Beauty's tyranny

Clothing styles constantly change – especially for women – but our

collective thoughts about what constitutes a beautiful woman

remains, with a few nuances, steady:  She’s young, often blond,

slim, with breasts and buttocks men will notice.

If a woman’s physical appearance falls outside this precise

definition, she’s old, ugly, worthless, to be ostracized, perhaps

even used.

And while many a man, including me, has cracked a few jokes

about the time it takes a woman to get ready, there’s something

all men would do well to keep in mind:  Women’s looks are harshly

judged and often their inner voices are bellowing, telling them

they’re not thin enough, young enough, stylish enough, beautiful

enough, possibly even blond enough, to attract a man.

It’s in the advertising; the magazines and newspapers; on the web;

on television; it’s in the movies and it’s in the stores.  Women

are surrounded and pressured by this message.

Beauty requires monthly appointments at the hair stylist, time

for a facial, never enjoying a meal, never eating dessert, and

allotting enough minutes in the bathroom, so she can make her

hair just right and her skin youthful, so she turns a few heads,

if not from men, from her biggest critics – other women.

Compare what she endures to how the average man sees

himself:  He might be 20 – 30 pounds overweight, but Adonis

is in the mirror, even when he’s naked.

Women feel something that rarely touches any man:  The

tyranny of beauty.

For teenage girls, especially, as well as young women in

their 20s, these exacting standards are so powerful they can

make them depressed, feeling ugly, unwanted, unappreciated,

leaving, potentially, a life-lasting impact.

And yet, there’s someone rarely asked for their opinion

about what they want in a woman – a man.

Most men, some published reports say, aren’t likely going

for the woman living the Madison Avenue-developed, 

Hollywood-produced, fashion-idea of good looks.

Both Psychology Today and Everyday Fitness, a blog produced

by the Discovery Channel, report men prefer curvy, fuller

looking women than the ones presented by the fashion industry.

But ideas so rooted in our culture die hard.  Models remain thin

and many of us take our  beauty cues from those appearing in

magazine ads, across television screens, perhaps even on the web.

So it’s no wonder Jes Baker, a woman with a fuller figure, 

perhaps even – dare I say it – fat, took it upon herself to

complain about feeling ostracized by Abercrombie and Fitch

because of her size.  She deserves a medal for her work.

Apparently there’s even a statement, from seven years ago, 

attributed to the retail chain’s CEO, Mike Jeffries, saying he

doesn’t want larger people shopping his store.

But let’s face facts:  The thin model appearing in Abercrombie

and Fitch ads is no different than the one appearing in many other ads.

In fact, the last time I saw an ad featuring “real women” – that

is, those not thin as a rail – goes back maybe a decade ago

and it was for Dove soap. 

As I recall, they placed ads on television and billboards showing

real women in their underwear and, frankly, each one was beautiful.

The soap maker has continued this theme with another round

of television or online video ads, asking women to describe

themselves to an artist who never sees them but draws them

based on their descriptions.

The artist then asks people, who just met these same women,

to describe them. 

Two pictures of each woman are placed side by side and no one

should be surprised to learn that the second pictures, where the

women were described by someone else, were not only a more

accurate representation of their looks but also more beautiful.

In other words, the women failed to realize how attractive they

are.  But others – even those they’d just met – did.

And then an epiphany sets in:  Each woman learns the world

sees her as far better looking than she’s ever seen herself.

So the fashion industry and parts of the retail business, as well

as our own society, have done a fine job providing women

with an inferiority complex.

Men have suffered, too.  These exacting standards prevent 

them from searching for women with great personalities or ones 

with high intelligence – in other words, women who may not

meet beauty’s standards.

Instead, he feels compelled to look for the woman that meets

the definition but who may very well look at him with the

same cutting eyes used against her.

Men have their own beauty expectations to fill.  They’re to be

tall, dark and handsome; in other words, six feet tall, with broad

shoulders.

Beauty forces us into a mold.  Instead of putting our efforts toward

finding someone whose mind connects with ours, who will improve

our souls, through a loving, in-depth relationship, we’re focused

on the superficial – the butts, the boobs, the hair, the height and

the shoulders – which fails all of us no matter our gender.

The worries of Tumblr

You can’t help but wonder what Yahoo’s top corporate executives

are doing.  Sure buying blogging site Tumblr appears, at least on the

surface, to be a fine idea but what about that price?

According to newspaper reports, Yahoo paid $1.1 billion for Tumblr,

a company that generated only $13 million last year. 

Apparently making the deal irresistible was that Tumblr, according

to published reports, has between 117 and 300 million unique monthly

visitors, many of them younger – perhaps even slimmer – than the

average Yahoo user, described, in a blog at the Los Angeles Times,

and another, in Digital Trends, as “Overweight women ages 18 to 49,

who tend to be in relationships of only one to five years with children, 

residing in the suburbs or rural areas.”

The pending acquisition raises many questions and points that, perhaps,

weren’t vetted as closely as possible, including whether Tumblr’s

hipsters will want to be part of a web portal that fat, middle aged women

find attractive?

There are also other questions, too, including the following:

The information about the number of unique monthly visitors isn’t clear.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Tumblr has about 117 million

but according to Tuesday’s Investor’s Business Daily, it’s around

300 million. 

For the sake of shareholders, can Yahoo provide a unique monthly

user number that holds up to what ComScore reports, 117 million?

While apparently it’s difficult but not impossible to sell ads on Tumblr,

a more worrisome issue for Yahoo is Tumblr’s users, who, based

on what’s been reported, have no reason to remain with Tumblr.

In other words, they can flee to other micro blogging websites or

start one of their own.  If that’s true, what’s the value of Tumblr to

Yahoo?  Is this really a technology play?

Did Yahoo consider the possibility that if Tumblr’s revenues never

move north of $13 million, it could take it close to 86 years to earn

what it paid for the site?

If it can generate, as one former Google executive said on his blog,

about $100 million a year, it will only take Yahoo about 10 years

to have Tumblr paid off.  Does that number hold up if the users flee?

If there really are only 117 million unique monthly users for Tumblr,

then Yahoo paid about $9.40 for each of them.  Do they have a plan

in place to keep them?  What will it cost?

While Yahoo’s Tumblr acquisition might make sense – let’s assume

CEO Marissa Mayer knows what she’s doing – what’s not certain

is how this acquisition will move Yahoo’s stock price.

Based on what’s happened this week, so far, the stock market

appears to have welcomed Yahoo’s acquisition, modestly moving

its stock price up from where it had been on Monday, meaning that

while Wall Street approves the deal, it’s far from excited about it,

and, quite possibly, doesn’t understand it.

The larger, overriding issue is that economics catches up with

every industry.  It might not happen for a decade or 20, possibly,

even 30 years but, in time, economics determines how industries

mature, prosper, fall apart and work.

Right now, we appear to be seeing the maturing of the Internet

industry as it consolidates.

When an industry is new, entrepreneurs and companies of all shapes

and sizes often step in because they see an opportunity to thrive.

Only a very limited few will succeed but, as with PowerBall gambling,

if the winnings are viewed as being high enough, many will throw

their hat into the ring.

But eventually there’s a contraction as investors cash out, taking their

earnings and banking them for another future opportunity while

others shut down, not always able to sell the assets they once

used in the new industry.

This activity – of one company buying another – usually leaves

fewer players, making the new industry look like an oligarchy,

with a few dominant companies keeping a close eye on one another.

While it’s hard to believe today, the U.S. automotive

industry back in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, was

composed of about 2,800 companies.  They included mom

and pop shops to long established companies in the horse-drawn

wagon business trying their hand on a new idea – mechanized

transportation.

The automotive industry’s new technology was so successful,

disruptive even, that it killed off horse draw wagons.

Today, there are three automotive companies headquartered in

the United States, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, but only

two are U.S.-owned, Ford and General Motors. Italian carmaker

Fiat owns Chrysler.

The U.S. daily newspaper industry suffered a similar fate, from

being an industry once composed of more than 5,000 titles, back

in the late 19^th century, according to About.com, to one that publishes

just over 1,400 different papers today.

Little deals like Tumblr, at a shocking price of $1.1 billion, are

small.  Tumblr will become a division of Yahoo – not something

that fundamentally alters Yahoo.

Deals like Tumblr – where the company was valued at nearly 85

times more than its annual revenues – can’t continue.  If Tumblr

never brings in $800 million, or even $1 billion – and it’s hard to

see how it will – Internet executives will hesitate, and likely refuse,

to pay such extraordinary multiples for the next company whose

revenues don’t come close to backing up the valuation its

investors claim.

The wild-eyed optimism of the Internet -- $1 billion for Tumblr

or Facebook’s recent valuation at $500 billion (when it’s only

doing over $5 billion a year) – will end. 

As the Internet industry matures, the question that needs to be

answered is what’s the future for Yahoo, Google and Bing?

Which one of these players will buy the other to provide it

with the long-term competitive advantage it needs?

Growing up is hard to do, says the adage, and anyone

who’s been in an industry’s infantile stage knows excitement

dims as the adults move in to make sure it lives up to its claims.

So, David Karp, for your sake, let’s hope you’ve cashed out

handsomely and stashed the money where it’s safe because

you’re about to be upbraided by Marissa Mayer as she holds

your feet to the fire.

Oh, the fuss: The Manners, where are they now?

Etiquette – sometimes referred to as “manners,” that type of behavior

parents once taught their kids so they wouldn’t act on their impulses – 

gives every appearance of being pushed aside, replaced by

insensitive and crass behavior in everything from cutting in line to

drivers flipping one another the bird.

And it isn’t limited to Massachusetts. 

I’ve seen it in many places – from the male chauvinist in Eugene,

Ore., with whom I had business dealings during my Tribune days,

to a racist working at a Boston Market in Lombard, Ill., and a gay

man in Washington, who refused to promote a colleague of mine

because she was African American.

What do they call that, WWB?  Working While Black.

I don’t know.

But it shows that jerks are everywhere.

It was telling moment, three years ago, when a lady working behind

the counter at a nearby Starbucks thanked me for saying please and

thank you as she attended to my order. 

“Thank you for being so considerate,” she said.

““You all do a great job here,” I said, caught off guard by her

comment.

“Not everyone thinks so,” she replied.

Two summers ago, my wife was flipped off as she drove out of the

parking lot of a local train line carrying commuters in and out of 

Boston.  I guess the other driver thought he was more

important. 

Never once did that happen in the 16 years we lived in a Chicago suburb.

But, of course, it’s possible it happens in other suburbs of the country’s

third largest city.

My wife and I spend a lot of time teaching our kids manners.  Everything

from how they dress and speak, including how they handle themselves

at the dinner table, has been reviewed hundreds, thousands, maybe

millions, of times.

Obviously, we haven’t perfected this – we only need to see how our sons,

10 and 9, behave at home to know how badly we’re doing – but we

work on their behavior nonetheless.

I’m always grateful when another adult reports that they’re well behaved,

but I also wonder whose kids they’re really talking about. 

If only we could get them to behave at home – without the constant

reminders!

Right now, we’re following the advice more experienced parents provided:

Eventually they’ll grow up; in the meantime, keep repeating the lessons. 

During recent trips to a nearby mall, where I was buying the boys new

clothes, I kept up the lessons, telling them – well, to be completely

truthful, it entailed gripping their shoulders so they’d stand still – to

allow the women to board and depart the elevator before they did. 

The reaction, on both occasions, was fascinating.

One woman noticed what I was doing and smiled while the other

appeared incredulous, giving the impression that I was wasting

time.  She shook her head and chuckled.  Fortunately neither boy

picked up on the reaction of the second woman.

And while this is hardly a scientific survey, these reactions might

provide a clue as to where we stand on manners today.  Half of

the country is grateful for them while the other half is so jaded

it’s not expecting them – hardly a good thing, I’d say.

Still, we should aim for civilized behavior.  It doesn’t take much

to remind ourselves we’re not the only ones on the planet.  Just

look up from your wireless, handheld device and you’ll see them.

About a year ago, when the boys were earning their Cub Scout

Citizenship Pin, they met the local police chief.  During the

meeting, I had one of the boys ask a question – What could

they do to be good citizens?

He gave a wonderful, simple answer that the kids still remember:

Open doors for others and always say please and thank you.  Be

considerate.  Be nice. 

Words to live by.

U.S. Newspaper Executives are no match for the Koch Brothers

Sometimes it’s hard – really hard! – to take newspapers seriously.

I do when they’re covering wars, politics, crime and most business
events. 

But when it comes to covering their own kind – the newspaper industry
– their collective heads are stuck in their collective … well … I won’t say. 

This is a family-friendly blog, and you get the idea.

If the Koch Brothers – apparently prospective buyers of Tribune’s
newspapers, which includes the Los Angeles Times – read yesterday’s
New York Times, I hope they’re not shaking in their boots. 

More than 1,000 people, said The Times, “pledged to cancel their
subscriptions” and “110,000 (people) … signed petitions opposing
the sale” of the L.A. Times to David and Charles Koch.

Seriously, take it from me, compared to other previous, controversial
owners who successfully owned newspapers where they weren’t
 greeted with a parade and a red carpet on day one of their ownership,

1,000 or so readers is nothing.

Even if that number is way off – let’s triple it to 3,000 just to be, dare
I use the word, conservative – it’s still hardly anything to fear.

The L.A. Times, according to one of the most recent audits, sells nearly
1 million copies on Sunday and over 650,000 copies Monday
through Friday. 

Do the math, using the daily circulation figure, and you realize
we’re talking way less than 1 percent of the newspaper’s
circulation if those 1,000 readers follow up their threats.

Take it to 3,000 subscribers and the potential circulation loss is
just under half of 1 percent – far from an end-of-the-world-as
-we-know-it nightmare.

Nearly 30 years ago, in January 1984, Rupert Murdoch – you
know, the Devil himself, the man who, when he’s not running
his global media empire, is working hard to kill off democracy
his critics say – purchased the Chicago Sun-Times from Marshall
Field, taking a circulation hit of about 30,000.

Now if 30,000 subscribers abandon the L.A. Times – just over
4.5 percent of the paper’s Monday through Friday consumer
sales – then, yes, there’s reason to worry. 

But if the past is prologue, those readers will soon realize no one
else in Southern California is publishing a newspaper like the
Los Angeles Times, and they’ll return to the fold.

How do I know this?  My dad, Bob Page, was Murdoch’s
publisher at the Sun-Times.

“It took time but it all (the reader losses) came back,” dad says.

I’m not here to promote either Murdoch or a Koch Brothers
purchase of Tribune’s papers.

What I’m here to say is that L.A. Times columnist Steve
Lopez and some of his fellow reporters have little reason
to be upset about the prospect of a Koch Brothers ownership.

Sure there’ll be some changes if they wind up owning the
paper, but what Steve and his colleagues need to keep in
mind is that if that turns out to be the case, they’ll work to
make the Los Angeles Times a successful business. 

Say what you will about them – and I’ll even go along with Mr.
Lopez and say some of the critiques of the Kochs are worrisome
– the Koch Brothers are capitalists first, political partisans second.

It doesn’t do them any good to spend about $1 billion on
Tribune’s papers only to see them close up a year or two later.

Now if Steve and his colleagues want to argue against the
Koch Brothers because they don’t know a thing about running
a newspaper, that’s a different story.  I'm in complete
agreement with that line of thinking.

But instead of doing the obvious, Steve and his colleagues are
focusing on the Kochs’ politics, reasoning the banks and the lenders
– now Tribune Company’s owners – could care less about.

This harsh reaction against the Koch Brothers – solely because of
their politics – is similar to the one that greeted Rupert Murdoch as
he worked to buy Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal.

Many in the media business, including the Financial Times’ Martin
Wolf, said it would be the end of the Journal, a completely
ridiculous thought. 

I exchanged emails with Wolf about his views, suggesting he explain
why the Bancrofts should be allowed to go on as the owners of Dow
Jones.  Even Mr. Wolf – a helluva reporter on everything but the
newspaper industry – thought the Bancrofts hadn’t done a very
good job owning the company.

(And, yes, in case you’re wondering, I still have the email from
Mr. Wolf as well as the one I sent him.)

The great tragedy of the newspaper industry is that its biggest players
are nowhere to be seen or heard of as interested parties in Tribune’s
papers.  Gannett, The Washington Post, The New York Times

Company, even Newhouse and Cox are missing in action.

Instead, according to what’s reported, Tribune’s board of directors
will receive two bids for their papers, one from Rupert Murdoch,
and another from the Koch Brothers, maybe three or four if David

Geffen and Eli Broad step up with their offers.

In other words, besides Murdoch, an Australian by birth and a
U.S. citizen since the ‘80s, no other U.S. newspaper executive is
demonstrating enough confidence in their industry – let alone their
management skills – to bid on the country’s fourth largest newspaper,
the Los Angeles Times, and its sister Tribune papers.

That should be the issue making Steve Lopez’s skin crawl.

Rushing to Obsolescence: The Limbaugh Story

Yeah, I use to listen to Rush Limbaugh. 

It was back in the early to mid-1990s, when my traveling sales job took me to exciting metropolises like Salina, Kansas; Joplin, Missouri; Sioux City, Iowa; Columbus, Nebraska; and Grand Forks North Dakota.

This was before satellite radio was added to rental cars, so, often, there was little or no selection on the AM or FM dials after leaving the broadcasting range of the stations in some of the larger Midwestern and Southern cities I once visited.

So Rush, unlike his liberal counterparts, was often the only game on the dial. 

He was pretty funny back then.  And let’s face it, in Bill Clinton, he had a lot material to work with.

(I’ve come to miss the Clinton years; he was a capable president, with an uncanny ability to keep the extremists in both parties at bay.)

I haven’t spent any time listening to Rush since 1996, when my full-time business travels ended, so I’m not sure what he sounds like anymore or even what does on the air.

But I worry when anyone attempts to censor anyone else.  I’m not a registered with any political party, but there should always be a full airing of all views, even the ones that are bothersome, irritable, naïve or disagreeable. 

Besides, if we live in the progressive society we think we do, then we need to act like one and not support anyone’s censorship efforts against any one else.  Your favorite radio station or television host, columnist or book author could be targeted next.

Censorship efforts are also risky.  They can provide sympathy for the target.

In other words, Rush’s is in the news today because someone is telling Dairy Queen they’re not buying Blizzards anymore until their ads are off his show.  Someone – who may not hold Rush’s views – is hearing this and thinking it’s unfair.

So what to do about Rush?

He’s on the verge of collapse.  He’s been on the air for more than 20 years, had a good run and is likely repeating himself, which happens to many in the media world.

If his opinions were that unique or his arguments that good, he would be on many more stations, especially given that a Democrat is back in the White House.

The market is judging him – harshly.  He’s on fewer than 600 radio stations (he peaked at just over 600 stations in the mid-1990s) and if you study his list of stations (it can be found here: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/stations/all_stations/, you’ll notice his show sometimes carried on two radio stations in the same city simultaneously. 

In other words, add it all up and he’s not as effective as he once was.

No radio sales manager – regardless of their own political affiliation – will want to keep the Rush show if he’s not delivering the audience merchants demand.

Rush will spin out of control by himself.  He doesn’t need your help.

Kindred Spirits: Immigration and Slavery?

Anyone supporting unlimited immigration into the United States might review the history of the antebellum South of the 19^th Century.

While there’s no doubt that slavery was perverse, causing incredible harm against African Americans, it had another victim that few likely know – lower class, independent, white, businessmen, sometimes poor, sometimes middle class.

They were the service providers, fixing fences or performing odd jobs around an owner’s plantation.

William H. Freehling, a retired history professor at the University of Kentucky, writes in his two-volume series detailing Southern life, politics and economics prior to the U.S. Civil War, entitled The Road to Disunion, small white businessmen were often at a disadvantage because they were competing against either free blacks or slave labor. 

Often it was easier and cheaper, Freehling writes, for a plantation owner to turn to his slaves when work needed to be done around his estate that didn’t include planting or tending to the crops.

History repeating itself?

Nearly 150 years since the end of the Civil War, yesterday’s New York Times reports (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/us/suit-cites-race-bias-in-farms-use-of-immigrants.html?pagewanted=2&src=twrhp) a similar issue exists today.

Only it’s not about lower class whites being at a competitive disadvantage.  It’s mostly about lower class African Americans, The Times reports, unable to secure work on a farm, Southern Valley, in Georgia.

Their competition?  Immigrant labor but with a new twist:  It’s not about pay, say the owners and operators of Southern Valley, it’s about attitude. 

Southern Valley’s Director of Operations Jon Schwalls compared Mexican and guest workers to Americans this way:

“When Jose gets on the bus to come here from Mexico he is committed to the work.  It’s like going into the military. He leaves his family at home. The work is hard, but he’s ready. A domestic wants to know: What’s the pay? What are the conditions? In these communities, I am sorry to say, there are no fathers at home, no role models for hard work. They want rewards without input.”

The story reports a lawsuit was recently settled by some of the workers and it included, The Times said, Southern Valley agreeing “to make certain changes,” which were left unclear in the article.

Lawyers for the American workers, The Times reports, say the guest worker program, which allows foreign laborers to work for limited periods of time in the United States, “is rigged to favor low-cost foreign labor because, given the conditions and the pay, no one else will do it.”

In U.S. politics, the Democratic Party’s constituency is often voters on the lower end of the economic spectrum.  If Democrats can’t help low-skill laborers, like the ones formerly employed by Southern Valley, are there other constituents they can’t help?  Are these workers the Democratic Party’s sacrificial lambs because they’re in a Red State?

Reject Sandberg's Lean In at Your Peril

There are at least two reasons why any can man dismiss Sheryl
Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead:

First, she’s the number two, the chief operating officer of Facebook,
a vastly popularsocial networking website claiming more than 1 billion users.

Second, she’s working in an industry that’s suffered few setbacks.
While she’s done a highly impressive job at Facebook, she has yet
demonstrate the turnaround skills of former Chrysler Chairman Lee
Iacocca or, if you prefer a gender equivalent, Marissa Mayer, likely
to be lauded for reversing Yahoo!’s fortunes as its chief executive officer.

There’s at least one reason why both men and women can dismiss Sandberg:

She’s never started a company. She’s almost to Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerbergwhat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could have
been to President Barack Obama had he shown the guts to chose her,
not Joe Biden, as vice president – the accomplished, seasoned woman
in the role of number two to the Man with Potential.

In fact, Sandberg almost looks like the candidate many voted against
during the 2008 Democratic Party’s presidential nominating process.
She’s a Harvard grad and holds an MBA from the same university;
was a consultant at McKinsey & Company; worked in the
U.S. Treasury Department, where she was the chief of staff to Larry
Summers, when he headed Treasury; and was one of Google’s
senior executives prior to joining Facebook five years ago.

There’s at least one reason why older women, like some
who’ve been so passionate in their rejection of Lean In,
can dismiss Sandberg:

She’s Jane Come Lately to feminism. She didn’t do the marches
in the ‘60s and the ‘70s – the fact that she wasn’t born until after
Woodstock is no excuse! – and never experienced raw
discrimination the way many of today’s older women did when
they were younger.

In other words, she’s neither suffered nor paid her dues in the
secretarial pool,as so many women did as they entered the
workforce in the 1960s and 1970s.

Finally, the biggest reason to reject Sandberg’s book is one that
anyone can relate to – she’s rich!  According to some reports,
she’s a billionaire.

Her success has made many jealous, especially two columnists at
newspapers that are polar opposites of one another, and that alone
should tell anyone that Sandberg’s book is on the right track.

But anyone who rejects her advice does so at their peril.

She’s worked hard and, like anyone else who’s successful, had
help along the way, which she mentions in her book.

So say what you will about the imperfections of Sandberg’s
advocacy, but her success wasn’t handed to her.

Besides, when it comes to advocacy, there’s rarely one who’s
perfect. Some of the biggest names in U.S. history were flawed
but decent men, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Malcolm X, to name a few. There are likely many others.

Like many top corporate officers, Sandberg holds down a demanding
job and has a family that includes two children and a spouse, her
husband David. Her life is a constant balancing act between
professional matters and family ones.

Her philosophy on managing both is one that many working
women – and men – will find valuable:

“’Done is better than perfect.’ Done, while a challenge, turns out
to be far more achievable and often a relief.”

She’s experienced sexual harassment in a way that many men might
dismiss, and seen her professional accomplishments go unappreciated
when she was searching for work.

She does an excellent job of pointing out why women feel pressured
to leave their careers after they become mothers.

In her book, Sandberg’s attempting to liberate women from their guilt
over mothering while they’re holding down fulltime jobs as well as free
men from being straight-jacketed into jobs instead of devoting
time – maybe even all of their time – into bringing up children.

While it appears she’s advancing the next phase of the feminist
cause, she’s really expanding the boundaries of what’s acceptable
in family life – for both men and women.

What some women might find upsetting about Sandberg’s book
is that instead of blaming a guy, a man or even a culture for
women’s lack of professional success, Sandberg is saying women
have only themselves – and other women! – to blame
for not achieving their goals at the office.

Professional women, she says, should look out for other women,
mentoring them wherever and whenever possible and providing
time they need to attend to their home life without suffering
consequences at the office.

But Sandberg is also an advocate for men. She acknowledges
and names the many men who’ve helped her in her career, including
former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Google Chairman Eric
Schmidt and two male colleagues, plus a senior manager, who she
worked alongside at McKinsey & Co.

This is not the anti-man book and perhaps that’s why some
women – especially New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
and New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser – take issue with
Sandberg.  But, frankly, after reading both critiques, I wondered
if either one had done it all at the same time – been married, held
a full-time job and brought up kids.

I’m guessing neither has.

As to Peyser’s point that Sandberg doesn’t mention stepping on
a few toes to get ahead in Corporate America, if you’re reading
Sandberg’s book for that kind of advice, you’re early on in your
career.

Read Sandberg’s book – regardless of your gender -- to learn
how you can become a better executive, maybe even a better person.

---------------------------

In my own career, I’ve experienced some of subjects Sandberg writes
about. The following are a few examples:

• As the stay-at-home, work-at-home dad, I’ve seen the quizzical and
suspicious looks from many, both men and women, who’ve wondered
why I’m at the house, not the office.

To answer my critics: One, I really am working, often as freelance
reporter. Two, the question – my guilt trip – is this: Who hugs the kids
after they get off the school bus?  Who shows them that a bad day
at school isn’t their worst, and their good day at school is one of their
best? I don’t know either. No after school program can do it as well as
I can. Three, who makes sure homework gets done in a timely
fashion? Four, who takes the boys to their after school activities?
Five, you’re quite right, I’m hardly earning as much as my wife does.
But I hope – just as my mom did when she stayed home back
in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s – my contributions are just as valuable
as my wife’s paycheck.

• If there’s one skill many men could develop at the office, it’s
this – diplomacy. Think before you talk so you don’t acerbate your
female colleagues. Keep your inner chauvinist buried. During my
corporate days, I took many a man aside to tell them they needed to
improve their communication skills with their female colleagues.

• If there’s any one thing women could do to help themselves, it’s
to take Sandberg’s advice – be confident. None of us are perfect but the
single largest difference between men and women is this: Men think they
can while women are seeking credentials. Or as one weekend soccer
coach told me, “Little girls ask a lot of questions so they understand
what to do in every situation; little boys just kick the ball.”  Ladies –
kick the ball and don’t worry about failure.

• There’s little difference between men and women. I once had a
staff composed almost entirely of women. I learned that both
genders are equally ambitious and both genders – with the exception
of childbirth and perhaps a few other things – can do what
the other has traditionally done. I know how to sew. I know how
to cook. For the record, my wife is a better cook than I am, and
my mother and my mother-in-law were and are handier with a
sewing needle than me.

• The biggest difference between some women and between some
men is personality. Some are ambitious and want to accomplish goals.
Some are waiting for a handout. One’s gender doesn’t determine one’s
level of ambition.

• More than one woman has cried in my office, which is one of the
reasons I took my wife’s advice. I always kept a box of tissues on my
credenza. Crying is hardly a sign of weakness. And it’s certainly not a
character flaw. It’s just a person’s brain and emotions out of sync and
sometimes feeling pain. It usually doesn’t last more than a few minutes.

• Parenting is an ugly job, sometimes demanding one’s time at the most
inconvenient of moments. More employers need to know that. I still
recall the time I had my office in eye shot one morning when,
suddenly, the daycare called my cell phone, saying one of my sons
was feverish and needed to leave immediately.

• Sometimes we’re called to do something that we have no experience
doing. Don’t sweat it. Just do it.

I once had to provide trauma care to my younger brother after he
was hit by truck’s outside, rearview mirror. My lessons on trauma
care, at that point, came from the war movies I had watched and a
popular television show, “Emergency.”

I was 11 years old, my brother was seven, and we were living in
Hong Kong. On that particular day, we were doing some last-minute
Christmas shopping. I attended to my brother, making him lie down on
the sidewalk, and I placed my hands on his forehead in a vain attempt
to stop the bleeding, as a crowd gathered around us.

A very nice British man made sure an ambulance was called and
stayed with us until it arrived; and, as luck would have it, within this
crowd was a familiar face – a boy from the school I attended,
accompanied by his mother. She called home, telling mom
what happened and the hospital we were going to. She then insisted
her son join us for the ride to the hospital. Looking back it, that lady
was a saint.

 • We’re all stronger than we think. At the heart of her book, that’s
Sandberg’s message.

ItsFourthAndLong: My battle with Alzheimer's

ItsFourthAndLong: My battle with Alzheimer's

My battle with Alzheimer's

The Wall Street Journal had a story about Alzheimer’s Disease earlier this week.  Here’s my account of the situation.

I've been living with Alzheimer's for nearly eight years, when my mother, at 60, was diagnosed with this God-awful disease. I've never experienced anything more emotionally extracting than watching my mother suffer from this terrible condition.

The best reason the doctors could give for her dementia was that she suffered from depression. And while 60 is an early age to be hobbled with Alzheimer's, there are plenty of younger people who are diagnosed.

I met a 43-year-old man with it while touring assisted living facilities. A lawyer told me about a 42-year-old woman who was stricken.

Sure, they're the rarity. 



Stimulating your mind with a book or a game is a fine idea. But if you really want to prevent this, go for a run at least three times a week. Moving the blood around your heart and your head will do more to keep your brain in shape than anything else.

Not that reading is bad. But there's no getting around cardiovascular exercise. Your heart requires it and so does your brain.

Today, at 67, my mother lives in the Alzheimer's unit at an assisted living facility. The attendants bathe and dress her and make sure she eats. The annual cost? About $80,000.00. And it’s all private pay.

The annual tab is paid through her IRA and the money made when we sold her house.  

If you want to know stress, check out what it’s like to watch the stock market take a nosedive, as it did in the final months of 2008, and then wonder how your mother will pay her bills.  

It’s not like she’s employable. 

Add to that the time I agreed to put her on an anti-psychotic drug, Zyprexa. In dementia patients, it’s considered an “FDA-approved black label drug,” meaning death is a possible side effect. 

Every morning, my first thought is, “I killed my mother.”

Alzheimer's is described as the "long, slow, goodbye."

I wish it were faster. My mother's a shell of the lady she was. In her youth, she was vibrant, beautiful, and full of life. Now she's worn down, haggard-looking, 30 pounds overweight, and can't remember my name or anyone else’s. 

The tragedy is that physically she's in pretty good shape. Mentally, she's a vacuum, not remembering words said to her seconds ago.

I pray she dies soon. That’s when her dignity will be restored.

Don't let this disease happen to you. Go for a run three times a week and change your diet. And while you're at it, find a good book to read.

Do something, goddammit!

Tribune's uncertainity in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

There is no predetermined outcome for bankrupt Tribune Co. Other than a likely sale of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, the company's future — as well as that of its remaining assets, employees, management, and Sam Zell's continuing leadership — is unclear.

As with other Chapter 11 bankruptcies, among the groups that suffer most are the employees. Tribune's, after enduring previous management's scuffles with the Chandlers, and then witnessing Zell's purchase, have taken it on the chin again. Their ESOP shares are worthless. Their jobs uncertain.

They may wonder who could own the piece of Tribune they work for and, in addition, they could be asking how forgiving Tribune's creditors will be toward the company.

Yet seeking protection from creditors via Chapter 11 bankruptcy, especially in today's sour economic climate, is no longer necessarily a sign of defeat. It's a credible, strategic option for today's managers, who bet that not only will creditors refuse to seek their firm's liquidation but that they themselves will also be in place when the company emerges from Chapter 11.

Foregone conclusion?

That said, when Zell took over Tribune in 2007, the firm's bankruptcy might already have been a foregone conclusion. In fact, according to bankruptcy expert Douglas Baird, a University of Chicago law professor, Tribune's finances 14 months ago looked more similar to a corporation that had undergone a 1980s-style leveraged buyout.

"Unlike the ones done in recent years, it was very highly leveraged," he said. "This was an aggressive deal."

Other than Zell's $315 million, there was no other collateral in the buyout, meaning that for Tribune to meet its debt obligations under Zell's ownership, the publisher had to be financially successful, immediately. Instead, revenues and profits went the other direction.

Under Zell's ownership, it's doubtful that Tribune's employees, through the ESOP, had much of a say about the company's direction. Under the Chapter 11 filing, they definitely have no voice in the company's future. Their shares are worthless, even powerless. For that matter, the influence of Tribune's management is potentially diminished.

"The creditors are the shareholders now and in charge of Tribune's future," said Baird. "The judge will be asking them what they want to do.
"The existing managers have not been displaced yet, but whether they (and Zell) have a role going forward will turn in large measure on whether the creditors (and especially Barclay's Bank, Tribune's debtor-in-possession lender) think that they are managing the company well," Baird added.

Economic vitality

Barclay's, which is providing Tribune with a $50 million letter of credit, will be one of the first creditors to be paid back should the company come out of Chapter 11.

Other creditors, led by JP Morgan Chase, are owed $12.9 billion, according to Tribune's bankruptcy petition. Tribune claims assets of $7.6 billion.
One of the issues that the creditors committee will need to determine is the economic viability of the assets that compose Tribune.

"That conversation (on economic viability of Tribune as a whole and its parts) is taking place right now," said Baird. "Tribune will likely go on but it may not go on as it was a year ago.

"Assets like the LA Times or WGN (Tribune's Chicago-based radio and television stations) are likely viable and may be set up on their own," he added.

Baird, in fact, is optimistic about Tribune's future.

"Once you take away the debt, they (Tribune and its parts) should be cash flow positive," said Baird, which should guide the creditors toward seeing Tribune successfully through its Chapter 11 proceedings.

"Much of what the creditors decide will be based on how much money they can get paid back."

Real estate options

New York University law Prof. Barry Adler said creditors will also likely consider the future possibility of working with Zell's real estate business.

"There are a number of issues for any creditor to think about when determining the acceptance of a reorganization plan," Adler said.

Whatever steps Tribune and its creditors might take, initial answers clarifying the publisher's reorganization plan won't be forthcoming until April. That's the new deadline U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey set for Tribune to file supporting documentation regarding its bankruptcy plea.

To avoid ending with whimper, publishers must tout printed product

Nobel Prize winner T. S. Eliot likely hadn’t a clue as to the versatility of the last verse of “The Hollow Men.” Not only is it a possible description for the world’s end but it also illustrates the potential closing stages of the daily newspaper industry:

“This is the way the world ends,
not with a bang but a whimper.”

Consider: On any given day there’s a publisher ordering his paper’s management team to cut back further on the printed edition because, as the annual and quarterly reports say, print revenues are down, online revenues are up. While that strategy, if you can call it that, might improve profits in the short run, this pathological behavior only diminishes the paper’s revenues, competitive stand¬ing and its future.

This self-destructive practice won’t kill the newspaper business next year or even in 10 years. If it continues, based on current run rates of circulation and advertising losses, it could take decades before the daily newspaper industry col¬lapses, echoing Eliot’s last stanza.

The Newspaper Association of America reports trends that everyone in the daily newspaper industry knows: Over the last 23 years, newspapers’ daily circ has fallen by more than 11 million; the last time the daily newspaper industry experienced a circulation increase was in 1987, when it sold 300,000 more cop¬ies than it did in 1986.

Daily newspapers peaked in 1973, when there were 1,773 titles; more than 300 newspapers have since stopped pub¬lishing. Newsprint consumption is half of what it was in 2003, meaning newspa¬pers are sizably smaller today.

Same story

Advertising revenues tell the same story: Print advertising revenues peaked in 2005 at $47 billion; since then, reve¬nues have dropped by more than $5 bil¬lion and even when online advertising revenues are added in, the newspaper industry’s ad revenue is down by more than $4 billion from 2005.

Tribune, the latest company to an¬nounce cutbacks, will soon sell news¬papers that offer more maps, graphics, lists, ranking and statistics.

Tribune owner Sam Zell and Randy Michaels, the chief operating officer, announced that they are planning to produce newspapers with a 50-50 ratio between ads and editorial content and reduce the news content, across all of the company’s newspapers, by as much as 500 pages a week.

Finding efficiencies and creating a newspaper that readers and advertisers will buy makes perfect business sense.

But while it is too early to tell if Tri¬bune’s latest initiative will lead to growth in revenues and profits, it appears as if this move is more of the same — simply cutbacks — and it can’t help but make one wonder what Tribune’s stable of dai¬lies will look like if this venture fails.

The answer

Is there any way up?

Yes. A newspaper is both a consumer product and an advertising vehicle. The latter’s success hinges on the former. So if publishers want better results, they had better find a solution to the one part of their business that no other media wishes to duplicate — the daily printed newspaper.

This requires a print strategy. This is, presumably, what Messrs. Zell and Michaels have crafted. Because if Tribune and its fellow companies fail to formulate a plan to own the one thing that no other media outlet, including the “demonic” Craigslist, is interested in producing or duplicating — a daily printed newspaper — publishers face a grim future indeed.

The results of the daily newspaper industry’s two practices — publishing a newspaper that it struggles to sell, more often than not, in a monopoly market, and updating its Web site, which is freely accessible and appears to be easier to sell to advertisers than the printed edition — has made many publishers mis¬takenly believe that the online edition doesn’t require the sales support of the printed edition.

Carries the day

But the printed product still carries the day in terms of revenue and profits and it remains a highly effective promotion vehicle for the newspaper’s Web site.

About two years ago, Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company, announced that there are 100 million Web sites, a number that’s no doubt higher today. If you‘re a newspaper publisher, take note: If you’re struggling to sell ads in a monopoly market, how are you going to effectively compete against 99.9 million other Web sites?

Here is how Harvard Business School Prof. Michael E. Porter views the competitive landscape. In his book, “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sus¬taining Superior Performance”, Porter wrote: “A firm that engages in each generic strategy (cost leadership, differ¬entiation, cost focus or differentiation focus) but fails to achieve any of them is stuck in the middle.

“It possesses no competitive advantage. This strategic position is usually a recipe for below-average performance.”

The daily newspaper industry can differentiate and stand out from all other media by creating a printed product that people want to read and advertisers find attractive.

Consumers are overwhelmed with media choices and their time is short, so publishers need to overcome resistance to their product. One solution? Give away the paper free to consumers and adopt a print format that readers find easily ac¬cessible: the tabloid. This might better be called the Examiner model as produced in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and San Francisco.

Ultimately, the daily newspaper industry is responsible for its own health. Either it demonstrates to advertisers and readers its strength as a printed product or it lives out T. S. Eliot’s last verse.

Correspondent's note: This article orginally appeared, by the same author as this blog, in the July 2008 edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.

The Next Bailout Scenario

By Combined Wire Services

WASHINGTON — The seats in the congressional hearing room, previously occupied by the chief executives of the country’s automakers, hadn’t even cooled Thursday when they were immediately filled by America’s leading newspaper executives who were there to do what their colleagues from the auto industry had done — beg for a taxpayer-financed bailout package.

With advertising and circulation revenues hitting new lows every quarter, and newspaper job losses on the rise, the industry is in a precipitous state. As of yet, no one in the newspaper industry appears to know how to correct the situation, which worsens daily.

The newspaper industry’s recent headlines include the faithful at the Church of Christ Science no longer praying to God for a miracle to save the print edition of their prestigious newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor; instead, they’re asking Him to make the newspaper’s Internet edition a far more trafficked Web site than it was before the print edition’s demise.

“We pray every day for our Web site,” said a spokesman for the Church.

Need help

Other headlines include the newspaper industry’s leading supplier of news content, The Associated Press, announcing it would eliminate jobs in 2009; along with the precarious financial position of New Jersey’s leading daily newspaper, The Star-Ledger, few newspaper executives and analysts have hope that the industry can be turned around without government assistance.

“They (the newspaper industry) need help,” said John Morton, a former newspaper analyst.

“I’m … I’m not sure what happened to our revenue,” said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times and chairman of the paper’s holding company, during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. “It … it … just seems to have gone away. We’re trying to find it.”

McClatchy Newspaper’s Chief Executive Gary Pruitt; MediaNews Group Chief Executive William Dean Singleton; News Corp.’s Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch; and Gannett Chief Executive Craig Dubow, publisher of USA Today, seeking approval for a government-funded bailout package, joined Sulzberger.

All four executives, who lead some of the largest and most prestigious newspaper companies in the United States, said that unless they received a portion of the $700 billion set aside to save Wall Street banking firms, they would either declare bankruptcy or be forced to shut down in the next six to eight months.

No support

Still, members of the Senate Committee and the House Financial Services Committee harshly criticized the executives’ testimony, where they later appeared, as being short-sighted and failing to address the single greatest issue facing the domestic newspaper industry — providing a newspaper people want to read and advertisers want to buy.

“We’ve been firing as many people as we can,” said MediaNews Group’s Singleton. “We’re going to fire as many people as possible in order to get our profit margins back to where they were in 1982.”

“At Gannett, we’re seriously considering making our newspapers the size of Readers Digest magazine — only thinner — and then increasing the daily cover price to a buck,” said Dubow, the company’s chief executive officer.

“Isn’t that a recipe for disaster,” asked U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, (R-Fla.), of Dubow.

“It’s revenue maximization,” replied Dubow.

As soon as the four executives had finished their testimony before both committees, congressional members peppered them with questions about their management tactics, styles and abilities.

“Do you guys think you could run my 8-year-old nephew’s lemonade stand,” asked U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

“No, no, I’ll handle this question,” said McClatchy’s Pruitt as he shouted down and pushed Murdoch aside for the opportunity to answer Frank.

Making profit?

“If the economy was robust, and if we were within five feet of a four-way stop, I’m fairly certain we could make a profit,” Pruitt said. “Of course, my answer is predicated on weather conditions, the quality of lemonade served and the amount of traffic at the intersection, none of which we might be able to control.”

“Have you thought about, oh I don’t know, marketing your newspapers and telling people why they should read them or buy advertising in them,” asked U.S. Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking Republican.

“We’re The New York Times, for God’s sake,” Sulzberger said. “We don’t need to tell anyone who we are. America and New York, they know who we are!”

“We eliminated the marketing department five layoffs ago,” answered Pruitt.

“These guys make the auto industry look good,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-Calif.), during a news conference after Thursday’s hearings. “At least Detroit faces real competition; these newspaper guys are a bunch of incompetent monopolists.

“Maybe they need to be replaced by executives from some major utility,” she added.

Some lawmakers, however, were in favor of evaluating a bailout.

“I’m prepared to vote in favor of this funding if I’m allowed to control your editorial pages,” announced U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, during the hearings.

“While this request doesn’t mean too much of a change to The New York Times, it does have some sharp ramifications for The Wall Street Journal,” Dodd added.

Upon hearing Dodd’s statement, the Journal’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, collapsed and had to be revived by paramedics. He was later taken to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where doctors report he’s in stable condition and is scheduled to be released today.

Both congressional chambers are expected to debate the request from the newspaper executives today.


Correspondent's note: This article, written by this correspondent, originally appeared in the January 2009 edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.

Unshackle the chains: The U.S. Daily Newspaper Industry -- 2009

As 2009 dawns, executives and employees across U.S. daily newspapers might be worried that they’ll follow Tribune’s lead and file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy this year.

It wouldn’t be because they’re burdened with the same amount of crushing debt as Tribune. It’ll be because their revenue stream, which will likely come under more pressure this year, will not cover their costs. Like Tribune, they may be forced to sell assets, lay off employees, or implement a new ownership structure.

Whatever they’ll do this year, daily newspaper executives will likely not focus on the one issue that can save them – Finding a new way for an effective and venerable print product to compete in the Digital Age. Failure to do so and these executives will likely find themselves in an even more precarious situation at the end of this year than they were at the end of 2008.

The Internet is a convenient crutch. Listen to any daily newspaper executive and this relatively new medium is the cause of all ills, from declining circulation to shrinking print advertising revenues. Indeed, the story of the Internet’s affect on the daily newspaper industry is the next iteration of David and Goliath, and, right now, David is winning because Goliath either doesn’t understand how to use all of the tools available to him or is too lazy to do so.

The daily newspaper industry’s problems didn’t show up yesterday or even six months ago. It’s long been criticized for providing an irrelevant product and for being difficult for advertisers to purchase. In addition, it has long evaded the basic principles of economics, raising advertising rates while demand for its product, as measured by circulation numbers, drop.

In spite of its troubles, the daily newspaper industry possesses strengths that are unique. If it can harness them, change its thinking, focus on core capabilities and correct shortcomings, it likely has a bright future.

Strengths of the business

“You still have 120 million (print) readers in the aggregate across the newspaper industry in the United States on any given Sunday,” said David Walker, chief executive officer of NSA Media, of Downers Grove, Illinois, which buys about $1.5 billion of newspaper advertising annually, in both the United States and Canada.

“You can’t get to 120 million in virtually any audience, other than television, on a specific day and date like you can with newspapers,” said Walker. “You certainly can’t get their digitally; online; with radio; with magazines; with search engine marketing, mobile blasts, addressable TV, yet.

“There’s nothing else (like the U.S. newspaper industry) that kind of hits that really superbly large, critical mass of audience and does it very precisely, on a local basis,” Walker added.

Newspapers are “opt-in media, local, a known entity and, contrary to popular belief, they’re still relevant and there’s high engagement, said Mark Johnson, a vice president of Livonia, Michigan-based Valassis, which buys around $650 million annually in newspaper advertising.

A newspaper’s relationship with its subscribers “is the most relevant thing in the value proposition,” said Walker. “The value proposition of newspapers is day and date specific, local, huge audience. The value to the advertiser is that they’re a wanted medium with … subscribers and, more particularly … wanted advertising from … subscribers.”

Newspapers are “daily, actionable, easy to read, easy to find what you’re looking for, good for branding and information,” said Merrill Lynch managing director Lauren Rich Fine, who follows the newspaper industry. “Advertising in newspapers still works.”

Weaknesses of the business

In the Digital Age, media is infinite so the daily newspaper industry, which tells marketers large and small that they need to market their products, needs to market itself and expand its footprint, providing more options and information to advertisers.

“Newspapers need to tell people why they’re important, exciting and relevant,” said Johnson. “They need to talk about their readers and how they’re consumed.”

Part of the industry’s problem, say some advertising executives, is the information newspaper executives use to make the case for buying print.

“Media kits are still fighting the fight from 20 years ago – frequency and reach,” said Chicago-based advertising and marketing consultant Rick Shaughnessy. “What I do not see is a segmented consumer behavior based model that shows me that when my target audience intersects this ad in this medium that it will mean something.”

One of the industry’s greatest weaknesses, said Shaughnessy, is “that it defines itself by its distribution medium, not by killer content.”

Walker warns that while the newspaper industry would prefer to talk about its audience, “Everyone is going to validate it with circulation because they’re not going to be too open to the notion of being counterintuitive of audience. So if you’ve been trailing along at ‘X’ circulation and suddenly you have a precipitous decline … but an increase of 25 percent in audience, you’re going to have a really hard time selling that.”

The daily newspaper industry needs to focus on its print product and upgrade its marketing skills because, “Newspapers can’t generate the same revenues online that they did in print as in print they sold on the possibility that every page was viewed and therefore monetized,” said Fine. “Online, advertisers now really know which pages are being viewed.”

Even newspapers’ traditional stronghold, coupons, is under pressure.

Coupons.com, of Mountain View, California, around since 1998, working with more than 900 top consumer brands, now has 8.2 million unique visitors every month, said the Web site’s chief executive officer, Steven Boal. While that audience number might be small compared to aggregate U.S. daily newspaper circulation, consider this warning from Boal:

“Newspaper coupon redemption rates are most often less than one percent while Coupons.com redemption rates are often 15 – 20 percent,” he said.

Ways out of this mess

The best corrective action, say NSA Media and Valassis executives, for the newspaper industry is to know its audience as intimately as magazines know theirs.

“Magazines sell the vertical niche that they represent. They deal with how relevant they are to a specific marketer’s mission,” said Walker.

Will this payoff?

“One particular group that (this information) is important to is pharmaceutical companies and yet you don’t see any really well thought through initiative on the part of the newspaper industry to address the pharmaceutical category in a way that’s relevant to a pharmaceutical marketer,” said Walker.

As a result, Walker estimates, pharmaceutical companies spend more than $5 billion a year on magazines and “close to zero in newspapers – around $50 million across the country.”

Successful advertising selling today comes down to telling the advertiser how a consumer uses the print product, said Johnson. “Does it have a shelf life and is it used as a reference piece? Do they pass it on to others? Do they clip coupons, do the puzzles, make recipes, pin articles to the bulletin board?

“Does the audience go to Web sites referenced in ads or articles? Do they write letters to the editor? Do they purchase products mentioned or advertised? Do they read it?” These are some of the questions Johnson wants answered.

Of course, if you want to know how your readers use your print product, you need to provide one that people want to read.

Free or paid?

With declining circulation numbers, there’s a debate as to whether continuing with paid distribution makes sense, especially in a time when most newspapers offer free Web sites.

“The cover price is no matter to me,” said Johnson. “The cover price does not dictate engagement. It’s the newspaper’s reach, readership and engagement with consumers that matters.”

“I’m not convinced that papers should try to win readers back to print,” said Fine.

“Making it free may devalue it,” said Shaughnessy, “But there may be a mixed revenue model, where free papers have more ads than paid ones.”

Changing the mindset

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains,” wrote 18th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Of course, he was writing about the world’s political institutions then but he could just as easily been describing today’s U.S. newspaper industry mentality.

The mental chains wrapped around it prohibit it from improving its print product, upgrading its marketing skills and finding a solution to its problems. Newspapers need to provide marketers with more information, a print product people want to read and a Web site that attracts users.

Said Fine: Newspapers are “focused on putting out fires right now and are distracted from investing. Further, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious plan to replace the lost classified ads or decline in readership. They are all online and doing a decent job but it is hard to compete against the online independents as they don’t have the legacy cost structure.”

It isn’t so much the business model that affects the daily newspaper industry as it is the industry’s mental model. Executives see advertisers taking their business elsewhere and feel they have no other choice than to throw in with their Internet edition.

The problem with that solution is that they risk being commoditized on the Web. No other Web site offers a print product like a daily newspaper. So rather than view the print edition as a liability, newspaper executives should consider it a strength, especially when they’re pitching any advertiser.

At the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Jerry Wind and Colin Crook wrote a book entitled, “The Power of Impossible Thinking.” If daily newspaper executives took their advice, changed their thinking about their business – and improved their company’s marketing skills and placed an emphasis on their print edition – there’s a good chance they’ll do the impossible -- Return the daily newspaper industry to healthier days in 2009.

Editor's note: A shorter version of this article by this correspondent appeared in the January edition of Newspapers & Technology magazine.