Three Experts Offer Hard Truths on Future for Newspapers

By: E&P Staff The closing panel at E&P's 2006 Interactive Media Conference and Trade Show on Friday featured three longtime industry figures discussing the future of newspapers in an online world, with several hard truths hammered home.

They were Tom Mohr, president of KnightRidder Digital; Jim Kennedy, head of strategic planning for The Associated Press, and Colby Atwood, vice president of Borrell Associates.

The panel, moderated by E&P Editor Greg Mitchell, was followed by the handing out of the EPpy Awards (see separate article).

Here are a few quotes and notes on what the three men said.

TOM MOHR, Knight Ridder:

-- "I believe the opportunities for newspapers online are huge. . . . Newspapers are a $40 billion business." Resources are not the problem.

-- It's a product problem. Every key advertising vertical affects the newspaper industry. There has been only limited newspaper involvement in these ventures. "We've been on the sidelines."

-- "We need to understand the challenge that we face. Our greatest asset is the fact that newspapers are local, but that's also our greatest challenge. Why? We have to recognize that online is a technology-play first. Technology companies win for one reason: top talent."

-- Network economics: As membership in the network grows, value grows for each member. We have not figured out how to participate in network economics.

-- We must create product solutions through partnerships, if not ownerships, and deliver top-tier product.

-- We must come together into top-tier platform networks; maybe one network with single platform, although previous efforts notably failed. Shared content services, channel management, ad operations that are measured locally. Benefits: reduction in cost, create sites that are truly best-in-class because we can afford it. The opportunity to have one advertising platform; you might even be able to create bargaining power between yourself and the portals. "Our opportunity is huge."

-- "The key issue is to determine that you're retaining enough value for advertisers in traditional products--while aggressively pushing new technologies."

JIM KENNEDY, AP

-- "Search has become the entry point for all kinds of content." And we know the value of social community sites. In the next five years, those two forces will be fully integrated into all platforms.

-- We're not talking about web sites, we're talking about three screens where the user is going to call up information.

-- "Young people have not learned the same old habits." They have grown up with instant access, IMing, and search; that's what they're good on. "That old thing that once they get a mortgage and a family they'll come back to newspapers is a fantasy."

-- We need to think about partnerships. You can't fight that system of distribution. It's not about creating a Google deal; it's about optimizing the power that is out there; that's the grid that people are going to be plugged into.

-- The innovation is taking place right under our noses in many ways at startups.

-- We need to reinvent the print and broadcast models. We don't need to compete on the technology front, but we can optimize our opportunities. AP very much encouraging bureaus, at home and abroad, to provide video.


COLBY ATWOOD, Borrell

-- We try to see what the major trends are and guide our clients; what we're so intrigued to watch is the train wreck between local advertisers and the big guys like google.

-- "A lot of small companies are very aggressively doing local advertising to reach local advertisers, but doing it on giant search engines." The race is on for sure; the two sides have different assets. Newspapers have the local relationships and the brands.

-- "The main trend that's happening is that we're moving towards people being able to get any information they want at any time, wherever they are." Very fine segments; very modular pieces of information.

-- The flow of information in two directions: it's not just source of the news to the consumer; it's the source of the news being the consumer. We're going to be more reliant on each other than we have ever been -- a global supersystem.

-- Targeted online advertising will take over. More activity with online promotions; online programs that don't involve a medium. You respond directly to someone and you get 20 percent off, etc. Consequences for mass media are troubling; you're up against category killers.

-- Communities want to know about themselves. "There are citizens out there that know more about a particular topic than reporters do."