Writers, Stringers, Photographers ...

The new WEB based model has to run lean -- the monopoly that enabled newspapers to charge high rates for display and classified has long gone. That means that the great majority of contributors will either work on a piece rate or even for free.

Free? Yup, if the internet has taught us anything, it is that given the proper motivation there is an unlimited number of people who will work for free in return for recognition. The job of the editor is to manage, motivate, filter and train.

Let's start with photographers ...

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The "old" Sentinel has several full time photographers - experienced professionals. The new WEB Sentinel won't be able to afford that luxury. Instead it will have to depend on what pro's call GWC - (Guys with a Camera).

The editor will have to cultivate a small team of "specialists" Two or three guys that cover local sports (football, basketball, track, swimming), a couple for for specific story shots, a couple for nightlife, and a FLickr pool for everyone else covering breaking events and local color. (PS when I say guys I mean both genders ...)

Flickr? You betcha. This is how the photos will be uploaded, tagged and reviewed by he editor. Each photographer will be "trained" to review photos, tag them with the who, what, when and where and upload them to the WEB Sentinel group on Flickr. The editor (as group admin) can get a immediate notice when a photo has been uploaded.

Motivation? Let's start with PHOTO CREDIT. The "Old" Sentinel is very bad about that right now -- if their staff photographers didn't take it, generally you just see it labeled contributed photo. Other motivations - press credentials. Finally, after a photog has proven himself, cash.

In addition to your regulars you will have a breaking news feed. Figure every cell phone is a camera and I've seen better and better photos coming off of cell phones.

Writers The same principles apply to writers - there are no full time staff writers - editors yes, writers no. There will be many contributors. Again, the community is full of people who will regularly contribute in return for credit.

The editor will organize a team of writers and each writer (or possibly a small group) will specialize much like they do today. You'll have a couple of restaurant reviewers, theater reviewer, music reviewer, business writer, style & fashion reviewers, crime writer. On the harder news side, you'll have a city council specialist, a county specialist, a city school specialist a couple of sportswriters. You'll have a surf correspondent, fish guy, cooking contributors.

There is also feature stuff - the "only in Santa Cruz" stories, the stories on local color and interest.

In the internet age, there is what I call the public records "writer". This is someone who can find interesting things by combing through public records - court records, real estate transactions, tax liens and such. It's not the data which is so interesting as the story behind the data.

So how many contributors will the editors have to manage?

A back of the envelope calculation starting from the number of posts (40 per day) would indicate maybe 10-15 photographers and 40-50 contributors. Since you aren't paying these folks you cannot expect them to produce stuff daily.

On another post I'll talk about page views and how they should be used for both tracking your success and compensating the contributors.

A Model for the New WEB Sentinel

Who was it that said:
   "The mediocre borrow, The great steal the whole thing."

If I am going to steal a web model I need to be sure to steal the best stuff. After checking other papers' web sites (love NYT, hate SJ Mercury News) and various blogs over the past two years I have decided to steal wholesale from Gawker.

Gawker is a NY based blog, one of a family created by Nick Denton. Over the past several years, Nick has not only developed multiple blogs but has boldly experimented with different advertising models, comment models, and compensation models as well as tweaking his designs. He predicted the steep drop off in revenue, not only for the print media but for blogging media and ruthlessly disposed of under performing blogs. He cut expenses and his are a few of the sizeable blogs/web sites that are profitable.

What are some of the things I think are great about the Gawker model?

Lots of Posts - I would guess that in a 24 hour period Gawker posts about 40 items. The posts start early in the morning (west coast time) and continue until late in the evening. I check it several times a day. This is very good for page views which will drive advertising revenue.

Repeated Topics - Gawker's posts tend to be grouped into categories such as Gossip Roundup, Media Crack, Open Caption.

Good Comment Handling - to gain commenting privileges, one has to audition by submitting a "clever" comment. Once approved, you get a user name and password. If your comments are stupid, boorish or boring you can be executed. Check out the current Sentinel's online comments and tell me how many you think should be executed. (I say, kill the whole bunch and let God sort them out.)

Transparent Metrics - each post starts with a short intro; to read the rest you have to click through. This provides a metric on the "interestingness" of the post and is used to compensate the contributors.

Not Afraid of Outbound Links - check any newspaper's web site for outbound links. What? You don't find any? Hey, you gotta place nice in this business.

Natural Threading - reading a post and realize you missed an interesting earlier post or related one? Gawker's links make it quick and easy to see the entire "thread" of posts.

Clean Design - the design has been refined over time and is reasonably clean. Too many newspaper sites have so much junk, advertising and widgets that you get a headache staring at them.

Good Use of Photography - Gawker uses small photos aside many posts with a larger photo or photos inside. They always give credit where due on photos -- something the Sentinel currently does not do well at all!

If you're not familiar with Gawker go to: www.gawker.com

What to Print in the new Web Sentinel?

What to Print?

The key word is LOCAL. I will focus on subjects of interest to the 150,000 people who live in the Santa Cruz area: roughly from Ben Lomond/Bonny Dune to the Watsonville border.

What are these subjects?

local politics
local sports
local arts & entertainment
business
crime
gossip
photos


This is pretty much what all papers write about though the old Sentinel didn't seem to traffic much in gossip. But if we've learned anything from the Internet, it is that there is no limit to the public's interest in and consumption of gossip. So I'm going to have it and have lots of it.

I'll expand on each of these categories later.

What Not to Print

Even though we are a WEB page our visual real estate is still very valuable. What you leave out defines you as much as what you put in.

No Stock Prices or Charts
Hey, my readers track their stocks and the market on Yahoo, Google and WSJ. I don't bring anything to the party. I will do articles on local businesses.

No AP or NYT Reprints
Again, my readers get that from Google and the NYT.

No Classifieds, Job Listings etc ...
Craigslist owns that. Only a fool would spend time competing there. (In fact, I've got a nice idea for a weekly article based on Santa Cruz related Craiglist postings ...)

No National or World News
Again, NYT, Google and Yahoo are all over this. Leave it.

No Ugly Ads
This is one area where existing newspapers have really messed up. I'm assuming we'll have our share of display ads and ad links on our pages. However I'm going to make sure that the design and look of the ads does not detract from the site's clean appearance. Even if I have to turn down an ad.

In the next post we'll talk about how many articles per day, and how we'll organize things.

A Web Based Newspaper in Santa Cruz Part I

What if, tomorrow, the owners of the Santa Cruz Sentinel decided to shut the paper down? Suppose you were the paper's editor and you got a few months severance pay. You think: "this city needs a paper; I'm not going to get a newspaper job anywhere else, I'm too old to get into something new; this is a fresh start and I can do it the way I want to. I am free from the constraints of bosses, of the need to print and deliver."

I am not a greedy guy but I can't run it for free or on charity forever.

I can't really afford to screw up. After all, this is my livelihood we're talking about. So I'd better sit down, figure out what works (and do it) and what doesn't work (and don't do it.)

Things I've Got to Figure Out

• What's going to be in my "paper"?
  
• How do I measure success and progress?
  
• What are the keys to success?
  
• What do I want to avoid?
  
• Who's going to be on the team?
  
• How do I organize the team?
  
• Where will we get the money?
  
• Who is going to "own" this?