Like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle, my friend Dan last month walked back into the publisher’s office he once occupied at a medium-size Texas newspaper.
He hasn’t been asleep in the Catskills the last four years. He’s been on his motorcycle cruising past the Tetons, hurtling across the desert. He was at his ranch home off Galleywinter Lane (it’s a Texas country song, too), calling his Longhorns to the fence line the way you or I would call the dogs to the back door.
He left four years ago because it was the right thing to do; he came back last month because it was the right thing to do.
His other retired publisher friends said he was crazy, but no more than normal. He’s just glad to be back in the saddle again (on a temporary basis), helping a friend who bought the paper transition it from its former corporate ownership to local ownership once again.
A lot has happened in the four years since he left. Papers have died, others moved to online only, staffing has shrunk. Grabbing a big ad contract is about as easy as chasing down a tumbleweed on the prairie west of his ranch.
Dan and I, and those on his management team, worked closely together in a different lifetime, not that long ago. Through the years, I visited his paper 30-plus times, and it was always a place you’d want to be. Real people. Doers, not talkers. No pretense or preening or posing. Just get it done, and get it done right.
So it’s been natural to pick up the conversation, to be there when he wants to chat, and bounce ideas off of each other on the transition and newspapering in general. He knows he missed four years, so wonders if he ‘s missed something of value, or lost touch. Nah. In fact, most of us in the business would agree that if four years had to disappear, those would be at the top of the list.
As I said in one of our emails: “…being out of the business and coming back in and taking a fresh look is probably just what is needed right now there, and in about a thousand other newspapers these days.”
Which raises the question: As newspapers and media companies rebuild, will they learn from history, repeat old mistakes, strike out in bold new ways, stick to comfortable paths?
Every newspaper is different, and every financial sheet is different so one size doesn’t fit all. Some weathered the downturn better than others; some did worse than their counterparts. So, one size doesn’t fit all.
But there must be some truisms that work for the “new” newspaper industry, and I asked myself: What would Dan do?
• Protect local news, on the Web and in print. It’s the main thing a paper has going for it; if coverage dies, the paper follows.
• Maintain church and state, but treat ad people with the same ranking and respect that newsrooms receive.
• To repeat a Web-ism popular after the first bubble burst, don’t do something just because you can. What’s the business reason for adding this feature, or that Web tool? Sometimes it’s just for quality reasons, and that is a valid business reason, too.
• Avoid ill-defined jobs with no real or obvious contribution to quality or revenue. They sprouted as newspapers got intrigued with the Web about a decade ago, and many have disappeared in the cutbacks. But be cautious in adding jobs that don’t directly increase revenue or improve quality.
• Ban 65-page PowerPoint presentations, whether done under the guise of Business Intelligence, knowledge sharing or whatever. Instead of a 65-slide PowerPoint, how about a shorter, simpler game plan where something is actually DONE, other than watching a PowerPoint.
• Follow up. Ever attend a meeting where plans that rival the Normandy invasion were unfurled for senior management? Whatever happens to those plans? Anything concrete, like revenue?
• Make everyone a part of the solution; employees will actually love this. More stake in the outcome; contributions and ideas gladly accepted.
• Make everyone accountable. Ad salespeople have goals to meet. Newsrooms have pages to fill, and ethics and editing guidelines to follow. Are there standards and goals for others? Marketing, product, business development? Tangible, measurable goals? Again, employees will like it, because their voice is heard, and they also know that everyone is working to the goal, and no one is along for the ride.
• Look at a vendor relationship as a partnership. You are buying a product, but you are also buying a relationship, customer service and responsiveness. Do your vendors return your calls promply, or at all? Remember, you are the customer.
• Avoid the bureaucratic padding that grew like moss under a rock at some big papers over the last decade. Maybe a “director” is more hands-on, and you don’t have a “deputy director” or a “manager” in the structure, unless you have a heckuva large role, department or function.
• Media groups and big papers should consider modeling their operations like small to medium size newspapers. This doesn’t mean quality suffers; we can all name plenty of smaller papers that we think perform better than some bigger papers, quality-wise. What does this mean: hold meetings as needed, but stick to the point, and make decisions. Don’t allow internal turf battles and kingdom-building; it’s all about the paper and its mission, and survival, not the individual. Respect your community and be involved; don’t talk down to your readers. Build a community of ideas with your readers; not all knowledge sprouts from the newspaper, so find a way to truly, not superficially, engage readers. This requires work.
Does this solve everything? No way, but I’m guessing that these are some of the things Dan would do. For starters.