I question this strategy. I thought we learnt a lesson from the 1990s that people are important?

Murdoch is implying that he ran his business inefficiently while times were good.

When times are bad you should closely examine all your costs and look at what you can do without.

It worries me though that bean counters will say, for example, 10 percent of jobs must go, and not give adequate thought to the consequences for product quality.

They also need to look at historical averages and future goals.

At the Kalgoorlie Miner we achieved significant revenue growth during the mining boom, but our costs hardly rose at all.

I hope WAN has the good sense to recognise that and allow revenue to fall back to a long-term average before cutting jobs at Kalgoorlie.

And looking ahead, slashing jobs today might be counter productive to maintaining a competitive advantage in the future.

We shouldn’t allow our products to deteriorate so that circulation drops further and we become potentially irrelevant.

Companies should acknowledge and be thankful they had some boom years and be prepared to accept lower profits for a couple of years.

I’m not suggesting any business should run at a loss. But we should not be totally driven by profit in what is a cyclical industry.

The site includes features, blogs and podcasts. It promises to publish industry news daily.

“The six key-area blogs are a major part of the site, giving you a chance to publish your own article or comment on the views of others about our industry,” chief executive Mark Hollands said.

The blogs focus on journalism, sales and marketing, print and production, digital Business, media student view, and CEO view.

PANPA will be producing a regular podcast, featuring industry leaders and focusing on the big topics and events for the industry.

From my Rural Press layout training (when training was compulsory under Paul Keating) I learnt from a publishing guru that right-hand pages are read by something like one percent more people than left-hand pages.

It’s such a small number to be meaningless, but newspapers get away with charging loadings for right-hand pages because of it and the misconstrued belief among marketing people.

When I handled clients’ advertising I liked page two or four. Those pages are usually open and well read.

Small ads can also be effective and spot color can be more effective than full color.

Winners in the 2008 Caxton Awards for excellence in newspaper advertising have been announced.

The winner (pictured above) in the category for “best small space ad” caught my eye for its simplicity and effectiveness.

The client was the Cancer Council and the agency was Campaign Palace.

The ad looks great and really catches the eye. Well done to them.

In fact, the previous site should never have been launched given its lack of content.

This collaborative effort of the nation’s major publishers is gaining momentum and will hopefully serve the purpose of convincing advertisers that newspapers offer the best deal in web and print.

Many companies see advertising as discretionary expenditure and make it one of the first items they cut when times are tough.

We’re already feeling the pinch at one of our regional papers and the downturn will have an impact across the board. These are my survival tips:

1) Trim the fat. Almost every newspaper will have some, except perhaps former Rural Press regionals.

2) Replace departing full-time staff with casuals or contractors where practical to maximise labour flexibility and productivity.

3) Retain editorial staff numbers as close as possible to current levels. Advertising revenue will drop, but circulation should hold firm. Why do most people buy a newspaper?

Expanding on the above (1), have you kept an old bloke on out the back shuffling papers because he’s like part of the furniture? Do you need three receptionists or might you get by with two, having an accounts officer answer the phones occasionally?

The papers that are already cut to the bone will have less room to move. Recessions highlight a solid reason for investing in your product and people when times are good. I wonder how many publishers actually did that?

Employing casuals and contractors (2) is not a good way to attract and retain skilled staff in a positive labor market, despite the perceived advantages for both parties.

Unemployment is rising and there should be more people looking for any type of work. For regional papers this should create opportunities for photographers, part-time journalists, accounts staff and graphic artists.

Casuals and contractors only work when you know they will be busy; there should be no downtime.

Some managers will tempted to slash jobs across the board (3). It takes some nerve to stand up and say that journalist positions should be protected.

Apart from trimming any obvious fat, it’s important to not let the editorial department diminish to the point where quality becomes compromised.

Circulation needs to be maintained for advertising to quickly revive when the recession is over.

Sadly, I suspect many publishers will not heed this advice. The danger for all of us is that quality will drop irredeemably and other media will capitalise when things pick up.

I hope I’m wrong.

I have never felt so let down after reading a newspaper. I really do not believe I received $2.40 in value.

Here is a rundown of what appeared in the news section of both papers.

Page 1
Age: Tax chief tips tough times (lead), Casey Stoner pic/story, Top cop raises hope on Britt (secondary).
Australian: Investors’ $30bn dash for cash (lead), rugby league grand final (pic/story), Cleaning industry’s dirty secrets (secondary).

Comments: The Age’s lead story threw me. It began with three motherhood remarks from the Tax Commissioner before talking about the general economy. The Australian’s approach was more sensible, analysing the investment switch to cash. Neither pic/story appealed to me because I’m not interested in those sports. The Age’s secondary was okay, but the cleaning industry’s “dirty secrets” in The Oz was a better yarn and not something you would expect to find online.

Page 3
Age: A long pic/story about visual artists receiving a five percent royalty payment. How niche can you get? The lead headline was about an Australian citizen fighting extradition to Croatia over war crimes allegations (good story) and there was an interesting secondary about former Governor General Peter Hollingworth saying he should never have taken the job. The arts story took up way too much space.

Australian: A much stronger page. The lead was about photographer Bill Henson effectively stalking schools to find children for nude portraits; Derryn Hinch summonsed to answer contempt charges; Mokbel boy joins mum in prison; and Hunt for suspected croc victim halted.

Page 5
Age: Nice pic/story subject about a judo athlete whose son has a rare genetic condition, poorly written though. The reference to his condition was in the 10th paragraph, everything before it was fluff. The bizarre choice of lead was about Australia not advocating overseas for foreign nationals facing a death penalty.

Australian: Pic/lead on a Tasmanian murder mystery, secondary on the arts royalties stuff.

Page 6 and 7 were okay in both papers. The Australian stayed strong through to the world news, while The Age left me flummoxed with virtually a full page of environmental reports on page nine.

This might be a rant, but the fact is I’m a disappointed punter and I might vote with my wallet.

From an editor’s perspective, I don’t understand the story selections. The page one lead was poorly cobbled together; the page three picture/story should have been subbed better; the page five lead was a non story and page nine was a waste of newsprint.

The Age might be heeding Philip Meyer’s advice I referred to in a previous post and pitching itself to an “elite”.

I suspect the strategy (if that’s what it is) won’t convert casual suburban/country readers into regular subscribers and that won’t help them to maintain dwindling classifieds revenue.

Over the past week, there has been a lot of interest in sad stories about the drowning of two local fishermen. That’s understandable.

Before that, our most read stories were about big cat sightings in the bush and a Star Wars game review. Those articles received many hits from overseas.

Looking at today’s figures to establish articles of local interest, Friday’s print front page regarding the old hospital development rated below a breaking story about a council manager assaulting a councillor and a police report about an 88-year-old unlicensed driver crashing into a fence.

The stats confirm my view people would rather read about other people than politics.

The other most read story was from Thursday’s paper regarding a graffiti artist. With hindsight I should have run that story on the front page of the print edition, instead of in the arts section.

Meyer is regarded as something of a prophet, having written “The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age” in 2004.

In his latest essay he argues:

“A smaller, less frequently published version packed with analysis and investigative reporting and aimed at well-educated news junkies that may well be a smart survival strategy for the beleaguered old print product.”

I agreed with his observation that (post war) newspapers were all things to all people. That’s largely true today in regional areas.

“Few read the entire paper, but many read the parts that appealed to their specialized interests.”

My father thought a newspaper good value just for the crossword, but I wonder how many people complete the puzzle today?

Meyer’s comment which hit home to me was that newspapers would survive by maximising the part of their business least vulnerable to substitution: community influence. He envisages newspapers trimming down to a specialised product and serving a narrow market well.

My interpretation of exercising community influence does not exclusively involve editorial opinions or comment pieces, as discussed in a previous post. In fact, I think some newspapers mistake community influence for proclaiming their own viewpoints.

I define it more as reporting local issues in a way that brings attention to things that matter in a community.

The newspaper’s opinion is irrelevant. Reporting an issue should involve stating the facts for people to form their own conclusions and reporting those views. Meyer summarises it this way:

“The raw material for this processing is evidence-based journalism, something that bloggers are not good at originating.”

He says the newspaper endgame should concentrate on retaining core values of trust and responsibility. “The mass audience is drifting away, and resources should be focused on the leadership audience.”

I think Australian regional newspapers have several years before the same issues are paramount, however it’s important for those of us in the industry that we be prepared.

We need to be flexible enough to change fixed views that might have been tried and true 20 years ago, but have less relevance today.

I stopped writing editorials at the Alpine Times and the Kalgoorlie Miner, and the sky didn’t fall in. We never received a single complaint and nobody even commented on the omissions.

Editorials were important historically, back when newspapers were the only medium. They not only reported debate, they shaped opinion like they cannot possibly do today. Publishers established newspapers to exercise that privilege.

Those of us who inherited editorial positions should act responsibly and report fairly.

I don’t believe city editors should get involved in the political debate to the point where they are openly hostile to the government, as happened in Perth, or openly in bed with the government.

They should report the news, expose facts that people will find interesting to know, give voice to various viewpoints and let voters elect the government.

Regional editors have a role to influence policy outcomes that benefit their communities, but not to make policies. They can achieve that without writing commentary.

These are only my opinions, of course, and others will disagree. There’s a view that newspapers should campaign on issues and shape opinions as they did in the days before federation.

Time to move on, is my response. Campaign yes, where it’s indisputably in the public interest.

But in a general sense, readers like to be informed and entertained, not lectured or manipulated. Stick to ethical principles of fairness and balance.

One danger of writing a slanted editorial is it creates a perception that reporting on the same issue might be biased, even if it isn’t.

A possible danger of not writing one is that people might accuse the paper of standing for nothing. That hasn’t been my experience though. As mentioned, readers didn’t even miss it.

My current employer wants me to write daily editorials. In doing so I seek to be measured and fair, unless I feel strongly about something After all, it is an opinion: samples here.

If I were starting a major newspaper from scratch with unlimited resources, I would not include an editorial. I would run an opinion page with letters, a guest columnist and emails/SMS messages.

People prefer to read what their peers have to say, rather than an editor’s opinion.

No longer are we helpless to hear a developing story on the radio while our pages carry stale text.

I had two examples of that today and in both cases the stories that appear in newsprint tomorrow will be out of date. That’s frustrating, but thanks to the web it’s redeemable.

One article involved the tragic loss of two fishermen from Mount Gambier off the coast of Yorke Peninsula. Police hadn’t released the men’s names by the time we went to print.

The other story was about a chemical spill closing the Princes Highway near the Victorian border for several hours this afternoon. The road was reopened to traffic shortly after we went to press.

We updated the web reports as new information came to hand.

It doesn’t diminish the print edition to have these stories appear containing information that’s been superseded. People understand deadlines, but they also know they can get breaking news online.

Country newspapers were slow to embrace the internet and in many cases are still beaten to the online story by radio. There’s really no excuse for that.

For those competing in the web space it’s now a management challenge to decide the treatment of a breaking story.

Do we tip our opposition off about what we know or do we hold back? I generally delay until local broadcast bulletins are committed before releasing something online that’s not necessarily in the public domain.

We need to point more to our websites from news pages and that’s an area where most papers can improve.