Newspapers Need To Change To Survive -- We All Know That – Except, Perhaps, The Existing Readers?

Philip M. Stone November 16, 2006

The Washington Post this week implemented its new policy of drastically reducing its financial tables in its print edition, saving about two pages of newsprint daily and that adds up to a considerable financial savings. But as might be expected some readers are not pleased and call the move “one more reason to cancel the newspaper.”

Not exactly what a newspaper that lost 3.3% of its circulation in the last six months really wants to hear.

Jill Dutt, assistant managing editor, financial, bravely went on the newspaper’s web site to chat with mostly angry subscribers about the deletion of most  financial tables -- full listings of individual shares and mutual funds would appear only in the Sunday Business section. There would only be abbreviated lists during the week, and while encouraging readers to tell her specific shares they wanted listed she also encouraged them to get slightly delayed share prices via the Internet.

And the typical reaction?

“For me and for so many other Washington Post customers, November 14, 2006 is the day that The Washington Post died. What numbskull thought that to save newsprint costs, it would be wise to perform a slash and burn edit of the stock tables. In this new reduced format, they are useless,” a reader wrote.

“Economics and business majors are taught to read the financial tables. We don't need this dumbed down version of stock listings. It is an insult to the intelligence of the average Washington Post reader to reduce these stock listings to an appreciated and consolidated ‘snapshot’.

“The criteria for what remains listed in the stock table is so arbitrary. I think the assignment was to back into the amount of space that you, as assistant managing editor, dictated to staff. This action has alienated and angered your readership.

“Just raise the newsstand price of an individual copy of The Post to 40 or 50 cents, resume the daily stock listings in the format that they last appeared in the Saturday, November 11, 2006 edition, and all is forgiven.

“Consider this as a very bad business decision, the likes of New Coke and the AOL-Time Warner merger, and resolve, to reverse the decision and promise never again to even consider such a stupid idea.”

Dutt admitted in her response that the change was not made for editorial excellence, but rather because “we can no longer justify the newsprint expense to publish everything.” She continued, “We are trying to start today in a dialog with all of you to keep these lists useful in a smaller space. But if you think they are useless, that we have reached some tipping point by reducing our stocks listings to the 1,000 largest (including all local companies even if they're not among the 1,000 largest) and 2,000 mutual funds, then I ought to know that.

“I considered and rejected going the way that some newspapers have gone: eliminating trading data for all but the 100 largest stocks or the 100 local stocks and instead publishing only trends and summaries of market activities overall. I see news value in publishing as many daily price change quotes as we can. But if others see advantages to taking a summary approach, with more graphics about general trends, I am open to considering that.”

Most readers are complaining that their particular shares are missing from the new tables and Dutt has taken the sensible decision of telling her readers to tell her which specific shares they want back into the shortened lists and she’ll put them back. Adding a couple of hundred lines of agate type is not the end of the world.

Many major US newspapers – the New York Times, The Los Angles Times, The Chicago Tribune among them – have gone a similar if not more severe route. And all have had objections, but none have changed back.

Before those newspapers took the step to eliminate most tables the revamped and compact Wall Street Journal Europe made a similar change and this writer in his review of the new newspaper on its first day  called those changes “fatal errors”. Apparently not too fatal as the WSJE has apparently picked up new advertisers, if not much new circulation, but apart from the first day that paper was relaunched and those changes were discovered that paper hasn’t passed under this writer’s eyes since because the information sought just plain isn’t there any more.

And before you ask, yes there is a difference between a financial newspaper making those sorts of changes and generalist newspapers doing so.

The truth is, of course, that for those of us with PCs and Internet access finding out the 20-minute delayed price of our favorite share is easily accomplished on the web. But for those of us who don’t have Blackberrys or similar and find ourselves in circumstances where we can’t access the Internet-- for instance, on an early morning plane – then not being able to find full stock tables in the newspaper is an absolute bummer.  And newspapers should not forget that many of their readers are older and not as savvy about the Internet as we might all think. For some of them, if it’s not in their daily newspaper then they just don’t get that information.

At least Dutt admits the changes were made for economic reasons – to save on newsprint—not too many publications have actually made that admission. The Post may lose a few subscribers because of the change but the back-office accountants who know exactly what saving two pages of newsprint daily means versus the loss of a few subscriptions will be very pleased with the financial result.

Her readers made interesting financial comments – they are not stupid – and Dutt’s various responses really go a long way in explaining newspaper economics today.

One reader said that if forced to the Internet for pricing information then there was no point in reading the business section and that would displease advertisers. She responded quite bluntly “The revenue we generate by publishing ads in the financial markets listings table is not enough to offset the considerable costs of printing the listings.”

She made it clear the two pages were gone. They will not return. But she was ready to accept as many requests as she could to fill the remaining pages with specific share listings that her readers wanted.

The Washington Post this week announced new ways of editorially producing its various multi-platform products, as did Gannett the week before. Change is in the air and hopefully readers will like what they see and new readers will join. But Dutt didn’t hold back in explaining to her readers the new realities of newspapers today.

“We made these cuts to save money for the newspaper. As all of you know, newspaper circulation has been declining for at least a decade and although The Post has weathered this decline better than many other papers, we are not immune to this trend. As circulation declines, advertising revenue eventually follows. When those two pillars of our business erode, we have to look to make cuts.

“The Post has instituted many new ways to manage its newsroom more efficiently, but we are committed to providing the highest-caliber reporting both within the Washington region and around the world. That's expensive. We are doing everything we can to save money with a minimal impact on readers. Since all other major metro dailies have cut their stock tables, and an increasing body of research that shows more people getting their investing data online, it was impossible for me not to make some sacrifices there.”

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