journalism Town Hall who believes in micropayments, in which case you can e-mail me to find out how you can send me your spare change for this wonderful essay I’ve written.

• Sports Insider: Think of ESPN Insider, but go on a local team-by-team basis. Charge a subscription fee ($10+ per month) for sports fans to get complete, in-depth coverage about the Chicago team of their choice. Offer in-depth stats, analysis, locker room interviews, press conference interviews, live data, gossip, anything. Make it a Chicago Cubs, Sox, Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks dream site to satisfy their thirst and fandom. Build a community and discussion board around each piece of content. Offer a chance for fans to connect, live, during games. Aggregate in fan photos, videos, blog posts, tweets, etc. Dominate the conversation for local sports fans. Streamcast games (although, I understand there might be a broadcasting rights issue here) and live blog them. Sell merchandise. Create affiliate links with other online retailers. Host exclusive, members-only parties, events, signings, etc.
• Microsites and niche titles: Generally speaking, there are a lot of things about Chicago that aren’t being covered by anyone with the intensity of a blog that aggregates the current blogosphere and mainstream media coverage of a certain topic and supplements it with original reporting. I’ve noticed that the Tribune has started a few microsites already — breaking news and best blogs — but these aren’t really focused around a specific niche. I can think of lots of ideas for microsites in Chicago that could benefit from the brand recognition of the Tribune or Sun-Times that could flourish on their own with a top-level domain and freelance writers that get paid by pageviews. Here’s a list off of the top of my head:
  • Stand-up and sketch comedy (We have so many celebrities that come from here, it’s time to chronicle the next generation of stars.)
  • Local music scene (hip hop, DJs, house music, etc.)
  • Wine (bars, tastings, pairings, etc.)
  • Small businesses
  • Food, broken down into categories (pizza, subs, ethnic, etc.)
  • Architecture
  • Art (all kinds, each with their own microsite)
  • Bars, nightlife, party photos (absurdly easy)
  • Advertising (people see these ads all the time on billboards, the El, etc. Talk about what people are seeing! This is 100% advertiser friendly!)
  • Interviews from random people on the street (Market this as “faces of Chicago” from all across the spectrum. You could use strong profile writers/interviewers here.)
  • Photography (Why isn’t there a Chicago-local version of The Big Picture?)
  • Tenant issues (Get the scoop on good and bad landlords and be service-y for readership!)
  • Pets (Look at the success of LOLcats and tell me that people don’t want to read a blog about their pets.)
  • Start-ups (Lots of great ideas are being explored here. It was amazing how many people didn’t realize that Pitchfork and Ars Technica were based in Chicago. Why is no one following tech culture here?)

  This is just what I can think of off of the top of my head in 15 minutes. Will they all be successful? Will they all have great success with advertisers? Maybe, maybe not. But what can it hurt to try? You spend $10 on a domain name, set up a server and get some ad sales reps to hit the phones and sell local ads on these sites. Your costs are low because you’re paying local freelancers that know the beat and have an inside knowledge and are passionate about the topic. Some of these blogs won’t be able to sustain a reporter on a full-time basis, but you’re still planting a flag in the ground and dominating an area locally on a niche topic that no one else can grab.

• Local aggregation: A lot of people were upset at the Chicago Huffington Post for “stealing” (ie: fair use excerpts and linking) their content. What no one seems to get is that any news organization could do the same thing and leverage their brand for a traffic advantage. Where’s the Tribune or Sun-Times version of Chicago Huffington Post? What’s keeping you from being the ultimate local aggregator? You have someone grabbing market share and traffic, why not fight back? Don’t complain, compete.
• Build better online communities: I’ve written about online comments before. Stop allowing comments that are inflammatory, outright lies, flamebait and generally bring down the value your site offers. Bad comments are bad content. Encourage good comments and a sense of real discussion. I know this isn’t easy to do. But, if you want to build a vibrant community on your site, you need to take this seriously. And remember, if you don’t build a community, then a future competitor will (or already has). News organizations shouldn’t fear comments because they’re wild and off the cuff, they should fear them because they can drive advertisers away.
• Build brand name bylines: Take a page out of The Politico’s playbook and start viewing everything you do in terms of whether this will drive traffic and will get your stories out in front of many people as possible and linked to by as many people. Get people excited that a reporter’s byline is on a story and be the reason that they want to read a story. Remember: Royko was a great journalist, but he was also a brand.

Well, I think I’ve exhausted my abilities to come up with new ideas for the moment. But hopefully someone will read this, think about it and act on it. There’s so much that can be done and a lot of areas to exploit. It’s frustrating to see journalists grasping at straws, clinging to bad ideas and ignoring economic realities. Innovation has to come from the business end, thinking of new avenues for revenues.

I want to see Chicago news institutions survive. Honestly. We need investigative journalists and reporters that serve the community’s best interest. But that can’t happen until there’s an acknowledgment of weaknesses and willingness to change rapidly with a determined focus on bringing in money.

There’s no magic-bullet solution here. You’re fighting so many monsters in multiple wars. You have to attack back with a multi-faceted plan that uses your remaining resources efficiently and maximizes the potential for returns on your investment of time, energy, talent and capital.

I don’t want to say that I have answers. I have ideas though. Please, use them.

Additional resources (I will be constantly updating this list as I find more people who have written about the event. Feel free to send me a link!):

• Chicago’s shifting media landscape: An essay I wrote about Chicago media’s future in June 2008.
• WBEZ live blog of the Chicago Journalism Town Hall.
• Community Media Workshop blog post
• Diane Aden Hayes blog post from the Post-Tribune
• Jesse Greenberg blog post
• Discussion at The Windy Citizen here and here
• Geoff Dougherty of the Chi-Town Daily News talks about $100,000 journalism salaries and a more realistic $2 million newsroom employing 26 people on an annual budget (also a roundup of links)
• Craig Kanalley blog post
• Ryan Blitstein blog post
• Panelist Barb Iverson blogs her thoughts at Poynter, on her personal blog and also presents her list of 8 models of news operations
• Chicago Tech Report blog post
• Panelist Michael Miner posts some reactions at News Bites
• Rich Miller gives his take at The Capitol Fax Blog
• Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter posts his thoughts
• Conservative political blog Illinois Review has a write-up
• Time Out Chicago blog post
• Full audio of the event from Chicago Public Radio: Part 1 and Part 2
• Karl Klockars blog post

Kiyoshi, if the Trib or the Sun Times don’t call you in a week’s time (or at least thank you for giving them a business plan, give me a call and we should do this!

Good to meet you in person yesterday and I’m glad I called you out — shoulda called @whet out as well! — for your thoughts. I think it’s important that we recognize the difference between these national sites with somewhat niche audiences and the local news organizations that don’t/can’t/shouldn’t just skim the high-click cream off the top of the news. I don’t think it’s useful to compare, say, Deadspin with the Tribune or Sun-Times, though I would not say we can’t learn anything from them.
There’s a of merit in what you say above about buiding better online communities, about better targeting and branding and about potential revenue streams.
I hope Ken does this again and bring in an entirely new panel with people/ideas he has discovered through the first town hall.
Now I am going to tweet this post of yours.

Hey Yosh -

Just wanted to say I looove Eric Zorn (in my Hawk Harrelson/Sox announcer voice). He stuck up for Acton and I way back in the Cartoon Wars days. Seems to have his head screwed on straight and offers an intelligent direction for the future of journalism.

Hope all is well,

Chuck

[...] thoughtful comments have been posted  today by Kyoshi Martinez, the NP Communicator at CMW, Jesse Greenberg, Ryan Blitstein and a variety of others.  Windy [...]

just a quick comment about microsites. I’ve often thought that news sites are staggering under the weight of their own content… maybe they need to *dis*-aggregate some of the news their… and let people remix it to their own needs and ends. maybe they could charge for advanced uses like these?
-gordon

Jesse: No one has contacted me yet, but we’ll definitely be in touch.

Eric: Thanks again for giving me the unexpected opportunity to speak. I agree that there’s a difference between national and local sites, however, I think there’s also a lot of business fundamentals that can be shared when it comes to online advertising. The IAB standards are terrible and crush innovative advertising methods that capture user attention. I think if there’s a revenue solution to be found, it’s going to come from people who work in that industry and have new, tested ideas.

Chuck: We should grab a beer soon.

Gordon: I’m not sure people would pay to remix. Looking at the Tribune’s AllTop that launched today though, I think that I would sign-up and register to customize a Tribune AllTop page that fit what I was interested in, not just showing me everything.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Hey Kiyoshi,

Pat Yeagle with the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin here. (PAR)

I really like your suggestions, especially the fact that most are low-cost endeavors that would be highly relevant to a specific target audience. Localization is the key here, I think – people can get news from so many sources, but there should be only one place they look for stuff that matters most to them. Once you’ve hooked a reader with the targeted local content, it’s only natural that they’ll stick around for the rest of your content (provided it is quality).

As you’ve pointed out, too much time is spent trying to get users to pay for content. I’m a journalist, but I’m also a young consumer. The internet has been my preferred method of doing business for my entire adult life, and I know for a fact that my peers do not want to “pay-per-click”. Unless you consistently have exceptional, completely-unique content, it’s just not going to happen – not when the rest of the free internet beckons.

I hope the industry takes your advice, or I’ll have to do it myself…

Kiyoshi, we joked about this earlier, but while this is a great piece, you’re kind of giving away the playbook for the future here. Shhhh!

[...] despite Kyoshi Martinez’s enthusiasm for on-line advertising, It almost certainly won’t support journalism in a [...]