While reading the Terms of Service (I know, I know, hold the lectures about the geekiness of reading TOS) for one of my local newspapers, I came across this gem:

“Currently, service is free to all users . . . reserves the right to charge for this service in the future.”

Intrigued, I Googled the “…charge for this Service…” portion of the phrase and discovered that there are still a few publications publicly holding on to this fleeting dream, including:

• The Frederick News-Post
• The Washington Post Company (and all subsidiaries)
• Slate Magazine
• and other assorted odd websites

Now if I recall correctly, the New York Times not that long ago dropped their pay wall and today the Wall Street Journal dropped pay access for the opinion portion of their site en-route to the much anticipated and likely overall abandonment of their pay model. So that leaves?????

So what do you think, are my local newspaper and these other sites dreaming of one day collecting something similar to the WSJ.com’s $99 annual fee or is this just a case of sloppy TOS?

It used to be that reporters would grab a copy of the competitor’s newspaper on the way to work, discover that they had been beaten and have to deal with the shame, anger, scorn and frustration until their follow story (which hopefully advanced the original story) appeared in the next days newspaper. But thanks to the Internet, that follow-up story can now appear online in no time.

But if that is really the case, why doesn’t this happen more often? Why does it look like some newspapers are still waiting until the next day for their follow-up story to appear?

Recently, one of my local newspapers was beaten on a story that was taking place right down the road from their newsroom. It was the kind of beat that was especially painful having come at the hands of a larger, non-local competitor. The story appeared on the competitors website and in their paper. The local newspaper came back with their follow-up the very next . . . morning. What happened here? Did it take the reporter until minutes before the print deadline (let’s say 1 a.m. — for dramatic purposes) and editors felt that no one would be reading the website at that hour, or was it something else, something more, shall we say nefarious?

Probably neither. I’m willing to bet no one realized that the paper had been beaten until the state’s AP bureau picked-up the story and put it on the wires, probably sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. It is even possible that the AP version was overlooked until the first news meeting of the day, sometime between 3 and 4 p.m. at which point the reporter went into scramble mode to write the follow-up story and as for the web, well the web was a casualty, just like the local readers.

I’m sharing this story because this did not have to happen. If you’re not already, I want to encourage all reporters and editors to take advantage of Google News Alerts. Not familiar with the product? Well “Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.” Best of all, they are free.

If you are a beat reporter, you should set up an alert for say the name of each community that you cover, major institutions, and prominent figures. You can have Google notify you via email once a day, as-it-happens, or once a week. Had the reporter in the above example had an alert for the name of their beat, they would’ve received an email from google (likely the night before, when the competitor put the story on their breaking news blog) and been prepared to hit the ground running the next morning.

Not only do Alerts help with being beaten, they provide you with story possibilities from outside of your coverage area.

Say the mayor or your town goes on vacation and gets pulled over for DWI. Now it’s not likely that he will call you up and let you know, but there is a good chance that the local newspaper that covers that beach town will include it in their online police blotter and their story will get scraped by Google. Before the mayor can even get back into town, you’re working on a hot story.

You can also come across great human interest stories as well.

Now I recognize that to some of you Google News Alerts are old news, but clearly from the above example, they are still new to some people. If you already using them, what’s your favorite story that you’ve gotten as a result?

As most people now know, Thursday morning Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on a street in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Although this tragic event occurred early in the morning, most New Jersey daily newspapers appeared either ill-prepared to localize the story or simply chose to leave that responsibility to say, the AP.

This matters because New Jersey has a sizeable Pakistani community. Whether you follow the U.S. Census which places it at about 12,000 as reported by the AP or you accept the research of the Pakistani American Leadership Center, which places it at 95,000 (and don’t forget the state’s significant Indian community) this was an international story with significant local interest.

Yet as of Thursday evening, three of the states largest newspapers (Bergen Record, Newark Star Ledger and Asbury Park Press) were using a local AP story on their sites. Only two of the handful of NJ’s Gannett newspapers were running a Gannett News Service piece about reaction from two of the state’s legislators to the killing. And note to the Bergen Record (and Herald News which shares the same website) one of the two legislators interviewed by GNS was your very own Congressman Bill Pascrell. Why? Because Pascrell is a member of the Congressional Pakistan Caucus.

Four other daily newspapers didn’t have any local coverage on their website.

Now I know about the debate over international versus local coverage. But my general rule has been, if it’s an international with local impact, it’s then worth some of our limited resources. It would appear that for newspapers in New Jersey this would have been the case. Yet, as I already outlined, those who did provide coverage on their homepages chose, for the most part, to use AP.

What frustrates me about this, is that I believe that many of these newspapers likely spent the day reporting and writing their own stories; they just decided to hold them for the next day’s newspaper. To editors at these newspapers, using the AP version allowed them to save their own work for their printed product, the AP version was good enough.

This is the backward type of thinking that we as a newspaper industry need to overcome. It is a lecture that has been given time again, but maybe now can be simply put — good enough, is NOT good enough.

8:52 a.m. (EST) -  Just came back from picking up some of the newspapers I mentioned above. Sure enough, they have their own stories about local reaction to the assassination. I’d love to hear their explanations for putting their print products first and holding this content for today’s papers.

Yet everyday, newspaper companies throughout the country ignore local ordinances and expect readers to purchase papers from coin-operated newspaper racks that look just like the store I described above. Increasingly, they want customers to put more money into racks that may not work properly, may not even contain newspapers, look as if they were in an accident and are surrounded by trash. And management at these companies wonders why single copy sales aren’t growing?

I think that the industry needs to give more thought to how they treat their customers.

I know lots of attention at most newspapers goes into customer service. They fret about how much time callers spend on hold or the number of times they are transfered. They guarantee delivery by a certain time, they even worry about how dirty reader’s hands get while reading the paper. So shouldn’t they have the same degree of concern for where they sell their newspapers? If a bricks and mortar store wanted to sell newspapers and looked like the place I described in my lede, would a newspaper really let them sell their papers?

There was a time when newspapers were the main game in town, when circulation was plentiful and readers, quite frankly, were often taken for granted. But those days are long gone, newspapers are now fighting to grow online numbers, while maintaining their shrinking print circulation. And as a result, they must rethink how they treat readers and potential readers.

In previous posts, I suggested that the “A” section be used for local content to address the reading habits of most readers and that the Saturday newspaper be killed in favor of saving limited funds and resources, these I maintain are the types of efforts newspapers need to make if they are going to save their print editions, let alone their businesses.

When it comes to newspaper racks, appearance and maintenance is key. A clean rack in working order, not surrounded by trash or weeds, will make people feel good about purchasing your product, and make it clear that you appreciate their business as well. I know that racks aren’t cheap or easy to purchase, they can run $500 and it’s not like a company can just run to the corner and buy one. Refurbishing, replacement parts and stickers can be a nuisance, but all are necessary. Newspapers should also remember that these boxes are free advertising, stickers and rack cards should include both the print information AND the web information.

I recognize that these suggestions aren’t as radical as my previous ones and an argument can be made that as people carry less change, these pay boxes are becoming obsolete. One could even say that coin operated newspaper racks should be replaced with free racks (while maintaining paid home delivery and store sales), but I think those ideas — which I think are worth exploring — are to be left for another post.

As folks whose lives are shaped by deadlines, we are sorry we are writing to you so close to yours. We know that, by now, you have received most of your requests, but Santa our newsroom has been really, really busy — producing evergreen copy and the pages that will fill our holiday papers. We hope that despite our tardiness you’ll still consider this appeal.

Now Santa, we want you to know that we think we’ve been really good this year and we hope you realize just how difficult that was. Ours is a challenging industry and being good takes lots and lots of effort. But we’ve listened to our editors and respected our copy editors. We’ve played nice with other reporters and even stopped making fun of the photographers. We no longer say things about the web people behind their backs.

We know that you receive lots of letters from people saying just how much stuff they need, and that ours is just another in the pile, but we hope you will recognize the uniqueness of our situation. See Santa, it’s been a difficult year for our industry, despite profit margins that make most businesses jealous, at times it seemed like everything but us was bad – revenue, advertising and circulation. As a result, there wasn’t so much cheer to go around our office, the holiday spirit was truly challenged.

Santa, we were told that there was no money for raises, new office chairs, better pens, benefits or new computers. Even the holiday party was turned into a pot-luck and for the Christmas tree we had to use an inflatable one that we got from a PR company. It truly looked dark. But reminded ourselves about all the good things we did this year: We championed the underprivileged, gave voices to the voiceless. We uncovered corrupt politicians and helped keep criminals off the streets. We covered tragedies and triumphs and worked through storms and heat waves.

You know when we are sleeping and you know when we are awake, but in case you’re confused, we’re the people who spend 60-70 hours a week in our offices, we’re those who work while we’re home and even when we’re driving between.

So we hope you agree that we’ve not been naughty and actually, we’ve been really nice.

With that said Santa, all we want ask for are raises that show us some respect (cost of living at least); computers that were made at least in the 90s; a mileage reimbursement that if nothing else, covers the cost of a gumball; more space for our stories, additional reporters, photographers and web developers and publishers who read our newspapers would be nice, but we understand that may be asking too much.

Santa, we thank you for considering our request and although we’re going to try to stay in the newsroom until you arrive, in case we can’t, we’ve left a cup of coffee for you and a bag of microwave popcorn if you get hungry.

In many cases, just the phrase “office hours” evokes thoughts of college or grad school, of meetings with professors and teaching assistants in musty, windowless offices. But reporter office hours are quite different and can actually be, dare I say, enjoyable.

This is different from the listening post concept, in that with office hours, you get to interact with people and are not simply an observer.

This is how office hours have worked with reporters I’ve coached:

1. Pick a location – Every community has those places people where people gather or hang out. It could be a diner, a library or even a park. You want a spot were you can sit and interact.
2. Select a time – Whatever works for you, but keep in mind if you’re going to a diner, they’re not going to be crazy about you occupying a table and just ordering coffee and fries.
3. Tell people – Starting with your editor, you want people to know where you’ll be and for how long. Change your voice mail messages days before to let people to know where and when they can find you. For the first few times, you might specifically want to invite people to stop by.
4. Supplies - Bring lots of business cards, reporter notebooks and pens. Plus a few copies of your newspaper couldn’t hurt.
5. Be consistent – In order for this to work, it needs to be a regular thing. People need to know where and when they can rely on you being available.

And most importantly, remember to have fun. While at first you might find yourself waiting a bit, in no time people will be lining up to speak with you. As for concerns that you could be sitting there doing nothing, bring a laptop or Treo, if your newsroom has, and do some work while you wait. But based on my experience, I think it is even possible that one day a week will be so successful that you might decide to add in a second day at another location (diner in the morning? library in the afternoon?).

Even if you work at a newspaper whose office is located on a main street, you know that there are lots of people with great stories who just aren’t comfortable or able to come to your office. Remove yourself from that setting and put yourself in a non-threatening environment (like the diner or library or the local YMCA) and you’ll find people will be more at ease and in addition, they’ll marvel at your availability. This is especially true if your newsroom is located in an office building or industrial office park.

For your editor, holding office hours will allow you to develop deeper sources in your community and discover better stories.

For your newspaper, your presence in the community (perhaps in places the newspaper typically isn’t found), basically amounts to free presence marketing.

And what do you get out of it? You get to spend time out of the office meeting fascinating people, developing relationships and getting a chance to, once again, tell the types of stories that originally got you into journalism in the first place.

Now if you’re a newspaper editor or publisher, none of that is likely surprising or especially revelatory. But despite knowing this, newspapers, including my local papers, still fill their front sections (typically referred to as the “A” section) with national and international news reported by wires services. I guess their hoping that while you’re looking for the rest of the local stories from the front page, that you’ll stop and read some likely outdated and previously reported national or international news.

Their other hope is that you’ll pay some attention to the premium advertising that fills the A section. That’s right, newspapers charge a premium for the ads that occupy much of this section. Actually, I don’t know why advertisers, given the trend among newspaper readers to local news, agree to pay premium rates for placement in a section that receives only cursory attention. Frankly, if I was an advertiser, I would be asking newspapers to provide me with stats on the amount of time people actually spend on pages in this section, just like I would want to know how much time people were spending at one of the paper’s webpages.

Now if newspapers really wanted to justify that premium and maximize the amount of time that people spend with pages in the A section, I have a simple recommendation for them — fill it with local content. As a reader, I would be impressed; to me it would seem like my newspaper was recognizing and adapting to my reading habits. Additionally, this move would likely provide more space for local content then what you typically find in the traditional local section.

Just like the suggestion I proffered on Saturday, that newspapers should consider doing away with their Saturday editions and refocus strained and limited resources, this also requires a change in traditional thinking. But this decision should not be nearly as difficult to make. For in the end, this decision is about giving readers what they want and newspaper’s putting their best work front and center, I would call that a win-win.

To me, the continued downsizing of the Saturday newspaper leaves me wondering if — given the increased emphasis on online reporting and continued falling print circulation — we really need a Saturday paper?

Now before you start shifting in your seat, working up the energy to yell at your computer screen, let me just clarify what I mean. I’m not saying that all newspapers need to or should even consider this type of move. But for an industry which in many cases has already had its obit written, it might be time to examine this possibility.

I think the financial savings could be significant; just consider the costs of newsprint, ink, printing and delivery. At many papers, these savings alone could reach into the millions.

Newsrooms would likely be able to double their Sunday staffing. While typically Sunday find a skeleton staff working, now there would be enough employees to bolster the Monday edition, enhance the website and continue development of quality enterprise.

I’m sure there are downsides to this type of approach — some home delivery recipients might seek to cancel their subscription believing that they were receiving less then what they expected. Newspapers would need to consider what added value could be brought to the Sunday newspaper to allay these fears. I don’t think most newspapers see strong Saturday single copy sales, so I have to wonder if there would be a sizeable hit there.

Granted, I’m probably oversimplifying what would be a complex issue, but I think it needs to be said and at many newspapers, it needs to be seriously considered. We can’t continue stripping resources from our newsrooms, freezing salaries and reducing benefits without it having an impact on our ability to focus on the issues and areas necessary to keep our businesses afloat.