By Susan Karol, Ph.D.
Executive Director, SNA Foundation

During the keynote address at the recent annual convention of the New England Newspaper and Press Association in Boston, American Opinion Research CEO Anthony Casale spoke about trends in the current newspaper environment based on more than 500 media research studies they have conducted.

Mr. Casale described "Five Facts of Life in Today's Media Environment" that media executives need to understand in order to build audience in the future. These include:

• The mass market no longer exists. Information has become a "commodity," particularly with all of the online portals now available.
• Readers are the ones in command.
• The franchise for some of news and information newspapers have traditionally provided is now owned by others. In one research finding, when asked "How often have you seen front page stories before picking up the newspaper?" — 44% responded 'almost always' and an additional 44% responded 'sometimes.'

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By Deb Shaw
Editor, Suburban Publisher

Your staffs are streamlined; hiring freezes are in place; and, as multi-media leaps into more channels than ever, you are facing the reality of needing to do more with less. Are you afraid to tell your already overworked and underpaid staff members that they are about to get even more work heaped on them? Well, according to the editors who contributed to Leading An Online Newsroom: What You Need to Know* point out, you shouldn't be.

The additional duties of writing for, posting and engaging your audience digitally are — perhaps surprisingly — embraced by many reporters and editors. They know what you know: The Web and its long tail are the future. Not only do they want in on it, many want to help develop and lead the many new initiatives that are part and parcel of today’s journalism.

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By Tanya Henderson
Advertising & Membership Relations Director, SNA

The hunter/farmer theory isn’t new in our industry. We’ve conducted many webinars and presentations where newspapers are actively organizing around staff that fit these updated descriptions of those that are top performers that are best cold calling for new business and those that are better with customer service and maintaining existing accounts.

What may be new is how this relates to the argument of unified or separate online staffs.

Maybe there’s a Hitch in your organization

Mike Blinder of The Blinder Group moderated a panel at the SNA/SNPA Strategic Revenue Summit titled "Stop the Insanity." Mike kicked off the session noting that rather than debate whether we should have separate online teams or not, that maybe that’s not the right question. Maybe we should consider who the reps are and not what they are selling.

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