Rob South: In the last few years, the face
of media has been changing radically. Newspapers
have bore the brunt of the change with a rapid
contraction in revenue. In Mid Michigan the
Gannett owned Lansing State Journal has been
forced to start working in an online environment.
Mickey Hirten: Ten years ago we had a single,
single publication. The paper came out. You
worked at it all day. About midnight it closed,
they put it on the press and it was delivered.
Now were in the 24 hour news cycle and that’s
two different things. One is psychologically
different. I mean, you have the opportunity
to create news…not create news, gather news
update as you will and as you can. And the
other thing is it changes the physical production.
I mean you do things all day long, rather
than in a single cycle.
South: Hirten says publishing online has given
the LSJ more ways to tell a story.
Hirten: We have more focus on video; we’re
set up video editing stations. More use of
computer color, graphics, um, database building.
South: The challenges of producing a digital
product have also changed the responsibilities
of its employees.
Hirten: Between our weekly and our daily newspapers,
depending on how you look at it, have 20 or
so people reporting on the news every day.
That’s about what we might have had before,
but we would have had different kinds of tasks.
Whereas someone used to just be a reporter,
now they’re doing web work. I might have
someone who used to just be an editor, now
they write. And it sort of works. I mean,
we’ve got a ton of traffic. I think last
month we had ten million page views on our
web site. And you know, that’s a lot of
page views. Almost 800-thousand unique viewers.
We’ve never been more widely distributed.
Great readership, great reach. So, um, But
it’s not happening in print.
South: But it’s still the print publication
that brings in the revenue. Hirten says no
one has figured out a good business model
for on-line journalism.
Hirten: We’re voracious in our appetite,
but we don’t really pay for it. I don’t
know where it’s going to shake out. I really,
truly don’t. And ultimately you do have
to pay. I mean there has to be… Journalism
is, except for rare exceptions, is not a nonprofit.
South: For WKAR Public Media, I’m Rob South.
