Grammar Grandma

A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
A question mark walks into a bar?

A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
A synonym strolls into a tavern.
At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

A dyslexic walks into a bra.
A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.

A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

*(I can’t take credit for these, but the malapropism is my favorite. Enjoy!)

Survey finds small publishers confident, but here's 4 realities that will bite in 2018

Survey finds small publishers confident, but here's 4 realities that will bite in 2018

 

Power of print: despite media fragmentation, small publishers are buoyant about the future.

Big media has defined the public impression about print - closures, sell-outs, layoffs and dwindling profitability.

But in the world of small publishers it is actually a far more positive scene.

Community newspapers, which comprise the overwhelming number of newspapers across the world, tell a different story to the big media’s narrative of How Digital Killed Print.

The small newspaper market faces similar challenges from media fragmentation, but the strong appetite for hyperlocal news means the local paper continues to provide a great sales and marketing environment.

Take New Zealand.

That reader value is strongly established in local newspapers does not mean the status quo will sustain them ...

I rang the New Zealand Community Newspapers Association president Simon Ellis to ask him how his members were faring. As a consultant working across Australia and NZ, I wanted to understand their pains. I expected they would be caught in the slipstream of the fast-flowing changes in media.

That was true to an extent, but Ellis conveyed a more optimistic picture than I imagined. Smaller publishers, he said, would continue to survive on the back of unique and relevant content. And there was nothing like getting directly into someone’s home with print.

The NZCNA represents 80 mastheads, which produce more than one million newspapers each week and reap about NZ$52 million in advertising per annum.

As someone romantic about newspapers, I wanted to check in that I was not being a Pollyanna about print. As a journalist, I wanted to know the truth. As a consultant, I wanted to know how I could help.

With the NZCNA’s co-operation, I surveyed their members - and, yes, they were buoyant about 2018.

Almost 80 per cent of the respondents were very or extremely confident about the future of their businesses. As well:

• Three-quarters of them said moving to a digital focus was a low priority;
• Audience engagement and subscribers were top priorities, followed by sales and creating quality content; and
• Starting new business ventures was not the radar.

Their confidence in the small newspaper market is supported by a study released in 2017 by the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism based at the Columbia Journalism School.

Small newspapers comprise the bulk of the North American newspaper market. In fact, of the 7071 newspapers in the US, almost all (6851) have circulations under 50,000.

As a body, this market has been little researched - and the iconic American papers have defined the narrative about the fortunes of print.

The study found change is impacting on the smaller newspaper market, but it has been slower than for large mastheads. It also confirmed the important place local newspapers had in their communities, providing the bulk of local, quality storytelling.

That reader value is strongly established in local newspapers does not mean the status quo will sustain them, though. The report advised publishers to prioritise income diversification.

“Most small-market newspapers will not be able to survive based on their traditional mix of subscriptions, advertising and single-copy sales. Multiple income streams will be essential if outlets are to secure the stablest future possible,” the report said.

The bigger chains have the resources, partnerships and influence to do this. Smaller publishers, as my sample indicates, are more wary about straying from what they know. Certainly, I find newspaper managements that will talk about the need to diversify but for various reasons struggle to get off first base.
​

Kiwi snapshot: NZ's community newspaper market is decidedly upbeat. Image courtesy NZCNA.

For all publishers there comes a tipping point. Best then to have a plan that is in place and activated.

An obvious area of opportunity for local papers, as the study identifies and I have long advocated, is in events.

Local newspapers are always harassed to sponsor and cover events - but, sheesh, why not run and profit from them directly? Even in the most distressed markets, and I have seen a few, there are opportunities to develop joint ventures.

Newspapers, along with their associated media interests, bring to the table unmatched reach. Partners bring event infrastructure, processes and specialist know-how.

Partnerships reduce the risk and divide the load - and it is a helluva lot easier growing revenue from a handful of good events each year than trying to flog additional column centimetres in a distressed advertising market.

Some larger media outlets, notably Stuff (Fairfax Media) in New Zealand, who we consult to, and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) are staking their future on joint ventures. Stuff has partnered to provide fibre-optic internet services, retail energy and subscription entertainment. SPH is profiting from health and education services. You can argue whether these should be core activities for media companies, but the proof would seem to be in the bottom line.
​
When publishers contemplate such things, they can encounter self doubts and obstacles such as “we do not have the … experience, skills, relationships, strategy (fill in the blanks).”

Experience shows, though, that opening up partnership conversations quickly flips the mindset. Finding businesses with complementary skills and resources is a winning strategy.

What then makes small publishers confident amid such disruption? Perhaps one of the drivers is the self-satisfaction to have seen plenty of wrong moves by digital media wannabes. Better the late adopter, hey?

But for everyone, there is, or will be, a tipping point.

Even in the best of circumstances, producing newspapers is a complex business with lots of moving parts, fixed costs and market vagaries. This makes breaking away from the operational day-to-day, to think and act strategically, almost impossible.

Typically, I get calls from owners and publishers when they realise that everything they have spent building up over the years (sometimes we are talking generations of family ownership) could disappear before their eyes.

For CEOs and general managers, righting the ship will not get any easier unless a firm plan, including diversification and reconciling the place of print, is developed and activated.
​

It all comes back to this ... diversify or die.

​Four big realities will also bite, if they have not already:

1. Digital advertising is a mirage: Game over. Google and Facebook own that space. According to e-Marketer, the two tech-giants took 56 per cent of global digital advertising in 2017, and by other reports, up to 90 cents in every digital advertising dollar in the US. Very few publishers have been able to fully supplant print revenue loss with digital revenue gain. Meanwhile ... 
2.  
3. Paywalls and digital editions are not the panacea: The New York Times, with 2.5 million digital subscriptions and seeking 10 million, and national titles like the Wall Street Journal and The Australian have the right content, audience and critical mass to make a paywall successful. But the maths does not make it a viable business proposition for smaller fish. This would seem to put smaller publishers in a bind. 
4.  
5. If they cannot monetise their content online, and print circulation is dwindling, what are they to do? On one hand we say their niche content is what is of value, but, what the heck, give it away for nothing? (One solution highlighted at the International News Media Association conference in New York in 2017 was the hybrid paywall.) The situation will be compounded because ...
6.  
7.  
8. Amazon is about to blow up main street: For a long time, strip shopping centres, the life blood for the “local line” on publishers’ P&Ls have been changing. The local electrical goods store that once took a couple of full-page ads per week has closed. Other retailers vulnerable to online shopping have either shut or been sucked into the vortex of national chain stores. But that will be nothing compared to what Amazon does to the remaining retail sector. 
9.  
10. Consider, too, for many small publishers most of their revenue comes from retail. Just as man cannot live on bread alone, main street’s future is surely more than a plethora of cool but ubiquitous coffee shops and hole-in-the-wall bars. Batten down. Which all comes back to ...
11. Diversify or die: Because is there another alternative? If there is, you know where to find me.

***

Newspapers, the research shows, equate to trust, credibility and retention of message. Which is everything social media is not. Digital might get our attention but print gets our respect.

Of all newspapers, the local paper is in the best position. Indeed, on the the back of a reawakening about “real news”, the industry should be seeking ways to creatively promote itself as of distinct and high value. Newspapers can also do more to work within their own industry for a networked approach across activities.

However, local papers have a clear call to arms - to act decisively - because of what is ahead.

In short, print can survive but it will have a reduced and distinct place in a broader media ecosystem.

This is complex stuff  to get right. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but there are consistent themes to be addressed, including:

• reducing fixed costs by streamlining newspaper production;
• retaining and extending reach;
• leveraging that penetration for future prosperity; and
• executing superb self-promotion.

The small newspaper market cannot change the societal and technological forces at play, but it can reset its own operations within the context of today.

Ultimately, success is defined by something less tangible and which no consultant can package up and provide.

Courage.

Publishers need courage to make bold decisions. Courage to break from the pack. Courage to stay the course. Courage to change.

In many respects, the next chapter in the story of print is, quite aptly, in the capable hands of the people who publish.

* Stuart Howie is executive director of Flame Tree Media and creator of SMART Print™. He is a former editorial director of Fairfax Regional Media, a stable of more than 180 newspapers and associated websites across Australia.