Editor’s note: Ifra’s Extreme Study Tour visited small daily newspapers with circulations below 50,000 doing what the association deemed were “innovative and interesting things.” Below, in this edited version, Ifra editors write about the characteristics that make these papers unique.

Convergence: Journal-World

When the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World converged its newsroom with Channel 6 News and World Online in 2001, it was hailed as another daring move for a consistently innovative small newspaper. But some of the biggest risks lay ahead. As a 20,000-circulation print daily with the bigger hubs of Kansas City, Mo., and Topeka, Kan., aggressively competing for readers in its market, the Journal-World didn’t have the room for error that a larger paper might have when experimenting with convergence.

Today, LJWorld.com’s page views are up more than six-fold from 2000, and 30 percent of its unique visitors now live outside the Lawrence area, largely eliminating the need for mailed print subscriptions. Since 2004, the paper and its associated Web sites have won multiple new media awards. And these figures are only part of the Journal-World’s success story. Now, said managing editor Dennis Anderson, experienced journalists are vying to be part of its converged team, and small newspaper publishers all over the world are looking to the Journal-World as a model.

Recipe for success

The recipe for success? Forward-thinking leadership and a commitment to using convergence to reach out to the local community.

While a larger paper can easily hire or reassign a few people to pursue convergence techniques on the side, the Journal-World - with a newsroom of 65, an ad staff of 30 (who sell across all products), and seven on its web team - had to commit its entire staff to convergence, from top to bottom, to get results.

In the beginning, this strategy meant making the paper’s online offerings a top priority. The next step was to start planning ahead, developing an exclusive online component, such as interview transcripts or video, for every story. As the Journal-World’s product became more complex, the paper promoted its assistant city editor into a new position, managing editor of convergence, who - by possessing the authority to decide how the newsroom’s print, TV and online properties participate in every story - functions like an orchestra conductor for the newsroom.

Making the newsroom more efficient freed up resources to focus on the local community, the Journal-World’s longstanding mission. Wherever possible, the Journal-World now makes its content interactive, adding online chats with reporters or reader-submitted cell-phone photos of breaking events. For the past 30 months, the Journal-World has also allowed readers to post comments on stories, a risk that has paid off by driving up Web traffic and keeping the town engaged with the paper’s coverage.

“Convergence is more expensive,” said Dan Cox, director of World Online. So why does the company continue to push the envelope in this area?

“The product we create now is so much better than what we had before,” he said. “It’s also an opportunity not to die off. Even for smaller papers, convergence is do or die.”

-Eve Fairbanks

Cross-media ads: Schaffhausen

Meier + Cie AG Schaffhausen in northern Switzerland is among the smaller news organizations striving to prove that cross-media offerings are not just for large-scale publishers.

In August, a multimedia campaign for Wernli Biscuits, the largest biscuit producer in Switzerland, was launched involving all media of the newspaper publisher. What is special about this campaign is that the paper based its rate on the success of the campaign: If Wernli’s objectives were met in full, only then would Wernli pay the entire advertising bill.

“It became clear to us in discussions with customers that they don’t want to publish ads, order ad spots, or place banners,” said Business Manager Alexandra Strohm. “They want effectiveness, therefore recognition or more turnover, or both.”

To do that, the publisher marketed Wernli not only in its daily paper, but also on Radio Munot, in which it has a stake, and its regional TV station and Web site, schaffhausen.ch.

 ‘An ideal test market’

Also giving a boost to the campaign was the paper’s market, a cross-section of Switzerland’s demographic and socio-cultural makeup. It’s “an ideal test market,” said Renato Tomasini, who managed the campaign for Wernli.

To further promote its biscuits, Wernli partnered with Coop, Switzerland’s second-largest retail chain and the biscuit-maker’s biggest distributor. For three weeks in August and September, ads for both Coop and Wernli appeared in the paper, along with posters displayed in the city and surrounding areas. The final ingredient was a lottery.

At the beginning of the campaign, Wernli distributed a product sample, together with an entry card for the lottery, to all homes. The winners of the daily lottery, televised on the Meier + Cie’s television station, were announced the next day on Radio Munot and Schaffhausen.ch.

-Katja Riefler

These articles were  first published in newspaper techniques, the monthly magazine of Ifra. If you have any comments or questions about these articles, please send them to ntreader@ifra.com.To learn more about the training and consulting services available to newspapers through Ifra’s joint venture with the Newspaper Association of America, please contact Technical Solutions LLC at info@technical-solutions.org.