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Hello, I'm Charlotte Henry, and this is your new, much more regular edition podcast.

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I hope you enjoyed yesterday's discussion with Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy.

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This is part two of that conversation.

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Music.

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I'm fascinated listening to both of you as I sit here in London,

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because our regional city paper, The Evening Standard,

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which sort of thinks of itself as a national in some ways because it's based

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in the capital, but it always was a London newspaper at its heart,

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has announced it's going from a daily free sheet to a weekly one.

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And that's in large part because basically the owner, which is Evgeny Lebedev,

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is, you know, the quote from the chairman, Paul Kanarek, is he's accrued substantial losses.

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Losses so it's not only in the u.s where these regional forces are at play and

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are having to think about the different business models i also wonder here in both of you chatting.

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I guess i'll ask this again to you ellen because you were talking about the

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for-profit area do you think some of it is because journalists are a bit we're

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a bit we're not very good about talking about money are we we're not very good

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about talking about money we're not very good at admitting we'd like to earn money.

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And we're not very good at talking about businesses. We think sort of if we

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write it, they will come in some ways. And we perhaps, I mean, at the for-profit places, do you think they've got over

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that of being scared about talking about money? I would say newsrooms still enjoy the privilege of the separation between church

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and state, as we call it, between the business side and the editorial side.

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That said, I think I think journalists have become much more comfortable with

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discussing audience, who is reading their story.

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At The Globe, we used an app called Chartbeat that told us who was reading us when,

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where they were coming from, and how long they stayed on a story,

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what the bounce rate was, that kind of thing.

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And when I was editorial page editor, I revamped our entire publishing schedule

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and meeting schedule because our peak audience was, fortunately or unfortunately, at 6 a.m.

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In the morning before people commuted into work.

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So we created a morning shift, an early morning shift and published fresh material.

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And we saw our numbers go up.

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I like the way you restrain yourself you've got publishing schedules based entirely

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on Boston's broken transportation system.

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It's yeah I mean I also wonder if Dan is slightly to blame are the students

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you're teaching coming out sort of too high minded

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not quite with the prisoner's brains

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required to go into the modern media basically well

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they don't come

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out high-minded if they take a class with me so that's not an issue but seriously

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do you think journalism i mean i never went to journalism school as probably

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readers can tell but you know do in america particularly going to journalism school is a huge,

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thing and do you think those institutions are turning

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people out yeah you know i really think we are uh

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not just northeastern but uh all of

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the good programs are doing that i mean i think you have to keep in mind that

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although it is a very good idea for everybody in any enterprise to understand

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where the money's coming from and and what what makes a business successful uh the fact Fact is,

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the journalists themselves are still doing largely the jobs they've always done with new tools.

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And, you know, a lot of them are doing data journalism and they have to be savvy about social media.

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But they're not going into the boardroom setting a new strategy for how we're

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going to turn around the business.

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So I think that I think that journalists, young journalists,

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it's pretty much the same as it's always been, which is.

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But isn't that the problem? Is that appropriate? I don't know.

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I see our young journalists are going on to tremendous success at a variety

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of news outlets, big and small. And there's a lot of learning on the job. And they come back,

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you know, six months after they graduate. They're talking about things that weren't even a thing when they were going

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to journalism school just a short time earlier.

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And they're being very successful. So, you know, when you talk about isn't that the problem,

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a lot of the problem, which we haven't mentioned, But one of the animating principles

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behind what Alan and I are doing is that if you can get rid of corporate chain

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ownership and hedge fund ownership, you've actually cleared out a lot of the deadwood, and it becomes possible to

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build successful news organizations.

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There's not as much money floating around as there's always been,

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or as there used to be, but there's money floating around and that can be used

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to build profitable news businesses.

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After all, we're talking about the Boston Globe and the Minneapolis Star Tribune,

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well what do they have in common? They have local ownership, and although the owners of those two papers are both

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very wealthy, they're not subsidizing the papers these are profitable stand-alone businesses.

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So I think if you can keep the hedge funds out of the boardroom you've accomplished

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an awful lot more than teaching a college sophomore how to,

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balance a budget maybe, I mean you would not agree with that I wanted to go

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back to the question of audience and so journalists.

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We, in my view, need to work with people who are the software engineers who

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are what's called in the United States product.

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And we did this. I view these as channels of publication, different platforms, different tools.

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We did a, when I say we, I mean the editorial page of the Boston Globe,

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we did a big project on Donald Trump to look forward in a satiric way on what

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he might do if he kept all his campaign promises.

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And we knew that we had a print audience, but we also knew that we wanted to

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capitalize on our digital audience. So from the beginning, we had teams of people.

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We had the software engineers, the digital design people,

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the product and social media people working hand in hand in the same office,

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in the same room with the writers, the editorial writers, the print design person.

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And I was the print expert in how to get the page on the press and when the deadlines were.

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And it really worked beautifully. I worked with people who were in their late

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20s and 30s who were coding for the phone reader and testing for the tablet reader and the desktop.

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Top. And we all learned a lot.

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Well one of the things that you learned i can say this ellen because

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we're not in the same room today um one of

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the things i think the globe learned was that you took

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on a few of these massive multimedia interactive presentations that were wonderful

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for the audience and they really turned out to be on an economic basis not really

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worth it and i haven't seen the globe do anything like that for a number of years now.

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And it seems to me that a number of papers have cut back on those kinds of ambitions

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because the input was not worth the output.

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Do you, I mean, am I completely off on that, Alan, or is there something to that?

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Well, it depends on how you look at or how one looks at what role reader engagement plays.

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And I know for the Boston Globe, their goal has been to get to first 250,000 digital subscribers.

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And so the subscribers are, in fact, our members who are the chief source of

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revenue for to fund the journalism.

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And that sort of funnel where you engage a reader at the top and then get them

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more engaged and more engaged until they become a quote unquote member paying

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subscriber or in the case of a nonprofit, a donor.

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I think that is critical.

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Did our projects bring in digital ads? No, there are no digital ads to be had.

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Okay. You said the Trump word, Ellen.

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What would you be doing now if you were sitting in that editorial page meeting?

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How would you be handling what's been going on and how you have to deal with

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it for the next few months? It's a big question. Dan and I are going to sit back and leave you for 20 minutes

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while you save the world. I would be doing what they are doing, what the New York Times editorial page

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is doing, and writing about democracy,

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writing about what seems like an increasingly fragile project,

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writing about voting regulations, which are constantly changing in cities and towns.

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I would be writing about access to the polls, about verifiable voters who don't

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accept election results or public officials who don't accept election results.

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I would be writing about this country's history, which is sometimes fraught

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between the popular vote and the electoral college.

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So I would focus on the larger systemic questions that have to do with our future as a nation.

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You wouldn't be doing what the Wall Street Journal did and writing stories about

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President Biden being too old.

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That was the newsroom, not the editorial page.

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I don't read the Wall Street Journal editorial page anymore.

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And they did that story. If you look at it, it's been critiqued by people like

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Dan, media observers, that most of their named sources were Republicans.

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Yes, absolutely. But, you know, I would add to what Ellen just said.

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I agree with every word she said. But the Globe, the Boston Globe's editorial today is on the runaway expenses

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of new fare boxes for the public transportation system, the MBTA.

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And I would love to think that even with the election looming,

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most of the Globe's editorial firepower is going to be devoted to those kinds

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of important regional and statewide issues.

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And the reporting firepower too? Yeah, I would say, look, the Globe is a regional

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paper, and the region defined broadly is New England.

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The Globe circulates in New Hampshire, in Maine, in Rhode Island,

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in parts of Connecticut, and they are building out more regional coverage with

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bureaus, including in the inner suburbs, the close-in cities like Cambridge and Somerville.

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So, yes, I think issues like we live our lives locally, transportation,

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climate change means flooding on our streets, heat sinks, no tree canopy.

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Those are things people really deeply care about, and the divisive rhetoric

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of the so-called red-blue divide between Republicans and Democrats,

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that doesn't always map over local issues.

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You may be able to talk to a neighbor who voted for Trump, but your street's

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not getting plowed in the winter, and you both advocate for more money. Yeah.

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I mean, Dan, when you picked up on that editorial page, it struck me,

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and I don't want to put words in your mouth, so please correct me.

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For you, it seemed that the core to a success of a regional outlet is actually staying regional.

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Don't be something locally that then tries to do the national. That's right.

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And, you know, I mean, one of the our latest podcast guest is is a professor named Joanna Dunaway,

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who has done work on how the injection of national issues into local news can

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contribute to political polarization.

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Polarization now nobody expects uh

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the new york times or the wall street journal or the

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washington post to stay away from the kind

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of national issues that feed polarization but uh

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we really think that at the local level uh by concentrating on local issues

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uh we can help build something of a common ground where people who are in terrible

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disagreement on national politics find that they may have some agreement.

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There's an old saying that I think goes back to New York Mayor John Lindsay

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in the 60s, there is not a liberal or a there's not a Democratic or Republican way to pick up the trash.

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And you know, So by focusing on those kinds of issues, we may be able to help

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bridge the partisan divide to some extent.

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Now, the Globe is kind of a hybrid. It's not a hyperlocal paper.

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It's a large regional paper, so it's perfectly appropriate for them to weigh

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in on national politics from time to time.

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But I don't think it ought to become their obsession.

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And they've shown no signs that it is going to become their obsession.

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They do a really good job of serving as a regional forum.

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Wrong yeah again i'm thinking of the the evening

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standard here in london which does by definition it has

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to cover national politics because our national politics takes

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place in this city but also if

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it overcompensates so that you have to keep the core of

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londonness as well i get i mean i could talk to you guys for ages this has been

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a fascinating conversation but i do have to ask dan something in particular

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because dan has a fantastic blog dankennedy.net and my My obsession for the

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first six months of this year is that 2024 is the year that blogging comes back.

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It's how I started doing journalism. I love blogging. I love the form factor.

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I think people think we've all lost out to TikTok and even, dare I say it, podcasts.

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But, Dan, can I have some confidence that blogging is coming back or at least is still a thing?

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Oh, you know, I've been doing it since 2002, I think. I mean,

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I think I was in the second, the early second wave of media bloggers,

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and I have never stopped. But the problem is, since we're talking about business models here,

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you know, you need to be subsidized.

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I was either doing it for the Boston Phoenix for a few years or for the last

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20 years or 15 years or whatever it's been.

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It's just part of what I do at Northeastern. It's certainly no way to make a living.

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Okay, well, I'm just off to cry then in the corner, because that's all my hopes and dreams evaporated.

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But I really do enjoy reading dankennedy.net.

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And I do like the idea, I think there is something important about blogging

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and the kind of update and the conversational tone to it.

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And obviously, that can have a regional and local element to it as well.

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If you're someone that becomes known in your community or your city,

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that can do the kind of jobs you're talking about, can't it,

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Ellen? And I mean, I don't know if you're a big reader of Dan as well.

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You have enough of him, but. No, I I read him every day. I I love Dan's.

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Dan is fast off the block to get some something up, something that's newsy.

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And I love your commentary, Dan.

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I'm not just saying that because we've been writing together for years and years now.

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But he's done some very important and reporting on The Washington Post situation.

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Situation and he provides lots of links

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so you can always go deeper yeah you're

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both very kind what can i say well i like

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that you mentioned it because i also think you know i was saying that oh journalists

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we're all scared of talking about money um i'm interested you picked that excellent

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because also we're often really bad at giving other people um credit i'm sure

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i'm terrible at it sometimes because we like to think we're all brilliant ourselves

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but that doesn't actually give a good media ecosystem, does it?

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No. And I mean, I make no bones about the fact that, you know,

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my original reporting these days is pretty much restricted to my books and maybe

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a few longer pieces here and there.

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The blog is basically aggregation plus commentary, which is kind of the definition of a blog.

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And, you know, sometimes sometimes somebody will say,

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well you should go out and do and report this and

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i'm saying i'm not doing any reporting for my blog are

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you kidding but that's the problem if we

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all talk like that then the whole form factor disappears no isn't there a joy

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in doing original stuff i try and put original reporting into the newsletter

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onto the blog well i mean i think that if people can make a lot of money blogging

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then then they ought to go out and do reporting. But if they're doing it almost for free, as I am, then no.

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Fair enough. But Dan, you are working from a deep well of knowledge.

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And so you're building on a career based on incredible reporting.

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Yeah. Which is saying here that I'm old.

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Listen, you two are writing partners. You can hack all this out yourselves.

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I've so enjoyed having you both on the show what are the best ways where people

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can keep up with you Ellen? The best ways for keeping up with me are just to read Dan's blog, in case I'm in it.

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And feel free, readers, if somebody wants to contact me, I'm at ellencleg,

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at gmail.com, E-L-L-E-N-C-L-E-G-G.

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And and our uh overall website

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for this project where you can also find Ellen and she does write from time

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to time is uh whatworks.news yes I would link to that and also you I know are

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quite active on threads Dan aren't you I'm sorry what you you you often I think I've seen you pop up

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on threads oh yes i am on threads at dan kennedy

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underscore and you which i

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i think that's why i discovered you so and ellen is

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on threads as well boston clagg there you go i'll link to all of that in the

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show notes so that you can find them after this show goes out thank you both

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so so much for being on the show um i'm of course at charlotte henry across

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social media uh if you head over to theedition.net.

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You can read blogs and newsletter stuff there.

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Obviously, you've listened to all our conversation about business models.

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Obviously, I would love you to subscribe. You can do that directly at newsletter.thedition.net.

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It's outrageous value. So head over there and I'll see you all next week.

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Music.