DISQUS

tomob · 1 month ago

Jason:

How can the WSJ be a niche publication and the biggest newspaper in the USA? Here are the three reasons I think they are so successful.

1. I would argue that the WSJ is a paper that stands for something. At their very best they stand for the American dream which is heroic, entrepreneurial success.

2. They do awesome original reporting - how many times have you seen WSJ stories re-cycled on NPR, your local paper or the magazine style TV shows?

3. They are on this side of the people instead of the government - and that is pretty rare these days.

My $0.02

TO'B

JasonFalls · 1 month ago

Always a well-spend $.02, Tom. Thanks for that. The fact they are
niche (financial, or at least with a financial slant) further enhances
the wow-factor of their success. Your second point is the major one,
in my mind. Original reporting that you can only find there ... that's
a great content strategy if you can pull it off. Thanks again.

Edward Boches · 1 month ago

You've nailed it. Company paid, high quality content. Most other newspapers would be gone if they charged. Why? Blogs, Twitter, RSS feeds and all the other sources we have for content. If newspapers had made a faster and more aggressive move to local, crowdsourced content from locals, embraced community participation, and created neighborhood reporters, they'd be in a much better place. But they blew it. They now repeat national news through feeds and wire services because it's cheaper than having original content. A new model will emerge. Not sure what it will be but it won't be what was.

Lisa Grimm · 1 month ago

Great post Jason. I am a happy subscriber to the WSJ. It's one of the first places I go every day. I think you hit it on the head as did TO'B below. The WSJ is one of the few mass mediums that puts content where it belongs (as a high priority and with a unique perspective, after all isn't that the point of news?) and most importantly it writes for the people. I think that the transformation we're currently enduring as society in the way we have control over the information we consume and how we consume it is something the WSJ took notice of years back and really, it likely resides in the foundation and core of its philosophy as an outlet. In a time when people are squirming and trying to figure out how to fit in to this new architecture of our culture, it makes me wonder where their heads were before. Clearly, not in the right place and not having the peoples best interests in mind. I'm happy to pay for what they put out because it's worth it. As discussed below, I do look forward to watching the monetization processes of othe mass media outlets as well as how the business model in journalism will change as a whole. Thanks again for the post Jason.

JasonFalls · 1 month ago

Thank you for the comment. Great to hear the perspective of a
subscriber. Glad you stopped by.

---------------------
Jason Falls
jason@jasonfalls.com
Twitter: @JasonFalls
C: 502.619.3285

Geike · 1 month ago

Amen! In the mid-80s I successfully held at bay our community newspaper subscribing to a wire service for three reasons: 1. it would make reporters lazy; they would always have enough copy to fill the paper whether they wrote local stories or not. 2. if an AP story were that local to us, then we should be reporting it and sending it to AP, not the other way around. 3. the subscription at that time cost as much as another full-time reporter, which I would have preferred. If we were to keep our mission and identity as a community newspaper, we had to do it the hard way: cover the news ourselves. Alas, I left the paper and within a few months they subscribed to AP. Now you only have to turn the page from the front to see what's going on everywhere except the community we purport to serve. Interestingly, it was the box scores for sports and the stock market reports that won the argument, and the paper doesn't even publish them anymore.

Robert Quigley · 1 month ago

I think it's unfair to say that local papers are nothing more than "flyers" without the AP wire service. In most cities, the newspaper still provides more local news than any other outlet (often more than most outlets combined).

As for this:
"They can’t do it unless they’re willing to be more than just copy-paste engines with a few good writers covering stories relevant to their readers."

Is your local paper a copy-paste engine? Really? The newspapers I read are not. Great local journalism is still being produced by newspapers, and I can guarantee you that the focus of the staff writers at nearly every major metro paper is sharply local. Metro papers do not have international or national staff writers or bureaus anymore - they were cut when hard times fell. What they do have is local-focused reporters who are writing good local stories.

You're right about The Wall Street Journal -- it works behind a pay wall for the reasons you state: it's a financial niche, and it produces great content. We're all striving for that, though, and we all know our niche is local news.