Reinvention without alienation?
Growing up, I played in a park that had a seesaw. It was always a challenge to walk from one end of the seesaw to the center and balance the two sides. Once there, my friends would try to throw me off by tipping the ends. I'd lean one way, then the other, and move down the sides, just to stayed balance and on top of things.
It feels that way in the news business, too. The Mercury News in San Jose is in the process of reinventing itself. At its blog, Rethinking the Mercury News, Chris O'Brien describes the daily struggle of every editor whose eyes are open. He breaks down reader suggestions:
1. We’re angry that you moved the puzzles, and keep moving them. Put them back.
2. We're angry about the TV guide being changed from a book format to the new, large format. It's unwieldy and annoying. Put it back.
...But this feedback also goes to the heart of the most difficult part of the process. We know the current newspaper is becoming less and less useful to people. So we want to reinvent it. But how do you do that without further alienating the 200,000-plus people who currently subscribe?
He nails it. That is the most difficult part. To answer his question, the smart money is on marrying print and digital in a way that appeals to the niche users of both, hanging onto print as it "evolves" and riding digital as it grows. But I don't sense that is the answer he's looking for. His question is directed specifically to the morning paper. He has a couple choices, I think.
1. Reinvent the paper for the 200,000-plus people who currently subscribe. Make it what they want. Give 'em the puzzles and TV book they want. Problem is, people who subscribe do so for a specific reason. Start messing with it and you upset them. If you don't want to upset them, you end up trying to do everything, which in these times of contraction, is usually not an option.
So you do what San Jose is doing: ask and listen. Useful means a lot of things, but at its core it means finding out what people are trying to get done in their lives and how can you help them. (The Newspaper Next model.) Then, the hard part comes: eliminate the content that doesn't isn't mentioned often or that isn't your specialty. You will upset some, but that is the price of strategic reinvention.
2. Make subtle changes that will attract new readers and please current readers. Harder than it sounds. Much of your content can be tweaked to appeal to both groups: more photography, easier navigation, more interesting stories. But some can't and you have to add, which costs money and takes space. Again, in these times of contraction, you face a zero-sum game, at best. And there is probably a reason that non-readers are non-readers. Subtle changes may not be enough.
In any event, both subtle and dramatic moves tip the balance on the seesaw.
Before you start anything, your first decision is to decide your niche. With mass on its way out, reinvention won't work under the same assumptions. Everything is niche. Determining what readers you want will help determine how you upset the balance.