Want news? That'll cost you

If you went to the Wilson Times Web site today, you ran into a blockade. After five or six years of free access to the site, the newspaper has erected a barricade around its news stories. Only the often enigmatic headlines are free to all. The newspaper had tried setting up a pay wall around its content in the past, as news Web sites were just developing their presence. The $6 a month fee for print non-subscribers never generated much revenue and scared off potential readers. With online readership peaking at a couple of hundred or so, the Web site had little or no appeal to advertisers, and the pay wall was taken down several years ago.

Pay Wall II will charge an audacious $9.50 a month for access, the same price as a print subscription. This price, of course, has no relationship to the cost of placing the news on the Web. The newspaper's Web site has no printing costs, no delivery costs, no mechanical infrastructure. It appears to be a price aimed at shoring up print subscriptions — subscribe to the Web edition and get the print edition for no extra cost. Buy one, get one free? Something is needed; I'm told that the newspaper's circulation, which peaked above 18,000 when I was there, has fallen below 15,000.

This aggressive pricing has been advocated by some of the "experts" offering advice to a newspaper industry that is clearly in turmoil. News content is costly to produce; it has value; anyone accessing it, in print or online, should pay for that cost, these experts say.

Others are not so sure that's the right approach. Most state, national and international news probably will remain "free." There's just too much competition and too little consensus about how to charge for this information. Local news might stand a better chance of surviving behind a pay wall, but this news has to have real value sufficient for large numbers of people to want to pay for it. And entry into the information business is so inexpensive these days (no need to buy a printing press, and there are plenty of out-of-work journalists to hire on the cheap) that even highly local content providers have to beware overpricing their content. An upstart competitor could easily overthrow their monopoly.

The fundamental problem is that the newspaper business model has broken down. For generations, newspaper owners got rich by delivering reliable readers to advertisers. Now readers are less likely to read a newspaper because they have so many other options, and advertisers are concentrating on the narrowly targeted cohorts of buyers delivered by Internet search ads and other innovations instead of the shotgun-blast approach of hitting the entire population (or large portions of it) via newspaper ads. Charging for content, which newspapers never really did (subscription prices used to cover only the delivery costs), is one answer to this quandary, but it might not be the best solution.

What is the best solution? If I knew the answer to that, I could be a consultant and make big money instead of giving away my opinions for free. I do know that charging for content that used to be free will only anger the people accustomed to dialing up the newspaper Web site whenever they feel like it, and restrictions will sharply reduce traffic on the Web site, making advertising space there less valuable.

It's a bold but risk-laden strategy, but these are desperate times (no pun intended).

Layoffs hurt those already hurting

Reflecting on the limited information I have about the most recent layoffs at the Wilson Times leads to some troubling impressions. A number of the people who were laid off either had health problems of their own or had dependents on the company insurance who had health problems. Among those names I've been told about are one former employee with diabetes and a heart condition, who probably can't get personal health insurance; a former employee with a recently diagnosed chronic disease; and a former employee with a handicapped child. Employees like that drive up group insurance rates, and that increases the employer's costs. I worry about what these people will do. Finding a job past a certain age is extremely difficult, to which I can testify, and COBRA coverage is time-limited and expensive. Some of these people will be eagerly hoping that Congress passes a health plan that will cover them, and quickly.

I have no reason to think that insurance costs factored into layoff decisions, but eliminating employees with these conditions will probably cut the company's health insurance premiums, and cutting costs is what these layoffs are all about.

Other layoffs involved people in senior management positions — people who were being paid the most. Laying off these employees saves more money than laying off the same number of lower-paid, junior employees. That's not an uncommon strategy in retrenchments, although some unions have a "last hired, first fired" agreement to protect senior workers.

Layoffs are always a painful event in any industry. In the news business, where layoffs have become common across the country recently, it's especially sad because these layoffs reduce the the news media's ability to fill its traditional "watchdog" role, leave the public less informed and give corrupt public officials greater latitude to get away with shenanigans.

Lest you get the impression that all newspapers are chopping staff by half, as the Wilson Times has done, other papers, while hurting, are not that bad off. I talked to a former colleague Thursday, whose newspaper in another N.C. city is "doing fine," absorbing a little decline in ad sales but maintaining staff and news coverage. The continuing massacre of jobs at the Wilson Times is far beyond the industry norm.

Believe me, I had nothing to do with it

It happened again this week. An old friend, whom I had not seen in some time, greeted me with the question, "How are you liking your retirement?" As I have numerous times over the past nine months, I had to explain, "I'm not retired; I was laid off. I'm job-hunting." When I was laid off, the newspaper where I had worked for 29 years and where I had managed the news content for 19 years, made no announcement of my departure, or of the departure of several colleagues who were laid off at the same time. One former colleague and I joked about taking out an ad in the newspaper explaining the circumstances of our departure.

Lately, I've been thinking about taking out another type of ad, one that says, "I'm not responsible for what your newspaper looks like or for its content." As much as I disliked being laid off, that action did at least absolve me of any connection with the redesign that came a few months later. Not many people have been thrilled about the new look or news emphasis. The letter to the editor that ran Wednesday is the first public condemnation I've seen. Although the paper ran a thank you to readers who had praised the redesign, everyone I've talked to has expressed disgust or exasperation with the redesign. And, unfortunately, I still run into people who think I'm still working there. For them, let me make it clear: I had nothing to do with it!

Now, let me get back to "enjoying my retirement."

Yes, that is a redesign, all right

Wilson newspaper readers now have their choice of two morning papers. The Wilson Times, known for 107 years as The Wilson Daily Times, switched today to a.m. delivery and touted a garishly colorful new design that management says readers will like better. We'll see.

Today's Wilson Times front page is dominated by four headlines with accompanying photos that "tease" articles that run inside the paper. The biggest headlines on the front page are not for front-page stories. They're for 3A stories. The largest photo on the front page accompanies a story on 2A. Get your hand exercise flipping back and forth between the article and the photo that should accompany it.

The blue and the orange colors (is this the Clemson football team?) leap out of the news box at readers. Much more subtle is the paper's switch to "ragged right" type instead of the traditional justified type, in which each line of type ends at the same point. This is not revolutionary. I attended a seminar in 1981 in which the Biloxi, Miss., paper touted its switch to ragged right. I think Biloxi's ragged-right type lasted only a short while.

The Times' layoff-depleted staff put extra effort into today's edition, which has an unusually high local story count. Don't expect it every day. That front-page headline about Craven County is actually locally written, though the headline writer ignored the local angle (Flu medicines arrive in Wilson) and went for the statewide angle (though no credit is given to Associated Press or wherever the comment originated).

You'd think that the decision by local physicians not to provide free physicals for public school athletes would have warranted mention on the front page, but it was relegated to 3A. This could have a huge impact on high school sports and many hundreds of local families.

World and state briefs have been repackaged, but the packaging leaves no space for important state or national news that requires more than a brief. And three-line headlines on many of the briefs detract from the package's look. As for the roundup of small, tightly cropped AP photos from around the world? Who needs them? The space could be used to serve readers' information needs better.

The Sports front gives a hint of what's in store: Ads climbing to the top of the section fronts. Until relatively recently, no self-respecting newspaper would have allowed ads on the front page. Now everybody, even the New York Times, is doing it. The initial, fairly unobtrusive ads at the bottom of the page have given way to ads climbing the page. In the name of serving the advertiser (and collecting a premium payment for placement), newspapers are shortchanging their readers' news space.

My vote for the most intriguing aspect of the Times' redesign: The folio lines (the small type at the top of the page that gives the date, page number and name of the paper) make no mention of the paper's name or of its point of origin. Instead, it says "wilsontimes.com." In my 33 years in the newspaper business, I was always told that it was important to have the newspaper's name and hometown in the folio lines so that a clipping or tear sheet could be readily identified. Also, the only mention of the city and state from which the paper originates is in the small type on page 2A in what is known as the second-class mailing permit box. It includes the paper's street address, but it also refers to the paper as The Wilson Daily Times. The N.C. Secretary of State's Office reports that the corporate name of this company is still The Wilson Daily Times, despite what you might read on the front page.

By whatever name, the Wilson paper has cast its lot with a New York Post look and a printing schedule that competes directly with a much larger and more complete (but diminished) newspaper. Readers will decide whether it works.