The American Journalism Review reports that in several surveys, newspapers prosper when they pay attention to some pretty basic stuff:
- Providing excellent customer service
- Improving editorial and advertising content
- Building recognition and loyalty through stronger brand promotion
- Reforming management and culture.
Now those may sound pretty basic but implementing those kind of improvements can be trick and that's because of newspaper culture itself. Good newspaper reporters, I've found in 15 years in the biz at papers or all sizes (and egos), are lone wolves. They are contrarion by nature. They don't like authority. Rules have to make good sense to be followed. Reporters don't like to follow rules just because someone says so. Good reporters are independent types who think outside the box. Now, all of the things that makes for good reporters often makes for a poor company man (or woman). And yet, in this case at least, it would be in a reporter's own best interest to be a bit more broad in his or her worldview when it comes to the idea that
the newspaper is a business.
Most reporters, I think, will immediately recognize that their primary task is improving editorial content. But most will also think that it's someone else's job in the organization to worry about everything else. It isn't.
It's their job. Reporters, too, are in the customer service business. We meet our subscribers and our advertisers every day. And while we often meet them in the role of newsgathering, there's nothing to say we can be polite and helpful to those who have questions or comments about our business.
Similarly, we are in the brand building and recognition game. We've all seen the print reporter show up at a press conference who looks like a slob and acts like a boor. What does that do for the paper's brand? Now, I'm not somme pollyanna who believes we have to toe some corporate line, wear plastic smiles and a club tie, and perfect a firm handshake, but a recognition by newsroom employees that we're all in the business of finding and keeping readers and that we do that in a number of ways would go a long towards stemming readership declines and even reverse them.
[The AJR link is via Tom Mangan's blog]