PNA, Oct. 30

PNA Portal: Feeling energized after PNA's convention

By Corinna Wilson, Chief Operating Officer
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association

I came back from the PNA’s Annual Convention in Pittsburgh last week far more enthusiastic about newspapers than I’ve been in a while. I’ll tell you why.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, in her book On Death and Dying, sets out seven stages of the grief cycle (shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and acceptance). The best way I can explain my “bullish” response to Convention is to say that I think this industry may finally be in the acceptance stage.

And in saying this, I am not asserting that newspapers are dying. Not at all!

But the industry is being challenged to change – challenged by our readers, by the advertising industry, by technology, by competition and by market forces. And the seven stages of grief are not exclusive to the terminally ill, but apply also to people who have been affected by other kinds of bad news. The important factor, according to the research, is not that the change is good or bad, but that the person experiencing it perceives it as a significantly negative event.

Do you agree with me that most people working in the newspaper industry have perceived the past few years as a significantly negative event? Or maybe even a series of unfortunate events (a nod here to Mr. Lemony Snicket)?

Understand, the acceptance stage is not a good place to be just because it’s the last step. You don’t get to be in the acceptance stage unless you are moving on into the rest of your life. Acceptance means moving forward!

[As an aside, if you missed Convention, Jane Hungarter, PNA’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, will be summarizing every session in November’s edition of Insight. For more information on this online publication or to subscribe, click here.

Most of the presenters at Convention, interestingly, focused on the fundamentals of management and on managing through change. The newspaper industry has so many strengths and so many great stories to tell about itself, but it hasn’t been managing itself particularly well. And because the business model is changing so quickly, it’s imperative that papers have a sound management structure and process in place. It will keep you focused, working together, out of trouble with the law and able to move quickly to take advantage of every opportunity.

Personally, I believe that good management practices are like hitting all of your foul shots in basketball, teaching your children good manners or creating and sticking to good budgets. There is no guarantee that you’ll be successful with these things alone, but without them it’s much, much harder to win.

If you’re interested, we have an excellent management consultant and change management trainer, Janet McNally, the PNA’s Vice President of Human Resources. For more information on what Janet can offer you and your management team, click here for the PNA’s Human Resources Network page. You can reach Janet at janetm@pa-news.org or (717) 703-3061.

One of the highlights from Convention was Catherine Ryan Hyde’s insight into the reading habits of 18-34-year-olds. Hyde is an award-winning author of the book Pay It Forward and 11 other published and forthcoming books, many of them for the young adult market. She is also the founder and president of the Pay It Forward Foundation (www.payitforwardfoundation.org). The PNA Foundation launched the Pennsylvania Newspapers Pay It Forward initiative this year, and Hyde accepted our invitation to come from California to be a luncheon keynote speaker.

On top of her experience writing young adult fiction, Hyde travels extensively and meets with children and young adults around the country. Her observations on this age group were interesting. She maintains that the elusive teen reader has the same reading level as an adult. To be effective in reaching this group, however, we have to write something that will hold their attention because they have shorter attention spans than adults.

Hyde also believes that this audience has learned to hate to read because they are forced to read long and slow moving books as a part of their classroom curricula. They prefer to receive information in a simple and direct manner.

Her advice to newspapers: Don’t be wordy – they want to hear things straight. Also, be aware that teens have very powerful “BS” detectors and demand authenticity. She also thinks we must tell them why the information that we are providing is relevant to them.

There’s a lot to think about there as you develop niche products or digital tools and services to appeal to this demographic.

Earl Wilkinson, executive director and CEO of International Newsmedia Marketing Association, www.inma.org, presented at Convention as well. His most memorable line is that we’re becoming “diabetic news consumers” -- we like to take in small news bites throughout the day rather than having one large meal at the beginning or end of the day.

We are notoriously a “big meal” industry or at least have that reputation. Just think about the feast we serve on Sunday mornings!

Wilkinson recommends that newspapers shift their emphasis from content to audience. He estimates that newspapers currently place 90 percent of their value in content, 5 percent on audience and 5 percent on brand and advises a shift to 50 pecent audience, 25 percent content and 25 percent brand.

This is really very simple, yet it represents a sea change for us. We are a content-rich industry. But we are also an audience-rich media. Now we just need to pay attention to those audiences in new ways.

Wilkinson was honest about the challenges facing newspapers. Technology is driving customers to consume news on many platforms. Advertisers are chasing consumers across many platforms. “Newspapers” are in the process of reinventing themselves as “multi-media companies.” But he was also positive about our future. By staying focused on growth opportunities and trends, Wilkinson believes that newspaper organizations will not only survive, but thrive.

So now I hope you understand why I came away from Convention energized. There is no one, clear, “right” answer for audience or revenue development for every news organization. But it’s also clear, at least to Earl Wilkinson, Catherine Ryan Hyde and virtually all of our other presenters at Convention, that if we manage our papers well, talk and listen to our readers and understand their needs and interests, reach out to young readers in honest and direct ways, understand and use quality research data, reach out to strategic partners wherever they are and jump on opportunities, we are by definition moving forward. We are at acceptance and maybe even beyond!

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