Star-Telegram reduces print editions to focus on digital offerings. What comes next?

Star-Telegram reduces print editions to focus on digital offerings. What comes next?

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced it would reduce its print editions to three days a week – Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in October 2024. (Camilo Diaz | Fort Worth Report)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/FWST-Newspaper-2-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/FWST-Newspaper-2-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>A man stormed out of a meeting at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, frustrated after learning that his daily newspaper wouldn’t be dropped on his lawn anymore. Instead, he will receive the publication just three days a week by mail.“It was a complete waste of time,” the subscriber said of the Aug. 29 meeting that Fort Worth Star-Telegram staffers held for subscribers in the botanic garden’s Rose Room. He declined to provide his name to the Fort Worth Report.Readers of the Star-Telegram have seen local news coverage decline in recent decades as local and national news organizations have been decimated due to the loss of billions of dollars in advertising revenues. The Star-Telegram, created in 1909 through the merger of two Fort Worth newspapers, the Fort Worth Star and the Fort Worth Telegram, has chronicled the city’s happenings for more than a century. Subscriptions have dropped from a peak of about 350,000 for the Sunday edition during the 1990s to about 27,000 in print and online in 2024, according to a publisher’s statement printed in the newspaper in August. In a city of about 1 million people and a county of 2.2 million, the paper’s print press run of 13,000 is expected to fall even further with the shift from six to three days.Like many legacy newspapers, the Star-Telegram is transitioning to a digital-only news operation because of the decline in ad revenue coupled with financial realities of the news business, including the high cost of newsprint and printing and distribution operations.In August, the newspaper announced it would reduce its print editions to three days a week – Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The reduced print editions began hitting subscribers’ mailboxes the week of Oct. 7.Steve Coffman, president and editor of the Star-Telegram, told readers that despite the challenges of the news business, he is excited to see his organization transform into a digital operation. The paper will continue to publish daily digitally.“Despite some of this big bad news out there for the news industry, there’s reason to be excited and hopeful about the Star-Telegram and the future of local news with us,” Coffman said during a recent Rotary Club of Fort Worth presentation. He did not respond to an interview request from the Fort Worth Report.The path to a sustainable newsroom, he said, means reinvestment in newsrooms, better understanding of readers and their needs, improving digital platforms, and smart use of and experimentation with artificial intelligence. Those efforts, Coffman said, would help the Star-Telegram grow and retain digital subscribers.“Our future is digital,” he told the Rotarians.The Star-Telegram, under a previous owner, was the nation’s first news organization to put its content online with the debut of the StarText electronic service launched in 1982. That service was eventually integrated into the newspaper’s website.The paper is one of 30 news organizations owned by the McClatchy Co., a private company purchased by the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management in 2020 following McClatchy’s declaration of bankruptcy. The Star-Telegram receives about 20 million unique visitors to its website monthly, Coffman said.“We have lots of audience, and we have lots of contact with them,” he said.Journalists at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram march during a strike on Nov. 28. Local union members are striking after alleging the newspaper’s parent company, McClatchy, has failed to fairly negotiate a contract. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report) Staff cuts, union strike Two years after unionizing in 2020, a majority of Star-Telegram news employees went on strike for 24 days to protest low salaries and a lack of movement on contract negotiations in late 2022.The strike followed the Fort Worth NewsGuild’s decision to file an Unfair Labor Practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against McClatchy executives in August 2022.McClatchy had two other complaints against it — one for repudiation/modification of a contract and another for refusal to furnish information, the Fort Worth Report previously reported. After more than three weeks off the job, Fort Worth NewsGuild members returned to work and later ratified a contract with McClatchy that raised the newsroom’s wage floor from $45,000 to $52,000 for current employees, along with changes to layoff and bereavement policies. In recent years, the Star-Telegram has pursued philanthropic partnerships to fill gaps in its news coverage. By fundraising $1.5 million over the past several years, the paper has added reporters to cover business, health, government and education at the same time its newsroom has shrunk in other areas. At its height, the newspaper had over 400 people in its newsroom, but now has fewer than 40.After closing its Austin bureau in 2012, the paper returned a reporter to the capital, added a four-person service journalism team and hired two editors. A new columnist, Bradford William Davis, recently arrived from New York City to cover Fort Worth. His debut column appeared Oct. 11.Reader reactionsRoy Lee, a Star-Telegram subscriber who attended the paper’s Aug. 29 meeting, said he plans to get the Star-Telegram app to continue reading — despite his preference for print.“It’s coming whether you like it or not,” Lee said of the digital transition. “The Star-Telegram has a lot of news, but there are a lot of stories from places like Houston or San Antonio that are not necessarily local.”More than 70 people, many of them senior citizens, attended the Aug. 29 meeting at the garden. Some complained about the reduction in print editions and getting “late news” in the mail. “We’re still paying the six-copy price,” one reader, referring to the previous print schedule of six days a week, asked Coffman. “What’s the justification in that?”“You’re paying for content and digital access,” he replied.“What do you wrap your fish in?” another reader asked later.“The Dallas paper,” quipped Matt Leclerq, the Star-Telegram’s senior managing editor.Looking eastAcross the Tarrant County line, executives at the Dallas Morning News plan to maintain their seven-daily print editions as well their digital products. That paper’s coverage, including Fort Worth-area news, has increased with staff-written reports and through a new partnership with the Fort Worth Report in which the nonprofit news organization’s stories appear in the Morning News’ print editions.“Print is definitely not dead, and it continues to be a very vital part of our product portfolio,” said Grant Moise, CEO of DallasNews Corp. and publisher of the Dallas Morning News. “Unlike the Star-Telegram, we are extending the life of the daily print product by upgrading our presses and moving into a more efficient printing facility in January.”Moise said the majority of older readers prefer the print edition while younger readers prefer to read digitally or via podcasts and video.“Our goal is to meet the consumer where they are, and to provide high-quality journalism in the format they prefer,” he said. Most Dallas Morning News print readers still receive home delivery, he said.“Print readers are some of our most passionate customers,” Moise said. “They value the daily habit of the print product, and they are extremely supportive of our efforts to extend the life of the seven-day edition.”Moise said the print and digital editions complement each other.“We know the future of our business is delivering dynamic journalism on digital platforms,” said Moise, formerly the newspaper’s vice president of digital operations. “Today, the print product remains profitable and stable, which helps us use the profits from the print product to reinvest in our digital platform. We don’t see the two platforms as binary, but rather, we see them as complementary.”Digital strategyJournalism professors said the Star-Telegram’s focus on digital is a necessary business approach.Jean Marie Brown, an associate professor of professional practice and director of student media journalism at the Bob Schieffer College of Communication at Texas Christian University, said the Star-Telegram is reducing its printing and delivery costs to keep producing notable journalism.“It’s harder and harder to get people to deliver newspapers,” said Brown, a former Star-Telegram editor who once managed the paper’s Arlington and Northeast Tarrant offices. “It makes sense for most legacy newspapers to shift to digital.”Brown said younger readers prefer to get their news online or through other platforms such as TikTok.“Generation Z doesn’t read newspapers, aging Boomers still do,” Brown said. “At some point, much of your readership is dying off.”

See also  Arlington ISD officials want district ‘transformation.’ Here’s how they plan to measure it
Sponsored

Star-Telegram president and editor Steve Coffman talks about the newspaper during a June 21, 2024, address to the Rotary Club of Fort Worth.Jake Batsell, an associate professor who holds the William J. O’Neill Chair in Business Journalism at Southern Methodist University, said many newspapers across the country have reduced print editions because of increasing costs.“In the digital age, reducing the frequency of daily print editions has become increasingly common for newspapers, so I don’t find it surprising that the Star-Telegram is following suit,” said Batsell, a former Dallas Morning News reporter. “McClatchy has done this in other markets and can apply what it has learned to this transition. They’ve ramped up their e-paper, website, and mobile app, so they are still positioned to draw more digital readers as Fort Worth keeps growing.”Batsell said the Star-Telegram still faces a battle for readers.“With an upstart, digital-native competitor like the Fort Worth Report continuing to expand throughout Tarrant County, the Star-Telegram’s survival will depend on earning readers’ attention with coverage they can’t find anywhere else,” Batsell said. The paper will need to keep establishing itself as the go-to source for news on local topics ranging from Tarrant County politics to TCU sports to the Fort Worth arts and dining scenes, and find ways to keep funding local accountability reporting through promising efforts like its philanthropic-funded Crossroads Lab, Batsell said. “Perhaps fewer physical newspapers to print and deliver will free up more resources to go serve digital readers more deeply in those areas,” he said. Former publisher ‘skeptical’ of turnaround Wes Turner, a Fort Worth civic leader who was publisher of the Star-Telegram from 1997 to 2008 and now serves as co-chair of the board of directors for the Fort Worth Report, said the Star-Telegram’s print reduction “is very disappointing for print subscribers.”“The reduction in the frequency of the print edition is going to result in much less timely news in the print edition,” said Turner, a consultant for Advance Newhouse publications that owns publishing companies like Condé Nast and American City Business Journals. “Personally, I’m very skeptical that this will help turn things around.” Turner pointed out that the newspaper is trying to correct 17 years of declining subscriptions as a low-performing newspaper. That decline, coupled with ownership by a hedge fund, he said, resulted in having no physical assets left. “It’s a huge challenge, and the readers have paid for it,” Turner said. The nonprofit Fort Worth Report, Turner said, was launched “to fill the void left by the Star-Telegram” in providing a free daily edition focused on local issues. The future of the Star-Telegram seems cloudy, he said. “They should either close it or sell it to a local well-funded person who can operate it effectively,” Turner said.Turning the pageCoffman said the Star-Telegram is still trying to fill gaps in its coverage, such as local arts reporting, which he hopes to fill with philanthropic funding.Coffman said the Star-Telegram is pivoting to “more of a magazine look.” Many of the newspaper’s reporters are young, but they are mentored by experienced editors and staff.“The paper is not a vehicle for breaking news anymore,” he said.But, he added, “newspapers significantly outperform local TV, radio and online-only outlets in news production,” citing Duke University research.“Local journalism makes a difference,” Coffman said. Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org. Disclosure: The author is a former assistant metro editor at the Dallas Morning News, where he worked for 17 years. Wes Turner is co-chair of the board of directors for the Fort Worth Report.At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

See also  Arlington gives go-ahead to retail development at site intended for mosque, abandoned in 2015
Sponsored

Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *