Sept. 25, 2000
Vol. 12, No. 19

NOW 18, USA TODAY SHOWS THAT INNOVATION CAN PAY

In 2018, a look back may see a similar blazing of trails on the Web

It was a birthday party I almost missed. Eighteen years and 10 days ago, USA Today was born. Some say that it may "represent the last great, successful experiment in the U.S. media industry."

Hmmm. Good thing that writer didn't know about this Internet thing. Oh, yeah: the writer was Jon Friedman of CBS MarketWatch.com. That's right – the media columnist for a finance site on the World-Wide Web doesn't even count his own operation in the "successful" (or "experiment") category.

It wasn't too long ago that the pundits were saying that "old media" would never understand this "new media" stuff and that the skills it takes to run an ink-on-paper business wouldn't – couldn't – transfer to electrons-in-databases business.

And though there are certainly a lot of on-line successes among the people who had zero media background (can you say "Yahoo!?"), there is a certain amount of success among those who are immersed in print (can you say "Knight Ridder?").

But, let us give USA Today its due. It was an exciting adventure 18 years ago; it weathered a tremendous number of slings and arrows ("McPaper"), and in recent years has become a linchpin in Gannett Co. Inc.'s profit margin.

But, would Gannett start a new national newspaper today?

Gannett's growth in recent months has come almost exclusively from acquisitions. That's not to badmouth acquisitions, it's just to point out the differences between the company today and 18 years ago.

Would anyone start a new national newspaper today? There is a strong case to be made that Knight Ridder's Real Cities group of web sites is, in fact, a national newspaper. Let's see:

  • At USA Today, Gannett used editorial employees from all of its papers to fill its editorial needs; Knight Ridder leverages the editorial from all its papers to fill Real Cities' content needs.

  • Real Cities distills the work of longer-form journalism into succinct news bites that can be read quickly. USA Today was once accused of winning the Pulitzer Prize for "best investigative paragraph."

  • Knight Ridder put Real Cities into its own stand-alone business; Gannett put USA Today into its own stand-alone business.

  • Gannett lost a lot of money during the first few years it published USA Today; similarly, Real Cities hasn't been a freebie for Knight Ridder.

    The parallels go on and on. And if Real Cities is a national newspaper, then there should be no reason not to think of Cox Interactive Media, McClatchy's NandO and Tribune's developing efforts as national newspapers as well.

    It wasn't too long ago that I was whining about the lack of research and development investment made by the newspaper business. And, as an overall industry, there is probably still a good argument that we don't spend enough.

    But specific companies – Tribune, Knight Ridder, Cox and McClatchy, among others – have invested a tremendous amount of time, effort and money in developing on-line products and strategies. Do these efforts qualify as "experiments?" They certainly do.

    Although many newspaper companies can see the profit light at the end of the money tunnel, there still isn't guaranteed profitability in new media. Many, if not most, newspaper companies are still spending more on new media than they're making. And if that doesn't qualify for "experiment" status, what does?

    Will the World-Wide Web be a success? I dunno. But I think it's clear that over the course of the next 18 years, we as newspapers will be building a variety of new media forms and mucking about with them, trying to figure out profitable business models, much the same as Gannett has done over the last 18 years with USA Today.

    In 18 years will we be celebrating Real Cities' birthday as a successful experiment? Again, I dunno.

    But 18 years ago, who would have said USA Today would be able to make that claim?

    -- David M. Cole

    e-mail: dmc@newsinc.net

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    From NEWSINC., Sept. 25, 2000, Copyright © 2000, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved.

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