By Darren Johnson
Publisher
We’re finishing our fourth year operating The Journal & Press. It’s a long time, four years. Think of the time from the start of freshman year to graduation of senior year, how long that seemed; except we don’t get winter, spring and summer breaks.
Regular readers will notice that I’ve tinkered with this paper a good deal, trying various things to increase readership, within the framework of an historic, paid-circulation community newspaper.
The thing is, ask 10 people and they all will say they want different things out of the paper – more government coverage, more school coverage, more sports coverage, police news, arts and entertainment.
And then there are regional concerns. This paper has tried to cover several towns, but people specifically want to see stories from their town.
The reality is, even if I hit the lottery and could hire people to do all of the above prolifically, times have changed and there just aren’t enough people in sparsely populated rural regions like ours willing to pay for news, in print or online.
I’ve even tried offering dirt-cheap subscriptions for parents through the local PTSA with very few bites.
A recent study says that 2.5 newspapers in the US are going out of business per week; most of them historic papers with old-fashioned business models like this one.
This paper is not going to go out of business; while it would be a stretch to call it “profitable,” I would call what I’ve done here “sustainable.”
Since I revived this paper, I have been approached by two other historic newspapers in this state that, like this one four years ago, were about to go kaput. No one else wanted to own them.
I told the owners of those papers what would have to be done to save the papers – while improving their journalism – but they just didn’t see it. One of the two papers simply ended up being given to an employee, the other totally ghosted its subscribers and is forever gone.
The Old-Fashioned Business Model
The Journal & Press is what is known as a paid-circulation newspaper with a periodical mailing permit. The only other local paper with a similar model is The Eagle of Cambridge.
Other papers may be termed “free” papers; even if they use the mail, it’s a different type of permit they use.
Being a paid-circulation paper has some advantages, beyond the $2 that people may pay for it at Hannaford. They are:
— They qualify to be an “official” newspaper, so can get legal classified ads from the towns they cover.
— They are taken more seriously as “papers of record” and are included in historic archives for posterity.
— Because of that, they also get obituaries, which bring in some additional revenue.
— The aforementioned periodical mail permit allows the paper to mail in-county affordably, but also anywhere in the USA at a somewhat reasonable cost.
— Because people are paying for the paper, they take it more seriously, as well, and read it more closely.
— Unlike free papers, that wholly rely on advertising to survive, a paid-circulation paper is beholden to its readers foremost, and can be independent of the forces of local commerce.
That said, because of the above, a paid-circulation paper also opens itself up to more criticism because it does carry civic-minded pieces that may at times run contrary to one political faction or the next in the town. Thus, the threats are:
— People increasingly are offended and boycott media outlets that don’t align 100% with their ideology.
— The idea of “legal ads” is problematic, and in the future, legislation will change and newspapers will no longer get this revenue. Though I tend to agree that such ads can be construed as “bribes” to some newspapers, and it’s better for taxpayers if such ads were simply posted online for free by the municipalities. Putting an ad in a tiny newspaper is essentially hiding it from the public.
— As mentioned, younger generations are not used to paying for news, and they won’t ever. That doesn’t portend well for these newspapers, as it’s necessary for them to gain readers as older ones move to, say, Florida.
— The same generation doesn’t feel placing obituaries in a printed paper is as important, and this revenue stream will also be gone soon.
— The post office keeps raising its rates; and who knows what the future of the USPS is, anyway?
— But, at the same time, there just aren’t enough people who live locally to make a news web site viable via web ads, which require lots of impressions and click-throughs to make money.
So, What’s the Solution?
First of all, I think the print model is necessary for The Journal & Press to survive, and I don’t want to make this wholly a free paper, which means it will just become another ad vehicle and not much else. People don’t really read the free papers around here. They peruse them, perhaps, but read? No. Nobody does that. And, to me, that matters. I wouldn’t want to be involved with a simple Pennysaver.
However, I have lived in regions with decent free papers. They can indeed have a lot of the same elements, and gravity, of the paid-circulation papers.
(And there are lots of “zombie” paid-circulation papers (with no real editorial content — they mainly exist for the legal ads and obituary revenue); simply having a cover price does not connote a newspaper is always “real.”)
Here at the Journal & Press, we are a real newspaper, but we haven’t covered as many town, village and school board meetings as we would have liked because we would run into the “can’t please everyone” dilemma. Because if we cover one board meeting in one town, how about the other six towns we also distribute in?
I’d like to cover one town really well. A decision needs to be made. And that town will be Greenwich. It’s where we’re based, it’s where the newspaper has historically been based.
In Greenwich, we will remain a paid-circulation newspaper, but add more coverage of town and village meetings and school meetings and sports even deeper than we have. The revenue from the paid model, even though it’s not much, could help pay freelancers to cover more things.
However, in other towns, we will become a free paper with a somewhat different design and some different content (to maintain our postal permit, the paid-circulation paper needs to be notably different, if we print more than 50% of our total run for free distribution).
People in other towns can still get the fuller paper via paid mail subscription, but in most of these towns, there only is a Stewart’s Shops for us to sell in. It’s not a very great place to sell newspapers. Instead in those towns, we will have free racks and news boxes. Hopefully, many of the free readers will like what they see and opt for the paid version of the paper.
We proved with our Tractor Parade issue last month that we could pull off a hybrid paid/free model. The free version of our paper will be that small tabloid size and full color.
We’re also going to enhance our web site and put out an e-newsletter. We gather so much content, but don’t do much with it beyond print. This will help us grow new audiences, and maybe sell some subscriptions that way, as well.
If you are a paid subscriber, wherever you live, you’ll still get this paper in the mail twice a month as expected. But for those who are more casual readers (who we’d like to convert to more serious readers), they will be able to pick up a free version of this paper via racks in towns outside Greenwich.
Based upon all I have learned with this newspaper and others I have worked for and observed, and the forces that are against us, I believe this paid/free hybrid model is the only way to go. I don’t know of any other papers doing this, and maybe they are smarter than me. But we have to try something to keep from stagnating, and eventually, fading away.
Hopefully, you’ll like all of this. Have a happy holiday season and great new year!
Darren Johnson runs the historic Journal & Press of Upstate New York as well as the downstate Campus News College Paper and is a full-time journalism instructor at a local college.