Could Steve Jobs have saved newspapers?

Walter Isaacson’s fascinating biography of Steve Jobs leaves this reader with one thought – what would have happened if Jobs had run a newspaper company instead of a computer company?  Jobs’ brilliant and intuitive marketing mind, his attention to detail, and his unwillingness to settle for anything less than perfection propelled us into the Technological Age.  He introduced products we didn’t even know we needed – and made them ubiquitous.  His fire made competitors (see Microsoft) better, too, if in different ways.  So what if instead of tinkering with electronics in his dad’s garage, Jobs would have been introduced to newspapers at an early age?  Would he have been able to head off the industry’s seemingly inevitable slide toward extinction?  We’ll never know, but applying the Jobs’ basic tenets to the newspaper industry might well have charted a different course.  Here are seven ways that Jobs might have transformed the industry:

1. Hire “A” players and eliminate “B” and “C” players.  In “Good to Great,” Jim Collins writes about “getting the right people on the bus.”  Jobs took this to next level not only by getting the right people on the bus but also by getting the best people on the bus.  In some cases, leaders settle for a “B” or ”C” player because he or she can do the job.  But Jobs believed that “A” players want to be on teams with other “A” players.  True all-stars don’t have the patience to work with substandard performers. And “A” players drive each other to be better, which raises the team’s overall performance. This is why Apple Stores have “Genius Bars” while other retailers have “Geek Squads.”    Newspapers pay notoriously low salaries (the joke being that they make up for it by allowing employees to work really long hours in stressful conditions!). This applies not only to newsrooms but also to other departments.  Top reporters and editors bail for better-paying jobs (with family-friendly hours) in corporate communications; top salespeople are recruited away by industries with bigger compensation packages and more sales support.   As a result, attracting and retaining “A” players becomes difficult.  Then as financial performances worsen, budget cuts necessitate fewer salary increases (or, worse, furloughs and layoffs), making recruiting even more of a challenge.  This vicious cycle drives any remaining “A” players away, which in turn makes it even more difficult to attract additional talent.  Jobs would have gone out of his way to recruit and retain “A” players and to create an environment in which they could thrive, collaborate, and innovate.
2. Control the entire process, from manufacturing through distribution.  A key to Apple’s success was its refusal to accept substandard products from vendors and partners and the creation of Apple Stores to highlight and sell its products.  Newspapers invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in journalists and the latest computer equipment and software to produce their product and tens of millions of dollars in press equipment to print it. But then the bundles of papers are handed to guy in a scruffy t-shirt and faded blue jeans driving a rusty Ford Bronco to deliver to customers at 3 o’clock in the morning.  Nothing against newspaper carriers, many of whom are the most dedicated people I’ve met (and, in fact, Jobs was one for a while during his youth).  But at virtually all papers, carriers are independent contractors, not employees. This means the newspaper has little control over their performance –and no incentive to invest in systems that would make their jobs easier or their deliveries more reliable.  And as the industry’s financial position worsened, newspapers began outsourcing other tasks, from fielding customer complaints to designing and editing the paper.  With each outsourcing, newspaper leaders lose more control over the end product.  The result may be lower costs, but there’s little proof that the product or service is improved. Jobs wasn’t afraid to eliminate positions or reduce expenses when necessary, but he also understood that cutting your way to success is not a long-term strategy. 
3. Focus, focus, focus.  Again, channeling Collins (the “Hedgehog Principle” this time), when Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he found a company that had lost its way in part because it had too many products.  Jobs quickly narrowed the focus to only four – a consumer desktop, a consumer laptop, a professional desktop and a professional laptop.  Focusing on just a few products meant that each could be great, made marketing simpler, and caused less confusion for the consumer.  Newspapers similarly have lost their way.  Many newspapers publish scores of “special” sections designed to attract specific categories of advertisers (“Car Care” or “Home Improvement,” for example).  But devoid of compelling content (these are definitely “C” products), these sections have little value to the reader and even less to the advertiser.  Then as print revenues have declined, newspapers have tried a variety of other methods to grow advertising sales –venturing into sponsoring events and classes as well as selling the full spectrum of online products, including those often best left for the experts, such as search-engine marketing.  It often feels as though the newspaper industry is desperately throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks, all under the guise of “innovation.”  And the sales reps who are charged with pushing the product du jour are pulled in so many different directions that they only confuse their advertising clients. Jobs said, “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”  One envisions Jobs throwing everything out and starting all over again with a quality, compelling newspaper and focused suite of digital products.
4. Keep it simple, stupid.  Have you ever tried to place a classified ad in a newspaper?  How many lines is it? How many days do you want to run it? Do you want a border? Bold type? An attention-grabber?  All you want to do is sell your car or advertise your yard sale, but the industry made the process so complicated that in many cases programs couldn’t even be written to allow users to place ads online.  It’s no wonder the classified ad business was lost to the simplicity of Craigslist.  And why do newspapers sell subscriptions in 13-week intervals?  Because it aligns with their bookkeeping systems – and because they’ve always done it that way.  People don’t live in 13-week increments. They think days, months, seasons, years.  Jobs famously didn’t believe in market research, but he had an innate understanding about how people would use his company’s products. He worked tirelessly to make them intuitive and seamless and so simple to use that that they didn’t even need an on/off switch.  One can only imagine how frustrated Jobs might have become if he ever tried to stop his newspaper delivery while he was out of town.
5. Skate to where the puck will be, not where it is now.  Channeling Wayne Gretzky, Jobs pushed Apple to leapfrog the competition many times.  He wasn’t worried that the iMac had a CD slot instead of a tray, meaning that users couldn’t save music onto CDs.  He was already thinking about transforming the music industry with the iPod.  When the competition began focusing on making laptops smaller and more powerful, Jobs was thinking about a tablet that would become the iPad.  Newspapers, meanwhile, were dragged begrudgingly into the 21^st century with debates about whether reporters should be allowed to have e-mail and Internet access.  God forbid they might actually communicate with a reader or look something up online.  And instead of skating ahead of the competition in a category such as employment advertising, the best newspapers could do was to partner with the competition, leading to the odd marriage with Yahoo! Hot Jobs (now part of Monster), or to the replication of the service (CareerBuilder).  Do the folks at Yahoo! or Monster have newspapers’ best interests at heart? These partnerships have since expanded to other online products, including display advertising, real estate advertising and search-engine marketing.  But newspapers are simply contributing to the commoditization of these categories and being forced to share their already diminishing ad revenues with partners.  Instead, Jobs would have newspaper executives thinking about how people will get news and information 10 or 20 years from now and how advertising will be delivered – and he’d have a team working on the products and services to get them there. 
6. Content has value.  Jobs’ appreciation of good music contributed in large part to his almost singlehandedly changing the business model in the music industry with the creation of iTunes. Jobs knew that if the piracy brought about by Napster and its ilk were to continue, the quality of music in general would suffer because artists would lose their incentive.  He came up with a simple price point (99 cents), negotiated a partnership in which everyone won, and refused to play ball with those who didn’t want to follow his rules (they did, eventually).  As it turns out, Jobs had a fairly deep appreciation for quality journalism, as well, as Isaacson writes toward the end of his book.  Jobs met with executives of The New York Times and some other large news organizations in early 2010 about a similar system to support quality journalism.  Most of the executives didn’t want to play by his rules, but, more importantly, the cat had been out of the bag for too long.   A generation of consumers has been raised to believe that news is free online.  Many papers are now finally testing paid models, and tablets offer additional opportunities to charge for content, but online payments aren’t likely to save the industry.  If only Steve Jobs had been more interested in journalism than music a decade ago… 
7. Details matter.  Some leaders are great at strategic planning but overlook the minor details that often make a difference.  They think they can run through the forest but forget about all the limbs.  Others are so immersed in the details that they can’t see the big picture.  Jobs was the unique leader who grasped the big picture but also understood the importance of buttoning down the details. Corners were rounded just so, products were the perfect shade of white, and the packaging was pristine.   Those subtle touches create a sense of quality and pride for which consumers are willing to pay. They also send the message that the product inside – what the consumer can’t see – is crafted with equal attention to detail.  And when employees know that the boss is paying attention to details, no job is too small to be done right.  One wonders how many newspaper executives actually read their products.   Not all newspapers are this way, but one can only imagine what Jobs would have done with a newspaper that had poor writing, blurry photos, grammatical errors and ineffective advertisements. 

Steve Jobs had his faults and his quirks, but who doesn’t?  For all of those, though, he was a dedicated and brilliant leader who learned from his mistakes and had a streak of showmanship that was evident at Apple’s product launches.  I can see Jobs now, walking onstage at NewsWorld 2011 to introduce the latest personal news reader that fits into everyone’s pocket – but it’s not free, and it seamlessly delivers effective advertising messages, too. And millions of them will fly off the shelves at the News Store in the next year.  And all the journalists will happily cash in their stock options.  We can dream, can’t we?