Remarks by Charles Overby
CEO, Newseum
2010 Key Executives Conference
Inland Press Association
Captiva Island, Florida
March 1, 2010
“Come On, Come On!”
It is great to be with you today. This experience today with the Inland Press Association is quite different from the one I had in 1985.
Back then Al Neuharth was chairman of our foundation, and he was the luncheon speaker for the Inland convention. I helped Al prepare his remarks. Inland was hoping for a grant from our foundation to boost its capital campaign.
Al Neuharth was known appropriately for thinking outside the box. Who else would have started a national newspaper in the midst of a national recession? Al is the founder of many things, including USA TODAY, the Freedom Forum and the Newseum.
At the start of Al’s speech, he announced that the foundation was pleased to give a grant to Inland for its capital campaign. Much applause from the audience. He said the amount would be $100 for every person in the audience at the end of his speech. I don’t know how many people were there at the beginning, but at the end, there were 513 people, and Inland got a grant of $51,300.
I regret that I am unable to offer the same thing. But I do have three prizes from the Newseum store for the first person to answer these questions, taken from the exhibits at the Newseum.
There have been three main competitors to newspapers in the last 100 years: radio, television and the Internet. The rise of all three is explained in the Newseum.
What year did the first licensed commercial radio station go on the air? (1920 – KDKA, Pittsburgh)
What year did network TV evening news expand from 15 minutes to 30 minutes? (1963)
What year did Tim Berners-Lee develop the world wide web? (1989)
Speaking of the Newseum, I am pleased to report that well over 1 million people have visited the Newseum since it opened less than two years ago.
We believe that the Newseum, with its interactive games, 14 galleries and 15 theaters, gives visitors a better understanding of the importance of news and the five First Amendment freedoms.
Visitors to the Newseum love looking at our newspapers. Nearly 400 are on permanent display. Another 120 change every day. About 700 are on our web site every day.
On opening day of the Newseum, we had a dedication ceremony that featured leading media owners and public officials, ranging from Chief Justice John Roberts to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But the thing I remember the most came from that great Western philosopher, Steven Colbert. I thought you might enjoy seeing his comments for yourself.
As you know, I am a pinch-hitter for Alex Jones today. Alex is a fellow Tennessean, and I am fortunate to be friends with him, his wife Susan and his wonderful family in Greeneville, TN., including especially Gregg Jones.
Now there is something about being a pinch hitter that is difficult and easy at the same time. The difficult part is that you are coming off the bench cold and the manager wants you to do at least as well as the person you are replacing. The easy part is that the people in the stands have generally low expectations. If you hit a single, that’s pretty good, because after all, you’re just a pinch hitter.
Pinch-hitting for Alex Jones is like substituting for the clean-up hitter, not the No. 9 hitter.
I have great respect for his work, particularly for his accomplishments as an author. His books on the New York Times and the Bingham family in Louisville provided great insights into newspaper families and how newspapers have evolved over the last century.
If he were with us today, he would talk to you about where he thinks the newspaper business is going today, especially as it relates to news, and he would base his remarks on his latest book, called Losing the News. I would like to summarize Alex’s views about the importance of news and its fragile future, then I will offer my own comments.
In his book, Alex expresses dismay that newspapers are moving away from serious news and moving toward tabloid news or entertainment. He believes that serious news is important to the future of our country. He said, “I believe that journalism is important. That it matters. He writes that news “is as essential to our freedom as the Constitution itself.”
So Alex is linking the quality of newspapers to the quality of our democracy. Alex believes that unless we have quality news that holds public officials accountable, “democracy will weaken , sicken or even fail.”
Alex is certainly not the first to link newspapers to democracy. Thomas Jefferson famously said he would choose newspapers over government if he had to choose between one or the other.
Of course, Jefferson said that before he became president and was covered by reporters. After a few years of being criticized in the press, Jefferson said almost the opposite, showing his frustration, even his disdain for the press: “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads newspapers.”
Alex is actually optimistic about the future of newspapers, but he is skeptical of the news product that will emerge. Alex says, “Despite the gloomy trends, I believe that the nation’s newspaper companies . . .are going to survive and eventually thrive once again.”
His concern is expressed this way: “I fear that newspapers are trending toward becoming businesses built overwhelmingly around what people want, and all but abandoning anything that does not make money or draw eyeballs.” This disturbs Alex because he believes the American newspaper business, unlike other commercial enterprises, has a genuine social contract with the American public.
Alex said the transformation of newspapers will affect our country. He said, “One thing is certain: the revolution in news now taking place will be critical to defining what kind of nation we become in years ahead.”
Alex believes accountability journalism—the kind that digs beyond the obvious and explains complex subjects to readers—is going by the wayside because it is the most expensive kind of journalism.
The way to save the news, Alex believes, is to find a commercial model that will sustain professional journalism focused on serious news. He makes this point, “This does not necessarily mean saving newspapers, though they remain the great source of the kind of accountability journalism I want saved.”
In the closing part of his book, Alex compares newspapers to trains after airplanes were invented. He said trains quit providing much city-to-city passenger business, but they now haul freight. “Newspapers,” Alex says, “have to find a way to haul freight.”
Now before I move on, I want to say one more thing about what Alex would say if he were here: “If you want to learn more about this subject, buy my book, Losing the News.”
Now we are going to shift to a few of my comments. In baseball parlance, this is when the pinch hitter goes into the lineup to play on his own, rather than returning to the bench.
My love affair with newspapers dates back more than 50 years, first as a paper boy, as we were called back then. My work ethic was developed as a newspaper carrier at age 12, rising at 5 am every morning and delivering papers to the front porches of 100 customers, then once a month going to each of those customers and collecting $1.70.
I loved selling newspaper subscriptions, and I was highly motivated by the prizes and incentives offered to carriers to get new starts. For several years, my family’s Thanksgiving dinner depended on my selling new starts. The more starts I got in that November sales promotion, the bigger the turkey on Thanksgiving Day. At age 14, I won Parade Magazine’s Young Columbus trip to Europe by selling the most newspaper subscriptions in the state of Mississippi. That trip opened my eyes to the larger world beyond Mississippi.
It does not pay to yearn for the good old days, largely because the good old days seldom were as good as we remember. But imagine today sending young teenagers out at night to knock on doors to ask people to subscribe to the paper, face to face, not a telemarketer. I was selling two things door to door: a subscription to the newspaper and an opportunity help a kid. In those days, that was an irresistible combination for many people.
For more than 50 years, I have appreciated the concept of people paying for their newspapers. As I moved up in the ranks from paper boy to reporter to editor to a member of the Gannett management committee, I developed a keen understanding of the value of the content of a newspaper.
I even began to understand as an editor that people bought newspapers for the ads, as well as the news. That was a sobering insight.
For more than a century, the value of the newspaper was essentially unquestioned. In fact, most people saw the price of a newspaper as a bargain. The price began to creep up, from a nickel to a dime to a quarter and beyond. With each price increase, newspapers promoted the value of the daily newspaper. Value was always stressed.
But as you know, value is what a buyer thinks a product is worth and is willing to pay.
The reason we pay more than $20,000 for a new car today is the auto industry has convinced us that is what a car is worth.
Now imagine if the auto industry decided next week that they would continue to sell cars to people who came into their showrooms at $20,000, but they would offer a special internet price of zero. As people learned you could get the same car on the internet for zero, many if not most people would turn to the internet price and not bother to go to the showroom to pay $20,000.
And the perceived value of that new car would soon drop to zero.
That is exactly what we are doing with newspapers today. We are giving away a valuable product of news and advertising that is carefully prepared each day by quality professionals. But because we are giving it away, the value in the reader’s mind is sinking to zero.
You are in this room today because you are smart and accomplished. Only the best people in the industry get to come to a conference in Florida in the winter time.
So to all you smart people in the room, I say, stop this madness of giving away your newspaper.
The content of local newspapers carries a high value, and it is time that publishers and editors start believing in their papers again.
We have lost our way because we have lost our confidence.
Every city is different, and every newspaper is different. But generally speaking, newspapers got into this mess by putting their product on the internet without a plan to make a profit. In the last 10 years, newspapers have lost advertising and circulation, but that revenue has not been replaced by internet initiatives.
I call that period the lost decade for newspapers.
But I strongly believe that the coming decade will be the Found Decade. I am confident that if we return here in 2020, every one of you will be charging for content on the internet. The internet will be an important part of your business plan.
Happily, a few newspaper owners are beginning to reverse this trend of giving away their products. The New York Times plans to begin charging for its content online next year. The Wall Street Journal already charges, and Rupert Murdoch has announced his other publications will begin charging as well. Other community newspaper publishers, like Walter Hussman in Little Rock, have been ahead of the curve on this for a long time.
There is an interesting cover piece in the current Fortune Magazine about the future of reading. The headline on the story says, “The Future of Reading/Tablets? Smartphones?Netbooks? They could all save newspapers, books and magazines—or destroy them. Or both.”
The article makes the point that the internet has increased reading habits. The author, John Quittner, says, “the Age of Tablets will give print media one last bite at the apple—and publishing companies that are able to make the transition could one day thrive again.”
The article quotes one research company as predicting in five years, 58 million tablets a year will be sold.
I thought the best thing in the article was this comment: “people still derive value from curated, packaged collections of content delivered to them.”
That is why I remain optimistic about the future of the newspaper business as a provider of content. People are looking for help in sorting out complex issues and events.
Far and away, newspapers still do the best job day in and day out of providing comprehensive, readable content. Local papers have not lost their franchise for producing the best and the most content in their communities.
National publications have a more complicated situation because there is more competition providing national news.
But at the local level, newspapers hold the authoritative advantage.
If it were my newspaper, I would I would start with three concepts.
First, the monthly newspaper subscriber is my premium customer. I would find ways to treat these customers as least as well as airlines treat their frequent fliers. This would include full access to the internet product of the newspaper.
Second, the internet is a promotional tool for the newspaper, not a free substitute. That means, perhaps, providing summaries of the daily news report but not full stories.
Third, allow people to access the internet content of the newspaper on a paid basis. I know there are a number of ideas being considered, including a small payment per story. I think it would be better to treat it like single copy sales, access for a day for a certain price or access for a month or a year at a certain price.
There may be other approaches, but I think the starting point is reestablishing the value of local content and charging for it, on the internet and in print. There may be different price points. I could see the price of a monthly print subscription coming down as the price for an internet subscription goes up. Some newspaper publishers are raising the price of their print product and promoting the value of the newspapers.
In the current environment, I feel foolish writing a check for $18 for my local newspaper each month because I know I can get the same material for free on the internet. The only reason I do it is to support my local paper. It’s like a charitable contribution to my local paper.
I don’t believe we can count on the public making a charitable contribution each month to a for-profit newspaper company. That’s why it is important to reestablish the value of the content in a local newspaper. That means refusing to give away the product. The value of the daily content is more than zero, a lot more.
Last week, I had breakfast with two aspiring college journalism students. It was invigorating to hear of their enthusiasm for writing stories and covering the news. They had none of the skepticism that seems to dominate the attitudes of older journalists.
They told me about going to hear a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist speak on their campus. When the speech was over, they discussed what the journalist had said. They agreed that his basic message to journalism students was: “Get out, get out.”
How sad.
For the future of journalism, for the future of our country, we must change this message, and we must change our attitudes.
It can’t be Get out, get out. It has to be Come on, come on.
We have to change the talk about newspapers. We need bold leadership to change the practices of giving away the product on the internet. And we need to emphasize the rightful role of newspaper leadership in America’s communities.
For the students of tomorrow, for the newspaper executives of today, the message must be: Come on, come on.