The ‘Secret Weapon’ of Newspapers in the Digital Age? Paper!

William Powers, Media Columnist, The Nation, USA

Paper is an island of peace in the digital ’chaos’ and an ’emerging strength’ for media which demands much more examination, William Powers said in his keynote address to the annual Readership Conference.

“The world needs - desperately needs - what newspapers do,” said Mr Powers , the media columnist for The Nation magazine in the United States and author of “Hamlet’s Blackberry,” an essay on the enduring power of paper.

Digital media have well-known advantages, but many people often overlook the things that print does better, he said. Newspapers would do well to exploit these qualitative advantages. Among other things, paper “frees up the brain to think,” he said.

Though the limitless internet is “wonderful in many ways,” its vastness is also its “greatest flaw,” said Mr Powers.

“When you’re reading an article on a screen, your mind is conscious of all the other information that’s just a click away - from your inbox to the latest headlines to your bank account to a billion You Tube videos. Thus, instead of escaping other demands on your attention as you read, you are mentally fending off those demands every moment you’re at the screen.”

The fact the paper is “disconnected from the digital grid” isn’t a negative attribute - it’s paper’s “secret weapon” and bears scrutiny, he said.

“In a multi-tasking world where pure focus is harder and harder to come by, I believe print media’s seclusion from the Web is an emerging strength. Paper is a still-point for the consciousness, an escape from the never-ending busyness and burdens of the screen. It’s an island in the chaos. Rather than ‘everything all the time,’ paper’s slogan could be ‘Just this one thing.’

Read the full presentation here (download at the bottom of the page).

Low-cost, effective innovations in print

Thomas Drensek, Head of Offset Printing, Axel-Springer, Germany

When people think of media innovation, they’re likely to think of digital innovation. But the print world is on the move as well.

Mr Drensek presented the surprisingly diverse things Axel-Springer is doing with paper and print, thanks to its state-of-the-art printing plant in Ahrensburg. “We have re-invented printing,” he said. “Newspapers are on the move.”

Axel-Springer, one of Europe’s largest publishers, is part of the Print Quality initiative, which has demonstrated that small improvements in print quality can lead to increases in sales.

Here are some of the innovations described by Mr Drensek that are being used in Axel-Springer publications:

  Coated coldset papers, which offer higher quality than coldset and less cost than heatset.

  Combination of conventional and coloured paper in the same newspaper.

  Combination of conventional and transparent paper in the same newspaper.

  Cover pages on all section fronts can be covered with a half-page cover.

  Broadsheet sections with tabloid pullouts.

  Integration of single page supplements .

  Perforated pages that can be torn out of the newspaper.

  Luminescent and scented inks.

  Different kinds of inserts - puzzles, samples, posters.

Turning the Tide: Growth Strategies in Difficult Times

Randy Bennett, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Newspaper Association of America

The circulation slide of US newspapers is well documented: the number of weekday and weekend readers has slipped 6 percent since 2002, and the percentage of adults reading on an average weekday has fallen 12.6 percent.

But those figures don’t tell the whole story, particular when compared with declines in television news viewing and news magazine readership, which have fared worse And the declines don’t mean that US newspapers have given up the battle to reverse the trend. In fact, they’ve reacted with innovation and are expanding their reach, particularly when websites and niche publications are also counted in the readership mix, said Mr Bennett.

“Despite what you’re hearing, the US newspaper industry isn’t in a death spiral,” he says. “We’re not feeling so well, but it’s still a vibrant industry. As newspapers develop into multimedia companies, we expect progress going forward.”

His presentation focused on newspaper innovation and a growth strategy that re-defines the “newspaper” based on its core strengths in a multi-media world. The strategy involves eight elements; here are four of them:

  Create a hub of local community activity, communication and information.

  Embrace a “needs-based” approach to product development.

  Aggregate audience segments with relevant content on preferred platforms.

  Curate/aggregate content from a range of sources.

Mr Bennett presented a wide variety of newspaper innovations and successful strategies that are working, even in the difficult US market.

Partnering with the social networks

Lara Ankersmit, Publisher, Telegraaf.nl, The Netherlands

How can newspapers tap into the social networking phenomenon?

The Telegraaf in The Netherlands did so through sport, and the value of such partnerships is immediately apparent.

The Telegraaf created two on-line competitions and provided editorial content around the Euro 2008 football championship and the Beijing Olympics to Hyves.nl, the most popular social network in The Netherlands. In return, it got new users, brand awareness, and additional values for its advertisers.

“They really liked to work with us because we have the editorial content they don’t have,” says Ms Ankersmit.

The contest for Euro 2008 involved predicting the winner. By using Hyves, The Telegraaf was able to take advantage of the network’s “send to a friend” function and an associated widget for users home pages that allowed them to see how they were performing against their friends. The contest had 170,000 participants - 110,000 through Hyves and 60,000 through the Telegraaf’s sports site, Telesport.

For the Olympics, the Telegraaf provided editorial content to a Hyves web section dedicated to the events which included blogs from Telegraaf reporters in Beijing and other stories from the Telegraaf sports team in Amsterdam.

Ms Ankersmit said the partnership provided strong branding tied to popular sports events, more than 170,000 registrations and e-mail addresses, and branded content on two major websites tTelesport and Hyves).

Lessons from the Young Reader Prize winners

Aralynn Mcmane, Director of Young Reader Programs, World Association of Newspapers

During the World Young Reader Prize presentation ceremony, Dr McMane shared some ideas that winning newspapers are successfully using to atrract young readers.

Among her key points:

  Be sure to cover things that relate to their “life stage firsts” - first pay check, first blog post, first car, first trip abroad, etc.

  Engage in the causes that mean something to young people.

  Produce your content on all the platforms young people use.

  Make sure your stories accurately reflect young people. “You cant talk down to them,” says Mr Mcmane, you have to include them in your ‘regular’ stories.”

For more on the Young Reader Prize winners and their successful strategies, click here.