The news comes a week after another struggling US daily newspaper Science Christian Monitor announced its relaunch as a 24/7 news website with a weekly edition.

According to an internal memo reported by the Washington Post, the U.S. News & World Report’s website will be enhanced and the magazine’s team will produce “special reports, daily news updates, blogs, newsletters, rankings, guides and videos.”

And while the magazine will still publish one print edition each month, these will be entirely devoted to consumer guides — such as its annual rankings of colleges and hospitals — and contain no other news.

At the end of 2007, U.S. News’ circulation was just over 2 million, trailing Time, with 3.4 million, and Newsweek, owned by The Washington Post Co., with 3.1 million

U.S. News’ attracts about 7 million unique monthly visitors.

Big news in the United States: the 100 year-old news organization announced that in 2009 the Monitor will become the first US nation-wide circulated newspaper to shift from a daily print format to an online publication that is updated continuously each day.

The changes at the Monitor will include:

• closing the current daily print edition (circa 20-page publication distributed mainly by US mail);
• launching a weekly print product (44-page publication that “read like a news magazine”);
• starting a daily e-mail edition (multipage PDF file sent by e-mail to subscribers Monday through Friday);
• enhancing the content of its website with multimedia and 24/7 updates.

The new weekly print edition will launch in April and be priced at $3.50 per copy or $89 for a year’s subscription (a full price subscription for the current daily print edition is $219).

The main rational behind the change is just a cost cutting. As Rick Edmonds, media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, said: “Ceasing print publication carries significant savings, as the expense associated with putting out a daily paper accounts for some 40 percent of a newspaper’s costs.” The Monitor executives expect also to make an undetermined number of cuts.

More about the Christian Science Monitor

The Monitor was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science Church. However, it was not established to be a religious-themed paper, nor does it promote the doctrine of its patron church. With the exception of one religious feature a day it covers current events around the world.

The Monitor is praised for its outstanding long-feature and analysis journalism: it won seven Pulitzer prizes.

The Monitor’s circulation has fallen from a peak of 223,000 in 1970 to about 50,000 now, while its online traffic has soared. The newspaper gets about 5 million page-views per month, compared with about 4 million five years ago and 1 million a decade ago.

Unusually in the US, the paper’s circulation revenues of around $11 million outstrip its ad revenue which is under $1 million. Additionally, syndicated sales of the Monitor’s articles bring in another nearly $1 million a year.

The paper has been operating at a loss for years, and has received a subsidy from the church to fund the deficit. In the current fiscal year, the newspaper’s operating costs were about $25.7 million, but the church paid about $13.3 million of that.

The paper’s staff is 130, of which 100 work for the editorial.

More: slideshow of the updated CSMonitor.com, slideshow of a new weekly print edition prototype, video discussion on the changes between the Monitor editor John Yemma and its managing publisher Jonathan Wells.

Is it a model that other struggling newspapers should follow?

The concept of a daily online site associated with a weekly product has been around for some time.

Recently, Juan Antonio Giner of Innovation Media Consulting spoke about it at the INMA Outlook 2009: European conference in Vienna in October.

He pointed at the Economist (UK-based magazine and online service) as the prime example of such a strategy.

The main difference is that the Economist had been already successful in print before it has embraced the web.

The main question to the Christian Science Monitor’s editor and publisher is: if they cannot find enough readers to support the paper in one channel, why should they succeed in another one? Just because of the lower cost base and the Long Tail?

I am afraid the internet is more competitive for news media and not less than the print industry. There are no barriers of entry and there is a huge problem to make any money on it.

Why US online readers should prefer the Monitor instead of other English-language sources of quality international journalism like — for example — the UK-based state broadcaster BBC or UK papers like the Guardian, or the Times?

According to comScore data quoted by the Business Week, BBC has 6.6 million unique US visitors per month, the Guardian attracts 2.5 million and the Monitor reaches just 700,000.

The Monitor enters the weekly news magazine market at a time when the main US news-weeklies like Time and Newsweek also struggle.

Of course, there are some newcomers who prosper — the invaders from the UK like the Economist and the Week. Both these magazines are very different from established US-based competitors: in concept and the content.

So my point is: maybe it is not primarily about a channel? Maybe it is about what you deliver instead of how you do it?

The Wall Street Journal’s new luxury lifestyle magazine, WSJ, debuted last week as a quaterly. It is expected to become a monthly next year.

The magazine will cover cars, fashion, property, philanthropy, personalities and travel. Of the 51 advertisers in the launch issue, 19 are new to the Journal.

Thomson, formerly an editor of the Times of London and a deputy at the Financial Times, invited his old brothers-in-arms to make the new magazine. WSJ’s editor is Tina Gaudoin, who was previously the editor of Luxx, a high-end supplement to the Times. And WSJ’s creative director, Tomaso Capuano, last worked on the FT’s supplement How to Spend It.

Negative reviews

Adam Hanft of Huffington Post writes: ”The Wall Street Journal Magazine is Irrelevant On Arrival” and calls it: ”ill-conceived, ill-timed and epically copy-cattish endeavor.”

Hanft dislikes especially:

• a feature about Sarah Palin, a governor of Alaska, as it – unfortunately for the Journal – was written before she was announced a vice-presidential nominee. It made this feature ”an instant, chilling anachronism.”
• a model on the cover, ”a clumsy, solipsistic shot of a woman in a WSJ paper dress – a strange and otherwise un-referenced homage to the 1960s.”
• illogical, flat and uninspired department headers like “Hunter” and  “Gatherer”: ”there’s no rhyme or reason to the split: why does racecar collection earn the sign of a hunter, while a jewelry story is stuck in the cross hairs of the gatherer?”
• the rest of contents: ”It’s nothing I haven’t read before, seen before, cringed at before.”

Andrew Losovsky states gently that the contents ”just isn’t very good”.

”For a magazine supposedly aimed at a ‘well-read, discerning about what you consume… multi-faceted, multi-talented group with a sense of humor’ (according to the intro letter) some of the content feels too obvious for a discerning, knowledgeable crowd, and they all read as uncritical fluff in a way that the main paper would never allow.”

Losovsky is disappointed by the ”too-obvious luxury namedrops”: mentions of a Stradivarius; Virgin Galactic; Hollywood actors buying islands; the Louvre in Abu Dhabi; a new bar in the Peninsular Hotel in Hong Kong etc.:

”Exceptions were Lulu Wang’s car collection, the best safety videos on airlines, and a collection of wallets combined with a Dürer illustration. Those were good, but the rest made me yawn.”

Virginia Postrel of the Deep Glamour notes that ”the magazine just isn’t smart enough”:

”As a lifelong WSJ fan, I had high hopes for the magazine. The Journal is a great newspaper, intelligently written and edited for smart people. Its style coverage, whether oriented toward business or culture, is as good as the rest of the paper. But the magazine isn’t. Good ideas–the evolution of ‘lifestyle’ identities for jewelry, for instance–are executed in a superficial way, while good writers are wasted. Architecture critic Alastair Gordon, who wrote the terrific book Naked Airport, is given a six whole paragraphs to tell us about a house. The most substantive piece, perhaps because it could have run on the real WSJ’s front page, is a feature on how cruise lines are luxing up their accommodations and separating the big spenders from the riff-raff.”

Postrel recalls another WSJ venture in magazine journalism: the single prototype issue of The Wall Street Journal Magazine, published the summer of 1981, that in her opinion had much better words-versus-pictures balance. You can see some of old pages on her blog.

Vincent Valk of the Gelflog compares WSJ to the Parade, a national Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 400 newspapers in the US. It is known for its celebrity gossips, promotions and very early deadline – 15 days prior publication date. So in January 2008 they made a cover story about Benazir Bhutto’s election prospects, despite her death on December 27th, 2007.

Valk writes:

”It’s Parade for superrich investment bankers, rife with coverage of the rich and stylish and consumer goods you can’t afford. If you were expecting, say, a rightward-leaning New York Times Magazine, look elsewhere.”

Juan Antonio Giner of Innovation Media Consulting Group as always goes straight and calls the new magazine simply ”a flop”.

Positive reviews

However, there is somebody who says that WSJ sets the new standard for luxury magazines.

Samir Husni, or Mr. Magazine, writes on his blog:

”Elegant, upscale and aimed at the ‘cream of the crop’ of The Wall Street Journal readers, the magazine offers its readers a European look and feel from the cover all the way to the inside pages…

WSJ. magazine is yet another welcomed new magazine bucking the trend that print is dead and the future is for something else. The audience of WSJ. was already there, the advertisers were already there, all what the folks at the Journal had to do was build the bridge that links the readers/customers to the advertisers…and they build one good ‘London’ bridge… In fact, WSJ. is, to me, the new standard in luxury magazines and has become my standard (even after only one issue) in comparing other luxury magazines to.”

Others praise at least some parts of the WSJ.

Mario Garcia, a well known newspaper designer, likes the design:

”WSJ does not disappoint visually. White space waltz in and out of the pages. The font selection sets it apart from many of its competitors. I was thinking that the design was minimalist, but perhaps that is not the best way to describe it: minimalist design tends to be more skeletal than what Tomaso has carried out in his design for WSJ. Some of the photos bleed off the page, something minimalist designs usually avoid, as the emphasis would be on framing with white space around the page.”

Disclosure: Garcia worked on the layout of the main Journal. However, he is not afraid to get a bit ironic, when he notices:

”One good thing: texts are short, photos are big, and many of these ‘luxury’ readers will be satisfied to get through the magazine pretty quickly.”

Magazine Smitten thinks ”the cover was phenomenal. I mean, that dress!” Juan Antonio Giner of Innovation also likes the cover. And Andrew Losovsky sees ”solid structure, a supplement-y feel that goes well enough with the main paper, and an inoffensively tidy design that feels a little out of date, but not objectionably so. It has the foundations to create something interesting.”

Metaprinter, in spite of some minor faults, finds the magazine innovative.

”YES! Why innovation?
• New revenue stream
• Highly targeted product that grows your brand
• No third party applications required
• Deliverable cannot be aped by online companies
• Magazine.wsj.com website grows their multimedia offerings”

Finally…

Watch a video showing how the WSJ dress was made:

Join the debate

Have you read the new WSJ magazine? What do you think? Is it a flop or a good start?

Mr. Wolff who has written a new book on Murdoch titled ”The Man Who Owns the News” (scheduled to be published in December) shared some thoughts in the Vanity Fair magazine:

About why has Mr. Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal:

”Buying The Wall Street Journal was surely an exercise of pure fantasy. To think he could take over a company absolutely controlled by a family that had repeatedly said it would never sell was fantasy. To think it was worth what he was paying for it was fantasy. And yet … now it’s his, and if his shareholders are puzzled and grumpy (News Corp. shares are down by more than 30 percent since he bought Dow Jones), so be it (he’ll ignore them as much as he ignores his other critics). He’s in it for the long haul—even at 77.”

About his fantasies to own the New York Times:

”He is spending time now in consideration of an even more far-fetched fantasy, The New York Times: he’d really like to own it too. Now, everybody around him continues to tell him that buying the Times is pretty much impossible. There will be regulatory problems. The Sulzberger family would never … And then there’s the opprobrium of public opinion.

But it’s obviously irresistible to him. I’ve watched him go through the numbers, plot out a merger with the Journal’s backroom operations, and fantasize about the staff’s quitting en masse as soon as he entered the sacred temple. It would be sweet revenge—because the Times for so long has made him the bogeyman and vulgarian. And wonderful to own not just one of America’s most important papers but both (he believes in monopolies).”

About his love with print:

”He’s really not interested in all this talk about newspapers as the basis of new information franchises … blah blah. That’s maybe what they say at News Corp. to gull Wall Street. But Rupert Murdoch wants the physical thing. He pokes the paper, slashes at it—move this, reduce that, enlarge this. It may be the ultimate fantasy, his continuing, contrary belief in newspapers.”

About the weaknesses of News Corp.

”His takeover of The Wall Street Journal happened because the family that controlled Dow Jones for nearly a hundred years couldn’t control itself. And while Murdoch both took advantage of the Bancroft family’s weakness and was contemptuous of it (and morbidly fascinated by it), the irony hasn’t passed him by that some variation on this fate will be his family’s, too. (When I asked him in our final interview what he can do to prevent what happened to the Bancrofts from happening to his family, he threw his hands up in the air and said, ‘Oh, simple, I can’t. All I can do is delay it.’)”

And finally, about his meeting with Barack Obama:

”Murdoch, for his part, had a simple thought to share with Obama. He had known possibly as many heads of state as anyone living today—had met every American president from Harry Truman on—and this is what he understood: nobody got much time to make an impression. Leadership was about what you did in the first six months.”

Prehistory: Respublika has many supplements, which appear six times a week with a newspaper. Two of them – Julius and Brigita – have come out on Saturdays for fourteen years already. Fourteen years – is a very long time for supplements and as every marketing products they needed renovation. So, for a couple of months our editors, designers and marketing specialists had a big headeche – they mused on how to renovate Julius and Brigita.

Renovation: They made several important decisions. Design has been totally changed – not only format, paper etc., but these supplements have been merged. Now you can read them from one through the other side (one side – for women, the other – for men). Content has been also changed – all the stories, reports, interviews etc. have to be presented in a new way. For example, on both covers of this magazine we have decided to put photos of famous families or just pairs. And in the middle of the magazine – they answer to the same questions about each other (but not simultaneously so they could not tune up their answers.)

This is how the two supplements looked like BEFORE the redesign:

Aim: to relaunch supplements and to win bigger new readers (it’s clear to everyone, but I must write it!)

Conditions (market): in Lithuania there are just 3 million inhabitants (but many of them emigrated to U.K., Spain, Ireland and other countries) and about 300 newspapers and magazines!

Main idea: as I wrote before, one of these supplements is for women and the other – for men. Because after renovation they became one magazine, the main idea of advertising campaign was their wedding!

Ingredients: object, main idea, some actors (one of them is well-known brand), good relations with all the media, creativity and very good working team.

Time: one month till the start of renovated supplement (2008.03.19 – 2008.04.19)

The course

Introduction: Before the advertising campaign, our public relations spread information that two Respublika’s supplements are going to ”wed”.

Rumour: A bit later, after information about ”marriage” at Respublika, a popular television star Brigita (woman, which has the same name as our supplement) has blurted out about her betrothal with „old school love“ – a boy, whom she has met fourteen years ago (pay attention – our supplements come out fourteen years already).

Here are the heroes of this rumour – Brigita and Julius:

Intrigue (teasers): While our readers, TV viewers, fans of this TV star and collegues from other media started to discuss the rumours, teasers appeared in all media channels – short advertising clips with Julius’ declaration of love to Brigita.

Here are some examples (with translations below).

In newspapers:

Translation: Brigita, I have written a poem for you, but I’m too excited and have forgotten it. Thought, the main idea I will never forget – be my wife! Julius

Translation: Brigita, when I met you for the first time, I have understood what love means – be my wife! Julius

On TV:

Translation: Brigita, when I met you for the first time, I have understood what love means – be my wife! Julius

Translation: Brigita, we were made for each other – be my wife! Julius

Culmination: The culmination of advertising campaign became TV spots showing Brigita’s (the actress – this popular TV star) and Julius’es (an actor – not well-known actor) betrothal and honeymoon.

Watch them:

The end: At the final of this advertising campaign we have decided to tell the truth about our campaign and this ”marriage” – in some TV shows and in the first issue of our relaunched supplement.

Echos: All the readers and advertising clients loved this campaign. They found it original, full of intrigue, very proffessional and said that it stuck in their memory (and it did not irritate them).

Emotions: Our team, of course, was really happy. About a relaunched product. And about successful wedding party!

Profit: We see that our copy sales of Saturday issues grew 40 percent!

PS. In fact, a rumour about the TV star Brigita’s wedding was not completely untrue. She got married a few weeks ago!

(An article contributed by Ramune Vaiciulyte, editor-in-chief of Respublika, a Lithuanian daily newspaper.)