• WSJ (paid subscription required), Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:04 PM

Anyone interested in where the newspaper industry is going ought to read the excellent piece on Page 1 of today's Wall Street Journal.  After making the point (often missed) that many papers, large and small, are impressively profitable, the Journal provides one of its signature wrap-ups.  Reporters Julia Angwin and Joe Hagan explain all the various ways U.S. papers are adapting to their ever-more-challenging environment.  Their mission: find new, younger readers.  How?  What are industry leaders actually doing all day long while paid think-tank brainiacs work off on the side, calculating strategies for the future? Some companies have launched collateral magazines, which are bundled with their papers.  Others are trying free papers, usually tabloid-size. These are ideal in commuter towns, and they offer smaller advertisers an opportunity to reach niche audiences for less money than would be required to book space in the parent paper.  Another new tactic increasingly employed by newspapers involves leveraging the power of its daunting new competitor, the Internet.  Relying on technologies developed especially for the industry, some papers are particularizing local search.  You look up “handguns,” say, and back comes a list not only of area crimes involving the weapons, but also local retailers who sell and service them.  The McClatchy Company, the well-run newspaper outfit that just bought Knight Ridder's assets, is keenly aware of local search's potential.  "We want to help advertisers secure space in the local marketplace for less money," says Christian Hendricks, McClatchy's vice president of interactive media. According to the Journal, McClatchy--which has rolled out a local search service in nine of its 12 newspaper markets--has set its sights first on local advertisers that spend a lot of money on the yellow pages, and then will move to other categories. "By the end of the year, it will be the fastest-growing segment of our business," Hendricks says.

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