Newspaper Newsroom Investment

The contrast to all the cutting is in two specific areas. A year ago we characterized investment in the news effort of online newspaper sites as minimal at all but the largest newspapers. “Shovelware” — a rehash of a day’s newspaper — was more often than not the extent of the offerings. Though hard information for any but the largest newspapers is hard to come by, there is evidence that neglect gave way to some improved efforts in 2005, and that upgrades may become even more visible in 2006.

Given that online and niche publications are the bright spots in revenue growth in 2005, it only stands to reason that what news investment growth there is will be directed to online and niche. Over time, we would expect new metrics measuring total news investment across platforms to supercede traditional benchmarks like newshole , news budget, and newspaper staff count.

To date, though, there is little uniformity or visibility within the industry in documenting a broader news investment story that might soften the picture of pinched resources in the print edition. At least one explanation, we have heard anecdotally, is that much of the work of feeding content to online and niche publications comes from re-deploying existing newsroom people rather than springing for big staff and budget increases dedicated to the new products.

Case in point: New York Times online has only 40 news people of its own, but is being fed more generously all the time by the newspaper’s staff of 1,200. The New York Times and USA Today both announced in 2005 that they were combining print and online staffs, projects expected to take well into 2006 to execute. The Washington Post’s online staff remains separately located and organized, but is now coordinated with the mother newspaper with a special 24-hour-desk. A Post spokesman said the operation’s total staff was well over 200, declining to specify how many of those are reporters, editors and producers. Our estimate is more than 100, making the Post the best-staffed newspaper online site (USA Today online, by our estimate, has between 80 and 100).

What is plain to readers of any of these sites is that newspaper reporters are now charged with filing major breaking stories online rather than hoarding the good stuff for the next day’s paper. A mid-afternoon check of any of those will turn up a half-dozen staff-written updates since that morning’s publication.

Much the same has taken place at the Associated Press, whose 3,000 reporters and editors worldwide are now charged with producing an online version first, then turning their attention to a newspaper or broadcast version. That may even represent a step beyond what newspapers are doing, and may offer a model of where newspapers might go.

The Wall Street Journal is a special case with more than 764,000 paid subscribers to its online version, and profits of its extended online operations, including indexes and “Marketwatch,” now outstripping those of the print edition. The Wall Street Journal Online has a news staff of 60, according to the Dow Jones Web site, and draws on the work of 1,900 Dow Jones journalists worldwide.

The second breakthrough of 2005 was the widespread addition of nontraditional content to the sites. Audio is now standard. When Harriet Miers withdrew her Supreme Court nomination, the New York Times’s Elizabeth Bumiller had filed both an online news story and an online voice commentary before noon . Fuller coverage by Bumiller and others followed in the next day’s print edition. Video is also becoming more common online with improvements in quality and the rise of podcasting.

There has also been a cautious embrace of blogs and citizen journalism. The Greensboro News-Record and Dallas Morning News editorial pages are both deeply engaged in staff blogs, designed to elicit reader response. Some of the more prominent experiments in citizen journalism are “Northwest Voice” at the Bakersfield Californian and a network of neighborhood “Hub” supplements to the Rocky Mountain News. Such efforts require a minimal commitment of an editor or two; but the jury remains out on whether they are attracting audience or delivering news of any consequence.27