Organizational Change for 21st Century Community Journalism
During the past 20 years, the rapid advancement of technology exposed many latent flaws in the centuries-old print media news industry. The resulting meteoric decline in the industry called into question for the first time in history the legitimacy and necessity of legacy news outlets. Until recent years, the industry had never been challenged to evolve or change in any way.
Not only has the for-profit business model revealed itself to be ethically flawed and outdated, advancing society has deemed the industry as a whole to be antiquated. Although the industry continues to resist change initiatives, there are many viable options to reinvent print media news outlets to serve a 21st century audience. This paper explores the possibility of using Deszca and Ingols’ Change Path Model to introduce and implement a hybrid business model in order to transform print news media.
Change Path Model
The Change Path Model, as presented by Gene Descza and Cynthia Ingols in Organizational Change An Acton Oriented Toolkit, is a step-by-step guidebook of how to approach and tackle the type of drastic change envisioned for the print news industry. With its clearly-defined four-step progressive process, the Change Path Model lends itself to the targeted colossal undertaking required to reinvent the print news industry. Despite the rise of internet access having print news immediately on the defensive, the time-intensive commitment it will take to transform the medium will require the awakening, mobilization, acceleration, and institutionalization as defined by Descza and Ingols.
Awakening
Changing culture
By the mid-2000s, the print news industry was already in a death spiral brought on by a conundrum of technology-related challenges. As noted in the 2009 article, The Newspaper Industry in Crisis by David Collis, Peter Olson, and Mary Furey, legacy industry leaders such as Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and the New York Times Company were in full-on defensive/retreat mode by 2008. For years, the industry had battled its aging subscription base with no viable plan to replace readership. This was exacerbated by the rise of the internet which fueled the rise of 24-hour access to news and competing outlets for limited advertising revenue (Collis, Olson, Furey, 2009).
Whereas past challenges by new media such as radio and television in the mid-twentieth century did not hinder the viability and prosperity of print news, the rise of cable news in the mid-1980s was more of a threat. A threat that the industry weathered without having to change best practices. When the internet posed a similar threat in the early 2000s, legacy print moguls took it lightly after surviving more than 200 years of previous threats.
It was not until it was too late that the print news industry realized the technological threat from the internet was a sustained threat and continued to advance and better itself leaving print media in an antiquated cloud of dust. Whereas daily newspapers could previously boast that each tangible (daily) product was read by at least seven individuals, which maximized the advertising investment for businesses, the internet changed the game. The internet affected subscriptions and rack sales which conversely diminished its advertising value and resulted in less advertising revenue.
“In the 1970s, about 30% of revenue was generated from circulation and 70% from advertising. By 2000, the revenue breakdown was closer to 20% circulation and 80% advertising” (Collis, Olson, Furey, 2009, p. 3). The internet compromised print media’s entire revenue model. The awakening phase of the Change Path Model must include the proliferation of industry data from the past 20 years in order to validate the need for change in the print news industry.
Resistance to change
When it comes to an industry that has successfully operated the same way for more than 200 years, even the proposition of adjusting best practices can evoke extreme denial and pushback. Although the decline of legacy print media is undeniable, there is still an element of complete denial within the profession. This denial demands an extensive awakening if there is even a remote possibility the industry will survive in this technology age. The industry is shrouded by poetic irony as even the most seasoned veteran journalists refuse to accept the writing on the wall.
In the 2020 article, Resistance to Change: Causes and Strategies as an Organizational Challenge by Ahmad Hafizh Damawan and Siti Azizah, the authors outline possible explanations for why organizations resist change. In an attempt to increase the probability for a successful change initiative in the print news media, it is imperative to include resistance strategies in the awakening phase. “Employee adverse reactions to changes will have enormous consequences, this is because they will inhibit the success of the planned changes” (Damawan, Azizah, 2020, pg. 49). Furthermore, Damawan and Azizah propose that “the resistance to change within an organization will bring a negative impact of the sustainability of an organization’s growth” (Damawan, Azizah, 2020, p. 50).
In the 2016 article, Approaches to Changing Organizational Structure: The Effect of Drivers and Communication by Pavel Kral and Vera Kralova, the authors present a link between an initiating or leading change component that precedes a change initiative and the rationalization of implementing organizational change initiatives. These findings can be used as a guiding force in combatting resistance to change during the awakening phase of reimagining print news media. The rise of the internet is the leading change component in this case.
Importance of newspapers
A well-developed awakening phase is crucial to the success of this specific change initiative. The awakening must encompass both internal and external stakeholders. The multi-faceted awakening strategy includes presentation of data to confirm organizational death is imminent without a change.
According to the 2019 article, Local Journalism in Crisis by Clara Hendrickson, information deserts are a direct result of the economic challenges confronting local newspapers. Instead of devoting resources to in-depth investigative public interest journalism, local newspapers suffer continuous layoffs resulting in a skeleton crew of overworked journalists. Many community news outlets have ultimately closed in the past 15 years as revenue disappeared. While the internet spawned the rise of immediate access news coverage, it is also responsible for creating significant coverage gaps in local news.
Mobilization
Purpose of legacy media
The awakening stage will inform industry insiders and the general public about the plight of community journalism. The awakening phase will morph into the mobilizationphase by launching an internal and external media campaign focusing on the necessity of community journalism. A goal of the mobilization phase is to continue the awakening by firmly reestablishing the purpose of legacy print media.
Without daily print community journalism, there is no hyperlocal archive for posterity. Without daily print community journalism, there is a danger to democracy in that watchdog journalist are no longer holding elected officials accountable. “Informed citizens are too essential to the health of America’s democracy to let the local news industry that has long been responsible for performing this important task to die off” (Hendrickson, 2019, p. 2). “It is nearly impossible to quantify the effects of the local news stories that have gone unreported” (Hendrickson, 2019, p. 5).
With necessity, purpose, and mission firmly established with both internal and external stakeholders, the mobilization phase also includes the introduction of a rebranding of community newspapers to serve both readership and local businesses in the current digital age. In the 2018 article, A Pillar of Community: Local Newspapers, Community Capital, and Impact on Readership and Advertising by Gi Woong Yun, David Morin, Louisa Ha, Mark Flynn, Sanghee Park, and Xioa Hu, the authors focus on the vital community association provided by local newspapers. Furthermore, they contend that local newspapers are indeed community capital and should be treated as such. In addition to necessity, purpose, and mission it is important to establish the economic value local print media provides in communities and the urgency to engage new readership in order to reinvigorate the power of print advertising to small businesses. According to the authors, reestablishing the legitimacy of newspapers as one of the most important local/urban community institutions is priority because “the perception of a local newspaper as a vital community association that might ultimately influence whether readers will actively visit and potentially buy from local businesses that advertise in it” (Yu, Morin, Ha, Flynn, Park, Hu, 2018, p. 523).
Readership/subscribers is an outdated term that will be replaced with the term “stakeholder” during the mobilization phase. As the awakening phase’s goal was to engage internal stakeholders, the mobilization phase will engage external stakeholders or, the community at large. This strategy of enhancing its profile as community capital will allow local newspapers to fine-tune their operations at a time when the benefits more than outweigh the costs.
Acceleration
After building upon a strong awakening and consequent mobilization phase based in forward-thinking vision backed by data, the acceleration phase will continue to rebrand community journalism by presenting a realistic 21st-century business model. This model will not only reinvent how business is conducted, it will expand on the mobilization theme of subscribers and community members as stakeholders in community journalism. The educational aspects of the previous phases continue as alternate business models for the centuries-old industry are presented as viable, visionary options.
The passing of time since the decline of the industry began some 15-20 years ago works in favor of this change initiative. In the past five years, research and data have come to light that support a shift to new best practices in print news media. The bottom line is, print news is not dead and investing in community journalism is not a lost cause. In the 2020 article, Local Newspaper Strategy to Survive in the Digital Era by Hendra Alfani, the author presents several success stories in the industry from recent years. The success hinges on recognizing how the internet changed human behavior and thus changed human communication. As outlined in the previous phases of the change plan for community journalism in this paper, Alfani stresses that local and regional newspapers are primed to survive and thrive because of their value to local readers and communities. Furthermore, acceleration of this change initiative hinges on “increasing the competence of journalists to understand the socio-political-cultural conditions of the region and current issues in order to create local strengths in the news to attract the attention of local communities” (Alfani, 2020, p. 73).
The 2020 article, Changing Business Models in the Media Industries by Nobuku Kawashima, reiterates the need for a shift in the industry in order to provide vital information to the public. Since the decline of local print media, scholars have become “concerned with its impact on the public interest and democracy, which news organizations have traditionally been viewed as bolstering through the provision of up-to-date, accurate, neutral, and well-researched information, investigation, and commentary” (Kawashima, 2020, p. 70).
It is interesting to note that Kawashima takes issue with the term “business model” being used regarding the media industry. Yet another instance of the centuries-old industry taking for granted that its role in the community was understood as one of public service and not comprehending the traditional role of ownership profiting from such a mission convoluted its image. A shift in communicating new best practices during the acceleration phase is imperative to the success of this change initiative.
The 2019 article, Beyond the Surface of Media Disruption: Digital Technology Boosting New Business Logics, Professional Practices and Entrepreneurial Identities by Paivi Maijanen, Bjarn Von Rimscha, and Michal Glowacki, the authors propose that this new digital era “enhances collaboration between journalists and marketers that had traditionally worked in their own Silos” (p. 164). The authors also note “the competitive media environment has made personalized customer relationships more important and relevant for the business” (p. 164). These two facts alone support the acceleration goal of molding both internal and external stakeholders who will invest in best practices that contradict the previous business model of local print media.
Institutionalization
Entering into the institutionalization phase of the Change Path Model depends upon the successful completion of the previous phases. The psychological contract between internal and external stakeholders has to be fully realized in order to abandon traditional practices and embrace both a new guiding mindset and adoption of accompanying organizational policies. It is a leap of faith to create an entirely new operating model which may very well include aspects of many successful print news outlets currently thriving.
First and foremost, institutionalization begins with a sustainable financial plan deriving from community news outlets as a public service. This plan hinges on the creation of a hybrid operational model that bridges the public and private sector. In the 2012 article, In Search of the Hybrid Ideal by Julie Battilana, Matthew Lee, John Walker, and Cheryl Dorsey, the authors refer to hybrid organizational models as the “fountain of innovation” (p. 51).
Even in the latter phases of the Change Path Model, change agents and change managers must continue to reiterate that change in the industry is both necessary and possible. The 2015 article, Theorizing Hybridity: Institutional Logics, Complex Organizations, and Actor Identities: The Case of Nonprofits by Chris Skelcher and Steven Rathgeb Smith, reimagine a hybrid organization that can both “deliver public policy and have a corporate status that gives them greater autonomy” (p. 435). This “design excursion” to a hybrid form is instigated as a “result of changes in the environment affecting the organizational field, mediated by key field-level actors and intra-organizational processes” (p. 436). That statement describes the plight of community news organizations, which are primed to be reimagined as a dual-purpose hybrid organization to reinvigorate its vitality and relevancy in society.
A purely nonprofit model for community journalism is not sustainable and it does not serve the 21st century population. In addition to revitalizing local newsrooms through a sustainable funding plan that maximizes options other than traditional nonprofit fundraising, advertising, and a subscription base, a hybrid model would maximize the potential and reach of community journalism. In the 2020 article, Hybrids Before Nonprofits: Key Challenges, Institutional Logics, and Normative Rules of Behavior of News Media Dedicated to Social Welfare by Sergio Sparviero, the concept of Social News Enterprises is presented. SNEs are “hybrids mixing the institutional logics of commercial, public, and alternative news media financed by donations and the revenue from services” (p. 790). SNEs are unique in that they combine the efficiency of traditional commercial business models with third sector goals of serving the common good. This new form of public service journalism prioritizes the obligation to share current information and knowledge with its economic goals being secondary to its social goals (p. 796). “Revenue models include a mixture of paid subscriptions, selling of advertising space, and organized events supported by commercial sponsors” (Sparviero, 2020, p. 796). SNEs are in essence a new frontier for community journalism. Creating such an operating model with varying degrees of participation would be tailored to the specific needs of each community the print news product is intended to serve and institutionalized into daily best practices.
Although presenting a fully-realized hybrid model for community journalism is outside the realm of this paper, this Change Path Model presented is the preliminary groundwork for the implementation for such a novel, forward-thinking model.
Conclusion
Whereas this paper concentrates on an organizational change initiative for an industry outside higher education, print news media can be viewed as a cautionary tale for all legacy institutions. There are many parallels between the plight of print news and the stagnant structure and practices of higher education. It is worth mentioning that organizational change of community journalism is contingent upon higher education taking the lead to educate 21st century journalists.
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