More moves sure to fail

It's been a few weeks since the start of school and the new high school and college sports seasons, and we see that the Herald-Press is all over the Vikings and the Foresters.
Well, sort of.
Because of the new, ridiculously-early 5 p.m. deadlines, sports results are now two days old in the Herald-Press. A Tuesday cross country meet that ends at 5:30 p.m. won't have a story in the paper until Thursday.
School board meetings on Monday don't reach readers until Wednesday. Most breaking news that happens during the day gets reported on two days later.
How brilliant is that?
The newspaper that preaches local ("hyperlocal" they call it) isn't able to report on ANYTHING timely. A paper could have the greatest writers around (the Herald-Press doesn't), but if they can't report timely, what does it matter? Especially when the readers can go to the Journal-Gazette and get results the next day? Heck, people can sign up to the Viking Connection from Huntington North High School and have the previous day's results e-mailed to them automatically the next morning.
Where is the new editor? The new publisher? Why aren't they standing up to the powers-that-be and telling them how ridiculous the situation is?
To that end, why aren't they telling their readers why stories are two days late?

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Speaking of content, the pickings in the Herald-Press getting even slimmer. Twice in the last week, the top stories have been about the opening of small business. We're all for new businesses in Huntington, but we doubt it takes precedence over actual news going on in the county.
By the way, coverage of the 4-H Fair was pathetic. Yes, there were a few photos and some front-page stories, but the reporting of results was an act of futility. Results were just stuffed in nooks and crannies wherever they could be found.
There was a "Special Keepsake Issue" for the 4-H Fair, which was nothing more than a handful of group photos with no results. Far from a comprehensive issue.

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We also saw recently that the Herald-Press is reporting that its circulation is 6,950.
Wow! We've heard some whoppers in our day, but that one might stand above them all. We know enough about the Herald-Press and people who have been and still are there to know that the figure quoted is nowhere near the actual number. If the Herald-Press still has 5,000 subscribers, we'd be surprised.
A large number of subscribers bailed when Paxon Media took over, the old staff left and quality dropped off. Even more are leaving now that news is two days late.
There might be a total of 6,950 printed, but then there are nearly 2,000 that never leave the truck.

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The most recent move by Paxton Media is to take the Herald-Press Web page to a pay site.
Now, to be fair, there has been a lively debate in newspaper circles about whether sites should be free or pay. No one wants to give anything away for free; that's understandable.
But on the other side, the whole idea is to drive traffic to the Web site, where newspapers can tell advertisers that a certain number of visitors are coming to the site.
A free site, obviously, generates more traffic, which can elevate ad rates, but does not generate anything from the news content. With a pay site, traffic drops off markedly, which lowers ad revenue, but brings in more from online subscribers.
There are models out there that say pay sites can work, but a newspaper must provide a large amount of quality content to viewers. If you're the New York Times, you can get away with it. With the Herald-Press, there just isn't enough on the site to make it worthwhile.
Publisher Andy Eads stated that the number of pay sites are rising "exponentially," which is a poor choice of words if he knew what the word "exponentially" meant. But that aside, the numbers just won't add up.
Say the Herald-Press somehow was able to sign up 1,000 people as online subscribers (an unrealistic number, but good for working a math example). At $6 a month, that's $72 per year per person. That makes for $72,000 a year. Even with that outrageously unrealistic number of online subscribers, $72,000 a year won't get the job done.
Plus, advertisers won't sign on just to reach 1,000 people.
A free site might generate 10,000 viewers a month. Tell 60 advertisers they can reach 10 times as many people with a free site than a pay site, charge them $100 a month, and the newspaper can generate the same amount of revenue.
Eads also cited the features of the Herald-Press Web site, including the Community Sports Desk, the venture started last year to give locals a chance to create their own sports content. To date, there have been exactly zero entries on that site. No one had posted a thing. A huge waste. Again.

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One thing that Eads did not address about the new pay site was how often content would be updated. He never said when stories might be posted. Will they be the next day? Two days late like the print product? What special content will the Herald-Press provide?
If it's going to be two days late, why bother?

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There's been a staff change at the Herald-Press. Jennifer Kannon (real name: Kleber) is gone, finally. She was replaced by Drew Stone. We don't know much about Drew other than he's not much better of a writer than Jennifer was.
New editor Rebecca Sandlin doesn't seem to be doing much editing, but considering her level of experience, maybe she is editing and it's just not very good. It's not enough just to get spelling correct. The quality of reporting has to improve.With the inexperience of this staff, though, that's a big request.