Reviving the brand: Why newspaper journalism needs more than great reporting

Today, some newspapers still invest in marketing, but few are investing in branding, and fewer still are aligning brand strategy with newsroom culture and advertiser value. If newspaper journalism is to remain viable and sustainable, it must go beyond great reporting. It must articulate its value, align its internal culture with its external promise, and reintroduce itself to the public ...”

Gary Randazzo, MBA, a retired senior professor of practice at the University of Houston C.T. Bauer College of Business

There’s no question that newspaper journalism is facing a critical moment. Subscription revenues are under pressure. Advertising dollars have shifted to digital giants. And public trust, though still high for local outlets, is increasingly fragile.

But beyond these challenges lies a deeper, often overlooked issue: a failure to consistently build, express and communicate the value of the newspaper brand.

For over a century, the newspaper business model was brilliantly simple and effective. Affordable subscriptions attracted loyal readers. Those readers became the audience advertisers needed. The cycle depended on one key principle: delivering valuable information that mattered to people’s lives.

Newspapers were once both a civic necessity and a business proposition. They delivered the news readers needed and advertisers trusted. And they did it with confidence in their mission and their market position.

Today, the business model has evolved. Subscriptions are digital, revenue is diversified, and delivery is instant. But the core formula remains: Value to readers creates value to advertisers. What’s changed is the clarity with which that value is expressed.

Some leading newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, are counting on exceptional journalism to carry their brands forward. They get picked up by cable news, quoted on podcasts and shared on social platforms. But despite their reach, there is little evidence of a coherent, external branding strategy. The brand expression feels passive, not proactive.

This is where marketing alone won’t suffice. What’s needed is strategic brand development, rooted in both mission and market.

A 2019 Harvard Business Review article by Stephen Greyser and Mats Urde entitled “What Does Your Corporate Brand Stand For?” offers a matrix that media companies should study closely. It aligns external value propositions, customer relationships, brand position and expression with internal factors like mission, culture and competencies. The matrix poses questions every newspaper should ask:

• What do we promise — and to whom?
• What makes us distinctive and trustworthy?
• What’s our intended market position?
• How do we express our values consistently to every stakeholder?

When I was at the Houston Chronicle, we didn’t just run ads. We ran a brand. Every campaign — whether in print, on TV or at live events — ended with a statement of purpose: “Houston’s Leading Information Source.”

That line wasn’t just for the public. It was a constant reminder to the staff: We are the leader, so act like it. Publish more. Sell more. Deliver trustworthy content. Outperform the competition.

Today, some newspapers still invest in marketing, but few are investing in branding, and fewer still are aligning brand strategy with newsroom culture and advertiser value.

If newspaper journalism is to remain viable and sustainable, it must go beyond great reporting. It must articulate its value, align its internal culture with its external promise, and reintroduce itself to the public — not just as a source of information, but as a brand with meaning and purpose.

The model still works. But only if it’s backed by strategy.

Gary W. Randazzo, MBA, is a retired senior professor of practice at the University of Houston C.T. Bauer College of Business and taught a business consulting lab for MBA students and Marketing Strategy and Planning for undergraduate students. Mr. Randazzo served as an executive in the newspaper business most of his career. He retired from Hearst after serving as senior vice president at the Houston Chronicle and EVP and general manager of the San Francisco Chronicle.