Newspapers plot their interactive strategies on the fly p. 33

By: Mark Fitzgerald

ACCORDING TO THE latest survey, about 2,700 U.S. newspapers can consider themselves "interactive newspapers."
But they constitute a giant Rookie League ? a lot of potential with no experience in the majors. And the competition is about to start throwing curve balls.
Further, in this interactive game, newspapers have yet to win over the important fans, warned Goldman, Sachs & Co. securities analyst Eric Philo.
"Investors really do not view newspapers as beneficiaries of communicopia. They are really viewed as victims of communicopia," Philo said. Goldman, Sachs coined the term "communicopia" to suggest the riches of the multimedia future.
Despite these challenges, however, newspapers are charging headlong into interactive media.
An attitude that newspapers should act now and strategize later characterized many remarks heard in the meeting rooms, halls and receptions during the recent "Interactive Newspapers '94" conference in Tampa Bay, Fla., sponsored by Editor & Publisher and the Kelsey Group.
Indeed, ask newspaper multimedia marketers what their strategy is and the answer often amounts to a kind of nonstrategy.
For example, "Our strategy is to place a series of small bets" on many technologies, said Randy Charles, director of marketing and new business development at Newsday.
That was the advice to newspapers right from the start of the conference.
"The only way to survive these challenges is to be involved," St. Petersburg Times publisher Andrew Barnes said as he opened the meeting. "Going to conferences is not enough. Reading about it is not enough."
To a certain extent, this frenetic rush reflects fear and uncertainty. On the other hand, it also reflects an increasing awareness among newspapers that they bring some big advantages into the new multimedia world.
For in many ways, the arcane language of cyberspace only obscures fundamental tasks that newspapers have been performing since the dawn of movable type: Gathering, evaluating, packaging and selling information.
"People talk about graphic user interfaces (GUIs) [pronounced gooeys]. Well, the fact of the matter is, we've been dealing with these issues for decades," said Don Brazeal, editor and publisher of Washington Post Co.'s Digital Ink.
Many newspaper functions will become only more important in interactive media, Brazeal argued.
"Anyone who thinks we won't need editors anymore has never been an editor watching the [Associated Press] wire come into the newsroom," he said. "There will still be the need for editors to save time [and] to guide readers to the stories.