By Markham Hislop, Editor

A year ago October I was busy scribbling a business plan for what would turn out to be SE Calgary News.  Research included consulting a friend in the advertising business.  He gave me some great advice.  Forget wasting time with endless research, he said, put together some ads and get out and sell them.  If businesses are willing to take a chance, you have a business, if they aren’t – well, then you don’t. 

I took his advice and enough advertisers signed on to convince me SECN had a shot.  Those advertisers deserve a big shout out: Doug Hayden, realtor; Steven Eisenberg at Davenport Motorsports; Pat Hancock, Bank of Montreal; Patti Galambos at Dogsville; Al Vorgaard at Alvin Automotive.  A month or two later Rob Vanovermeire of Maxwell City Central joined the crowd and became a real believer and champion of the idea of an online daily newspaper.  Thanks to him a number of other great advertisers signed on during the summer.

It’s hard to put into words how important those early supporters are to a young and struggling business.  You see, SECN didn’t start life with an infusion of venture capital or government grants.  The little newspaper that could was birthed with a lot of elbow grease, sweat equity and my credit card.  And not much more.

From the bottom of my heart I thank each and every advertiser who believed enough to support this venture.  Sure it’s been a struggle, but one I hope you will agree has been well worth it.  As of yesterday SECN is read by over 18,000 readers a month.  If growth continues on the same track, that number will be 30,000 to 40,000 by SECN’s second birthday.

Readers, hats off to you.  Without you an online newspaper is just some random electrons floating in cyberspace.  Many of you have commented on stories, some quite regularly, and I am always intrigued and heartened that people care enough to engage a story I’ve written.  Please, comment often.  You do an old heart good.

Why, you may ask, would someone beginning the downside of his career start an online newspaper in the first place?  Well, there is a reason I started this column talking about advertising and business finances. 

You have probably noticed in the past few years that the media industry is, finally, feeling the pinch of hard times.  Several large American daily newspapers have failed.  Many more are on the brink.  In Canada, Canwest is in financial trouble and it’s not year clear the impact that will have on its papers and television network.  Everywhere one looks in the industry there is doom and gloom.

The Internet is, inevitably it seems, restructuring another sector of the economy.  Viewers are fleeing television for web sites and newspapers are losing advertising to online competitors.  Media, unfortunately, is not adapting well.  Newspapers in particular just can’t seem to let go of the analog world and embrace digital.

Sure, every newspaper is on the Web, giving away its content for free.  But they haven’t figured out yet how to monetize that content.  Newspapers seem to want to transfer their old business model to the new technology with as little change, with as little inconvenience as possible.  Of course, the Internet will have none of that.

The Internet is a game-changing technology.  It bursts apart business models, allowing wily entrepreneurs and nimble managers to serve their customers in entirely new ways, usually squeezing costs from their supply chain at the same time.

Before I became an ink-stained wretch, and then a communications consultant (or “presstitute,” as my former journalism colleagues kindly referred to the profession), I studied economic history in university.  I was fascinated by the way new technologies transformed economies.  For instance, Prairie farmers may curse the CPR, but the completion of the national railway in 1885 opened a land-locked Western Canada to world markets and transformed it into the bread basket of the world. 

The world-wide web is that kind of technology.  More precisely, I guess, digital technology is that kind of technology.  Where would SECN be without the ability to shoot news stories on high-definition video, edit it on a Mac desktop computer, compress it into gorgeous Flash video and stream it from servers based in California for a pittance a month? 

A year ago I sensed that now was the time for a new business model for newspapers.  That’s what SECN is all about.  It is meant to be the prototype for a new way of delivering news and making money at it.  I’m fond of saying that any idiot can do news on the Web, but can he or she make a buck?

The answer to that question is, I think so.  In fact I’m pretty confident it can be done. 

The trick, I believe, is to add new and innovative value for readers and advertisers.  But it’s easier said than done.  If it were easy everyone would be doing it.  And the fact that traditional media is having such a hard time of it tells you all you need to know about how difficult it is to change the way you’ve done business for a hundred years.

But we have made some progress.

For instance, on the news side I think integrating three to five-minute video clips into stories that also include photos and hyperlinks makes for a much richer experience.  So much more information is available if the reader wants it.  No more of those dreadful sound bites in news stories, where someone tries to explain a complex subject in 15 seconds or less.  Multimedia, in my opinion, is a tremendous advance in news story creation and we have only just begun to tap its potential.

On the business side of things, the old days of putting a wall between editorial and advertising are finished.  In the old days, and it’s probably still the case, reporters looked down on advertising sales as oily cretins, and the ad guys hated the reporters for always getting them into trouble with advertisers by writing negative news stories.  Fortunately, that Chinese wall is crumbling.  In the digital world information flows freely.  The online newspaper reporter may be journalist, copy writer and ad salesman.

I am. 

Naturally, that leads to issues of journalistic integrity.  These aren’t resolved easily, believe me.  They pop up from time to time, but I think we have handled them pretty well.  I’m proud of the journalism SECN produces.  We have covered some important stories (the City of Calgary’s attempt to close Race City and the lack of inspections for firearms retailers in Calgary are two that come to mind) and done a pretty good job of it.  Better in some cases, I would argue, than our mainstream media colleagues.

The past year has been an enormous challenge.  I’ve learned a lot.  But mostly I’ve learned how much I don’t know.  The coming years will require constant innovation and experimentation.  Hopefully, we will learn how to continually add increasing value for both our readers and our advertisers.  If you fall into one or both of those categories, please be patient while we hone our news and advertising models.  We’re bound to make mistakes and fail occasionally, those are characteristics of innovation.  We promise to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back to the business of creating the best product we can.

In the future, watch for the launch of another quadrant newspaper, likely in the southwest, and quite possibly a number of community newspapers.  And, hopefully before the end of December, a re-design of SE Calgary News.

The first year has been an exciting ride, folks, thank you for your patronage.  Stick around to see what the coming year holds.  Chances are it’s going to be just as interesting.

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