Fading brands: If today’s newspapers are to become tomorrow’s aggregators, it is likely that newspaper brand names will become less important. Take the example of television news in the United States. People don’t watch NBC, CBS or ABC because they are loyal to one or the other station. They tend to watch the anchor with whom they most identify.

In the same way, if newspapers are to link to outside sources to give their readers the best possible understanding of a story, readers will begin to identify with the journalist that comments on, aggregates and directs them to that content. Look at Poynter’s Romenesko, an aggregator of all things media, or The Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin who compiles White House Briefing. Now imagine a newspaper website full of journalists that have a similar function for different topics. The reporter becomes the brand, (a theory proposed here by Journalism Hope).

In one way in particular, this makes sense. Readers are moving towards niche products and personalized news. This can be seen in the rise of blogs, especially political “mainstream blogs”. The writers of these online rants tend to swing towards one end of the political spectrum and attract readers of the same opinion. They aggregate links to news and commentary of the same cut.

Newspapers try to be everything to everybody which is why their brand name is still visible and held to such high standards. But they are gradually implementing tools such as RSS that adhere to personalization trends and simultaneously, the dilution of their brand name. RSS users don’t subscribe to a paper; they subscribe to a feed, some of which are the works of individual journalists. The journalists may be employed by the paper, but their name immediately becomes more recognizable than that of the publication.  

So if a newspaper’s brand name loses meaning on the Web and its journalists gain loyal readers, how is the paper to survive financially?

Personalized revenue: If newspapers are to become aggregators and brand names are to fade in importance on the Web, pay schemes must also be adapted. Instead of being based on the brand name and being all things to all people (standard bulk subscriptions), newspapers need to charge on more specific levels (micropayments). (see other postings on micropayments here, here and here)

Payment plan options need to be created. For people that read a particular columnist, there should be a price set for that columnist. If readers follow a major story such as Hurricane Katrina or the War in Iraq, flexible packages should be organized that include every report, analysis and commentary on the topic. When journalists link readers to other publications, revenue sharing between publications should be established. For occasional readers, a system should be set up that allows them to pay per article (which could eventually entice them into subscribing to one or two journalists that direct them to the highest quality material). (Please add your own ideas of how you would pay for Internet news to the comments)

Back to the newsroom: Of course, if readers are going to pay for newspaper content, they will only pay for those that produce constant quality. Newspapers need to find the best and brightest journalists and editors to populate their newsrooms, journalists that are well educated in their subject matter and who know who their reader base is and how to connect with them.

For now, newspapers need to use their still highly recognizable and respected brand names to hire these journalists because in the near future, it is the name of those journalists on which the paper’s success could be based.

Source: Journalism Hope