By Alex Kraus

Lexington’s newspapers are struggling with the same problem facing nearly every newspaper nationwide: how to keep readers from dropping subscriptions in favor of free news on the Internet.

The News-Gazette is just one of thousands of small newspapers across the country seeing dropping subscription rates due to the availability of free news on the Web - including its own Web site.

“Basically, you’re giving your news away for free,” said Darryl Woodson, editor of The News-Gazette.

Woodson said that the news that appears on The News-Gazette’s Web site is only a fraction of what appears in the newspaper. Of the 150 to 200 articles that appear in the newspaper each week, only about 20 appear online. But even that is enough to keep potential subscribers away.

“We know a lot of people use our Web site. It’s probably is hurting our circulation. We haven’t taken a survey or anything, but just a handful of people have told us that they don’t need the paper because they get their news online. A lot of papers are in a quandary about that,” Woodson said.

According to Editor & Publisher, an annual trade publication, subscriptions to The News-Gazette have dropped about 10 percent over the last 10 years. The newspaper hit a peak in 1997 with 9,463 subscribers. The last reported figure, from September 2004, was 8,629 subscribers. Woodson said that the current number stands “right at 8,500.” In addition to these numbers, The News-Gazette gives away about 100 copies each week. Figures for the Rockbridge Weekly were not available.

“We essentially lost 900 or 1000 people in that 10-year period. Why, it’s hard to tell. Older people die off, and younger people don’t want to read the paper. Having a free Web site hurts too, but it’s hard to tell how much… Part of the trend, I’m sure, is the national trend that people don’t read papers as much, and I’m sure part of it has been the Web,” Woodson said.
Part of the reason for the mid-90s spike was an influx of subscribers from Buena Vista. Around 1996, the Rockbridge News and County Press moved from Buena Vista to Lexington to become the Rockbridge Weekly. About 200 Buena Vista residents, angry at losing their hometown paper, switched their subscriptions over to The News-Gazette.

For comparison, circulation for The Ring-tum Phi, one of two student papers at Washington and Lee University, has remained steady at 2,500 since the mid-80s, although numbers have been as high as 3,000 and as low as 2,000.

The News-Gazette’s Web site currently features only some advertising, which made some profit in the late 90s.
 
“We’re probably not typical. We used to have ads on our Web site, but because we had been more dedicated to getting ads for it early on, say late 90s or early 2000s… we were getting some money then,” Woodson said.

However, profits from those ads in recent years have fallen off. A year ago, the newspaper changed the hosting company of its site to Town News, a company that provides templates and advertising services to small newspapers. Representatives from Town News were originally planned to help recruit new advertising last year, but those plans were delayed until two weeks ago. The paper has just finished what Woodson described as an “advertising blitz” to sign up local businesses to advertise on its Web site.

Currently, the site has several placeholder boxes that read, “Advertise Here.”
Prior to the changeover to Town News, The News-Gazette’s Web site received “a couple of thousand hits per week,” he said, but was unsure of the current statistics. The Web site also lost most of its archives in the transition.

Newspapers are not only losing subscribers, but they’re losing revenue from classified ads as well. A 2005 report by the research firm McKinsey & Co. reported that newspapers had lost $1.9 billion in classified ad revenue between 1996 and 2004 to online alternatives like eBay and Craigslist.org.

Staff members from The News-Gazette attended a Virginia newspaper conference this past weekend, where many small newspapers complained about their drops in circulation, but also discussed how to turn Web sites into a profitable segment of their companies. The News-Gazette is one of about 124 weekly newspapers in Virginia, according to Editor & Publisher. In addition, Virginia has 25 dailies, including USA Today.

“Newspapers are saying, ‘Let’s establish our credentials online and then when people see it’s a quality product, then we’ll start charging them,’” said Woodson.

Woodson said that The News-Gazette is considering implementing a premium subscription service on its site in the future, which will allow readers to access archives and exclusive content for a subscription fee.
The Rockbridge Weekly already has a similar feature on its site, where for $10 a year, subscribers to the so-dubbed Rockbridge Weekly Press Club can view the Web site’s archives and in-depth stories. The service is free to paid print subscribers. The Rockbridge Weekly did not return phone calls before deadline.

Despite its effect on circulation rates, the Internet has changed the way newspapers operate on the inside, too. Members of The News-Gazette staff have Web site duties in addition to their duties for the normal paper. The photo technician also manages the Web photos, and one reporter supervises the content of the site. Woodson added that The News-Gazette keeps its Web site updated all week, rather than simply doing weekly updates as other small weeklies do. However, he admits, this puts extra burden on his reporters.

“That’s a change in our coverage. Prior to the Internet, our reporters didn’t have to worry about writing anything until the deadline date, on Monday or Tuesday. Now, if something happens on Thursday night, they have to come in on Friday and write a story about it, [even though] it might only be one or two paragraphs,” Woodson said.

“We’re not the best at it, but whenever there’s breaking news during the week - an accident or fire - we go ahead and post whatever we have on that at the moment,” he added.

One instance was years ago when pieces of a crashed biplane landed on Washington Street.

“We did a story immediately and put a picture immediately after the press conference. That was back when we [could track] the number of hits, and we had a huge number of hits, much more than a usual Wednesday evening,” Woodson said.

“It has changed the way we operate in the newsroom. It’s added to our workload. Since we don’t have extra staff to do it, it means that we have to work harder,” he said.

Doug Harwood, editor of the monthly Rockbridge Advocate, has a different strategy: Just don’t put your news online.

“People call me up sometimes and ask, ‘Why don’t you put your newspaper online?’ And I say, ‘Why would I? It’s insane,” he said. “You don’t make any money giving away what you’re trying to sell.”

The Rockbridge Advocate has only a general informational Web site, which a friend of Harwood’s created as a favor. Harwood said he doubted that there is any money to be made at all from local news Web sites. Furthermore, he doubts the average reader would want to pay an online subscription fee for in-depth local news.

“If the New York Times can’t figure out a way to make money giving away news, neither can I,” he said.

In September 2005, the New York Times, unable to turn a profit from offering free online columns, moved much of the non-news offerings, its previously free Web content into a subscription program called TimesSelect.

Harwood points to history as his main evidence for the future endurance of the print newspaper. Radio and television have both been heralded in the past as the death knell for the newspaper, and yet the medium has survived even into this age of “multimedia convergence.” He cautions against publications that try to establish a Web presence at any cost.

“Newspapers might just have killed themselves by trying to jump on this latest thing that’s out there,” he said. “They’re not going to change the way people use the Internet, so they’d have to change dramatically to fit the way people use the Internet, so they’ll become the Drudge Report or some stupid blog with 150 links in it.”

“Newspapers have a great thing going for them that [publishers] forget about - they’re portable. They’re not a pain in the ass. You can walk down the street and read one. It might be that in another six months people can walk down the street trying to read a newspaper on their cell phone, but it won’t be a pleasant experience. You’ll go blind from trying. People aren’t on subways trying to read a newspaper on their laptop - they’re reading a real newspaper,” he said.

But more than profits, Harwood worries that putting real local news coverage in the same medium as the rest of the Web will further warp the public’s perception of what qualifies as “news.”

“It kind of all becomes this big blur. News and half-news all gets blurred. [Consumers] lump newspapers like mine together with the Drudge Report and Fox News because they don’t know the difference. And I don’t think that’s terribly healthy,” he said.

Harwood added that the staff of the Rockbridge Advocate is so occupied producing the print edition that maintaining an up-to-date online news site would be prohibitive.

The print edition, he said, gives him enough to worry about: “God knows what would happen if I stuck this thing online. I’m more worried about the people who stick around the coffee shop and read the store copy for free.”
 

Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.

Lead supervisor:      Prof. Claudette Artwick

Reporting supervisor: Prof. Doug Cumming

Editing supervisor:  Prof. Pamela Luecke

Technical supervisor:  Michael Todd