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Community newspapers on the cutting edge with daily news webcasts
By Sarah Kerner, skerner@acnpapers.com
Reporter Christina Rowland takes a deep breath and positions herself in front of a swath of bright green fabric thumb-tacked to the wall of an empty office at Star Community Newspapers in Plano. She licks her teeth (it helps her smile appear more natural) and checks her wireless microphone. There’s no teleprompter in this make-shift news studio, so the broadcast she’s about to deliver is Scotch-taped to the video camera in front of her. In just a few hours, her suburban-centric mix of breaking news, sports scores and community features will be shot, edited and uploaded to the Web.
Why is a traditional ink-on-paper news outlet spending time and precious dollars on a Web-based newscast? Simple: the Web is a weekly newspaper’s ally. Instead of several days of lag-time before they get a breaking story in front of readers, reporters can start thinking in daily terms.
“If you’re not publishing a newspaper every day, by the time you cover a story it could be old news,” said Bill Weaver, publisher of Star Community Newspapers, which publishes the Carrollton Leader and 12 others across the North Dallas suburbs. Eleven newspapers have already launched a daily news webcast, and plans are underway to add the remaining markets in the coming weeks. “Now we can take a story to the Web as soon as it happens, and we can cover news that might have seemed less important. Now it’s all important.”
“We believe that the future of community journalism is one of total multi-media convergence. Our readers will be able to read our printed newspapers, interact with others on the Web site, and become engaged in video-based story telling,” Will said.
And the readers, apparently, are indeed engaged. SCN’s Web site averages 4 million page-views per month from almost half a million different users. Those are big numbers in any industry, particularly one that defines itself as a “niche.” Views of its Web newscast, which launched quietly in January, have risen steadily. (See graphic)
The hits on SCN’s site reflect a national trend. As circulation numbers for metro newspapers have decreased across the country, online visits have risen. Unique visitors to newspaper Web sites increased by 27 percent between January 2007 and January 2009, according to the Newspaper Association of America. SCN’s circulation, in fact, has risen in recent years – along with its Web traffic -- indicating an increased desire for local coverage. The numbers suggest people in the United States want quality local journalism delivered in a variety of forms.
Plano resident Shannon Kennedy fits that profile. After years of reading a daily newspaper, watching TV news and listening to National Public Radio, she’s lately developed an affinity for local news on the Web.
“I’ve found that [the Star Community News site] offers me more information about what’s happening closer to my home. And when I hear about a local news story and feel like I want more details, I go online,” said Kennedy, who recently accessed stories about a house fire in her neighborhood and has clicked on videos in search of news that is “relevant and that enriches my life.”
“The [Star Community News Web site] can fill a niche for me and provide the local information that I can’t get elsewhere,” Kennedy said, “Especially now that the larger newspapers have scaled back their coverage of local stories since they don’t have the resources they once had.”
It’s no secret these are tough times for print journalism. More than 13,000 employees of U.S. newspapers have been laid off in 2009 alone, according to Paper Cutz, a blog that charts media downsizing. But Star executives insist the move to webcasts and online offerings isn’t a bid for salvation – it’s a natural evolution.
“This is a unique opportunity to use a unique medium to deliver news and advertising messages that can be different from those that appear in print,” said Gene Carr, CEO of American Community Newspapers. “It’s a change in product and a change in strategy.”
The company expects to extract advertising revenue from the new medium, but success will rely on re-educating both its sales force and its customers. From a customer’s perspective, page views might look somewhat low compared to the newspapers’ overall robust circulation, and therefore they hesitate to devote ad dollars at this early stage of the game. The company is confident that ad prospects will soon grasp that each page view represents an active – not a passive – consumer. Clicking on a news webcast that’s sandwiched around a commercial gives the advertiser an entirely different audience. More than captive, the Web user is engaged.
Meanwhile, back in the studio, Rowland is equally engaged. Her broadcast kicks off with a cheerful greeting to her viewers – in this case, readers of the Southlake Times – then rolls into the workings of last night’s city council debate. She knows the details because she actually attended the council meeting the night before. She then urges viewers to support an upcoming charity function, which she’s written about this week in the pages of her newspaper. She wraps up the show with a round-up of high school football scores and a reminder to “Tune in tomorrow for more news from Southlake.”
While its production values don’t rival the networks – yet – the value the newscast offers viewers is clear.
“Our professional journalists are trained to bring you breaking news, in-depth reporting and a trained understanding of government activities,” ACN’s Will said. “Through technology, we can provide that news and information in many forms. But there is so much more to a community than city hall — it is the story of the heroes on the fire department, the cops down the street, the bowler with a perfect score, the local cancer survivor, the state champion team and the Homecoming queen. These are the events and the stories that make a community a community. Bringing these elements together is our mission, and it is our passion.”
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