Newspapers, barn doors, Facebook and Google

Friend Chris Tomlinson at the Houston Chronicle has a good column on the latest Facebook brouhaha of many, and not the only one in the past month.

It's not his only one on the subject. It's generally good, as far as it goes. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg would probably sell his own grandmother to the devil for some new Facebook innovation. That's even as, in the US, Facebook traffic appears to have hit a wall and may even be tailing off. (The increasing number of Facebook memories I see in my own feed for suggested sharing — and the number that I see friends actually sharing — would be anecdotal evidence in support.)

That said, many newspapers (don't know about Chris's Chronicle) made their bed a year or two ago by signing off on the Facebook Partners program, or exactly whatever it's called.

That, in turn, continues a string of 20-plus years of multiple bad decisions related to All Things Internet.

It began in the mid-1990s when Dean Singleton, not only the creator of the now-foundering MediaNews empire, but also at that time chairman of the AP's board of directors, agreed with other AP board members that the "TV model" for newspapers would be just fine as far as "monetization" of the Internet.

The "TV model" basic point was that TV, like radio, was free, and did fine with advertising. So, why couldn't online newspapers be the same?

Well, this ignored several things.

First, cable TV wasn't free.

You counter: But, that's the same as paying an ISP provider for Internet.

First, pay cable TV channels existed in the mid-1990s, and HBO and the Playboy Channel, at least, were 15-plus years old by then.

So, it's not just hindsight to say Deano et al were wrong.

They may have been wrong in misunderestimating the reach of the Net. The first tech bubble crash at the turn of the century, followed by the Greenspan-Bush post-911 bubble inflating their ad revenues, probably fed newspaper owners' ongoing motivated reasoning.

But, they were still wrong.

They probably had a chance, by the late 1990s, if not by the early 2000s, to reverse the AP party line on "retransmission costs" for Yahoo, the first big news aggregator, and up-and-coming Google. Remember when Yahoo was the bomb?

But, eventually, that chance faded away. And, the Net and other things aided both Reuters and AFP in expanding their American presences, too. And, any agreement between them on pricing web content would be collusion.

So, AP at least stiffs smaller dailies more and more on the content of "content," even while jacking the price. The most basic AP package doesn't even include photos.

As to Facebook?

Beyond what I said above?

Algorithms are no match for people in "curation," a word that with online media is even more barf-inducing than "content."

That's true whether it's Facebook or Google.

That said, Facebook is a threat not just to daily papers of size.

The rise of Facebook Groups threatens the future of small daily and non-daily community papers as well. I know this from experience.

If people don't like your coverage of an issue, if they think that, even though you keep a good eye on city hall in general, you just have to be wrong on Issue X?

Boom. New post on the "Citizens of X" Facebook group.

Don't want to turn a string of gossip into a semi-libelous news story?

Boom. New post on the "Citizens of X" Facebook group.

Some blogs used to be this way, as the unlamented, incarcerated felon Joey Dauben illustrated well. (It still blows my mind, as it did at the time, that the Dallas Observer thought him worthy of a long-form profile, especially without considering his possible psychological background.)

But, Facebook gives credence to this stuff, in a way that a random blog doesn't.

And, the mindset of DMCA, if not the act itself, protects it legally just as much as it protects YouTube. (It's also why Mark Zuckerberg steadfastly insists he is NOT a publisher.)

Which is too bad, in a way.

A few libel lawsuits against Facebook might clean some things up.

Beyond that, of course, Facebook can subconsciously manipulate your thoughts in a way that even Google can't. (Google just consciously controls what you see, by things like paid placement, and now, its "fake news" filter that, in America, screens out anything besides the duopoly.) And it's already done it repeatedly.

This all gets to "barn doors," if it's not clear.

A lot of newspaper paywalls are still pretty permeable. And they're afraid to make them less so, as I see it. It now seems to me that the vaunted Wall Street Journal is putting more articles outside its paywall, even, if accessed by social media.

It's like an addiction, even though it's known in most cases that the online ads won't pay for that, and that you're just enabling theoretically bad behavior anyway.

That said, many addictions often seem to be the best solution for a problem even after it seems more clear to non-addicts that they're not. And, until that's recognized by the person or entity with the addiction, that won't change.

Other than pointing out many larger newspaper chains are still too hypercapitalist in what they pay corporate executives, I'm not out to bash the industry. And, while I don't claim to have solutions, I do think, at a minimum, the downward spiral on readership and ads is diminishing.

On the ads side, as Zuckerberg continues to shoot himself in his Facebook foot, newspapers have a reputation to sell, as well as the package of targeted online sales — and better targeting on the print side, too.

As for past sliding? On the circulation side, at least, as top German papers show, it's not just an American problem.

Major daily newspapers — run by snide, arrogant elitists

David Chavern, the CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, the trade and lobbying organization for the major dailies (it does represent some others, but the National Newspaper Association is the primary group for "community" newspapers) wrote a howler op-ed piece last week for Digiday, an online magazine that covers issues in digital advertising and publishing.

The header should tell you just how snide, arrogant and elitist this is:

Ad blocking threatens democracy.

First, democracy was around before modern newspapers were, whether in its classical Athenian version, the Roman Republic, or the first modern gropings toward it of American founding fathers, the British realms, or the Swiss Confederation.

If one wants to claim that Athens and Rome with slaves weren't truly democratic, neither was America before 1865, and American newspapers, primarily but not only in the South, supported that slavery.

So, we should add both "historically inaccurate" and "histrionic" to the debunking of this nonsense.

That said, here’s Chavern’s nut graf, as far as I can tell:

People who download ad-blocking software may be looking for a faster browsing experience in the short-term, but they are also knowingly or unknowingly participating in the longer-term destruction of our ad-supported system for free and low-cost news and other content. As ad-blockers proliferate, the inevitable result will be either much higher subscription rates or a deterioration in the quality and availability of thoughtful, reliable news as news media and content creators are forced out of business. This, in turn, will put us on a dangerous path toward information inequality. News content will be reserved for those who can pay high subscription fees, and everyone else will be left without access to valuable information — with disastrous implications for our democracy.

But wait, it gets better!

Like this:

Are we really willing to exchange exposure to digital ads for significantly higher prices for everyone, where reliable information is only available to the elite? 

Wowza.

So, newspapers that use paywalls as part of their digital stream, not just the elitist Wall Street Journal and semi-elite New York Times, but the Gannett chain, are actually read only by elites? European papers, who long relied more on higher circulation prices and less in ads in print editions, are read only by elites?

Arrogant and elitist is what this piece is.

First, Mr. Chavern, as you either DO know or else SHOULD know, most newspapers were slow to jump on paywalls in the first place because Deano Singleton and other AP board members drank the "TV model" Kool-Aid, ignoring that pay cable channels like HBO existed already in the 1970s.

Second, "elitist"? From big metro dailies that run BOTH real estate ads AND puff pieces for McMansions, or BOTH auto ads AND puff review pieces for Beemers, Lexuses, etc. THAT's elitist.

Even more elitist is the "style" columnists and shutterbugs showing up at black-tie events for the locally rich and famous, and the name-dropping that goes with that.

Third? Newspapers who may have written about growing income inequality without tackling the causes of it, and without really wanting to do that too much (I'll plead a small mea culpa myself, at least on being afraid to rock corporate boats on op-ed pages) are elitist.

Fourth? On the technical side? Besides craptacular web ads? Let's not even get into the abuse of tracking cookies. Some websites, sometimes newspapers, sometimes others, Ghostery shows me it's blocking 30 cookies.

But let us please get into what Chavern calls "native advertising" and I still call good old "advertorial."

Chavern says:

Part of (improving digital ad experience) may also involve better “native ads” that are more fully integrated into the overall experience of visiting a news site. 

First, the Federal Trade Commission has already ixnayed that, publishing guidelines that it wants advertorial less "integrated," not more. So, we have an industry trade group CEO who's either making up shit and hoping people don't pay attention, or else one who's not paying attention himself. (Speaking of, I use the browser extension called Ad Detector, folks. It can't block advertorial, and it's not perfect at what it catches, but what it does catch, it flags with a bright red bar.)

He then points to TV native ads. Well, IMO, a lot of his comparison is apples to oranges, and the apples to apples part needs ....

More FTC regulation.

That leads me to Steve Brill, who writes the perfect antidote to Chavern and his member newspapers.

That's because, in part, he said that at American Lawyer, he resisted urges to put lipstick on the advertorial pig to make it look more editorial.

But, that's down low on the piece.

The starter is calling out papers for their timidity and cluelessness on paywalls, saying stuff I totally agree with about use of the paywall, where to set the "meter" and much more.

It gets better from there. He says many newspaper publishers inherited their businesses, sometimes through multiple generations, and were and are clueless about running them well as businesses because of that.

(And, although the publisher of THE Dallas Morning News is not a Belo family member, nonetheless, Monroney is arguably a snide, arrogant elitist, as it continues to slouch toward Gomorrah.)

Dallas Morning News to take 3rd stab at paywall next year and other Belo fun

Regular readers of this blog, especially media news followers, will the great degree of hilarity with which I have greeted previous Snooze attempts to implement a paywall, followed by rejection of them. I wrote just three months ago about the Snooze/Belo anti-paywall stance, shortly after wondering if the paper's slouching toward Gomorrah had increased.

After their second paywall faded away, they tried a "premium website" model, which then flopped. It flopped for very good reasons.

So, when Belo announced it would take another crack next year, I was skeptical.

Jim Moroney is right that for a regional daily, even a large one like the Snooze, digital advertising and digital circulation alone isn't enough to offset print revenue declines in those two areas.

He ignores that having a paywall on the digital side can help stanch hardcopy circulation declines, though. (Why pay for a hardcopy newspaper when I can get it online for free, after all?) That, in turn, arguably would stanch the decline in hardcopy advertising. (The Snooze, while not as bad as the Austin American Statesman, had a paid adhole of just 25 percent on a mid-November Thursday of random choice from my recent browsing at a nearby library. That's throwing out full house ads and semi-house ads, but counting obits as paid ad inches. Those are not good numbers for a Thursday. For a Tuesday, they would be; probably for a Wednesday. Bit skimpy for a Thursday, though.)

He admits the Snooze has blown it on execution on the previous two paywall shots. He also says even a New York Times isn't at the point it could be digital only. Agreed, Jim, and nobody's saying that.

That said, Moroney also plans to keep putting eggs in other baskets:

Publisher Jim Moroney III has led the paper’s two-year-old acquisition strategy under parent company A.H. Belo. He says this tactic — aggressively seeking out marketing, data and innovative search companies to complement its existing business strengths — is what the DMN needs to sufficiently diversify its revenue base. 

In the interview, he doesn't detail how successful this has or has not been so far. Nor does he detail what conflicts of interest this might already involve. After all, it's just one step from marketing to public relations — long known as the "dark side" to journalists. 

He goes on:

We have not stopped looking since we started this two years ago. We still have an investment banker helping us go look for acquisitions in the categories of data analytics, marketing automation platform companies, very sophisticated search companies. We’ve looked at direct mail and outdoor, video production for advertising purposes, companies that can build apps and websites and improve them — all the kinds of marketing services that our current customers either are using or [to which] we want to introduce them. 

OK, the first question is: Why would a Snooze advertiser use your marketing (or PR) services rather than someone else's in DFW? Are you offering package deals? At what discount? If so, how much does that bring the ethics issue up?

Other than that, again, why would they want you? "Because we're A.H. Belo!"? "Because we're the Dallas Morning News!"? That type of thinking has led to some of the problems in the first place.

Direct mail? Jim, that's the fricking dinosaur age, first. Second, the last thing a lot of people what is the Snooze cluttering their mailboxes.

Outdoor? I don't think folks like Lamar are doing that well as we speak. What makes you think significant money is out there?

Web design, etc.? What do you think you bring that established companies don't already offer? 

Moroney then says, Oh, hey, we're debt-free, etc.

Yea? That's because you're a one-newspaper "newspaper company," in essence, not counting the spinoff products there in Dallas. Selling Providence, Riverside, etc., cleaned up your debt but left you with no margin for further error. And, the guy you sold Riverside to filed for bankruptcy, so good luck getting all the money he paid, if it wasn't up front, which I certainly presume it wasn't.

And, the interviewer gives him a pass on this.

I have found a newspaper worse than any in Texas

By "worse," I'm not referring to editorial content, op-ed stances or anything like that.

I'm referring to worse financially.

Back in the good old days, pre-financial bubble, pre-housing bubble, pre-auto sales bubble, and before Net 2.0 caught on too much, papers still hoped to have as much as 50 percent of their print content to be ads. They definitely targeted 40 percent, with the understanding that, way back then, even before the Advance chain cut back on delivery on these days, that some days, like Mondays, were slow for ads.

Well, regular readers have seen me bust the Austin American-Statesman in the chops for being as low as 10 percent adhole on Mondays.

And, in the online world, they've seen me slap the Dallas Morning News repeatedly for its digital misadventures, including starting a paywall then killing it.

(I know the Houston Chronicle has a paywall; I don't know what its print adhole usually is.)

Well, I have seen a paper that combines the worst of both worlds.

The San Francisco Chronicle.

Like the Snooze, it has no paywall, and it went down a similar road: It had a "premium" version at one time, then junked that.

Its adhole? Even worse than the Statesman's.

Just 8 percent on a Tuesday, which is not as slow an ad day as a Monday. Just 16 percent on Wednesday, which is definitely not as slow an ad day. Just 42 pages on a Wednesday as a result, for a paper in a major metro area with a vibrant economy.

Seems like Hearst needs to do an Advance, or something.

That said, Anschutz's wingnut San Francisco Examiner, if it's still around, has to be a money bleeder even worse.

That said, this was a "three-star" issue out in Red Bluff, California; I've been told that in-Bay issues have a higher ad percentage. That said, given that Red Bluff (up on the Sacramento River in northern California) is a lot closer to Sacto than San Fran, why is the Chronicle even circulating out there, weak adhole or not?

The decline and fall of the Dallas Morning News

Robyn Tomlin
via News online story

Should be great celebration that the Dallas Morning News has a new managing editor, right?

Erm, WRONG! At least as I see it.

First, it's been without one for nearly a year. Given the ongoing layoffs, downsizings, and firings by print media, the fact that it took the Snooze this long to fill the position, combined with it having recent retirements of a few seasoned reporters, says something right there.

Second, the fact that, among Robyn Tomlin's past is working at Digital First Media's ultimately failed-and-shuttered Thunderdome project, as its founding editor, says something else. Her experience in digital media, touted by the Snooze (which fails to mention Thunderdome's collapse), isn't all good.

I'm not blaming Tomlin for Thunderdome's collapse; newspaper people know that was a plug-pulling by bean-counters, of something that might have been at least moderately successful. That said, I wasn't as enthusiastic about it as the likes of Ken Doctor, either.

As for her background? Besides Thunderdome, DFM has long been a trainwreck.  A recent attempt to sell itself to a single buyer collapsed, even though that was on the low end of the ask by DFM. That left founder John Paton, he of the long-term loudmouth about his digital media insights (in spite of bankruptcies of subparts of DFM, and it), to bail out. That said, DFM, like Belo, has long resisted paywalls, which is another issue.

And, Tomlin, with all of her digitality talk in the Snooze's intro piece, might have some of that same mindset as did Paton.

Also not totally good news is the Snooze's editor, Mike Wilson, having come from Five Thirty Eight. Five Thirty Eight exemplifies modern, "branded" online journalism. With retirements among older reporting staff, the Snooze has no news reporters to "brand." Its op-ed columnists aren't "brandable" even at AAA level, even though they think they are. Sports? Maybe.

Third, the News has lost nearly 8 percent of its print subscribers in the past 9 months through June 30. Would be great if it had recouped that with digital subscribers.

Unfortunately, Oct. 1 of last year is the first full business quarter after the Snooze killed its paywall, in one of many acts of digital stupidity. (That link has other, earlier acts of digital stupidity also listed.) Given that Tomlin comes from an anti-paywall newspaper company (setting aside her time at Pew), and ESPN's not paywalled because it gouges people with a la carte cable (but is still a bit worried about money), don't expect this to change. And, don't tout e-editions, whether paywalled or not. I haven't even bothered to click to see if the Snooze, like the Austin American-Stateless, wastes time by separately formatting different size e-editions for different devices, because ... nobody reads a PDF on a smartphone!

And, steering this back to Wilson, the Snooze's zigs and zags on paywalls, including the stupidity of the period when it had a basic website for free plus a premium paywalled one, have long been predicated on "branding," beginning with the Snooze putting a premium value on itself as a brand.

Fourth, speaking of rebranding, has "DMN Media" really made that much selling its graphic arts, marketing and whatever else it claims to have for sale? I mention that after my Googling confirmed James Moroney still runs the whole DMN schmeer.

And, he's the person ultimately responsible for other circulation-related "bright ideas" that are not, isn't he? Such as the print-edition subscription partnerships with the New York Times or Washington Post?

If I can get the Snooze for free online, why would I enter one of these print partnerships? The NYT still gives me 10 free stories a month, and then, I can decide to pay, or the hypothetical I can try to figure ways around the paywall. (I've not been to the Post on as regular of a daily basis, so I'm not sure how hypothetically easy its paywall can be eluded.)

Yours for $24.99 from the Dallas Snooze,
if you're really that stupid or gullible.

Of course, that's only one portion of stupidity there.

A media company arrogant enough, and customer-insulting or condescending enough, to think that people will pay $25 for a beer T-shirt, deserves the continuing failure that is surely headed its way.

No, seriously. That's its price.

With such brilliance like that, why isn't the Beloplex already under water? And, don't forget that there's nothing left on the post-split print side of the Belo world. The Snooze, the Snooze's marketing services as exemplified by a 25-buck beer T-shirt, and a store with 25-buck beer T-shirts, are all that's in that cupboard.

That, in turn leads to point the fifth.

Robyn Tomlin. She escaped a self-fluffing tire fire at DFM (stands for Dead Fucking Media as well as Digital First Media), to a great landing spot at Pew. Why did she leave?

Does she really believe that, based on her DFM past, she can turn around the Titanic of Young Street? Well, if so, I'd suggest she think again, unless she can get the Titanic to run over Moroney, among other things.

For that matter, why did Wilson come to Dallas? Was it a financial matter at Five Thirty Eight parent ESPN, which seems to be dumping higher-end salaries wherever and whenever possible? Given that Wilson left Five Thirty Eight only a year after starting there, it's an interesting thing indeed. And, why did he leave the St. Petersburg cum Tampa Bay Times after more than a decade as ME? Was his further ascension blocked?

In an interview with CJR that I'd previously missed, he hints at what I really figured was happening at the Times ... he was worried about its shrinkage. And, so, he ditches Nate Silver after less than a year (from leaving Tampa to first contact with his Snooze predecessor, Bob Mong), for another paper that's had plenty of shrinkage battles?

I don't get it, on his part. And, knowing what I've read, and interpolated, about the Snooze on digital, I suspect Mong and/or Moroney blew digital smoke up his ass.

And, judging by his use of the 98-cent words like "verticals" and "curate," he blew his own digital smoke right back up their asses.

Have fun, with a match not made in heaven, but self-created a few steps lower.

(Note: I've Tweeted Tomlin, a bit snarkily with reference to the T-shirts, and link to this column. We'll see if she answers, in comments or return Tweet, as to the more serious question of why she's coming to Dallas, along with her view on paywalls or other matters digital, and how she envisions trying to right the Titanic. And, I've just done the same with Wilson.

Snark about the beer T-shirts aside, the reality is that I see this as emblematic of "Belo culture," something Wilson, especially, will have to deal with in one way or another.

Speaking of that, I have rattled Michael Lindenberger's chain, for what that's worth. The "scorn and cynicism" are part of the "few reasonable points," Michael. I recognize you may not understand that, but that's part of the whole idea of Belo culture. As for the "scorn and cynicism," as I Tweeted back, I'm sure I've got less of that than Jim Schutze at the Observer, but he's sui generis. Of course, the Snooze, or News, if I'm more polite, never actually addresses his issues with it, either. The paper and designated hitmen/hitwomen just make the same comments, in more detail, about him.

And, Michael, the main issue, beyond Belo culture? Your newspaper's decade-long [15-year-long or more if we count the CueCat] cluelessness on All Things Digital is more than "a few reasonable points." It's One Big Point, and much of that's been under the person now running your Titanic.

Otherwise, if Lindenberger is himself "hanging on," or whatever, I understand the defensiveness. I've also talked at various points in my life to multiple old-timers who either got the ax or who got their job structures run through major overhauls. I feel sad for them. But, they worked for a place that, even by daily newspaper industry standards, has exemplified cluelessness on All Things Digital.

Otherwise, Michael, yes, part of this is about tweaking your paper. As with Schutze, it seems senior staff there don't have a sense of humor or a sense of reality. Maybe that's part of the defensiveness. If not to me, to yourself, I'd suggest at least being honest about that defensiveness, if that's what it is.

Oh, and ask Wilson, since I'm sure Moroney would say "nyet," if a JOA with the StartleGram is part of the future.)