Connecticut newspapers in Mark Twain’s court

Paige Compositor. For more photos (including Mark Twain in Legos!), click on image.

Last week I had a chance to attend the premiere of “On Deadline: Is Time Running Out for the Press?”, a documentary about the near-death and uncertain rescue of the Bristol Press and the New Britain Herald, both in Connecticut.

The papers were owned by the Journal Register Co., which, as it was entering bankruptcy in late 2008, threatened to shut them down if a buyer couldn’t be found. (The company, whose largest Connecticut paper is the New Haven Register, exited bankruptcy in August 2009.) The papers were saved by Michael Schroeder, a veteran newspaper executive who, among other things, was a top executive at BostonNOW, a free tabloid that until its demise competed with Metro Boston.

The future of the Press and the Herald is by no means certain; Schroeder made that clear in both the film and in a subsequent panel discussion. But at least the papers have a path forward. The film itself, by John and Rosemary Keogh O’Neill, was enjoyable and worth seeing if you ever get a chance, though I found the drama over the papers’ fate more compelling than the overly nostalgic views of the newspaper business that were expressed by the principals. (Here is the trailer.)

In a delicious irony, the film made its debut at the Mark Twain House, in Hartford, a shrine to a great writer who, among other things, nearly went bankrupt because of his own involvement with the newspaper business. In the 1880s Samuel Clemens sank a fortune into the Paige Compositor, which he believed would make him a very wealthy man, given that it was 60 percent faster than the Linotype machine. The Paige, though, was prone to breakdowns, and it never caught on.

Technology has always been an issue in the newspaper business. It was the rise of cheap, high-speed presses in the 1830s that created the daily newspaper business as we know it. And, of course, it’s technology that is now rapidly ushering us into the post-newspaper age.

Forgotten but not gone

Paul Levy wonders when the Icelandic clean-up brigade will arrive to remove all those BostonNOW boxes that are already littering the urban landscape.

The demise of BostonNOW

I’ll be on WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) later today talking about the demise of BostonNOW, the free commuter rag that’s been competing with Metro Boston for the past year.

To be the second paper in the rather narrow market for people who want something free to look at during a 15-minute T ride was always going to be tough. Publisher Russel Pergament is blaming his Icelandic financiers, but if BostonNOW were making money, then no one would be pulling the plug.

When BostonNOW started out, it was supposed to be a state-of-the-art meld of print and Web, with readers setting up blogs that would be excerpted in the paper. That did happen, but it never really garnered much attention after the initial flurry of interest. Webcast news meetings stopped months ago, according to this.

Whoops — looks like the BostonNOW Web site just went down. Even before I could post.

Update: Whoops again. It’s back up. No telling for how long, though.

Jumping off the Metro

The Phoenix’s Adam Reilly finds that Metro Boston‘s reported circulation has plunged from 187,000 to 136,000 since last fall. That’s some plunge. But what does it mean?

The owners of Metro (including the New York Times Co., with a 49 percent share) can control the circulation to a large extent, given that it’s a free paper. Did the owners decide to cut back? Or did the auditors discover that 50,000 copies were ending up in the trash every day? Adam promises to get to the bottom of it.

Here’s another possibility — the BostonNOW [link now fixed] effect. Don’t laugh. My students tell me it’s got a much better crossword puzzle.

Trashing the competition

A few delivery drivers for the Boston Herald have found a surefire way to make their product stand out from the free competition, Metro Boston and BostonNOW: grab stacks of Metros and BostonNOWs and, you know, throw them out. Herald spokeswoman Gwen Gage tells Boston magazine that such tactics would never, ever be condoned at One Herald Square. (Via Romenesko.)

Wilpers checks in

Former BostonNOW editor John Wilpers has responded to my request for comment on his semi-departure earlier this week. Here’s what he’s got to say.

Thank you for your e-mail and offer to post my answer:

Regarding BostonNOW, I will be consulting with them and the group’s management on their Internet initiatives and expansion.

I also will be launching an effort to export the concept I pioneered at BostonNOW — introducing greater relevance and community to a newspaper’s print and online editions through blogger recruitment, participation and publication.

The BostonNOW experience convinced me that mainstream newspapers can rejuvenate themselves and find tomorrow’s readers today by inviting the community into the paper.

The hundreds of tech-savvy BostonNOW bloggers, most of whom had no use for an old-fashioned newspaper, are excited about being published in a product seen by tens of thousands of readers every day. Those bloggers are seeing their profiles rise dramatically in the market, and as a result, the potential for previously unimagined levels of traffic on their websites rises as well. That kind of mutually beneficial relationship is appealing to both parties — the newspapers and the bloggers.

I intend to take that message on the road to help other newspapers learn how to develop those relationships and build the new audiences that will rejuvenate their franchises….

(And, yes, the plan includes pay for bloggers. I have even met with the National Writers Union to talk about contract templates and to get advice on compensation plans. They’re very excited about the potential for their members and non-members alike.)

BostonNOW’s melding of print and the Web is far more interesting as an idea than as a news product. Frankly, the paper is pretty bad, although there’s no reason to think it won’t get better. This Boston Magazine piece on BostonNOW by Jason Feifer — “The Rag That Would Save Newspapers” — captures the good, the bad and the ugly.

As for Wilpers, whom I’ve known since the early 1980s, when we competed against each other, the guy is a survivor. He’ll be fine.

Update: This isn’t nice, but it’s funny.

Wilpers out (or not) at BostonNOW

Well, that didn’t take long. The Herald’s “Inside Track” reports that John Wilpers is semi-out as editor of BostonNOW, the free weekday tab started by Tab founder Russel Pergament earlier this year with (I’m not making this up) Icelandic money.

Wilpers is supposedly sticking around to consult on the paper’s blogging initiatives and overall strategy, so this doesn’t sound like your classic “pack up your stuff and get out of here” move. I’ve asked Wilpers to respond, and will post if I hear from him.

The serious and the frivolous

Should newspapers report what’s important or what interests people? Good ones do both, attempting to strike a balance between the serious and the frivolous.

Last night, at a panel discussion at the Boston Public Library sponsored by the fledgling New England News Forum, I caught an interesting exchange between John Wilpers, the editor of the free commuter tabloid BostonNOW, and Ellen Hume, director of the Center on Media and Society at UMass Boston.

Among BostonNOW’s innovations is a daily webcast of its editorial meeting, and the ability of viewers to send text messages about what they’re watching. On one occasion, Wilpers said, he and his staff were discussing a government story, and a viewer wrote in, “I’m bored already, and you haven’t even written the story.” Wilpers said he decided on the spot to kill the story, and then proceeded to offer a few disparaging words about the notion of government stories in general.

When Hume next got a chance to speak, she responded, “Part of what you said, John, gave me a little bit of a creepy feeling. You’ve got to cover government. I don’t want to kill the government stories.”

Wilpers responded, “I would never kill a story just because a blogger or a viewer of the webcast didn’t like it. I’m not going to turn my newsroom over to whoever happens to be
watching.”

Well, that’s a relief — even if Wilpers did seem to contradict what he’d said just a few moments earlier. Yes, it can sometimes be difficult to make government stories interesting. But the First Amendment wasn’t written into the Constitution to protect the right of newspaper publishers to cover Paris Hilton endlessly. That’s just a side effect.

Today’s obligatory BostonNOW item

I’m rooting for BostonNOW because, like Adam, I want to know that there’s an endless source out there of cheap, entertaining items.

Today’s: A front-page tease that says, “Extortion cop pleads guilty.” Turn to page four, and there’s an Associated Press story about Boston police officer Jose Ortiz, who’s been charged with drug-dealing and extortion. The problem is that he hasn’t pleaded guilty to anything.

The page-four headline is considerably more accurate: “Boston cop admits to drug debt threats.” And the head on BostonNOW’s Web site is positively subdued: “Officer facing drug charges held.”

Shelley Murphy’s story in yesterday’s Globe makes it absolutely clear what’s going on with Ortiz:

Ortiz, 44, of Salem, who faces charges of attempted extortion and conspiracy to distribute cocaine, has in custody since his May 2 arrest. He appeared in shackles, grim faced and wearing khaki prison garb, for yesterday’s hearing on whether he should remain in custody until the case is resolved.

I’d love to see BostonNOW give its principal competitor, Metro Boston, a run for its money. But saying someone has pleaded guilty when he hasn’t is serious business. Perhaps Russel Pergament and John Wilpers can find it in their budget to hire a copy editor or two.

With money, John

From today’s New York Times story on BostonNOW, whose editor, John Wilpers, is soliciting contributions from local bloggers:

Mr. Wilpers said he wanted to compensate bloggers but was still considering the best way to do so.

And I love this line: “Also appealing to bloggers is that they retain ownership of their submissions even after printing. They have not, however, received money from the paper for their work.” Such a deal!