Oh Yeah -- The San Francisco Chronicle Could Survive If Only They'd Fire Bronstein and Hire MOI

[mallorys_camera]

Amazing to think The San Francisco Chronicle might be going out of business.

Here’s what I would do if I were them:

1. Fire all reporters except the ones who cover local news

Reportage is reportage. We’re drowning in it. Why compete with CNN? They have a bigger budget and it’s the same goddamn news! In economic jargon, there’s an overproduction of news product.

It’s the news analysis that differentiates one outlet from another; this is the reason why people channel surf from CNN to Fox News, and occasionally turn off their sets altogether to pick up a copy of The Chronicle.

What they’re looking for is not necessarily local news but the local spin on national and international news.

Many years ago Time Inc. separated writing and reporting into two different jobs. When I worked at Time Inc. I didn’t think this was a very good thing – I like to have absolute control over my own projects. But I’ve come around. Use AP wires for the actual news – then use Chronicle analysts and columnists to sift that information for local impact. That’s the only thing worth publishing in a local market.

2. Lay some bets on tomorrow’s platform

I’ve heard a lot of people recently talking about how great Amazon kindles are. (Personally, I think they suck but then I’m a Luddite where print is concerned – I like the way books and paper smell.) There are probably similar products out there too.

Get in with these publishers. Package your product for this distributor.

3. For God’s sake change the name of the website to sanfranciscochronicle.com

Right now it’s sfgate.com. You have a website that isn’t branding the product – that’s just stupid. Yes, yes, I know the history – website started as a collaboration between The Chron and the now mostly defunct SF Examiner. Yada, yada, yada. That was then; this is now.

4. Cover stories from a local perspective and increase local coverage

Unless you’re a news junkie like B – and sure, there are a lot of those around but they don’t buy newspapers, they pore obsessively over Internet sites -- national stories are only interesting if there’s a local angle. Obama’s speech to Congress? Convene a local focus group and get their reactions. Hell, convene three focus groups – one from San Francisco, one from Oakland, one from Orinda. Contrast and compare.

Okay, enough dithering. Time to get back to the sad task of disassembling.

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

When was the last time you looked at a Chronicle? I haven't in a long time, but judging from the SJ Mercury, which I often get free tucked into my subscription copy of the WSJ, it's all ads. Papers aren't about news except as a vehicle to try to get people to read their expensive ads.

Renting a house? Which to do, put an expensive ad in the Mercury News (last time I did that it was almost $150) or put a free ad on Craigslist? That's a no-brainer. About the only big ads I see running now are from Fry's, since all the department stores either went belly-up or have pulled in their horns.

What do papers have to sell that you can't get better and faster elsewhere? Not much anymore. I think they're all doomed.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Papers aren't about news except as a vehicle to try to get people to read their expensive ads.

Well that's true. You are actually the product; the customer is Fry's.

So they're newspapers' challenge is to leverage product -- er, I mean readership! First you have to get it. I'm speculating here that readers are most interested in news that impacts them directly (local news, local spin on national/international news.) That's the stuff that in today's information overload is hard to come by. Everything else can be found better somewhere else.

Dunno how that would work for you in Boulder Creek. If the Mercury covered a home-brewed beer contest at the Tide House, I suspect you might be tempted to buy a copy -- that is if you couldn't find the story for free on their Internet site.

Sustaining a revenue flow is whole other problem entirely. Traditionally advertising is what floats print -- and as you say, advertising is drying up. Some European newspapers have experimented successfully with raising the price of the actual newspaper. Would it work here? Not with newspapers as they presently are. If a newspaper was truly a reflection of the community it purported to cover, would readers be willing to pay more for it? Still a long shot.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

agree with all your recommendations

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Obvious recommendations too. Website is particularly peevesome.

[platofish.livejournal.com]

I don't travel by BART very often, but one change I've noticed in the past dacade is the decline in the number of people reading the Chronicle. Once upon a time buying the Chronicle was a pre-BART ritual. Now, with iphones and the like fewer and fewer people seem to buy the printed copy.

And, to be honest, thats what I now do.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Interesting observation. And no doubt as "localities" lose their distinctiveness, local news ceases to be much of an incentive.

[usedmonsters.livejournal.com]

Interesting that the Christian Science Monitor recently ceased print publication and went completely online. 100 years of publishing on paper, now kaput. But they live on, electronically.

The fascinating thing is how much and how quickly our world is changing. Weird that there isn't much talk of the pervasiveness of this digital revolution. You get stories about the recording industry struggling or whatever, but everything is changing. You know yourself that the old brick & mortor stores are starting to stand empty. It'll only increase and it's not all because of the economy. Los Angeles may be without a paper in the not-too-distant future.

Another paper in the mid-west is stopping home delivery. Think about the cost and pollution caused by trucking just newspapers all over a city. Good changes and bad changes, but man. It's a different world.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

The Christian Science Monitor is a good example of the type of writing and selecting that I think media organizations must do to survive. They don't have a local constituency, they have an ideological consistency. They're kinda like MSNBC or Fox News -- you don't watch them for current events per se, you watch them for their skew on current events.

Of course presumably the CSM gets some funding from its parent church...

[platofish.livejournal.com]

And, sites like this will only further reduce newspaper purchases..

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I was reading Vanity Fair last night -- a magazine I dearly LUV but one which may not weather the current perfect storm -- and they had a fascinating article on Bloomberg news which is the only media company that continues to grow and thrive. They explain its business model -- something to do with terminals? But I thought their terminals were for the LP financial part of the company. Okay, I didn't really understand it. But it does seem to be working for them, which of course made me wonder whether it was a model that might work for other media organizations...

[banocrates.livejournal.com]

Have you been talking to Tom??

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101177709

Just a quick search, but I couldn't find anything about it on the Chronicle website, altho the story has gone national.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Heh! Story is actually linked on Drudge from the Los Angeles Times website. It's an obvious solution, and a smart solution -- w/one fell swoop you trim operational expenditures significantly and you open up a dynamite revenue stream plus you regulate something that right now is dominated by the criminal element.

Time for the pot prohibition to end.

[banocrates.livejournal.com]

see, I think you'd be GREAT in public office.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I am only 41 and feel like such a crumudgeon. I have a daily sub. I grew up with the Chron and would be incredibly sad if I couldn't get it on my doorstep every day.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I understand perfectly. Hope they can figure out a way to survive.