Well, me.
And, most likely, you.
“We’re like a battleship; it takes a long time to change direction,” a senior newspaper exec told me decades ago, trying to calm my impatience with the pace of a large project. “But when we change course, we’ve got awesome firepower.”
Well, the firepower is greatly diminished, and the great, gray battleships are finding it harder to fight off pesky opponents circling them.
Speedy decisions and rapid implementation are essential to survival.
As most newspaper companies come out of two years of cost-cutting, is the industry alive with a thousand new strategies and ideas, or are the budgets being perused for just another round of cost-cutting since ideas and speed are in short supply?
“Every day I read Romenesko,” another industry friend told me recently. “and it’s the same thing from a year ago. Is anybody moving forward with any kind of speed, doing anything?”
Yes.
In the middle of the country, in the heart of Texas, there is a paper that is bucking that creaky, go-slow mentality at a time when it is essential for the industry to change, and change rapidly.
They are not a battleship; they are more like a PT boat.
Six months ago the Waco Tribune-Herald, formerly a Cox Newspapers paper, was sold to local owners, Robinson Media Company (Clifton Robinson and Gordon Robinson).
A lot has changed; no, everything has changed. But you haven’t heard much about it.
Contrary to what most of you likely think about Texans (and I am one), they are sometimes prone to understatement, and avoid bragging. (Anyway, like they say, it ain’t bragging if it’s true.)
There’s not a lot of industry talk about what’s going on at the Trib, and that’s just fine with the folks at the paper.
Their audience is their community; not those covering the newspaper industry’s woes. They’re not trying to please Wall Street; they’re trying to please Main Street.
Since the sale, circulation has steadily increased, ad revenue is growing, there is a re-emphasis on local news. And new reporters are being hired. Tell me how many newspapers are creating and filling new reporter positions?
Waco is.
And, incredibly, Waco has launched a brand new Web site – from ground zero (no contracts or vendors finalized) less than four months ago – to a clean, sharp, snappy Web presence today.
Take a look: www.wacotrib.com.
Now that the site is launched, Phase Two additions are under way now; Phase Three is coming.
What is even more remarkable here is that, prior to the sale, Waco’s Web presence was delivered to a great degree on a platter by COXnet, a group I ran as General Manager until it dissolved as Cox sold nine of its daily papers. Not always did the papers want everything on the platter, because some strategies were centralized and everyone participated. But for the most part they didn’t have to worry about vetting, and running, hosting, infrastructure, content management system, classified vendors, product development and everything that is not obvious to the public but makes up the Web site.
Under the old structure, they had the keys to the car, and produced a great site, sold advertising and were strong in their community. But they never got to leave the driveway with the car.
Now, they’ve not only got the keys, but they’re ripping up and down the highway, own their site, don’t have any ties – and that can be good or bad – to a mother ship.
As the day for launch came close, there was a feeling of the importance of the moment. For 33 years, Cox owned the Waco paper.
Ecstatic about the new ownership and management and what has been done for the paper, there was still a sense of this is a big deal, and the Web change is the final cutting of the cord to Cox.
Former publisher Dan Savage, who came out of retirement to work with the Robinsons to create a community-centric Trib, talked about that in an editorial board meeting. He talked of how monumental it was for the paper, its people and the city.
I relate to Dan’s view: I ran the COXnet group, and then I came in to lead the Waco Web transition project. There is irony there – working for years to knit www.wacotrib.com into the old infrastructure. Then working to break those ties and set them on their way.
What can your newspaper achieve in 94 days?
Take a look at the Trib and see what they did. Spend some time looking around. The site deserves your focus.
But I bet many of you wonder why it worked in Waco, while much of the industry seems to be stuck in neutral.
That’s in my next blog.