Stonybrook-sulzberger
Alternate economic model
"What do we need to do to earn enough revenue to maintain robust newsrooms?"
"For many of us our longterm success will be by how fast our digital revenues will overcome our print revenue."
- Attract more users
- Create value for them
- Get them to pay
"Journalism's relationship with out readers has been, up to now, one sided."
Respond to their desire to do something with the journalism the NYTimes makes, to use it as raw material for things they make.
"We must be off the Internet not merely on it." "Move from become publishers on the web to being publishers of it."
"The Internet has proved to be a far superior advertising platform for listings."
Marketers are concerned display ads can capture attention in a fragmented network.
"Advertising networks for online inventory are relatively low."
"There are now all kinds of options being considered."
"We all know there is an answer out there somewhere, we're just not sure what it is going to be."
Their first reaction has been to make substantial expense reductions.
They are "left with the paradoxical position with having a product that increasing numbers of people use but which has decreasing levels of profitability."
"We also need to pursue a set of initiatives that support quality news, protect copyright, advertising integrity and news literacy.
NYTimes has experimented with different strategies:
Tried charging.
On July 14, 1997, opened it up. A decade later started Times Select. Afer two years, times selectd generated more than 200,000 ssubscribers and $10 million revneues. ADvertsing revneues from open traffic would bring faster.
"We have renewed analysis of how paid content will enhance." "As we develop new paid for content ideas" have to be careful to maintain revenues from both display and banner ads. "We don't want to take any steps that significnatly reduce our presence on teh web."
Other websites not as intersted in scale could pursue more agressive paid content stratgies.
This this all portent the end of print? "Of course not."
Center for Media Research said 83% of Americans say newspapers are relevant and 53% subscribe to one. "Print and digital can coexist in the marketplace." But have to become better at integrating print and web. Challenge is to integrate both while understanding the strengths of each.
He recommends a book: "The Inheritance," by David Sanger.
Children need assurance that the world is not coming to the end and that the human condition is resilient. "The NLP will help us teach that lesson." Create a future where quality journalism thrives alongside other forms.
- Verification rather than assertion
- Accuracy rather than speed
- Transparency and correcting one's mistakes
Q-and-A:
Charlotte Grimes from Syracuse University -- If there was one thing you could change about the current media environment what would it be.
A: "The biggest challenge we face is not adapting but grasping the future. What was the fatal flaw of the Titanic? Hubrice? Bad engineering? Lifeboats? None of the above. Even if the Titanic had made it to New York Harbor, it was still doomed, because about 10 years earlier two brothers invented the airplane . . . we have to make sure we are comfortable being an airplane company."
Q: Loren Ghiglione -- What are you doing to ensure your company becomes more diverse?
A: " . . . it's the ability to train and retrain our colleagues on the newsroom, . . . and creating an environment for people who don't come in in the traditional way -- news technolgies -- to give them a way that they can come in and feel comfortable."
"We've seen two years and more home delivery subscriptions go from 650,000 to 850,000. There is something going on out there."
Q: Howie Schneider: Should the news media have done a better job spotting the financial crisis?
A: . . . "There are things we didn't point out as forcefully we should have . . . we are part of the ecosystem . . . the best example I can think of is the failure of America's newspapers to recognize the Holocaust . . . . "
