In the spring of 2008, The Capital Times, a small afternoon daily in Madison, Wisconsin, became one of the first newspapers in the country to largely abandon print in favor of an online news operation.
Now, nearly two years later, the entity known to locals as the "Cap Times" is still a work in progress, says the paper's editor, Paul Fanlund.
"The evolution has been quick and traumatic and is ongoing," says Fanlund. "How is it working? It's probably too early to tell."
It's a question that resonates well beyond the confines of Fanlund's newsroom in a Midwestern college town to publishers and industry analysts nationwide. With circulation numbers continuing a long slide and advertising revenues gutted by the recession, many wonder whether more papers should retire their printing presses in favor of an online-only model.
Indeed, for years some observers have loudly, if not gleefully, predicted the end of newsprint, and proclaimed that all news should be on the web, free for the surfing. More recently a much larger paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, became an online-only operation.
But money from online advertising, once hailed as print journalism's revenue source of the future, has fallen far short of expectations, and a viable business model for a successful online news operation has yet to emerge.
A Long and Proud History
Founded in 1917, the Cap Times had for decades touted itself as "your progressive voice" in Madison, the left-leaning and politically active home to the gargantuan main campus of the University of Wisconsin. "The Cap Times was as much a cause as it was a newspaper," Fanlund says.
Since the late 1940s the Cap Times had been part of a consolidated business operation with the city's morning paper, the Wisconsin State Journal, in an arrangement similar to joint operating agreements used in many two-paper towns. But it was unusual in that profits were split evenly between the two papers, even though the State Journal was more widely read and more lucrative. This meant that for many years, the Cap Times was able to maintain a newsroom staff of a size normally associated with much larger publications.
But by the time Fanlund took over as editor in 2006, it was clear those days were over.
"When I came in I knew there were going to be changes," Fanlund says in a phone interview. "We had a circulation that had fallen below 20,000 daily with a staff that still numbered in the 60s."
So in April 2008, the daily broadsheet version of the Cap Times was shut down, replaced by a free news & commentary tabloid published every Wednesday and an arts & entertainment tab, produced with the State Journal, every Thursday. The paper's website, meanwhile, was beefed up with more regularly updated content.
Of course, jobs were lost. A series of layoffs and voluntary buyouts over the past few years cut the newsroom staff roughly in half. There are now eight beat reporters, a handful of editors and about two dozen other employees working in editorial departments that have been merged with the State Journal.
Fanlund claims the print-to-web change wasn't purely a business decision. "It wasn't so much a cost savings thing. We decided that in order to remain relevant we needed to go in a new direction. We decided to embrace the Internet but also be in print."
Still, the switch was met with howls from many locals. A writer for the Isthmus, the city's alternative newsweekly, said the move was "driven by cool calculation and raw greed." "Be sad, and mad, over the loss of Madison's afternoon daily," one Isthmus headline read.
The Small-Town Paper Makes News Worldwide
The change also made headlines beyond Madison, and not just in fusty trade publications. Fanlund was interviewed by NPR and Germany's Der Spiegel. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to know if the Cap Times' break from newsprint signaled the coming of a brave new world for print journalism.
Two years later, Fanlund still isn't sure. Business-wise, he is circumspect, saying only that Capital Newspapers, the parent company of both papers, is profitable. The company has netted about $15 million annually in recent years.
Asked to describe the Cap Times, he says, "It has some sports and features components. But it's really a niche organization that tries to do important journalism focused on Madison, while being a home for progressive opinion. That's what we've moved into."
Fanlund admits that in moving online, "what was lost was the diversity and variety of a general interest daily newspaper," though he adds: "What was gained was a greater focus on the core mission of producing important journalism. We produce several stories every week that try to step back and provide the kind of journalism I've loved my entire career."
"We were right at the cutting edge," he adds, "but we're still in the midst of a major evolution."
(Note: The author worked briefly for the Cap Times in the 1980s.)
