December 24, 2007
ShopTalk: Publish Or Perish
This summer, Chuck Owen became the new publisher of the Sentinel & Enterprise of Fitchburg and Leominster and the affiliated Nashoba Publishing, which publishes weeklies for Ayer, Groton, Harvard, Pepperell, Shirley and Townsend. Previously, Owen worked as a division sales manager at The Boston Globe, working in Boston's northwest and western suburbs.
My dad worked for The [Boston] Globe. He retired as a senior vice president. I worked at Raytheon production management. I was doing fine there, but I wasn't particularly happy. I just said, "What about newspaper sales, dad?" He said, "Well it's kind of a tough business." I landed at the Middlesex News, which is now the MetroWest Daily, and worked there for three years. When my father retired out of the Boston Globe, I took an interview over there and got hired in.
What drives the town of Framingham, and the problems, are the same things in these towns. It's schools, it's the crime, it's the constant question of immigration, it's jobs. I think [north Worcester communities are] a little more - I might use a term that people don't like, it's kind of old-fashioned - but this is a working class area, and it should be proud of it. But it's also a very enlightened area. A lot of young people going to college, through their parents' hard work.
That's the rub. It's changing, yeah. We're doing a better job with our online components. I think we haven't changed so dramatically in terms of us delivering the news. It's where we deliver it.
I think it's a model that's changing and developing. Each print page has a value and a cost to it, so advertising has a set cost to it. On the online side of it, we haven't defined really that true value of it. You don't sell a whole page online, you sell position and frequency, click-throughs, stuff like that. We're working our way through, finding our course.
A lot of hard work. Local newspapers still have their place. People still want to know what's going on on a daily basis. It's the high school sports, it's the bus schedule, it's the cafeteria schedule.
Quite frankly there's competitors coming out of the woodwork: the [public access] cable, the [free weekly] Leominster Champions, the Fitchburg Prides of the world. The free newspaper has its niche, and I respect it a great deal, but it doesn't have the news of the day. They can shape it all they want as being flowery and nice news and stuff like that, but you know what, I'll use this analogy: People go to stock car races not so much because they want to watch it go around and around and around. They go to see the car crash. We're reporting on certain pieces of news, news that people may not like, and they may call it negative, but it gets people to respond, to clean up, to take an active role in their community.
I try. I've met some wonderful people already in the short period of time that I've been here. I think sometimes in the past it's been a perception that it's an editorial-based person who comes to the publisher position. But the publisher's role has changed dramatically over the last 10 or 15 years. I think when you look across the country, to particularly the smaller papers, there's more of a business, sales background. If you're a sales person particularly, you're not short on words, talking, interacting. I like that aspect. I like going to the community events.
Chuck Owen, publisher of the Sentinel & Enterprise and Nashoba Printing.How did you end up in the newspaper business?
Chuck Owen, publisher of the Sentinel & Enterprise and Nashoba Printing.
My dad worked for The [Boston] Globe. He retired as a senior vice president. I worked at Raytheon production management. I was doing fine there, but I wasn't particularly happy. I just said, "What about newspaper sales, dad?" He said, "Well it's kind of a tough business." I landed at the Middlesex News, which is now the MetroWest Daily, and worked there for three years. When my father retired out of the Boston Globe, I took an interview over there and got hired in.
Are the issues in North Central Massachusetts very different from what people in the Boston suburbs are concerned with?
What drives the town of Framingham, and the problems, are the same things in these towns. It's schools, it's the crime, it's the constant question of immigration, it's jobs. I think [north Worcester communities are] a little more - I might use a term that people don't like, it's kind of old-fashioned - but this is a working class area, and it should be proud of it. But it's also a very enlightened area. A lot of young people going to college, through their parents' hard work.
In the long term, do you see a future for local newspapers? Do you think younger people read paper publications, or will when they're older?
That's the rub. It's changing, yeah. We're doing a better job with our online components. I think we haven't changed so dramatically in terms of us delivering the news. It's where we deliver it.
Are you able to get the advertising that you need on your web site?
I think it's a model that's changing and developing. Each print page has a value and a cost to it, so advertising has a set cost to it. On the online side of it, we haven't defined really that true value of it. You don't sell a whole page online, you sell position and frequency, click-throughs, stuff like that. We're working our way through, finding our course.
While most papers are seeing drops in readership, the Sentinel & Enterprise increased its circulation numbers a little over the past year or so. What do you think the paper is doing right?
A lot of hard work. Local newspapers still have their place. People still want to know what's going on on a daily basis. It's the high school sports, it's the bus schedule, it's the cafeteria schedule.
What about competition?
Quite frankly there's competitors coming out of the woodwork: the [public access] cable, the [free weekly] Leominster Champions, the Fitchburg Prides of the world. The free newspaper has its niche, and I respect it a great deal, but it doesn't have the news of the day. They can shape it all they want as being flowery and nice news and stuff like that, but you know what, I'll use this analogy: People go to stock car races not so much because they want to watch it go around and around and around. They go to see the car crash. We're reporting on certain pieces of news, news that people may not like, and they may call it negative, but it gets people to respond, to clean up, to take an active role in their community.
Traditionally, a publisher has been kind of a central person in the civic life of a town. Do you see yourself being active in the community?
I try. I've met some wonderful people already in the short period of time that I've been here. I think sometimes in the past it's been a perception that it's an editorial-based person who comes to the publisher position. But the publisher's role has changed dramatically over the last 10 or 15 years. I think when you look across the country, to particularly the smaller papers, there's more of a business, sales background. If you're a sales person particularly, you're not short on words, talking, interacting. I like that aspect. I like going to the community events.
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