PressEthic

Here is another quote from the BusinessWeek article:

Keller was much more unsparing when it came to The Wall Street Journal (DJ ), which he identified as the Times' key national rival, with which it competes for ads targeting the nation's elite. He said the Times had made "a lot of renovations in anticipation" of the Journal's just-launched Saturday edition. But his reaction when it made its debut was, "Huh? What was that all about?" "The Journal made some serious strategic mistakes" with its Saturday edition, he said, by shifting "from indispensable to optional." The Journal breaks news every day of the week, he added, but "the paper has yet to break important news on Saturday." (A Journal spokesman declined to comment on Keller's remarks.)

I’m not surprised that Mr. Keller took the time to bash a Times' rival in front of a group of advertisers, but I hope he sees the bigger picture here. The response to “Huh? What was that all about?” is simple. The WSJ is trying to add revenue and reach additional readers by providing something new for consumers. While the quality and impact of the reporting for the Saturday edition of the WSJ are debatable, at least the newspaper is willing to experiment a little. No one knows if the Saturday edition will be successful and if it is worth stretching the resources of the paper more than they already are, but I think the WSJ has the right idea.

The newspaper industry certainly needs innovative thinking. Though I am not suggesting that newspapers will vanish if they do not attack different markets, I do think that traditional papers will need to go much further if they hope to capitalize on the changing landscape of the news world.

I understand the reluctance of Mr. Keller to step outside the norm and try other things, but he is missing opportunities. Broadcast news outlets are already taking advantage of non-traditional news sources by using bloggers’ comments and citizen journalists’ experiences to bolster their more traditional reports. MSNBC ran a story yesterday that discussed President Bush’s waning poll numbers. Instead of just supplying what the President said, MSNBC developed the story with the reactions of “experts” and – you guessed it – bloggers. MSNBC continually runs ads for people to sign on as citizen journalists, and why not? If it adds a different perspective to a story and it gives readers a more personal view of the news, then news outlets should spend some time to weed through stories from citizen reporters and use them on the air or in print. Of course, there is that pesky credibility thing to worry about, but I think a newspaper could edit and fact-check a story from a citizen reporter in much the same way it does with its reporters' articles. It might be worth a try even if it is on a small scale. It might also be a way to add resources to a newsroom without adding a lot of cost.

Using bloggers and citizen reporters will not add a lot of profit to newspapers’ bottom lines, but I’m sure there are plenty of other things that papers could try to capitalize on the current trends of the business. It will require a lot of out-of-the-box thinking and experimentation – something that Mr. Keller does not seem to keen about.