I began my newspaper career at age 15, starting as a part-time sports writer, moving to reporting, then to editing, then to ownership. My love was the newsroom, and I believed newspapering was simple, "If you build it, they will come," with apologies to Kevin Costner and "Field of Dreams." After going broke at age 24, I found out it wasn't that simple. As one veteran newspaperman told me after I went broke, "To be a journalistic success, you must also be a business success." Thus my lifetime motto, "Remember, Cash In Must Exceed Cash Out."

After learning that tough lesson, I began at age 25 trying to find the balance between journalistic excellence and financial stability. I've learned that if a newspaper moves too far beyond financial stability, the journalistic effort suffers, and ultimately that leads to problems on the financial stability. But just as dangerous, if a newspaper doesn't watch the financial stability, all the journalistic excellence in the world can't save a troubled newspaper from financial oblivion.

My 16-year-old son, William, who has worked two summers in the Denver Post newsroom, said to me recently, "Dad, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I don't want to grow up to be boring like you. I want to work in the newsroom." And so he shall.

Forgive me if my remarks become too boring. I've been away from the newsroom a long time. But once I figure out just the right balance, I hope to go back.

Right now, few priorities are more important than providing our readers with the high-quality content they seek -- no matter if it's in our print edition, online, via a mobile phone or Palm Pilot, or by some other means not yet invented or tried.

How we deliver the news is not nearly as important as what we're delivering. And with apologies to James Carville, let me remind you, "It's the content, stupid."

We don't kid ourselves that we're the only ones putting news on the Web or in the air ... but we are the only ones delivering the unique local content that readers want; the news that is important to their daily lives.

Nevertheless, we still face a lot of uncertainty. Questions such as where we fit in the mix of media choices ... what increasingly diverse audiences want from us -- and whether we are delivering it ... how do we harness new technologies to expand the ways we reach people.

There may be more open questions right now than at any time in the modern history of our business. But of course, with each question comes the possibility of new opportunity.

Today I want to come at those questions from two perspectives ... and both of them are waiting for us at our desks every day.

One is the existing strength of our connection to readers.

The other is what we can do to make it stronger.

In talking about the state of the connection ... we have to start with some numbers. They are not good numbers ... but they reflect a fact of life.

We live in a world of multimedia choices ... a world of media options ... and as those options increase, our slice of available audience time and attention becomes thinner. As you all know, circulation figures have been trending down for more than a decade ... dropping from more than 62 million copies for both weekday and Sunday newspapers ... to less than 60 million on Sunday ... and under 56 million daily.

When we talk about those numbers, we need to keep our perspective.

56 million copies a day still find their way to a lot of eyeballs ... and more people still read an average Sunday newspaper than watched the Super Bowl.

And when you look at those numbers closely ... there is a lot of good news.

Our readers rank high in income ... big-ticket purchases ... home ownership ... education ... and lots of other measures that say we're reaching an attractive demographic.

And even with the decline ... we're holding up better than most other media. But there is one other strength that is particularly important to our future ... and particularly important to what happens in the newsroom.

And that is our local connection.

I'm almost as tired of talking about that as you are of hearing it. But like your mother telling you to look both ways before crossing the street or to eat your vegetables, it's something we all have to hear repeatedly, because in the long run, it's good for us.

The fact is ... that local connection is the name of the game.

And we have to keep talking about it. We have to keep strengthening it. It's what we have that no other medium can build or buy, but plenty of them sure are trying to steal it.

But right now, it's ours.

Study after study shows that we are the number-one choice for local news, business, sports ... everything that impacts the lives of our readers where they live, where they work.

We don't just reflect the community. We don't just report on the community. We are a part of it.

We are as imbedded in the lives of the people who live there as they are in us. So where do we go from here?

The easy option would be to accept circulation declines as inevitable ... and hope that the local connection will at least keep us in the game. I'm sorry to say that many in our industry are doing that. Fortunately, many others are not.

Or we can go on offense.

We can use our strengths and the power of the local connection to find new ways to grow readership.

The no brainer choice is, I believe, number two.

But first ... a reality check.

In my career I've learned some things the hard way.

One of them is ... no matter how many things you try ... no matter how hard you work ... there are some things that just aren't going to come out the way you want.

So we have to take a hard look at whether we can really build readership in this new and crowded world of media choice.

To find out ... and to plan a course of action around the answer ... the Newspaper Association of America and the American Society of Newspaper Editors established the Readership Institute at the Media Management Center at Northwestern University to design a large-scale initiative and discover what drives readership.

And how we can build on that knowledge.

From this, the Readership Institute produced the Impact study. This study wasn't a few random interviews and a couple of focus groups.

It involved polling 37,000 readers ... feedback from 5,500 newspaper employees ... content analysis of 100 newspapers ... the counting of 75,000 articles ... and deeper analysis of 47,000 of these articles.

This industry has never before undertaken anything this big ... or as expensive. And after an exhaustive dissection of the results ... the conclusion was ...

Yes ... we can make a difference.

There are things we can do to build readership. The study identified eight key imperatives. They are:

• The importance of outstanding customer service
• Matching content with market
• Getting the right emphasis on local news
• Making the product easy to use
• Driving readership with advertising
• Branding
• Promoting content
• And building a culture within the paper that believes in these imperatives and is open to making the changes needed to put them to work.

The Impact study showed news about ordinary people was number-one on the list of readers' interests ... and news about government, politics, war and international affairs ranked number three.

Of course, that's exactly what dominated the news in the weeks following last year's September 11 attacks ... and continues to be of importance today; ordinary people impacted by extraordinary events ... and the actions of governments on a world stage. Readers also said they want relevance in news coverage ... focusing on their lives, their interests and their concerns.

They want content to be as varied as they are ... which means there is room for everything from investigative journalism to comic strips.

One of the key findings from the study is that readership is a function of the combination of content, brand, service and a newspaper's culture.

We've learned a lot about the industry as a whole ... but, ultimately, growth can only be achieved at the local level.

The battle has to be fought in the local market, newspaper by newspaper by newspaper.

At MediaNews Group, our editors and publishers have embraced the findings of the Readership Institute. All of our editors met for three days in Colorado last May to discuss the findings, share ideas for implementation and to plan new ways to capture marginal readers. This wasn't really new at MediaNews. We've long viewed circulation growth as the No. 1 goal in cultivating a newspaper's health. There are no excuses. Circulation must grow. At every newspaper. Every year bonuses depend on it. And ultimately, so does job security.

Even during the last two years, when the newspaper industry faced its worst economic downturn since 1938, MediaNews continued to grow spending in the newsroom, in newshole and in circulation promotion. To be sure, we cut a lot of costs to get through this difficult period. But not in news, newshole or circulation promotion. Remember, "It's the content, stupid."

One of the adjustments that is important for all newspapers is to rethink the notion of who our readers -- and potential readers -- really are.

There is an old saying that "demographics is destiny," and I think it happens to be true.

And demographics say our destiny as a nation is quite different than it was not all that long ago ... and it continues to change as both the number and size of emerging markets continue to grow.

Right now ... some 73 percent of the nation calls itself white ... by 2050 ... that number will approach 50 percent or lower. In California, where MediaNews publishes almost half our daily newspapers, that number is already below 50 percent. Ditto New Mexico, where we publish six more dailies.

During the next five decades, Asian Americans will grow from 4 to 9 percent of the population.

Hispanics will more than double from 11 to 24 percent. In many markets those numbers will be more dramatic.

And the number of African Americans will rise from 13 to 15 percent.

So that local connection we've been talking about is truly a more diverse connection. No newspaper can be all things to all people ... but it can offer more things to more people.

The first step is to build a staff that reflects the community.

Nationally ... there has been some progress ... but as we all are well aware, there is a lot of room for improvement.

Years ago, ASNE set a goal that by 2000, newsrooms would better reflect the nation's population.

We didn't make it.

What's even more disturbing is that some of those gains are being erased, as the number of African American journalists, for example, is actually declining. That is unacceptable.

Reasons for leaving the industry range from pay to career advancement to better opportunities offered by other media ... all things that are within our power to address.

NAA and the NAA Foundation operate a number of programs in areas such as recruitment ... mentoring ... and fellowships ... that are designed not only to attract talented people of color to our industry, but also to keep them in the business and grow in their careers.

These industry programs do help, but our trade associations are not designed to make it happen; they can only complement and supplement their membership ... The gap isn't going to be closed until individual newspapers take on diversity as a serious commitment. A must do. Failure is unacceptable.

We also need to get serious ... and specific ... in understanding whether the content of our newspapers is reflective of the kind of content that's important and relevant to our communities. And there are no generic fixes. Each market is different. Cookie-cutter solutions won't work.

Let me just remind you that assumptions won't cut it ... in fact ... assumptions by a majority about the needs of a minority ... are exactly what lead to trouble in the first place.

Now ... as we're busy developing this high-quality, relevant, local content ... we also need to look beyond the horizon at just how we're going to deliver it to our readers.

This is no longer a business of just ink on paper.

I have to admit ... when this thing called the Internet first appeared, I was one of those who thought the impact was going to be a lot like CB radio ... a big deal for a while ... and then gone.

Then ... I saw the light ... and I became a believer.

A lot of people saw the same light. And became believers.

And one of the things I believe is that nobody is in a better position today to win via the Internet than newspapers are.

More than 90 percent of the country's more than 1,400 dailies have affiliated Web sites ... and many have more than one.

A recent study of 80 markets showed that online newspapers have a commanding lead over other Web sites for local news and information. And of the nation's Top 20 Web sites today, 10 are newspaper sites.

One of the more interesting things we've also discovered is that our Web presence is not eroding our print readership ... quite the opposite, in fact.

A study by media research firm Belden Associates showed that newspaper Web sites actually sell newspapers.

Belden researchers found a clear jump in single-copy sales among people who visited a newspaper's Web site ... 21 percent bought more newspapers.

The impact on overall readership was even more dramatic ... 31 percent said they look at the print edition more often since they started visiting the newspaper's Web site.

That kind of knowledge is particularly important when you put it together with what's happening across nearly all media -- convergence.

Internet ... radio ... television ... wireless ... cable ... newspapers ... they all are coming together in various ways.

And this continues, despite the crash and burn of the dot-coms ... and the tumultuous marriages of AOL Time Warner and others.

I believe ... and I believe this strongly ... that the promise of media convergence ... which is really what the Information Highway is all about ... is real ... and it will change everything.

And when the antiquated barriers to ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market finally fall ... and I believe they will in 2003 ... and when consumers are finally wired with affordable high-speed access ... which will happen ... then things will accelerate rapidly.

The possibilities for newspapers in that convergence are huge ... and they're before us right now. Newspapers are the cornerstones of convergence.

We already know what happens when you combine the immediacy and search ability of the Internet with the depth and perspective of print.

Now add wireless updates to the mix.

NAA is conducting a pilot program with 13 newspapers to explore the possibilities of wireless news delivery. And MediaNews has made wireless a major priority.

Over time, we will be able to cover people's needs from all angles ... instant alerts by wireless ... evolving updates on the Web ... in-depth reporting and perspective in print.

That is a very powerful combination and ours for the making.

We can weave together different media ... to make our local connection more diverse ... and as a result, stronger ... and broader ... than it's ever been.

But a combination of the down market and the Web's delayed payoff is causing some newspapers to pull back from what were once very aggressive plans. A big mistake.

I think there will be a price to pay for those who pull back too far. It's time to charge, not retreat. This is our future. We must invest in it.

An astronomer once said, "There is an entire universe out there ... just waiting for our wits to grow sharper."

I'm a believer that the payoff on the Web is out there ... it's just waiting for us to discover the right business models.

But all of this big talk about convergence and growth and reaching new audiences will go nowhere without a strong, capable and confident newsroom.

Content and business development are like the heart and brain of the newspaper -- one can't really survive without the other and each helps power the other's functions.

Of course in front of this audience ... I'll steer clear of being more specific about who's the brain and who's the heart.

I saw a quote the other day from an editor who said that his newsroom has gone from a size 38 to a size 34 waistband.

There's been enough intake to sustain the body ... but it can be stronger.

We have to draw the line, though, when we start to see signs of malnutrition.

I believe we need to take a hard look at the ratio of spending on editorial versus the rest of the business ... and revise and adjust it as necessary.

We can't fall into the trap that in this weak economy ... good enough ... is good enough.

It isn't.

At the risk of stepping on some toes, I want to make some observations about our industry's past, present and future. We've spent a lot of time wringing our hands because our circulation has fallen. But we weren't wringing our hands when we were reducing news budgets, tightening newsholes and trimming promotion dollars. Quite frankly, much of our circulation decline was self-inflicted. We damaged our franchises, in many cases, while Wall Street cheered. And cheered. And cheered. Newsroom cost-cuts have gone far enough -- perhaps too far.

There probably is a limit to how much profit a strong newspaper can take out each year. For each newspaper, that limit is different. Neither you nor I can judge what that limit is for somebody else's newspaper. We should be able to find the limit for our own newspapers. But if we've suffered some self-inflicted wounds in the past, let's put them in the past. Let's think about the present and the future.

How about the present? Newspapers are the strongest media on the planet. We have the largest newsgathering teams in each of our markets, by far. We have the best news and advertising content in each of our markets, by far. Nobody else even comes close. We're still very, very strong.

But to the future. We must build on these strengths. We must add more reporting staff, not subtract it. We must add more newshole, not cut it. We must spend more on promoting our many products, not spend less. And we must spend what it takes to develop the new technologies that will take the newspaper business we all love into the future. The newspaper industry has the brightest future it has ever had if we take advantage of it. The future is not so good if we blow it. Let's not blow it this time.

Someone said that the secret to happiness is the ability to look reality in the eye ... and deny it.

But this business has never been about denying reality -- we've made our reputations on reporting the truth.

The reality, however, is that we no longer are the only game in town ... we now compete in ways and in places that in some cases are still new to us ... and even to our competitors.

This is not a time to weaken our newsrooms with draconian cutbacks in personnel and resources. Granted, the reality of the business requires a degree of prudence ... but we can be penny wise without being pound-foolish.

This is an exciting time in the newspaper business, though we do have our challenges: much has changed ... from our readers ... to their choices ... to the new technologies we use to connect with them.

But one thing hasn't changed.

We are the local media.

That does not narrow our franchise. It expands it.

Because nobody else can say it ... not the way we can.

And no one else can deliver the way we all know we can.

Moving forward, the question for all of us is not whether we have that franchise ... but what we are going to do with it.

Thank you for helping this industry discover and execute the right answers. And always remind your publishers that your newsroom is the star of the show, not the supporting cast.



PREVIOUS MEDIA PEOPLE