Online Offers Best Revenue Hope For Newspapers

And newspapers face fierce competition, yadayada — you know the drill. This AP story about a panel at the Associated Press Managing Editors annual conference going on this week in San Jose is chock full of the obvious from very earnest, bright people and precious little that advances the conversation.

Lynn Dickerson, publisher and president, The Modesto Bee: “The world is changing, and clearly the demand for our product is not as high as it once was. … I still think we’re the last collective effort for democracy. We’ve got to survive, and we’ve got to succeed.”

Peter Appert, senior analyst, Goldman Sachs: “From an economic standpoint, there are two solutions: Grow revenues faster or shrink costs. … Shrinking costs is not attractive, so it’s all about growing revenue.” Appert suggested — here’s the something sort of new and potentially dangerous — rethinking business plans, including the relationship between the editorial and advertising departments.

Rich Skrenta, CEO, Topix.net: “The problem is some information is becoming commoditized. Do you need people repackaging press releases or rewriting the same information?”

One constant theme: use the difference between newspapers and the rest of the info world as a selling point.

Comments have been disabled for this post