THE WALL STREET JOURNAL / CALIFORNIA
Economic Focus
Paper Gives Mobile Locals A Good Read on the Road
By Ryan Tate
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

07/14/1999
The Wall Street Journal
CA1
(Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

SAN DIEGO -- Each summer, much of the Grand Canyon State moves 360 miles west, as thousands of Arizonans flock here to escape the sweltering temperatures back home. Now, their hometown newspaper wants to come with them.

On Sunday, the Arizona Republic, a daily published by Phoenix-based Central Newspapers Inc., launches its "Special Beach Edition." The paper's familiar nameplate comes topped with a breezy oceanside scene, and the weather box runs temperatures in two cities -- 80 degrees and sunny in San Diego, 118 and sunny back home, according to a prototype issue.

The laser-printed, miniature version of the paper will carry news from Arizona, and be hawked by roller-skating papergirls in cutoff tank tops. But don't let the beach-bunny marketing fool you: This is a serious gamble that, in the age of cybernews, local papers can keep pace with mobile, information-hungry readers.

"It's almost like a Xerox version of the Internet," Jeff Dozbaba, the Republic's deputy managing editor, says of the edition. "The No. 1 goal of newspapers is to remain relevant {in order} to survive."

Indeed, while no one has tagged along with readers on vacation in the way the Republic will, newspapers across the country are cooperating to sell copies far from home, usually at remote sports games. And some publishers say they want to go even further, following readers to new places, like resorts and conferences, and printing more recent news, such as election coverage minutes after the polls close.

In some ways, it's a throwback to the days when cities had newspaper wars -- and papers printed as many as six editions a day, competing to reach readers with the latest flash. That practice all but vanished after the advent of television news, but Internet and cable news operations are forcing papers to rethink how they connect with their audience.

"There's a certain amount of wisdom behind it," says Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and a noted media critic. "Because one of the greatest strengths of a major newspaper is that it becomes a daily habit of readers. And when they go on vacation, that gets broken, and the danger is they say, `Wow, it was nice to get away from all the fuss and mayhem of reading the paper every day, I don't think I want to subscribe any longer,' or `The hotel had this great paper called USA Today.'"

In the Republic's case, the new papers are about both speed and relevance. The market is well-defined: So many "Zonies," as San Diegans call them, make the annual trek here that the Republic last Sunday sold three full pages of advertising for tourism in San Diego. According to the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau, 12% of the 14.5 million tourists who came last year were from Arizona, making it the most common origin of out-of-state visitors.

In fact, the edition was the idea of just such a tourist -- Republic Publisher John Oppedahl, who frequently travels to San Diego for both business and leisure. (He gets his via overnight courier.)

By targeting Arizona's expats here, the Republic hopes to build goodwill rather than profits. Printing and distributing 5,000 copies of the daily Beach Edition for four weeks will cost an estimated $200,000. Since the papers are given away free (hawkers are instructed to ask, "Are you from Phoenix? Here's today's Republic!"), under the best possible circumstance, the paper stands to lose $180,000. (Assuming that both of the 16-square-inch display ads are booked for every issue, the paper would take in $20,000 over the course of the summer.)

But the Republic hopes the Beach Edition will attract new readers -- and make existing ones more loyal. "This allows us to bridge the distance between where Arizonans are for 48 weeks of the year and where they are for the other four," says the Republic's Mr. Dozbaba. The nation's 15th-largest newspaper, the Republic's circulation fell to 488,905 in March of this year, from 491,342 in March 1998, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

It also portends future possibilities. If the San Diego venture comes off well, the Republic may print miniature editions for out-of-town sports games, Grand Canyon tourists and Arizonans in their other popular homes-away-from-home: Los Angeles and Rocky Point, Mexico.

Meanwhile, Copley Newspapers' San Diego Union-Tribune is teaming with the Republic to distribute its regular edition at spring-training sessions for the San Diego Padres baseball team, which take place in Peoria, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb. And in its home base, the Union-Tribune is bundling the Republic's San Diego edition in its racks near the ocean and hotels. Later this month, the Union-Tribune also plans to distribute regular editions of the Republic at a Padres-Diamondbacks three-game series here.

The technology behind the projects was developed and is operated in the field by Xerox Corp., Stamford, Conn. Xerox sets up a moving-van-size laser printer near the location, while editors in Phoenix prepare the edition. They electronically send the on-site technicians a graphics file containing a pixel-by-pixel reproduction of the edition. Xerox technicians run off copies, about 12 eight-page papers per minute, compared with about 800 per minute for a traditional press.

Not everyone, however, is thrilled at the thought of being stalked by their newspaper. At balmy La Jolla Shores beach in San Diego, Roger Root, a 33-year-old bartender from Phoenix, says he reads the Republic two to three times a week at work. But, vacationing with his wife and two children, he swiftly dismisses the idea of perusing the Beach Edition's news from back home. "That's the last thing I want to do out here."