Newscoma

This was sent to me and I have to say, it’s really refreshing seeing news organizations making the required adjustments in how the present the news.

With that said, I also want to add that the largest challenge for some, not all, independently-owned newspapers has been that they focus on cutting staff instead of allowing the folks on staff who are “internet evangelists” to be taken seriously, which is a huge mistake.

Has that been a challenge for the smaller papers?

Carroll: We have 40 smaller newspapers that are part of our Digital Production Center Network, which means we handle their production for them so they can operate 24/7 websites and can turn around the content. Our test site for moving to a continous news operation was in Wilmington, Del. When we launched and they restructured their operation to do that, in the first month they had an increase of 2 million page views. So we realized that a news site needs to be a news site and be constantly updated.

We had to adjust some staffing and got really good at rapid fire updates. It’s a news wire or AP model, and we had to realize that a fender bender is just as important as a five-car crash. The larger papers have the production staff to do their own websites and the smaller papers do not. They are still in charge of doing their content, but we just do the production for them.

The article focuses on niche publications and how to engage the community to be a part of the online operation.

The independently owned newspapers who will allow themselves to not consistently think about their deadwood product (which in all honesty is still the money maker) and readjust their efforts on creating a balance will get through the newspaper crisis.

News is news for journalists. Whether it’s on paper or online, it still doesn’t change and that’s what journalists need to remember who don’t have the access to forward thinking of publishers and owners who have put their head in the sand.