In the news: Political advertising in an election year presents publishers with unique opportunities -- and unique headaches.

The election season brings with it unique advertising challenges for publishers. Summing up the problem, Max Willens of Digiday.com reports: “Revenue executives at five different publishers said the processes they put in place to evaluate the political campaign ads that their sites take programmatically, such as mandatory creative review, are being thwarted by ad buyers who are mis-classifying or mislabeling the ads, or obscuring the domains in ways that make it hard to block them.” Compounding the problem is the fact that publishers often don’t realize problematic ad content is displaying on their sites until readers raise the red flag.

While a few major publishers such as Reuters and Bloomberg decline political ads, most publishers can’t do without the infusion of ad cash the election cycle brings, comments Willen -- particularly given Covid-related losses this year. Read more here.

Also Notable:

Evaluating the Facebook Journalism Project’s Impact

In a piece published last week, Emilie Lutostanski, Lindsey Leisher Estes, and Camryn Allen of LocalMedia.org examine how news publishers across America have put grant money from a Facebook initiative to use in their newsrooms. They report that “the Facebook Journalism Project awarded $10.3 million to 144 local U.S. newsrooms in May as part of its Covid-19 Local News Relief Fund Grant Program.” Facebook intended the program to help local news organizations survive the pandemic. Lutostanski, Estes, and Allen crunch the numbers and highlight some of the initiative’s greatest success stories here.

One Newsroom’s Reckoning with Race

This week, in a CJR.org piece, Marion Renault dives deep into the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch’s ongoing reckoning with racial imparity in its newsroom. The newspaper has long been criticized not only for its mostly white newsroom and editorial board, but also for publishing content that either fails to serve its readers of color or, worse, stereotypes them. The paper, as part of a larger initiative by parent company Gannett to create parity in its newsrooms within five years, is taking preliminary steps to rectify this systemic problem. But progress may not come fast enough for Columbus residents who have for years voiced concerns that their city newspaper does not serve them. Read more here.

New York Times Abandons Cookies

Last week, Kayleigh Barber of Digiday.com discussed the New York Times’ recent decision to stop using cookies on its websites. “When the coronavirus crisis laid into the economy, the publisher saw its ad sales plunge 44%, according to the company’s second quarter earnings call in July,” Barber reports. “In the past year, the Times eliminated open programmatic from its app.... Not only were they unappealing visually, but they also caused technical delays and hiccups.” Read more here.

Are Paid Subscriptions the Way to Go?

Tech company Zuora has published its 2020 subscription billing data. Rick Edmonds of Poynter.org says that it’s a “good news/bad news mix for the publishing segment. Bottom line: Subscription volume continues to grow even during the pandemic, but ads (as measured by other sources) are sinking even faster than they were before and will continue to do so.” The report recommends that publishers turn to digital subscription revenue to make up the shortfall. Read more about the report and its findings here.

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The time is at hand to reassess your management structure and methods before it's too late.

By William Dunkerley

Is your way of managing up to snuff for the challenges that have beset us this year? Will it serve you well for whatever the economy has in store?

"The Coronavirus Recession Will Be Deeper and Faster Than the Financial Crisis" said a Barron's headline back in April.

Now, months later, sources are disagreeing whether a recession is coming or going!

The Economist is saying that "a recovery is taking shape." NBC News is reporting that "economic recovery has come faster than anticipated."

At the same time, Bloomberg is posing the question "When will the economy recover?" CNN declares this to be "the worst economic crisis in living memory."

You can take your pick of storylines. Nonetheless, it is prudent for publishers to be prepared for the worst. That preparation should include scrutinizing your approach to publication management.

Past Management as a Predictor of Future Success

In the past, economic downturns have not impacted all publishers in the same way. Some have actually been able to accomplish gains. Others, though, have gone out of business.

What's made the difference?

An important factor is how a publication was managed before the economic disturbance hit. It is possible to make corrections while the downturn is still in progress. But some wait until it is too late.

Item: A panicking publisher contacts me asking for help to sell his publication. He's put a lot of money into it. Now he's starting to lose money. His usual business practices can't turn the tide. He figures the money he put into the business represents equity. Now he wants to cash out.

The sorry answer for this publisher is that his publication isn't worth anything close to what he put into it. I had to explain to him that for an interested party wanting to publish in his field, it would be cheaper to start from scratch.

There is a pattern I've observed of how publishers get themselves into this kind of position. It does not always result in the bitter ending the cited publisher experienced, but it does cause a lot of discomfort and business losses.

What precipitates that pattern? Usually it is that the publisher never had in place a good management plan and business strategies. In the publishing business it is often easy to coast along producing content, selling advertising, and aggregating audience -- all while functioning at a suboptimal level of performance. That does not become problematic until the economy hits a snag. Then business as usual is no longer sustainable.

Establishing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

There is a management tool that can help remedy that predicament. It is called OKR: objectives and key results. OKRs establish a goal-setting framework. It guides you to establish objectives. The next step is, for each objective, to identify the key results needed to achieve it. Then concretely measure the actions needed to achieve the desired result.

In one sense the use of OKRs is a top-down activity. First you have to establish the objectives and key results for your company as a whole. But then you work your way down into your organizational structure to each department and each position in that department. This should be done as a participative and collaborative activity with all those involved, not autocratically.

We'll walk through this process in future issues. First we'll create a generic organizational structure for a magazine publishing company. Then we’ll go through the process of creating OKRs for the organization as a whole. Then we'll go on to the department level and finally to positions within each department. We will spread this out over several issues, as many as it takes.

Reexamining and changing a company's management structure and approach is a serious undertaking. If not done properly, it can go astray.

A Case Study in Poor Managerial Change

Here's one example that comes to mind: The board of directors fired the publisher. She had been running the company efficiently for quite a few years. The only problem is that there was no growth. Opportunities were being missed. The underlying cause was the publisher's autocratic style. She was a super micromanager. That thwarted employee initiative. The company had stagnated when the publisher had reached her personal limits for what she could directly control.

The new publisher was brought in to change that. He was given a mandate to push responsibilities and decision making down into the organization. Instead of requiring staff members to seek approval for any expenditures that were not routine, he set up departmental budgets.

On the surface that was a smart move. However, the budgets were set for the whole year. There was no provision for adapting plans as circumstances evolved and changed. That set up a pattern of rigidity.

Managers were evaluated on whether they met their budget projections. That created three unfavorable situations. The first, of course, is that managers lacked the ability to adapt to unexpected circumstances. The second is that it made them risk averse. Certainty in meeting budget goals was more important than trying new things. The third is that this system disincentivized overachievement. So, for instance, if the marketing manager saw an opportunity to increase sales, she would be faced with that increasing her goal for next year. Thus it was safer for her to just meet current projections and not put forth any extra effort.

We'll show how to avoid those and other pitfalls as we explore together in future issues incorporating OKRs into your management methods.

William Dunkerley is principal of William Dunkerley Publishing Consultants, www.publishinghelp.com.

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During this time of crisis, we stand ready to answer any specific questions our readers may have, time permitting. You can contact us at:

crisis-help@stratnewsletter.com

When the national health crisis subsides, publishers unfortunately should not expect to easily resume business as usual. Economists are predicting tough times ahead. In addition, the impact of the crisis may well result in different expectations of us on the part of our audiences. STRAT will provide a series of articles to help you all through the period of recovery and readjustment.