Another issue of American Journalism Review, another issue packed with timely pieces. If only every newspaper was as good as this magazine that covers them.
Here’s a piece that speaks directly to the economics of running a paper like the Hesperia Star:
There were 600 newspaper people at the New York Press Association conference in Saratoga Springs in April 2006, ages 18 to 80, all races, men, women, straight, gay — whatever variation of newsperson you might imagine. English, Creole, Spanish, Hindi and more were heard in the halls.
The energy could have lifted the roof off the old Gideon Putnam Hotel.
That was the first time I heard it: Weekly newspapers are the only growing niche in print journalism.
Tom Ward, a refugee from chain dailies in Woonsocket and West Warwick, Rhode Island, told me how he started the free-circulation Valley Breeze with two colleagues in his living room in Cumberland, a growing suburb between the two aging mill towns. That was 10 years ago; in 2006, he had just moved to modern offices and was putting out an ad-heavy, 68-page-plus tab.
I spent a morning with Paul Bass, who after 25 years in print founded the online, nonprofit New Haven Independent (newhavenindependent.org) to cover the hometown news he perceived newspapers were ignoring. Using NPR as his model, he obtained grants from various foundations — to cover health-care issues, for instance (see “Nonprofit News,” February/March) — and relies on readers’ contributions to make up the difference.
Tim Ryan, president and publisher of the Westerly Sun in Rhode Island, instructed me in the benefits of “localness” beyond what a daily can provide. He had spun off four free-circulation broadsheets to attract very local advertisers.
There was no shortage of advice: from Ron and Charlotte Bartizek, who had owned the Dallas Post in Pennsylvania; from Tony Jones and Vicki Simons, who grew the tiny Roe Jan Independent into the countywide Hillsdale Independent in New York; from Gary and Helen Sosniecki at the Vandalia Leader in Missouri.
In short, it didn’t take long to figure out that many brainy, ambitious, independent people had already done what I was determined to do. Bob Estabrook, former Washington Post editorial page editor, then the paper’s chief foreign correspondent, clinched it for me: His three-decade association with the Lakeville Journal in Connecticut — beginning when he was about my age, 54 — were the most satisfying years of his life, he said.
Along the way it had dawned on me: 90 percent of the businesses on any Main Street — pizza joints, dry cleaners, gift shops — have simply been priced out of advertising in the dailies.
And not because of the cost of putting out a newspaper; no, those hefty if shrinking profit margins are needed, not just for operating expenses, but to pay off massive debt and keep up the stock price.
Middling-sized chain dailies are looking to average $15 to $20 an inch for advertising; the open rate is often twice that. Working through the numbers, it looked to me like a weekly could survive, even flourish, at $7, $8 or $9 an inch. Bingo.
The economics of 21st century weekly newspapering rapidly came into focus. Only one computer was serviceable at the level we were moving to. For just $7,000, we obtained two workhorse Dells, five PCs and a copier. Every town has techies galore — ours was Mike Hand from Cherry Valley — and he networked us, hanging wire over the firehouse’s primitive beams.
Within a matter of days, predawn 55-mile drives to the printer were a thing of the past. With a click and a drag, we could load the newspaper onto our printer’s FTP site, then take a leisurely drive up the following morning to pick up that week’s masterpiece.
We spent $1,000 on a Canon EOS-20D, (now down to $799). I commandeered M.J.’s Canon PowerShot ($350 then, $280 now) as backup. Our photography challenges were resolved.
M.J. and I identified cost centers, and pinched them off one by one.
We had a circulation driver — I loved his red, white and blue Mohawk — but when the June 2006 Susquehanna flooding stranded him at home in Schenevus, we discovered we could do without him and save $500 a week. M.J. and I each took a route, and divided the rest up among the staff.
A printing house in Utica was handling subscriptions, another $500 a week. Bill Garber’s Interlink of Berrien Springs, Michigan, provided the program that allows us to print our own labels and cut postage to about $200. Mailing the papers from Cooperstown (and Hartwick, and Fly Creek) also got them to subscribers sooner. (Half of the papers are delivered and half are mailed.)
Printing is a competitive business. We were paying $1,200 a week. If we paid by check at the loading dock, we could print for half that at Sun Printing in Norwich, New York, a shorter drive, too.
Those steps alone, a little dead-reckoning arithmetic will tell you, saved tens of thousands.
(A caveat: Watch your expenses. When, after a year, we moved to well-appointed new offices on the other side of town, the new desks, new phones, carpet and wiring resulted in the one major bump in our fiscal road to date.)
Ironically, we at the Star can benefit very little from this article, since we’re already doing most of this. Still, it’s nice to see someone else do the math and come up with a similar number.
Tonight, the Hesperia Star won the most SPJ awards in the paper’s eight year history: Five, including two for editorial writing.
