By: Joe Strupp Six newspapers, including The Boston Globe and The Dallas Morning News, have been chosen to participate in an American Press Institute project aimed at helping them create new ideas to stimulate readership and improve business structures.
API's "Newspaper Next" campaign is a year-long project that will spend $2.25 million to help the industry discover new business models. One element of the campaign is the Disruptive Innovation Advisory Program, in which API has retained Innosight LLC, a consulting firm to work with each newspaper to help institute the initiatives each newspaper has created.
"It's a great group of projects," Stephen Gray, Newspaper Next managing director, said in a statement. "They range in focus from audiences to advertisers to building organizational capabilities. These will provide living laboratories to demonstrate the innovation potential that exists among newspaper companies."
The Globe's project is described by API as creating "new mechanisms and business models to deliver profitable leads and sales to businesses too small to use the traditional solutions of a sizable newspaper." The Morning News, meanwhile, "wants to develop a one-stop resource where busy mothers can find trusted recommendations and other high-value information to help them master their biggest challenge: parenting," API said.
The remaining four newspapers and their projects are;
? Gannett Co. Inc. - Selecting one of its mid-sized papers "for development of an organization structure able to drive and sustain innovation, adaptable to other newspaper units of larger or smaller size."
? Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch - Experiment "with novel research techniques to gain unique insights into the pressing problems Richmond businesses can't solve adequately with today's advertising solutions."
? The Record of Hackensack, N.J. - Reviewing "its online efforts from scratch to meet key information and community-engagement needs for a wider range of users, including those with little interest in the news."
? The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. - Working with a "newsroom team on strategies to increase readership in a fast-growing suburban area."
API received 18 applications from newspapers wanting to be part of the program, the institute reported. The six papers that were selected will receive guidance from Innosight for up to four month, including two day-long sessions and weekly conference calls to review progress.
API stated that the projects "will serve as practical demonstrations of the innovation tools and processes under development in the yearlong Newspaper Next project, and will be included in the final report and recommendations this fall."
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