News-Record.com

Outing says it's hard to talk with editors and publishers or even find a way to contact them. I just tested that yesterday as I was compiling a mass e-mail invitation to newspaper folks around the state to come to ConvergeSouth. I was able to find e-mails and phone numbers for top executives everywhere except the N&O, which surprised me. It's not that hard to get ahold of me or of my boss, the president and publisher of the News & Record. I try to return my calls and respond to letters and e-mails. And then there's this forum.

Is it hard to reach reporters and photographers? I hope not. If you send e-mail to one of our staffers and don't get a response, let me know. I'll help you out.

Newspapers should think small because of the nature of the Internet, and because the Internet is critical to the future of newspapers -- as in, they still need to better adapt to doing business in an environment where the next generation of readers/customers chooses to interact with them in the online medium.

Outing says that newspapers must be interactive. It's people -- and especially its managers -- need to get down and dirty with their readers. (Oddly, at least in this forum, his column does not enable comments.)

We're going to have more staff blogs. We're awaiting a platform change before creating more and we're having some issues with our vendor. I'd love everyone on the staff to blog, but I'm reluctant to require it right now. Don't tell anyone, but the dirty little secret is that some journalists wouldn't pass muster with Miss Manners. We don't have the best social skills. One of the things that makes reporters good is tenacity, a refusal to accept "no" and asking a question seven different ways until a source answers. We have all those personality traits that make good investigators but are annoying at dinner parties. Is everyone a good blogger? I'm thinking not so much. But they can answer e-mails and phone calls from readers.

I've banned discussion by me about enabling comments on stories because I've promised it so often I don't even believe myself. Suffice it to say that it's still on our to-do list.

Some other points Outing makes:
* Newspapers should enter seemingly small, unusual new businesses. Yes. The idea that ebay, Google, Craigslist, Angie's List, Topix, MySpace were not created by newspaper companies has not been lost on us. But we're also keeping an eye on our core competency. (That means that we wouldn't open a downtown restaurant, but a bar? Hmmm.)
* Stop being afraid to innovate. It less fear than it is keeping our nose to the grindstone. It's hard to put out a different product every day. It's hard to innovate. The culture of the organization needs to encourage innovation, which we're trying to do with varying degrees of success.
* Don't hire people just to complete tasks; hire innovators. This is an adjustment we realize but we're making slowly because of the tasks we must complete. We'll get faster.

As I said, the reviews are mixed. Parts of the company are big; others are small and getting smaller.