AOL: Content Will Be King

The “right business model” for the Web seems to be a universal talking point. You can have pretty pictures and stunning graphics at your freelance or company site. But when it comes to attracting and keeping viewers, strong written content still drives traffic.

Fluff works only so long and once your viewers figure out your deal (content mill, for example), they may be off in search of something more intriguing and in-depth, perhaps permanently.

AOL, known as America Online from the early Internet days, seems to understand the stakes with an announcement it plans to hire hundreds of journalists, editors and videographers in the next year as it develops its content-first business model.

David Eun (above right), president of AOL's media and studios division, in an interview with AdvertisingAge, spelled out his strategy that will include grouping all America Online-related sites into 17 "super-networks."

Eun, who recently took over the top job, says he studied the economics and data from traffic across AOL's properties and search, and came to one overarching conclusion: produce more content, faster.

“Our mission at this company is to be the world's largest producer of high-quality content, period," he says. "The content driving our traffic is home-grown, and 80% of it is now produced by folks on the AOL payroll."

AOL has about 500 full-time editorial employees. While Eun says the marketplace will determine the pace of new hires, it is conceivable that number could double in the coming year. "We are going to be the largest net hirer of journalists in the world next year," he says.

The content operation, which includes more than 100 brands, including AOL Health and AOL Autos and brands such as Fanhouse and PopEater, will be reorganized into 17 separate "networks" the company will package to advertisers, according to a report by AdvertisingAge writer Michael Learmonth.

In WMB’s view, anything promoting quality writing-editing and which puts some of the nation’s 15,000 unemployed professional journalists back to work is worth considering.

Talented people from all areas in traditional media – newspapers, TV, magazines, and radio – are sitting on the sidelines today, through no real fault of their own, because of electronic competition and the Great Recession.

It’s tough for traditional media to compete against the Internet because its vast resources are always on and available, especially with the recent boom in new hand-held electronic devices (iPad, for example).

AOL’s plans seem plausible, but the devil’s in the details. Are we talking about AOL journalist jobs that will pay living wages, or simply content mill material commanding pennies on the dollar while polluting the Internet with more junk?

When AOL developed in the early 1990s as a dial-up Internet company, the Web was fairly basic, almost innocent (by today’s standards) as a portal for searching information. The quality then, as now, always was open to question and uneven.

The early information superhighway had very few rules and many companies still hadn’t developed Web sites, or had very simple ones. Sadly, some newspaper owners were the last to hop aboard. They were content to have their heads buried in the sand as they continued to work with a 20th century business model for print.

With few exceptions, who could have predicted at the end of the last century the explosive growth of blogs and social media sites? Who could have anticipated the rise of content mills as successors to shrinking print publications, such as newspapers and magazines?

Still, judging from AdvertisingAge viewer comments, AOL really has its work cut out if the company wants to succeed as a dominant content provider, the Holy Grail which has eluded many, with the notable exception of The Wall Street Journal.

“This is so wrong what they are doing,’’ one commenter wrote of AOL’s plans. “They are lost in the new world of Web 2.0. They need to radically change their business model. Who needs content from their journalists? The Internet is flooded with all kinds of publications, and AOL is trying to build a business model while swimming in this flood.”

Not all were negative.

“AOL is finally making a good decision,’’ another commenter wrote. “Pick up talent from the crumbling traditional media – newspaper guys – and create a model where the information provided is high quality and topic focused so that there is access to well-researched and vetted investigative reporting. Come on AOL figure out the model, there is a real appetite for quality content and God knows we need some real journalism in this world.”

All things being equal, AOL has just as much chance at succeeding as any other company seeking a business model for the Web. Why?

Just look at three cable TV news outlets: MSNBC leans left, Fox to the right and CNN usually down the middle. If cable TV can support such radically different takes on the same news events, why can’t the Net work the same way?

Since The Wall Street Journal has found a way to attract and retain viewers, even with a pay wall for its financial content, AOL, another brand-name player, should get the benefit of a doubt. At some point, the WSJ is going to have legitimate competition as a money-making content provider.

Professional competition, zest for knowing the why of things, and finding where the facts lead are the driving forces producing some of America’s finest journalists, regardless if they’re in traditional media, new media, or both. AOL may be on to something.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.

Paper Tiger Turns Clueless

Imagine we’re in a time machine which took us to 2006, the last full year before the Great Recession started pummeling most hard-working people in this country. Our jobs seemed somewhat secure and our retirement plans within reach.

Few of us suspected in ’06 that industries and paychecks were about to slide to a place the United States hadn’t seen since the 1930s. In the newsroom where I worked, everyone was being asked by upper management about “reinventing” the newspaper, making it more viable for print readers and online viewers.

My recommendation focused on the way people lived, by having the paper embrace the electronic world through portable devices because that business format seemed to be gaining traction among potential readers, especially those under 40 (the parade began with cell phones and laptops, and continues now with Kindle and iPad).

By the time our “reinventing” input was sought, however, it already was too late for much of the newspaper industry (with the notable exception of The Wall Street Journal). We spent the remainder of the time before the bust began in late ’07 debating whether we should charge for online content or provide it for free.

With these events in the rear view mirror, it came as no surprise when the results of a recent poll of newspaper and broadcast news editors concluded American journalism is in decline, and nearly half of them believe their employers will go out of business if they do not find new sources of revenue.

“Among print editors, 18 percent said their papers were actively pursuing the idea of charging readers for access to their Web sites, while 58 percent said it was under consideration,’’ reporter Richard Perez-Pena writes for The New York Times. “Twenty-three percent said they believed that in three years, such subscription fees would be their primary source of online revenue, having overtaken advertising.”

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism polled members of two industry groups, the American Society of News Editors and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Other poll findings:

•48 percent of the editors who participated said that without a significant new income stream, their organizations could not remain solvent for more than 10 years; 31 percent gave them five years or less.

•58 percent of the editors said journalism was headed in the wrong direction, especially in an era of shrinking newsrooms; 62 percent said the Internet had changed the profession’s fundamental values, with most citing a loosening of standards.


“When asked why the industry was in such trouble, nearly half the editors said that in good times, the demands for profit margins were excessive, while many others said their organizations were too slow to embrace and invest in the Internet,” Perez-Pena reports. “And 30 percent of the print editors said their papers should have begun charging Internet readers long ago.”

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, captures the irony of the situation – professionals whose jobs depend on anticipating the “what next” of news were caught like deer-in-the-headlights when it came to evolving technology.

“Two years ago, we might have seen a higher number (of editors) saying this was beyond our control,” Rosenstiel says. “I think there’s more awareness of innovative approaches to online business and advertising that they didn’t take but other people did, like Google and Yahoo.”

The seeds of the damage sustained by the newspaper industry in recent years were planted in the mid-1990s, when the Internet began to take hold among American consumers who bought PCs and Macs. The Web’s business model continued to evolve while many newspaper executives turned away and believed, naively, that somehow everything would take care of itself.

It didn’t, and the end result: 5,200 jobs were lost in 2009, or 13,500 positions since 2007, according to the American Society of News Editors in its latest survey of newspaper newsrooms. Still, there is an upside to those disturbing numbers.

“It's a slowing of job loss since 2008, when nearly 6,000 journalists left the industry through buyouts and layoffs,’’
writes Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times TV/media critic, in The Feed blog. “According to ASNE, U.S. newsrooms have lost more than 25 percent of their workforce in nine years, declining to levels the industry hasn't seen since the mid-1970s.”

I was among the 6,000 shown the exit door. I had a great 30-year run in a variety of challenging positions, everything from a print reporter to an online editor. Every day was different, never really dull. I miss the people and the stories, both inside and outside the newsroom.

What I don’t miss are the shortsighted newspaper executives who contributed to the mess that became our industry. They lost sight of the “what next” of technology, a pretty basic concept for anyone who wants to stay in business today, and it cost all of us who care about quality journalism in all forms.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.

Your Incredible Shrinking Paper

Still read a printed daily newspaper? If it's one of the bigger metro papers, take a close look it because it's shrinking right before your eyes even though the subscription cost is probably rising.

Yes, that's right, the paper is getting smaller by the day and dropping many of the things you once took for granted: analysis pieces, in depth coverage of your local school board, even comics. All have disappeared and are not likely to return anytime soon, if ever.

The economic implosion within the newspaper industry, with advertising revenue off by 20 percent or more depending on the region, means the look and content of many papers is drastically different from what it was just two years ago.

With ad revenue way down and the Internet attracting many time-pressed viewers, larger newspapers have shed jobs (40,000 jobs were lost in 2009, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), reduced syndicated services (comics, columnists) and even sliced the size of their products (width and pages).

Sure, some larger papers will survive and thrive. The Wall Street Journal, for example, has managed to find a way for its print and online operations to peacefully (and profitably) co-exist.

But for some papers, monetizing online operations isn't the answer -- damage to the print side's bottom line is too severe. So, as some of my friends still in the industry say, it's "like dead men walking" in the newsroom as they wait for the next round of layoffs and cost-cuts to hit.

The current number of newspaper jobs, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is now at a level last seen in the mid-1950s. By those stats, the newspaper industry peaked in 1988 and has since declined gradually until the recession and Internet accelerated the pace in 2008 and 2009.


Metro papers aren't poised to make a comeback, according to a recent report by Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher. And overall newspaper jobs are projected to decline by 25 percent by 2018, the labor bureau reported.

True, there are plenty of opportunities for "citizen journalists" to write for the Web at such sites as Suite101, Examiner and Elance. These places exist, for the most part, in a virtual world -- no ink, no paper, no newsroom buzz.

For those who began their journalism careers on IBM electric typewriters and pawed the library stacks looking for yellowing print clips, the bricks and mortar of a newspaper newsroom still stand in their mind's eye.

That shrinking newspaper in your hands serves as a token reminder of what was once real, timely, complete and important in your daily life.

As for me, I practice what I preach in this blog and at writenowworks.com.