What print newspapers need to do to survive the internet age, or: How to get a print edition subscriber for life

My Dad gave me a copy of the News Photographer magazine yesterday, which is the journal for the National Press Photographers Assocation. It was a good read, and got me to thinking about a bunch of stuff. I was poking-around on the NPPA website today, and saw this quote:

Naples Daily News staff photographer Lexey Swall notes, “The Naples Daily News has gone to a ‘web first’ philosophy—meaning that the website is where we put the stories and photos the moment they are finished.” She adds, “Then the web acts as a ‘news service’ for our print edition, where ideally, we will do more in depth coverage of a given story and hopefully not regurgitate what people have already read on the Web.”

Now, if only our local papers could figure out something like this! I’ve been looking for a way to describe to people the way that I think web and print can get along, and I think this might be it. There will always be people who buy the paper because they’re not reading online, but there are a lot of people who buy the paper because they read online and want more information, or a more thorough coverage of a story written a few hours after the first headlines hit, or want the stuff that the paper prints but doesn’t put online. While some of those are the reason I buy the paper now (the Valley News Dispatch print edition carries local information that never gets online), they could secure a subscriber for life if they did more like the person above describes.

I enjoy reading the paper when I get home for the local content. I would certainly spend a lot more time with it if they were to delve into more detail. In addition, I’d probably also spend more time online with them if their online edition was more than just a smattering of the stories that they put in the print edition, with the occasional-but-rare “breaking news” headline.

jonathan