Newspaper road trip brings unexpected rush
Talk about a busy week. After two days with the West Virginia Press Association in Morgantown, I’ve spent four days with Alyse Mitten, executive director of Mid Atlantic Community Papers Association, driving through Ohio and Pennsylvania. It’s one of those trips where regional training events are held on college campuses and training facilities for area newspaper publishers and staffs. My enthusiasm about our business is fueled when I take a trip like this. Meeting so many people who are excited about the role of newspapers in their communities and looking for ideas to move into the future provides an adrenalin rush that’s hard to match.
Mark Beers, New Castle, PA, looks over Kevin’s shoulder as he autographs his column
at a restaurant in Mark’s home town.
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On the first day of our journey, Alyse had an idea that, in my humble opinion, was quite innovative. In addition to the scheduled training events, Alyse decided to contact publishers along the seven-hour route between Mansfield, Ohio and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and ask if they’d like to host gatherings around meals. This provided us the opportunity to meet with their staffs and discuss anything that might be on their minds. I was surprised when, at the first stop in New Castle, Pa, Karen Hutchinson and twenty of her employees showed up at Compadres Mexican Restaurant full of excitement about the opportunity to discuss the future of our industry. It was late in the evening and I didn’t expect more than a couple of folks to show up. Here, turning the discussion to business quickly, we spent over an hour discussing the paper’s online presence and strategizing what could be done to draw more visitors and advertisers to the site. We held healthy discussions concerning technical issues like colour settings to improve their photo quality, best ways to create PDF files and the need to upgrade some of the software and hardware being used.
At one point I turned to Karen, who was sitting next to me, and ask her to tell me how she got started in the business. We laughed when she told me about typing the stories on a typewriter and using stencils for the headlines. She beamed when she talked about their first computer: an Apple classic with a nine inch screen. She and her late husband, Frank, couldn’t figure out how to use the computer to create pages. Luckily, their 13-year-old son figured it out and they were in the digital age at last.
I asked Karen how business was going and, like most publishers I visit these days, she told me they were having a good year. It’s always comforting to hear that. Frank Jr, Karen’s son and the paper’s publisher, turned the topic to revenue. He said he’d heard that I sometimes spoke at conferences on the topic of making money on newspaper websites. He was eager to hear my ideas.
I quickly transformed from Kevin, the dinner guest to Kevin, the lecturer and shared some ideas sent to me from readers of my column. I noticed several people around the long table frantically writing notes as I suggested possible ways to increase revenue on their site. After learning how their current website was created and maintained, I suggested moving immediately to a vendor who could greatly enhance their product in just a few days. Time was wasting and they had new online competition in their community. “Don’t spend another year or two, trying to create your own perfect website,” I told them. “Find a content management vendor that can get a better, easy to use, site online within the next few days.” More frantic writing followed.
Fortunately, all I had to do was talk. Two nights later, I met with a group of publishers and MACPA board members in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It was interesting to see that the factories that were torn down in the Billy Joel song are now casinos. Our discussion focused on the future of our industry and everyone agreed that things are definitely looking up this year. That’s always good news.
(Kevin Slimp is director of the Institute of Newspaper Technology and technology guru. Read past columns at www.kevinslimp.com. Newspapers can sign up to spend an hour with Kevin during live webinars at www.braincast.biz)
