Dear John,
You and I have never met, but we have corresponded—a bit testily at times (more on that later). In light of last week’s news, I wanted to follow up with another round of correspondence, and this time I’m doing it publicly, via the Columbia Journalism Review. I hope you’ll respond, because I know you are a believer in transparency. If you do, the CJR editors promise they’ll run your remarks. (Update: See Paton’s response below.)
First, I want to make clear that I admire what you’ve tried to do, first at Journal Register Co. and now at the combined Digital First Media, which also operates the MediaNews Group. Many of the Journal Register properties you took over in early 2010 were an unenviable lot for a digital age. Some of them are in economically depressed areas, like New Haven, CT, and most of them lagged far behind the curve in adopting technology or adapting to the convulsive digital environment.
Still, you surrounded yourself with bright people, including two of the smartest editors I know. Emily Bell is one of your advisors; she is also my colleague at Columbia Journalism School, having come here after spearheading the phenomenal growth of the Guardian’s Web properties. And Jim Brady, your editor-in-chief, was editor at WashingtonPost.com while I had that role at WSJ.com; for years he has demonstrated lightning-fast reflexes in understanding reader habits and media’s transforming economic model.
You put a great deal of effort into promulgating digital thinking throughout your newspapers. In your words, “if Print dollars are becoming Digital Dimes, then we better start chasing the Dimes.” You became a popular speaker on the Wherefore Journalism Circuit. And oh, those names your company assigned to its initiatives. First there was the “Ben Franklin Project,” and then the “JRC ideaLab,” and now there “Project Thunderdome.”
But last week you announced that Journal Register was filing for Chapter 11 again. This is the second bankruptcy in just a few years. The first preceded your arrival, and it seems that those in charge didn’t shed enough legacy costs. More distressingly, the new bankruptcy filing indicates that the decline in print ad revenues is speeding up at smaller papers, similar to what beset big metro dailies over the past decade.
The filing has led, predictably, to schadenfreude from those who hope print will turn around someday, and to anger from some current and former employees (one of them called it “horseshit” on Jim Romenesko’s site).
The former was predictable—partly because so many print publishers and journalists seem genetically predisposed against change, and partly because of comments you made that seemed to disparage an entire work force. “Stop listening to newspaper people,” you warned the media world. “As we have done at JRC, put the Digital people in charge—of everything.”
But the employees’ anger and the industry’s shock come from something deeper, I suspect. And here is where I need to air a bit of laundry.
In early 2011, I was working on a report about digital media economics for Columbia. (It would later be published at CJR under the title “The Story So Far.”) At that time, you were promoting your company’s results and getting a lot of headlines for your strategy. Journal Register’s ad performance was “three times better” than the industry’s, you told the trade group INMA. Sounds great, but what were the underlying numbers? Digital revenue in 2010 went from “negligible to 11 percent of ad revenue in November.” Okay, but is that because digital is rising or because print is falling? Or both, and in what proportion?
When we tried to dig deeper, we didn’t get very far. We wanted to know more about Journal Register’s “$41 million profit.” We wanted to learn what base you were using to say that digital revenues were growing by such impressive percentages.
Bill, yesterday I spoke with CJR's Ryan Chittum and provided the numbers he requested. His column is posted on CJR.
The company went from $9M in digital revenue in 2009 to $30.1M in revenue by 2011 and is up 32.5% so far this year. If that pace holds it means about $40M in digital revenue this year.
I couldn't provide the numbers before but the bankruptcy process lets me do so now. That's why I offered you the NDA last year so you could verify our percentage claims.
While that progress has not been enough to deal with JRC's long-term obligations is it your contention it has been poor progress on the digital front?
It is my impression CJR and you are taking the position this isn't much of an achievement by JRC employees and easy to do. And in my case not worth talking about publicly.
John
#1 Posted by John Paton, CJR on Wed 12 Sep 2012 at 08:56 AM
"but what were the underlying numbers?"
Kudos on demanding context and close scrutiny.
When can we expect a piece on the NYT's "Berlin Paywall" ("More important to keep 'em in, than keeping them out")?
The NYT has supplied laughably few details about its widely ballyhoo'd success with paywalls (sub churn numbers? promotion-linked subs? bounce-counting in uniques/page view?).
And the biggest unasked question of all - are those reported "digital subscribers" really digital *only* as some have reported *or* do they include the very large number of paper subscribers who get digital access for *free*?
The NYT's 10k and 10q's are ambiguous on this and I get the feeling that the besieged MSM really isn't interested in examining too closely the "salvation" of its bellwether.
#2 Posted by cas127, CJR on Thu 13 Sep 2012 at 06:10 PM
Our ultimate job is to deliver information to our readers in the many ways they now demand it. Over 50% of these folks, in the vast majority of our markets, still desire our printed product. The answer is not rocket science the answer is - find a way to include as many of these products as possible for both readers and advertisers - but the must at this time is still the paper. The paper works better than anything else for most of our advertisers....however, the vast majority of our industry does not choose to price our print product so that customers actually will know that. Again, this is not rocket science and we are graded every month with our bottom line results. Newspapers not only work the best they can provide the best profit on very little incremental cost. Can we all wake from this slumber and do what is so completely obvious. I have heard reps that formally worked at radio stations say "if newspapers ever got it, we would be toast". We have the ability to provide the most powerful reach of any media if we package our products correctly and make them affordable for all sizes of businesses. We reach a freaking Superbowl audience EVERY week in our markets. For the love of Pete, can we start getting out of our own way - can we stop assisting in our own inability to grow? Did anyone pay attention to the Penney's test case that just went on? Newspapers Rule, We Rule - Let's Rock! Sorry for the lack of grammer skills, I am an ad guy and I have seen first hand what can be done with this approach and guess what? It works!!! Can we chose Q4 as the quarter we all remember who we are and what we are capable of. Sincerely, Marty Carry.
#3 Posted by Marty Carry, CJR on Sat 15 Sep 2012 at 10:49 PM
Something stinks ...and it 's in Denver ,not Denmark .Just got laid off from this company . They laid off 80% of the creative people to off source to India . They constantly lied to their advertisers ,saying ads were online when they weren't ,and advertisers being charged . They deserve to go downhill ,you will see that they will .
#4 Posted by Lesley D'Angelo, CJR on Fri 19 Oct 2012 at 09:03 PM