Southeast Missourian to work with Google, other select papers on subscriptions project

The Southeast Missourian is one of a select group of newspapers chosen to participate in a digital subscriptions lab sponsored by the Google News Initiative, FTI Consulting Partners and Local Media Association, it was announced Monday by Local Media Association. The Southeast Missourian was selected from applicants across North America and is the smallest newspaper in the program.

“The goal is to help develop a sustainable and thriving digital business model for the newspaper industry,” said Jon K. Rust, publisher of the Southeast Missourian and co-president of Rust Communications.

Factors considered for selection in the intensive six-month program included CEO buy-in and company prioritization of digital subscriptions. Ten publishers were selected representing large, medium and small markets.

“We were impressed by the letters from their CEOs and the work going on at these companies,” said Nancy Lane, president of Local Media Association. “In the end, the judges chose publishers that were already ahead of their peers in this space along with a willingness to experiment and a commitment from the highest levels in their company. We’re excited to work with this cohort on strategies that can change the trajectory of the newspaper industry.”

In the case of the Southeast Missourian, since launching a more aggressive digital subscriptions strategy in late 2018, the newspaper already has seen a 46% increase in digital subscriptions, according to Lucas Presson, assistant publisher.

“We love our print readers,” Presson said. “And growing our digital subscriber base is vital to the future — for both print and digital readers.”

“I know from experience that growing digital consumer revenue isn’t as simple as putting up a pay wall,” said Ben Monnie, director of Global Partnerships Solutions, News & Publishing for Google. “It requires a deep organizational transformation at all levels of the organization, from the newsroom to the marketing department to the product and technology teams. We started this program to go deep with a group of partners to accelerate this transformation and with FTI Consulting and the LMA, scale it to the rest of the industry, one publisher at a time.”

During the entire process, the publishers will have support from Google teams that bring expertise in data, technology, product, subscriptions and more.

“We expect the GNI Digital Subscriptions lab will supercharge our strategy and give us tools we wouldn’t have on our own,” Rust said. “Unfortunately, too many communities and institutions have been diminished — and, increasingly, endangered — by the deterioration of local news coverage. Building a business model that supports community journalism in a world of increasing digital reliance is important not just to Cape but to the country.”

Other newspapers selected to participate in the lab are The Houston Chronicle, Baltimore Sun, The Buffalo News, The Columbus Dispatch, The Idaho Press, The Portland Press Herald, The Charleston Post and Courier, El Nuevo Dia and The Toronto Star.