Changes in how we bring you the news were numerous and significant in 2009, and that change will continue in important ways for the year ahead. The changes are aimed at improving our product for the good of our readers and advertisers.
The newspaper industry was certainly in the news in 2009. Most of the tales of gloom and doom, in my estimation, were and are greatly exaggerated. The reason: The “product” of news and information has never been in greater demand.
The challenge for the traditional newspaper comes only in how to make sure we’re delivering the news to readers at the time, place and medium people want. The biggest challenges may be that there are so many different ways people want their news, we have to figure out the right mix given our market.
Like any industry, we’ve been faced with big changes, not only because the economy has been down, but because our industry faces tremendous technological shifts in the way news is distributed and the way people want their news and advertising delivered.
The expansion of the World Wide Web is similar to the invention of the web press. The web press revolutionized the speed at which people could get a printed product. The World Wide Web revolutionized the speed at which people can get an electronic product, or the speed at which they could get any bit of information and news.
The speed at which we can provide information has multiplied perhaps tenfold or more. When we find out about a shooting at 4 p.m., it can be on our Web site by 4:15 p.m. if not sooner. You can get it on your mobile device almost instantly. Our competitors will have the same low-cost technology (a computer with Web access), that we do. That further challenges us.
More and more, we have to remind our readers that we are the leading local community newspaper and still have certain competitive advantages.
We have the largest number of newsroom staffers of any news organization that covers our area. We should be the best and the first at community news. We have 21 full-time employees in our newsroom and a handful of part-timers. We also get stories from a cadre of freelancers who help us put great local stories in our newspaper and two magazines.
The headlines show newspaper “hard copy” circulation is down, but overall audience reach is up in most places, and our reach is up significantly when you include the news audience we are attracting to our Web site.
The number of people viewing our Web site for news is about 6,000 per day, a double-digit percentage increase from last year. Not bad for an industry that is supposedly “dying.”
Free Press total page views this year will eclipse 14 million, up about 35 percent from last year’s count.
Nine of our reporters and editors now “blog” regularly, adding meaning and commentary and sometimes a personal touch to the news we cover. Our photographers are increasing by double-digit percentages the number of photos we publish electronically. The Free Press distributes its news headlines on Twitter and Facebook. You can now be “next to” our hockey writer as he covers the game on an interactive Web “widget” where fans can ask questions as the game goes on.
We continue to show growth in our e-edition, a replica of our print edition where one can search the news electronically and access stories containing specified key words sent to your e-mail.
We will be unveiling an exciting new Web site design in the first part of 2010. It will be more user friendly and allow Free Press staffers to easily deliver news in ways that meet reader needs. The demand for news will continue to grow and we’ll be there to satisfy that demand.
We thank you for reading in 2009 and look forward, with you, to a prosperous year ahead.
Joe Spear is the managing editor of The Free Press. Contact him at 344-6382, jspear@mankatofreepress.com. His blog is regularly updated at www.mankatofreepress.com .
