Last Updated: August 18, 2000
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Convergence
Cooperation logical, but challenging
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s owner also owns the
top TV and news radio stations — but competition has always been the mantra;
now they’re trying to work together
By Martin Kaiser
It is not news that the Internet is changing our business. What is news
is how newspapers are responding. The challenge for the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel is no different from the one facing other newspapers: How do we
leverage the size, experience and expertise of our newsroom?
Here in Milwaukee, our company owns the largest newspaper in the state;
the local TV news leader, WTMJ-TV; two radio stations, WKTI-FM and WTMJ-AM
(the leading news and information station); and a group of suburban weeklies.
In early May we began sharing local news stories on a daily basis with
WTMJ-TV. Previously we had shared information only on a few large Sunday
projects and polling stories, by allowing WTMJ-TV to use some information
for its Saturday 10 p.m. newscast and then direct readers to the Sunday
Journal Sentinel for more on the story.
Internet was the tie
Our new closer relationship grew out of two major steps in our Internet
strategy.
Last November we fully integrated our Web site, JSOnline, into the Journal
Sentinel newsroom. At that time we changed the way we post news and information.
We developed an Internet mindset, believing we are always on deadline.
We post stories on JSOnline hours before we print them in the Journal Sentinel
and often write early versions of stories specifically for jsonline.com.
This change, of course, means that much of the news we gather
becomes available to others long before the next day’s paper is printed.
To get some credit and promotion in our marketplace, we began alerting
our sister stations, WTMJ-TV and radio, of breaking stories so they
could use the information on the air and credit the Journal Sentinel and
jsonline.com.
The second initiative that brought us together was the launch of onwisconsin.com
in February. It is a portal site to the five Web sites of the Milwaukee
area outlets owned by our parent company, Journal Communications. It is
also the place where we are bringing together audio and video reports from
all the partners.
With cooperation already taking place because of the Internet,
it was only natural to extend the partnership between the newspaper and
the TV station.
During this time we often talked informally with WTMJ-TV news
director Jeff Kiernan about expanding our cooperative efforts. We
had been fiercely competitive in the past, despite being owned by the same
corporate parent.
Finally, we agreed to sit down and figure out how to make it work. We
had seen other partnerships prosper around the country. In the past year
in Milwaukee, a small suburban daily partnered with one TV station and
the weekly business journal partnered with another. If partnerships
could be made in our marketplace by operations with separate owners, we
felt we should be able to do the same thing within our own house.
When we finally met, it was simple. We started sharing stories that
day.
Managing Editor George Stanley and Kiernan communicate via phone or
e-mail each day and discuss stories we are both working on. It usually
results in WTMJ-TV picking up a portion of our story, crediting us and
telling viewers they can learn more by reading the next morning’s Journal
Sentinel. In the few weeks we have been doing this we have also taken one
of WTMJ’s stories, done some more reporting and put in the next day’s paper
while crediting them. In addition, WTMJ-TV is promoting some of our feature
stories on its morning show between 6 and 7 a.m.
By expanding this cooperation, we hope to kindle more interest in our
reporting and drive more television viewers to the newspaper. Reader research
we conducted last summer revealed that people often use TV as a tip
service for reading the newspaper.
Our marriage’s story about marriage
In the first example of our new effort, WTMJ-TV gave us credit for a
story about dozens of couples who were married in the eyes of the church
but not the state, since the priests who married them had never forwarded
their licenses to the authorities. After summing up the story on the 10
p.m. news, the station invited viewers to the next day’s paper for more
details.
The second night things turned a bit rocky. WTMJ used so much of a hard
news story we provided that we wondered whether there really was much added
value in the newspaper’s account the next day.
We’ve learned that new circumstances arise almost every day that we
didn’t anticipate. But we’ve been able to work out our problems and learn
how to cooperate in ways that benefit us both.
This is just the beginning. We finalized plans to install a TV
camera in the newsroom so that WTMJ-TV can talk with our reporters,
using them as “expert” sources on stories.
We also are discussing a major enterprise project where we will work
together on the reporting and produce TV, newspaper and Internet
versions.
Both newsrooms realize this is a work in progress. It is new territory
for all of us, at both the newspaper and the television station.
The most important step we took was to stop talking about cooperating
and start doing it. We believe this is an important step toward solidifying
our position as the primary source of news and information for Milwaukee
and southeastern Wisconsin.
Kaiser is editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
