Voices of Journalism
Our transition to a word press based site that mirrors the content of our publication is a gamble for us, because local advertisers don't see as much value in online advertising, despite higher readership. We are considering a paywall but I can't help but feel it will nueter our traffic. Most of our subscribers are older though, and the new generations read our content much more readily online. We felt we needed a strong online presence with heavy Facebook integration and sharing. That younger crowd needs to be our next subscription base and we are trying to sort out the monetization of our site, and how to transition them to a print subscription also.
Robert Stevens
Managing editor
Sanpete Messenger
It's all about content.
Millennials and Gen Zers will pay for content that they feel they need, but not out of habit or tradition. You should talk to the under-40 people in your community regularly about what local information they feel they need, and if you want their support (financial, intellectual, or both), then try to provide it.
Gen Zers are especially frugal with coin but generous with emotional support -- they'll buy $5 coffee from the local shop over Starbucks' $4 of charcoal water, but only if the local shop has good coffee and a unique vibe. They are much more like Gen X than the Millennials in that regard, and many of them would rally around and support a local newspaper if they felt it had their backs.
But they are frugal. They'll make you earn every dollar.
Bill Reader, Ohio U.
If I owned a paid newspaper, I would have a website of limited content that offered only teases on my top stories, and nothing more. It would be a “commercial” for my newspaper. Depending on traffic, I might offer a banner or two, no more, to help pay the bills.
If you’re not making much money, who cares if traffic drops?
I imagine we all (mostly) live on print revenue, and that won’t change. Many advertisers are taking their money to Facebook and Google. We can’t change that. For some it works, and every business owner will do what is in his/her best interest. We need to fight for a share.
And so with our “old fashioned, dead-tree” newspapers, we have to offer uniqueness of content and the serendipity that comes with a reader finding news he wasn’t “searching” for. When readers sit with newspapers, they enjoy it.
While Jill wants readers “plugged in” to digital offerings, I don’t think we can keep up the pace of change. And now the pendulum may be swinging back in our favor, even for younger citizens.
The recent story, "Young Subscribers Flock to Old Media," in Editor and Publisher, offers hope.
Here is my suspicion – and I am not yet courageous enough to live by it, but I might be soon enough. I suspect if we took all of the mental energy we now waste around digital and our online efforts (mostly born of fear) and instead worked to improve our print products and advertisement quality, we’d enjoy a happy ending.
Thomas V. Ward, publisher
The Valley Breeze