Will the Washington Blade maintain Internet presence?

The demise of the newspaper began long before the recession, and it will continue afterward. Newspaper publishers are finding it harder every day to compete with digital media. Window Media, which was the country’s largest publisher of gay newspapers, has shut down.

Window Media published the Washington Blade, a Washington, D.C., publication that celebrated its 40-year anniversary last month. Window Media owned several other publications, too, including the Southern Voice and David, both based in Atlanta, The Southern Florida Blade and 411 Magazine.

A dramatic exit

Apparently Window Media employees didn’t see this coming, and they showed up for work Monday only to find the locks changed and notes saying the newspapers would no longer operate and they could come back Wednesday to collect their things.

Rumor has it the Small Business Association had given Window Media’s biggest stakeholder, Avalon Equity Partners, $38 million in guaranteed loans. When Avalon failed to come up with half that amount in private investments, the SBA placed Avalon in receivership.

Fuzzy details

SBA said Avalon was in receivership in February, and in July, Window CEO David Unger quit. There was some speculation that Unger was forced out by the SBA. It’s not clear exactly how Window media came to the decision that it should cease operations.

The Washington Blade staff reportedly will meet tomorrow to discuss a new venture, headed by the Washington Blade’s current editor, Kevin Naff. Members of staffs on the other Window-owned publications also have said they will try to continue to provide news on the gay communities in their areas.

State of the newspaper

Newspapers all over the country have been shrinking or shutting down in pretty high numbers for a few years now. The country’s biggest publisher, Gannett, completed huge layoffs this year.

This pattern will continue until newspapers can figure out a way to adapt their business models to capitalize on the Internet. It’s a rough transition for a very old industry, but necessary if news publications want to survive.

Image from blogspot.

Newspapers are continually trying to come up with ways to improve their online presence. Mostly they do this for the purpose of keeping their businesses afloat, but for those newspapers who still are concerned about improving reader experience, I’ve got a tip for you.

Tell the world where you are. Remember, the Internet is everywhere. Google Alerts linking to stories on your web site are being sent to people in other states and other countries. For instance, I get Google Alerts on robberies at stores that give payday cash advances from Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, California, everywhere in the country.

Breaking tradition

I have worked at a local newspaper before. I know it’s customary not to waste space and words on identifying the state where your newspaper is based. Journalists hate redundancy. To be clear, I am not saying reporters or web editors should go into stories and add the state after every mention of the city. I am saying newspapers need to include the state at the top of every page.

Newspapers also hate messing with their mastheads. Oh, they hate it a whole lot. However, newspapers could save online readers in faraway places a lot of frustration if they’d just add the city and state to their online masthead. It could be in tiny print below the regular masthead, but it should really appear on every page.

Breaking it down

In case you don’t see why this is important, let me give you a little scenario. Today, I got a Google Alert about a payday loan store robbery, and the story was from the Superior Telegram. If you click on that link, you’ll see nice and big at the top “Superior Telegram.” Great, now we know the name of your newspaper.

A web surfer looking at that gets virtually no information whatsoever. Is this telegram superior to other telegrams? Or is that the name of a city? If you work for a newspaper and you are reading this, I know what you are thinking (besides “eek! italics! and exclamation marks! unnecessary!) You are thinking “Hello, you stupid person, the state is right at the bottom in the address.”

Guess what. That’s not good enough. That’s not how web surfers operate. A graphics designer at my company once put it very well: “People don’t like to read the Internet.”

A widespread problem

I am not picking on the Superior Telegram because this is a problem with pretty much every online newspaper in a city I’ve never heard of. After I couldn’t find the state at the top of the page, I looked for an “About Us” tab. None was to be found. Yes, obviously I did eventually scroll down to the bottom of the page and see that Superior is in Wisconsin.

So, you can either continue to hold disdain for the short attention spans and general stupidity of your online readers who live in other states, or you can get off your high horse and help them out. Adapting to the Age of the Internet means making changes in the way you present yourselves. Once you put your newspaper online, it is no longer a local newspaper. Don’t make your readers work to find out who and where you are.

After several large rounds of layoffs in the past couple of years, Gannett layoffs will continue. The nation’s largest newspaper company will eliminate up to 4,500 jobs sometime in the next few days, reports the Wall Street Journal. However, the number of layoffs has been reported by some news sources as between 1,000 and 2,000.

Reports last month showed that Gannet’s profits were down 60 percent, but the exact numbers involved in Gannett’s growing problems are somewhat unclear.

Conflicting sources

There’s a pretty big discrepancy between the numbers news sources are reporting regarding how many jobs will be eliminated in the Gannett layoffs. The New York Times reports:

On Gannett Blog, a former Gannett editor who closely follows the company, Jim Hopkins, quotes an unnamed person in the company as saying that it will announce on July 8 that it is eliminating 4,500 United States newspaper jobs, and cutting salaries in its broadcast division.

However, Gannett employees shouldn’t run to the payday loan store to take out fast cash loans just yet. The NYT article goes on to say that executives have said the number would be significantly smaller than 4,500. The Associated Press reports:

Between 1,000 and 2,000 people will lose their jobs in Gannett’s latest round of cutbacks, according to a story published Tuesday on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site. The Journal quoted an unnamed person familiar with the McLean, Va.-based company’s thinking.

Previous Gannett layoffs

Large media conglomerate Gannett has been struggling for years — since before the recession hit. The New York Times says:

The company’s United States and British newspaper divisions eliminated more than 10,000 jobs in 2007 and 2008, including about 2,000 layoffs last fall, and Gannett executives have said repeatedly that they expect more downsizing, including layoffs. The company, which also owns a chain of television stations and Internet ventures, ended last year with 41,500 employees, including 35,800 in its newspaper divisions.

Some Gannet-owned newspapers have reported recently rejecting union agreements from Gannett that would significantly cut salaries.

The larger problem

Though Gannett is the largest newspaper company in the United States, and thus has had the largest layoffs and money loss, it certainly isn’t the only newspaper struggling. The Associated Press reports:

Most other major newspaper publishers also are reeling from a devastating one-two punch — the longest U.S. recession since World War II coupled with intensifying Internet competition for readers and advertising. To cope, the troubled publishers have trimmed their payrolls, lowered wages and, in the most extreme cases, filed for bankruptcy protection.

Magazines going down, too

USA Today is Gannett's largest newspaper.

Newspapers aren’t the only printed media with problems, either. Yesterday Vibe Magazine, one of the country’s biggest music magazine, announced it will shut down. Vibe Magazine was one of two U.S. magazines that covered hip-hop and R&B. That leaves The Source as the only nationwide magazine left to cover those musical genres.

Rock-centric magazine Blender shut down last year, though it still maintains a presence on the web. Vibe Magazine has not yet reported whether it ill continue its web site.