Speaking at the Global News Editors conference in Paris, Digital First Media CEO John Paton said Friday that “editors resisting change are aided and abetted by lousy CEOs and news executives.”
Paton posted text and slides from his speech, scheduled to be delivered Friday afternoon Paris time, on his blog. In it he presents a slide he says “solves for the percent of dollars in print advertising, digital advertising, subscription revenue and all other revenue plus expenses and, of course, profit.”
By Paton’s calculations, Lee Enterprises and McClatchy will continue to lose money while Digital First Media — whose Journal Register Company filed for bankruptcy last year — is experiencing an operating profit.
Paton says DFM will invest “up to a further additional $100M annually” in digital projects and infrastructure, including journalism jobs. DFM employees will also have profit-sharing, he says. And on Friday, the company announced a partnership with NewsCred “access to full-text articles, images and videos from NewsCred’s Publisher Network of over 2,500 world-class content partners.”
It will “supplement the original reporting of our network of local journalists,” DFM Editor-in-Chief Jim Brady (for whom I used to work at TBD.com) said in the press release. Paton in his speech said journalists should “Demand change” from their bosses “If you don’t see the kinds of investments I am talking about in your company.”
And if you don’t see the kinds of tough decisions to cut expenses in what is not growing –print – and increased spending in what is growing – digital – then get out because your company is surely dying.
One more interesting thing for Paton-watchers: He says in this presentation that while paywalls “remain a stack of digital pennies…there is some short-term gain in the so-called All Access strategy of bundling print subscriptions with digital subscriptions.”
All Access is nothing like a solution for our industry but it could buy some gas in the tank to get down the road.
