Newspaper life watch: What happens after a newspaper folds?

The collapse of the Rocky Mountain News hit a lot of journalists hard — there was a shudder throughout the industry that was one part “there but for the grace of God” and another part “who’s next?”

I even blogged about it here. Then, a little while later, I blogged about the up-and-coming “IWantMyRocky” site, a clearinghouse for newly-unemployed Rocky Mountain News journalists, where they were actually doing some pro-bono online-only journalism, and kinda, sorta hoping to make a go of it.

The posting at I Want My Rocky has slowed markedly, especially since more than six months has now passed, and I’m sure many of the unemployed are moving on to other, paying gigs.

One of those was profiled in the New York Times — M.E. Michael Sprengelmeyer has bought a small community weekly in New Mexico and seems to be turning it into a real beast. (Don’t miss the tale of how he now owns Jack Abramoff’s suits). But is small-town community journalism the way to go?  From the article:

People around town say they have noticed the difference. The greatest compliment may have been paid by Roberto Martin Marquez, editor of the Santa Rosa News, who wrote in his paper that “M. E. is making me a better newspaper man.”

Sales of The Communicator are up, in part because of eight sidewalk boxes that Mr. Sprengelmeyer bought from The Rocky and posted around Santa Rosa. He will not say how much money the paper makes, but says it is more than enough to support him, and he has visions of expanding to two days a week.

“If a house burns down, everybody here knows it, saw it, knew the people, probably hugged them, but they still want to read about it in a paper that comes out four days later,” he said.

The experience has made him an evangelist for small-town papers, which he says offer a hidden opportunity for unemployed journalists.

Interesting … however, the sentence continues:

… a hidden opportunity for unemployed journalists, but he acknowledges it isn’t for everybody. He works to the brink of exhaustion, fueling late-night production sessions with nicotine and caffeinated energy drinks. After a few hours’ sleep, he makes a three-hour, round-trip drive to pick up his press run in Clovis, where the paper is printed.“I couldn’t do this if I had a family,” he said. “But it feels like it matters, and I’m having fun.”

And there’s the rub — he’s working himself to the bone, out of sheer dedication to the craft. But this isn’t a sustainable model for journalism, I’m afraid.

More lessons from the closure of the Rocky Mountain News were presented a couple of weeks ago, in a talk that the former editor, president and publisher gave to Google. Here’s a video of the talk:

It’s a half-hour long, and I haven’t yet had the time to watch it all, but there’s a brief summary on TechDirt:

He basically goes over the last decade and a half or so of mistakes that the Rocky Mountain News made in terms of trying to figure out the online business. The key takeaways aren’t that surprising if you’re a regular reader around here. The company kept defining itself as a newspaper company, not a news organization (or, better yet, a community builder). Everything it did was based on how it would impact the paper edition. The focus was not on competing with web properties and services, but on the other major newspaper in town, the Denver Post. Things got so bad that when the Columbine Massacre happened, the newsroom refused to give any news to the web people, because they were afraid that the Denver Post would “steal” it.

It seems like pretty much everything was based on looking backwards, not forward. There was little effort to figure out how to better enable a community, or any recognition that the community of people who read the paper were the organizations true main asset.

I have a lot of sympathy for the people who are trying to run newspapers these days. They have to keep this gigantic legacy business of “print” going — with all its associated costs — and also startup a new online division, with all-new associated costs.

There weren’t too many horse-and-buggy manufacturers who transitioned into making cars, although a lot of them tried. It took a new generation, with a new outlook to come in and sweep away all the old ways of doing business.

I know that there are a lot of smart people doing their best to juggle two competing instincts — web and print. But I worry that the internal dynamics of such a juggling act will just tear news organizations apart, like they did the Rocky Mountain News.