“Online” Items

Coming Media Industry Storm, 1999 Speech

In February 1999, I gave a speech at the 10th Annual Interactive Newspapers Conference in Atlanta. At that time, the newspaper industry was still clinging to its traditional revenue pillars—print circulation, display ads, and, most crucially, classifieds. However, to me, there was no doubt that those pillars were now built upon shifting sands.

I gave the speech in my role as Director of Technology and Information Strategies for Central Newspapers. I wanted to issue a warning that time was short to hope that changes were evolutionary not revolutionary. Looking back, I’m particularly proud that I said that the internet was a fundamentally a different medium, not an extension of an existing medium.

I asked Chat GPT to read the transcript of the speech and write a post. [The full transcript is available here.] This is what AI wrote:

Drawing from his experience launching online ventures like ArizonaCentral.com and HomeFair.com, Howard Finberg projected a not-so-distant future in which classifieds—the cash cow for local papers—would erode significantly. Industry research was already signaling a potential 7% loss in bottom-line revenue. “Look around the room,” Finberg said. “Seven percent of us won’t be here next year unless other things happen.”

What followed was a clear-eyed, sometimes humorous, always practical exploration of how newspapers needed to reinvent themselves—organizationally, culturally, and strategically—for the internet era.

A New Business, Not a New Department

Finberg’s core message was that digital wasn’t just an add-on. It was a fundamentally different medium with different economics, content, and user behavior. Drawing a comparison to how early television mimicked radio before finding its own identity, he urged media leaders to stop thinking of the web as an “extension of print.”

Instead, he proposed a hybrid model he called Integrated Independence. The idea was to combine centralized resources (like shared technology platforms and content services) with localized control. Local newsrooms would have the freedom to tailor digital strategies to their communities while benefiting from corporate-level efficiencies. “Nobody knows the local markets better than the local publishers,” Finberg reminded the audience.

Breaking the Assembly Line

Finberg also called for deep structural and cultural change within newsrooms. The traditional assembly-line workflow—where one department handed off content to another in rigid steps—wasn’t going to cut it. He advocated for flatter hierarchies, shared knowledge, and team-driven processes where journalists were empowered to collaborate, experiment, and respond to audience needs in real-time.

One visual metaphor stood out: the future journalist not as a solitary reporter with a notebook, but a nimble, multi-skilled “first-on-the-scene” storyteller—equipped with audio, video, and digital tools, capturing stories from the ground up.

Talent, Risk, and Retention

Finberg was equally blunt about the staffing crisis on the horizon. Starting salaries in journalism couldn’t compete with emerging web companies offering equity and entrepreneurial freedom. “We face a real brain drain,” he warned. His solution? Pay strategically for “Hot Jobs,” break HR molds when needed, and—most importantly—offer employees the chance to learn, move, and grow. “We (must) reward failure,” he said, “by not penalizing it—and by encouraging the next try.”

A Call to Look Beyond

Perhaps the most striking element of Finberg’s talk was his push for the industry to stop looking only inward. “We need to start attending conferences outside our field,” he said. “Broadcasting, cable, tech—we have to see what others are doing.” It was a call for curiosity, humility, and horizon scanning—a mindset that still resonates today.

More than two decades later, many of the ideas in this talk—content re-usability (“author once, publish many”), cross-platform journalism, digital-first thinking, and agile teams—have become core to modern media strategy. But in 1999, this was revolutionary thinking.

Finberg’s presentation wasn’t just a roadmap. It was a challenge. A reminder that digital disruption wasn’t just coming—it had already arrived.

Traveler’s Gazette Fax Experiment, 1995

Some times it was fun to experiment.  In 1995, Phoenix Newspapers created a fax publication call the Traveler’s Gazette. The fax was sent to hotels that partnered with the paper. The hotel would copy the fax and distribute it.  The purpose of the two-page publication was to help visitors have a better time and provide a way for advertisers to reach those consumers.

Of course, this was also about the time that online would start to grow so the experiment was just that.

The benefit that the project provide was simple — an opportunity to think about serving a market outside of the newspaper readership.  The project was the idea of Dave Gianelli.  Dave and I worked on a number of new media projects during the late 1990s.

The Traveler’s Gazette was low-tech innovation that would help lay the groundwork for AzCentral’s launch later that year, as Phoenix Newspapers explored more scalable, digital ways to reach new audiences. The focus on travel was one of the early pillars of AzCentral. It’s online area for visitors to Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun was very robust.

I sent a copy of the Traveler’s Gazette to Randy Bennett, the Newspaper Association of America’s new media director.

Here’s a part of what I wrote.

This publication is sent to PNI’s hotel “partners” (current count is more than 30) six days a week early each morning. PNI considers the Traveler’s Gazette to be the essential two-page guide to events and activities in the Valley. Much of the material is pulled from existing resources within the newsroom and assembled by clerks.

One example of an advertiser was a real estate company targeting those visitors who might want to move to the area.

Digital Credibility, IFRA Presentation

In my 2002 presentation at the IFRA Asia Conference, held in Bangkok, I addressed the critical topic of credibility in online journalism, highlighting its significant impact on media brands and their audiences. As Managing Director of the Digital Futurist Consultancy, I shared insights from the Digital Journalism Credibility Study, sponsored by the Online News Association and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. [This AI-generated summary is drawn my presentation slides.]

In our research, we explored how consumers and media professionals perceive credibility online, identifying four key types of credibility:

1. Presumed Credibility: Assumptions based on domain names, web traffic, and update frequency.
2. Reputed Credibility: Influenced by third-party recommendations or references.
3. Surface Credibility: Based on first impressions of a site’s professional appearance and navigability.
4. Experienced Credibility: Derived from ongoing user experience, ease of navigation, and perceived content accuracy.

Key insights from our survey revealed that the public had not yet firmly decided on the credibility of online news, presenting an opportunity for media organizations to differentiate themselves through credible reporting practices. Factors such as accuracy, completeness, fairness, and timeliness strongly influence credibility perceptions. Additionally, I emphasized the essential need for a clear separation between editorial and advertising content to maintain consumer trust.

Ultimately, I concluded that the debate on digital credibility remains open, offering both challenges and opportunities for media companies aiming to establish or reinforce their reputation online. Credibility, I argued, is a business imperative in the evolving digital landscape.

The full report is on this site.

Review of Local Websites, 1999

In 1999, the PAFET group did an important information sharing project. Each group reported on their web site strategy and methods used to execute that strategy, marketing implementations, measurement of success, content mix and traffic.  Among the newspaper sites that reported was:

  • The Arizona Republic, AZ
  • Dallas Morning News, TX
  • Providence Journal, RI
  • St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO
  • News & Observer, NC
  • The Press Enterprise, CA
  • Sacramento Bee, CA
  • Star News, IN
  • Star Tribune, MN
  • Town Talk, LA

There is also a table that compares all of the website traffic among PAFET members.

Online Consumer Survey, 1992-1993

The Interactive Services Association, a trade organization for companies that marketed online services [think AOL or CompuServe] to consumers, issued several reports about consumer behavior online.  The 1993 report was done just before the wide-spread use of the World Wide Web.  Here are some of the highlights from the report:

  • Active users find that no one system meets their needs completely, and seek out unique content and bargain features. Three in five online survey respondents use at least two online systems, and more than half subscribe to three or more. This should strongly encourage innovations by incumbents and unique offerings by new entrants – right-minded efforts will be recognized and rewarded by a market that restlessly seeks out new and improved services. (More representative survey data suggest that only about one-fourth of all online users use more than one system.)
  • BBS’s appeal to online users on both price and content. About two-thirds of respondents use bulletin board systems (BBS’s) in addition to commercial online services. A third or more cite cost, software libraries for downloading, and communication with other users as the reasons for BBS’s appeal. Commercial services must continue to expand their offerings beyond these latter areas in order to justify their higher fees.
  • Software downloading, communicating with others who share interests, and getting PC-related help and information lead in popularity among applications. Respondents were asked to choose, from a listing of 10, the three applications they use most. In addition to the three just mentioned, exchanging electronic mail with friends and family, and obtaining current, general news round out the first tier of most-used applications. Systems and services competing for the core of today’s market must continue to advance their offerings in these areas.
  • Online use by multiple household members is substantial and growing. Regular use by other family members was reported by a full 42.5% of respondents, almost double last year’s percentage. In addition, a remarkable one in ten of all respondents report regular use by a child or children 12 or under. Although Prodigy did not participate in the survey, its use by multiple-system users may underlay this phenomenon – along with the growth of family-oriented features on other systems. This paradigmatic change, regardless of its source, presents a new opportunity to be addressed broadly by the industry.

In a couple of years, there would a report on how to build online services that were Web-based.

The Future, a 1997 Memo

This is a memo I wrote to fellow executives at the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette in early 1997.  It outlines some of my views on the importance of online services and about the reorganization of a newsroom to have a great mix of skills among editors.

The overall direction that I see journalism [and journalists] heading in the next five to 10 years is one of multi-skilled individuals. These will be the people that will succeed and prosper in the next century. In a sense, we will be going back to our roots – the small town publisher/editor/reporter/ad salesman – to find models that put more responsibility for all aspects of journalism in the hands of the source. If good journalism is good story telling, let’s put all the story telling tools into everyone’s hands and give them the access to information to help tell their stories.

I’m pleased that I was right on some of the points I raised, albeit a bit too optimistic.

1995 Online Service Research Study

In early 1995, PAFET conducted a consumer online market research survey to establish baseline information in order to measure the development of the consumer online market. This document summarizes the goals, approach and results of that study.

[PAFET stands for Partners Affiliated for the Exploration of Technology. In 1994 six media companies [mostly a bunch of newspaper companies] created this research consortium to learn about and evaluate technology that could impact media and support the creation of new businesses and services.]

Some of the highlights of the study:

• The level of familiarity with online services among PC owners and online subscribers is lower than expected. Despite online services’ aggressive subscriber acquisition efforts and heavy media attention given to these services, almost 1 of 4 PC owners considers themselves to be “not at all familiar” with online services.
• Current online users still represent a niche market, that can be characterized as young, affluent, highly educated, and predominantly male. However, improved presentation of online content (via graphical and multimedia technology), faster transmission speeds, better content and lower prices are attracting more mainstream consumers.
• The demographic profile of online subscribers using the Internet and those who do not is very similar.
• Accessing or subscribing to multiple online services is not uncommon among current online service users. One of four online service users reported regularly accessing at least two online services.
• “News and information” remain the top reason non-online users subscribe to a service. The research results showed that, among current online users, the primary reason they chose their current service was for “news and information.” Among those who canceled a subscription within the past six months, “lack of use” and “lack of information” were cited most often as the reasons for the cancellations.

The study’s questionnaire and research methodology were designed by Maritz Research (Los Angeles, CA), PAFET Operating Committee members, and market research directors and managers at each of the newspapers included in the study.

Also included with this post is the presentation made by Maritz Marketing.

Leveraging Web Sites for Newspaper Ad Sales

In 2005, the Newspaper Association of America [NAA] asked the Digital Futurist Consultancy to undertake a research and communication project to help newspaper companies better leverage their digital sites [the Web] to sell more advertising in their analog editions — the print product. The project was done by Howard Finberg and Leah Gentry, industry associates and friends from way back. Leah was a digital pioneer at the LA Times while I was working in Phoenix.

Here’s a taste of what we wrote for the NAA magazine, Presstime, about the project:

“Leveraging Your Web Site for Ad Sales,” a new NAA report, highlights ways newspapers can make better use of their Web sites to attract and service advertisers.

The report, produced for the Association by The Digital Futurist Consultancy, www.digitalfuturist.com, examines whether newspapers are using their sites to promote print advertising, to share their marketing and pricing data, and to provide customer service to new and existing advertisers. The report’s findings include:

  • 55 percent of the sites reviewed have an area for marketing the print edition.That still leaves lots of sites without any marketing information for potential advertisers.
  • 60 percent provide visitors with advertising rates and information about deadlines, terms and ad sizes.
  • Less than 10 percent provide a self-service area for advertisers. The report defines self-service as the ability to schedule and upload an advertisement.

We were proud of the report and saddened by the missed opportunities.

To read the full report just follow this link to the PDF.

10th Annual Interactive Newspaper Conference

I was a speaker at the Editor & Publisher magazine’s 10th Annual Interactive Newspapers Conference in Atlanta, Ga. My speech was recorded live on February 18, 1999 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Here’s a bit of what I said at the start of my speech:

I made a presentation to our managers at Phoenix Newspapers a couple of weeks ago, and I sort of titled it “Armageddon” and whether, when we lose all, some share of classifieds in the next three years, what impact will that have on the bottom line. And if you look at the latest research from Forrester, they predict, on industry average, a 7% reduction in bottom line figures. If classified continues going the way it’s going then seven percent of us won’t be here next year, unless other things happen.

Another couple of interesting statistics is that in less than a dozen years, in 10 years, everybody under 50 will be computer literate. We’re all basically computer literate here; and obviously, the generations coming behind us are all computer literate. And even scarier is that by 2010, everybody under the age of 21 will not have known a world without the Internet. To us, some grey hairs [old folks] in the room, along with myself, is that we can remember, hot type and cold type and all that. And we remember when the Internet first took off.

This transcript is sometimes hard to read since the transcriber didn’t catch all of the jargon. However, it gives you a taste of what we were talking about in 1999.