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The Tampa News CenterŐs open atrium links the third-floor print newsroom with broadcast and online operations below. Photo by The Tampa Tribune. |
Media convergence is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. It can be as elaborate as Media General’s $40 million, state-of-the-art facility housing The Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV and Tampa Bay Online. Or it can be as simple as a television news anchor reading morning headlines from the local newspaper.
Generally, it means a reporter writes a story for the newspaper, perhaps a second version for a World Wide Web site produced jointly by the paper and a television station, and is interviewed about the assignment during a TV newscast (see A Happy Convergence). To the meeters and greeters of deadlines, convergence goes beyond partnering on flashy, big-name and award-winning civic-journalism projects to the real task at hand—reporting breaking news on television, in print and online, all at the same time.
So now that pioneering multimedia reporters, photographers, editors and managers have a couple years of collaboration under their belts, we ask: “At what price, convergence?”
ADDING
IT UP
Startup costs in
terms of labor and equipment come in high and likely will go higher still as
companies foot the bills for digital and video cameras, broadcast studios in
newspaper newsrooms, and the development of technology that will drive a single
news-gathering operation. Although several newsrooms are equip-ped with broadcast
studios, few newspaper, television and online reporters cover their daily beats
together. Collaboration more likely occurs on breaking news and long-range stories,
even though most editors and news directors share daily story budgets by telephone,
e-mail and fax. Looking ahead, editors for Media General Inc. of Richmond, Va.,
and Tribune Co. of Chicago, among others, are searching for a central technology
to replace physical shuffling of budgets. Media General is experimenting with
its in-house BudgetBank, a browser-based intranet application. But as yet, an
industrial-strength, content-management sys-tem doesn’t exist.
Such pioneering newspaper editors see convergence as the next big thing—a way to increase their outlets’ visibility in their communities, extend their brands and entice new subscribers.
“We are looking at ways the newspaper can reach out and publish on multiple channels, extend our reach on TV, radio and the Web, and ways we can extend our marketing and sales efforts across platforms,” says David Underhill, Tribune’s vice president of intergroup development.
Editors gush with examples of newspaper stories making their way onto television, radio and the Internet. But on the business side, fans can offer few tangible examples of this increased exposure resulting in higher circulation or single-copy sales. Furthermore, a few media pundits voice deep skepticism that convergence ultimately benefits newspapers and readers.
“There is potential for news consumers to get something useful out of it, but most haven’t,” says Al Tompkins, a broadcast and online professor at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg. “Most have been extended promotions to ‘Watch our partner’s TV station’ or ‘Read more about it in the morning paper.’ ”
The question of whether convergence will actually draw new subscribers brings to mind the adage, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”
“When you start giving away what’s in the paper, don’t you cannibalize your assets?” asks Bob Haiman, Poytner’s president emeritus and distinguished editor-in-residence.
“There are a few more advantages when the television station and newspaper have the same ownership,” admits Haiman. But, even if the Federal Communications Commission relaxes the 26-year-old rule restricting companies from owning a broadcast outlet and newspaper in the same market, increasing the likelihood of more cross-ownership, what do newspapers gain, he asks, and what price do their staffs pay to accomplish convergence?
ON
THE JOB
When reporters cover
an assignment, many now write for the newspaper and the Web. The same story
may appear in both media, unless it’s breaking news. In those exceptional
cases, the reporter writes a quick, short story for online and tells readers
to look for an expanded version in the next day’s paper. The reporter also
may be asked to give a television interview.
Mike Holtzclaw, a senior reporter in the entertainment department at the Tribune-owned Daily Press in Newport News, Va., (morning, circulation 93,174), and his colleagues provide weekly entertainment segments for NBC-affiliate WAVY in Portsmouth. Each two-minute segment takes him away from his newspaper work two-to-five hours a week. He writes his own script, goes on site to tape the segment, often helps produce it, and does a live lead from his newsroom.
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Daily
Press reporter Mike Holtzclaw delivers a live lead from the newsroom in
Newport News, Va., for an entertainment segment that runs weekly on WAVY-TV
in Portsmouth, Va. He says the segments have become part of his work week. |
As yet, Holtzclaw doesn’t see his work as compromised. “It has become part of the work week,” Holtzclaw says. “I don’t feel I’m rushing through my stories or doing less stories for the paper because of TV. I just budget my time differently.”
But Kathleen Gallagher, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investment writer who often does live 45-second interviews from the newsroom, finds the TV piece “disconcerting. [TV anchors] spend all this time thinking about their product and how they present themselves, and you’re interrupting the writing of your story to do [the interview] quickly.
“It’s their product we’re doing it for,” Gallagher says. “Hopefully, it makes their product better and makes the audience more aware of our product.”
Reporters at the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune (morning, 94,912) have been appearing on a cable station, 6 News Now, ever since the paper started the channel five years ago. The real-estate editor does a weekly segment called “Open House,” and the arts reporter often interviews sources on television.
“It was a research project originally, and we wanted to serve the community with local news,” says Frank Verdel, general manager and news director. Executives at the parent, The New York Times Co., wanted to see if convergence would work at a midsize newspaper.
The studio resides in a corner of the newsroom, but television reporters often interview newspaper reporters at their desks. The newspaper and cable channel also produce Newscoast.com.
“We break news 24 hours a day on television and the Web,” says Executive Editor Janet Weaver. “As a news organization, we have a greater sense of urgency. We go live with stories when they’re happening rather than waiting for the press run.”
As a result, Weaver says, the Web site, television station and newspaper are better products.
“We focus our reporting for the newspaper by explaining why and how as opposed to the who, what and when because we do that on TV. Our Web site is deeper because we offer video, and the TV product benefits because it has the depth of reporting from print reporters.”
MAKING
THE MOST
Clearly,
companies that already own different media operations in the same or related
markets see benefits, though maybe not on the bottom line.
Last year, the Daily Press did an eight-part Sunday series on judicial abuses and worked with WAVY to produce news segments about the series. “The first piece aired on the 11 o’clock news after ‘ER,’” says Underhill. The segment h
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Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel investment writer Kathleen Gallagher often does 45-second
interviews about the stock market from the newsroom. |
elped the Daily Press get the word out to an audience much broader—demographically and geographically—than it would have reached with its daily newspaper, he adds.
More people bought the Sunday paper while the series ran, he says, but he declined to provide statistics on single-copy sales for those days.
“It’s not about single-copy sales,” Underhill says. “It’s about awareness of the story, the reach of journalism.”
Convergence makes sense when the newspaper controls what it releases to the television station, argues Claude Albert, deputy managing editor of the Hartford Courant. The Tribune-owned Courant partners with Tribune-owned WTIC-TV Fox 61 in Hartford and New England Cable News, a 24-hour station that reaches 2.5 million New England homes.
The Courant, for example, can do a Friday segment on television about the best things to do over the weekend based on its community calendar. “This gives greater visibility to our calendar,” he says, “but it doesn’t replace it in usefulness.”
Recently, the Courant hired Bill Otwell as director of television and radio to manage multimedia partnerships. Otwell’smain purpose, says Albert, is to guarantee the paper gets proper branding and recognition in the other media.
Acknowledgement is one reason the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began working with the broadcast stations owned by parent Journal Communications.
“Because we’re sharing, we get more credit,” says Editor Martin Kaiser. “They reference us rather than just take our story.”
If the Internet didn’t invent convergence, it certainly fuels its spread. For example, last February, Journal Communications launched Onwisconsin.com with content from the Journal Sentinel, WTMJ-TV, WKTI-FM and WTMJ-AM. The newspaper begins posting news on JSOnline.com before the presses run.
“Once you’re doing that,” says Kaiser, “it’s not a far leap to share some information with our television station.”
Since last May, editors and producers have been meeting each morning to share content. The Journal Sentinel has a studio, so reporters can appear on newscasts. It shows off the paper’s expertise, says Kaiser.
Readers use television as a tip service, Kaiser says, citing a 1999 survey. “They may hear something and then go to the newspaper because they realize it will have more information,” says Kaiser. “I don’t see a downside.”
OUTSIDE
PARTNERS
Paul Tash,
editor and president of the St. Petersburg Times, says working with a nonaffiliated
organization also allows newspapers to augment their reporting. The Times partners
with WTSP-TV, owned by Gannett Co. of Arlington, Va. The paper previews the
next morning’s headlines during WTSP’s 11 p.m. newscast, and the Times’
weather page features the station’s well-known meteorologist Dick Fletcher.
Executives from the station and the daily share news tips and explore ways to
connect Web sites, Tash says, but they are not ready to cover news together
daily. “It’s mostly about the presentation of each other’s journalism,
rather than doing journalism together.”
Tash sees advantages to partnering, including the ability for both companies to maintain separate and independent voices.
“Anything you do ends up being in both partners’ best interest rather than being forced through common ownership,” Tash says. “If it’s common ownership, you might add up the pluses and minuses and decide it’s a net-plus, even if it’s a net-minus for one partner. In this relationship, it has to be a net-plus for both.”
Tash admits that partnerships with other media companies can be tricky. “You can’t rely on the orders from a common owner to work through issues that arise.”
The Times selected WTSP because of its Gannett ownership and CBS affiliation, says Tash. Managers also liked that WTSP has an 11 p.m. newscast.
“In a competitive market, we were careful about not having scoops disclosed too early.”
LONG-LONG-TERM
PAYOFF
Across
the bay sits Media General’s Tampa powerhouse, where print,
broadcast and online reporting come together. Despite the multimedia assignment
desk, staff are still working to create and master a single news-gathering operation
to feed print, television and the Web. Collaboration largely involves only breaking
news and long-range stories. Last year, Media General logged more than 600 “acts
of convergence,” defined as print, broadcast and Web staff working together
to report one story.
True convergence would eliminate three staffs and pull together one to feed all three products, admits Mike Steele, Media General’s director of new-media content. “We’re a long way from this. We may never get there, and frankly I’m not sure we should.”
Meanwhile, the company plans to adapt its Tampa model to five regions in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia where it operates newspapers near television stations and has joint Web sites. Media General also partners with WGHF-TV, a Fox station in Winston-Salem, N.C. Steele characterizes that alliance as a “business relationship,” with Fox paying rent for the studio in the Winston-Salem Journal newsroom. Fox employees have restricted access to the paper’s offices and newsroom.
As its next-best example of convergence, Media General executives cite the Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier (morning, 41,718) and WJHL-TV in Johnson City, Tenn., 45 minutes away. Together, they are developing Tri-CitiesNews.com.
“We do more together than we could do individually,” says Publisher Bill Hall. “We don’t think of ourselves as a television station or a newspaper, just as a news-gathering organization.”
Editors share story budgets and weather forecasts. At 11 p.m., “we have a shot of the presses running and the headlines are superimposed over the presses and someone reads the [next-day] headlines,” says Jack Dempsey, president and general manager of WJHL.
The former rivals have logged three convergent projects since March, in-cluding a breaking story about a man burning down a house with his wife in it. “We broke the story on the Web that there was a body in the house and updated the story through the day, teasing the TV and newspaper news,” says Hall. “The Web story followed the progression of events—the suspect being arrested in North Carolina on a traffic violation, then charged with arson and then murder.”
The newspaper staff did the legwork on this story. A news editor at the paper sent a photographer when he heard about the fire. When the photographer called the paper to say there was a body in the house, the news editor alerted WJHL. The news director sent a cameraman. If the photographer had been equipped with a video camera, the producer wouldn’t have sent anyone—the photographer would just give the station the footage.
Rather than being an exclusive for the newspaper, the story broke on the Web, and the paper and station carried stories. Web reports were written and edited by newspaper staff members.
The partnership has been a “bonanza” for the television station, Dempsey says, “Before we began working together, we had a low familiarity and preference score in Bristol.” From 1997 to 1999, WJHL had 9 percent audience preference. That rate increased to 29 percent in 2000.
In comparison, newspaper circulation declined 3 percent from 1997 to 2000, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations in Schaumburg, Ill. Hill says he isn’t concerned about the lack of growth because circulation is “not a growing thing right now” for newspapers, and the area’s population is dwindling.
Unlike Tampa, the Virginia-Tennessee convergence has received little investment from Media General. But that will change this year when the company hires employees to work on the Web site and outfits Herald Courier photographers with video cameras and WJHL videographers with digital ones.
Ad sales come next. Newspaper and television ad directors are putting together packages of television, newspaper and online ads and co-sponsoring local events such as a “Godspell” production and an American Cancer Society race. They also are promoting NASCAR racing nearby.
Convergence netted Media General nearly $1.5 million in fourth-quarter 2000 advertising sales, says Rob Runett, NAA’s manager of electronic-media analysis. The company predicts its convergence-focused interactive media division will be cash-flow positive by 2003. “We see this as a money-making venture,” says Steele.
That will be the true test of convergence.
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