This is the most important year in your newspaper's history.
If you’re reading this column, you likely own, lead, manage or help operate one of the oldest and most trusted businesses in your community. Whether your paper prospers — or even survives — is largely up to you. And living up to that challenge is getting tougher all the time, isn’t it?
Since publishing their first editions, newspaper people have scrambled to find ways to survive world wars, economic crises, the advent of radio and television, and even our self-inflicted shortcomings. Now, with the media landscape shattered into countless particles of options, we have to find yet another away to win.
We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. But first we need to convince ourselves.
You rarely find success running the same plan over and over for decades. That’s especially true in the media landscape, which now is evolving at a faster pace than ever. And that speed will only increase.
What does this mean to you? Do you call a play from the same playbook you've used for years? Or do you step back and examine other companies that are wading directly into the battle for their lives, courageously putting all options on the table?
In December 2024, The New York Times profiled a well-established information company dramatically rethinking its 250-year-old media business: Encyclopedia Britannica. Yes, those guys — the ones who once published big leather-bound books generally purchased door-to-door.
Here’s how The New York Times described that business in its print heyday:
“Over the years, the Encyclopedia Britannica became a heavyweight of the knowledge business, both literally — the 32-volume 2010 edition, the last to run in print, weighed 129 pounds — and figuratively, drawing on contributions from thousands of experts. It also became an aspirational status symbol, with customers paying nearly $1,400 for that edition.”
But then came the digital age and a flood of free competitors (can you say Wikipedia?). In the blink of an historical eye, Encyclopedia Britannica's long-standing and highly profitable model fell apart.
Many observers thought Britannica’s party was over. But then something remarkable occurred: the company’s leaders made a no-holds-barred declaration to protect its core mission of providing trusted educational information to the world. They vowed to find new ways to generate and distribute content to a broader audience. Doing so meant laying it all on the line.
To do so, Encyclopedia Britannica's leadership invested in technologies that allowed it to perform its core mission while developing new audiences and delivery channels. The company even invested in ChatGPT to generate content, fact-check and translate content into different languages. They also created a chatbot designed to be highly accurate, drawing from the deep and trusted Britannia content, providing high-level content to users. The educational environment, hot and forever changed following the pandemic, is ripe for new tools and subscription services to help elevate learning and teaching experiences.
And Britannica’s leaders say the brand has “more users now than ever” (sound familiar?).
The company, known now as the Britannica Group, is experiencing a remarkable rebirth. Executives expect revenues to double from two years ago, topping out at roughly $100M. Rumors of an IPO are being heard. As for margins, how does 45% sound for a once-struggling niche?
What does this mean for the newspaper industry? Plenty. If we have the courage, discipline, imagination and commitment to make meaningful evolution, we, too, can succeed. But first, we must rid ourselves of our self-doubt and self-inflicted negativity.
We own some of the most trusted and admired brands in our communities. We're not starting from zero — not by a longshot. But we need to throw ourselves into selfless change. We can’t fall back on nip-and-tuck procedures and expect a Hail Mary to save the day. Our success — our survival — lies squarely in our imaginations and in our hands.
We must earn our way forward through original thought, leveraging technology to capitalize on future trends instead of propping up old practices. The future is ahead of us, not in reheating fading business recipes of our past.
Lukewarm results will not do; we need to win — and win big.
The answer may be found in an old Socrates challenge: what is the desired outcome? Answer: start your journey there. Too often, we get hung up on what we know vs. what we can do.
If you told Socrates you needed a place to set your cup of coffee, he might've suggested suspending a shelf from the ceiling instead of building a table.
The media landscape doesn't need another table. It needs new ways to deliver trusted and original content to our communities. Newspaper folks must take inspiration from the courageous journey taken by Encyclopedia Britannica, and we must travel a similar road.
In the end, someone will find new and better ways to serve our audience. Will that be us? Will our industry demonstrate the courage and the will required to do that?
Risk is the dance partner for reward. Let 2025 be the most important and meaningful dance in your newspaper's history. Go big, win big.
Leonard Woolsey is president of Southern Newspapers, Inc., and president and publisher of The Daily News in Galveston, Texas. He also serves as president of America's Newspapers.
