How an alternative newspaper is filling in the gaps left by city newspaper's publication cuts
I
recently wrote about the newspaper war that erupted in New Orleans after the city's daily newspaper cut its publishing frequency to three times a week. To quickly recap, the decision left to New Orleans' Times-Picayune facing serious competition for the first time in decades as the Baton Rouge based Advocate launched a daily New Orleans Advocate to fill in the gap.
What I didn't mention was that this wasn't the first time Advance Publications did that sort of thing to its daily newspapers. And after New Orleans, the company seemed to have decided to proceed with the strategy with renewed vigor.
In September 2012, Press-Register of Mobile, Alabama became one of the many, many Advance newspapers to get its frequency reduced to three times a week. The fact that it happened just a year before its 200th anniversary (making it the oldest continuously published newspaper in the entire state) probably didn't help. This time, there was no other daily newspaper trying to fill in the gap. Instead, something equally interesting happened.
In the earlier post, I mentioned that Times-Picayune's frequency reduction seemed to have benefited all media in New Orleans - even newspapers and news websites that didn't directly compete with it. Lagniappe, Mobile's alternative newspaper, certainly wasn't directly competing with the Press-Register. But according to editor and co-publisher Ashley Toland-Trice,
it benefited in the big way from Press-Register's coverage reduction.
The Press-Register's retreat in covering the community has presented opportunities for a locally-owned publication like Lagniappe. "People in Mobile were outraged that a company from New Jersey [Advance] could rob us of our daily newspaper," Toland-Trice said. "They basically cut all their investigative reporting and decided to focus on sports and photos of girls on the beach. It's just a bunch of clickbait. And so that left us with the question of what 'alternative' is when there's nothing really left to be 'alternative' to. And we decided that for us, it'd be about filling those gaping news holes."
[...]
"Mobile is not the most digital-forward market. We're not a bunch of hillbillies like everybody thinks, but we're certainly not the most tech-savvy town. So three days a week - people were furious about it. It's really odd living in a town without a daily. Eventually people started looking to us for more coverage. And we felt pressure internally to fill this news hole. We had already been inching that way, because they [the Press-Register] had stopped doing investigative pieces and covering certain parts of town. But when they went to three days, we started getting all sorts of tips and calls from people about stories. And we started doing those stories. And now people think of us as the hard-news source in town."
Since the The Press-Register's publishing reductions, Lagniappe increased its own publication schedule from biweekly to weekly, hired on some of The Press-Register's sale staff and increased the pool of freelancers. Their print advertising revenue has never been better. There's even talk about them becoming a legal paper of record - which, if it pens out, will bring in a decent and stable revenue stream from legal advertisements/announcements.
One of the big things that traditionally separated daily newspapers and alt-weeklies is that alt-weeklies operate on a smaller budget and have less resources. While the gap has certainly narrowed, I don't think we're at the point where Lagniappe can aggressively compete with The Press-Register the way New Orleans Advocate compete with Times-Picayune. But it doesn't have to. It seems to be doing just fine building on its own strengths, taking on at least some of the things The Press-Register used to do more, and better.
It seems that, in a lot of cases, alt-weeklies don't seem to be faring too badly in the current economic climate. In Chicago, Chicago Reader is one of making Sun-Times Media's more profitable newspapers, and Newcity is apparently making profit ( mostly through print, no less). Elsewhere in United States, some alt-weeklies seem to be doing well, while others... not so much.
As Advance Media and other media companies cut coverage, it would be interesting to see how this will affect the alternative weeklies - and what the "mainstream" media companies will do in response.
In the end of the interview, Toland-Trice said that, in the end of the day, she's not focusing on the future - she's focusing on making a good newspaper.
Our thing is - we're trying to be a good newspaper. Everyone seems to be so consumed about what format the future of newspapers will be in that I think there's a tendency to forget that people just want good content. Some want to read it on their iPad, and some want to read it in print at the restaurant. We're just focusing on our content - making it really good, and smart, and in service of our community.
Over the past two years... I've become a bit cynical about that. Chicago Journal was a pretty good newspaper. Southeast Observer was a pretty good newspaper. I could go on...
But, for her sake - and for the sake of Lagniappe readers and Mobile residents, I hope she's right.
recently wrote about the newspaper war that erupted in New Orleans after the city's daily newspaper cut its publishing frequency to three times a week. To quickly recap, the decision left to New Orleans' Times-Picayune facing serious competition for the first time in decades as the Baton Rouge based Advocate launched a daily New Orleans Advocate to fill in the gap.
What I didn't mention was that this wasn't the first time Advance Publications did that sort of thing to its daily newspapers. And after New Orleans, the company seemed to have decided to proceed with the strategy with renewed vigor.
In September 2012, Press-Register of Mobile, Alabama became one of the many, many Advance newspapers to get its frequency reduced to three times a week. The fact that it happened just a year before its 200th anniversary (making it the oldest continuously published newspaper in the entire state) probably didn't help. This time, there was no other daily newspaper trying to fill in the gap. Instead, something equally interesting happened.
In the earlier post, I mentioned that Times-Picayune's frequency reduction seemed to have benefited all media in New Orleans - even newspapers and news websites that didn't directly compete with it. Lagniappe, Mobile's alternative newspaper, certainly wasn't directly competing with the Press-Register. But according to editor and co-publisher Ashley Toland-Trice,
it benefited in the big way from Press-Register's coverage reduction.
The Press-Register's retreat in covering the community has presented opportunities for a locally-owned publication like Lagniappe. "People in Mobile were outraged that a company from New Jersey [Advance] could rob us of our daily newspaper," Toland-Trice said. "They basically cut all their investigative reporting and decided to focus on sports and photos of girls on the beach. It's just a bunch of clickbait. And so that left us with the question of what 'alternative' is when there's nothing really left to be 'alternative' to. And we decided that for us, it'd be about filling those gaping news holes."
[...]
"Mobile is not the most digital-forward market. We're not a bunch of hillbillies like everybody thinks, but we're certainly not the most tech-savvy town. So three days a week - people were furious about it. It's really odd living in a town without a daily. Eventually people started looking to us for more coverage. And we felt pressure internally to fill this news hole. We had already been inching that way, because they [the Press-Register] had stopped doing investigative pieces and covering certain parts of town. But when they went to three days, we started getting all sorts of tips and calls from people about stories. And we started doing those stories. And now people think of us as the hard-news source in town."
Since the The Press-Register's publishing reductions, Lagniappe increased its own publication schedule from biweekly to weekly, hired on some of The Press-Register's sale staff and increased the pool of freelancers. Their print advertising revenue has never been better. There's even talk about them becoming a legal paper of record - which, if it pens out, will bring in a decent and stable revenue stream from legal advertisements/announcements.
One of the big things that traditionally separated daily newspapers and alt-weeklies is that alt-weeklies operate on a smaller budget and have less resources. While the gap has certainly narrowed, I don't think we're at the point where Lagniappe can aggressively compete with The Press-Register the way New Orleans Advocate compete with Times-Picayune. But it doesn't have to. It seems to be doing just fine building on its own strengths, taking on at least some of the things The Press-Register used to do more, and better.
It seems that, in a lot of cases, alt-weeklies don't seem to be faring too badly in the current economic climate. In Chicago, Chicago Reader is one of making Sun-Times Media's more profitable newspapers, and Newcity is apparently making profit ( mostly through print, no less). Elsewhere in United States, some alt-weeklies seem to be doing well, while others... not so much.
As Advance Media and other media companies cut coverage, it would be interesting to see how this will affect the alternative weeklies - and what the "mainstream" media companies will do in response.
In the end of the interview, Toland-Trice said that, in the end of the day, she's not focusing on the future - she's focusing on making a good newspaper.
Our thing is - we're trying to be a good newspaper. Everyone seems to be so consumed about what format the future of newspapers will be in that I think there's a tendency to forget that people just want good content. Some want to read it on their iPad, and some want to read it in print at the restaurant. We're just focusing on our content - making it really good, and smart, and in service of our community.
Over the past two years... I've become a bit cynical about that. Chicago Journal was a pretty good newspaper. Southeast Observer was a pretty good newspaper. I could go on...
But, for her sake - and for the sake of Lagniappe readers and Mobile residents, I hope she's right.