The One-Man Band Is Alive and Well

More than 80% of the daily newspapers in the U.S. have circulations of under 50,000; nearly 70% are under 25,000 circulation. (The situation in many other countries is similar.) It's safe to say, then, that the majority of newspapers do not have much money to put into online publishing. It's not that smaller papers are ignoring the Internet -- quite the contrary, in fact -- but that their efforts often are conducted on shoestring budgets.

Dave Williams knows all about that. He's the Web site developer, online editor and one-man Internet band for the Star Democrat in Easton, Maryland. Thanks to Williams, the 18,000-circulation daily paper in a rural part of the state (along the east shore of the Chesapeake Bay, about 45 minutes from Baltimore and an hour from Washington, D.C.) does have a Web site, but it's a modest affair. When Williams goes on vacation, the paper's Internet presence goes on hiatus, too.

While much of the coverage of newspapers' Internet efforts (including my own in this column) is of the larger and better funded ventures, the Star Democrat and its lone Internet manager are more representative of a majority of the newspaper industry and its approach to the Internet.

Journalist turned businessman

Williams has been part of the 30-person newspaper editorial staff for about five years; the Star Democrat gave the former music teacher his first journalism job. Before becoming online editor, he was the paper's entertainment editor.

He now plays a challenging role for the newspaper: To be the person responsible for driving the company into having a presence and creating a business on the Internet. And by the way, please don't spend much money.

But Williams believes that it is possible for a small paper with an online staff of one to make a go of it in the interactive medium. The budget for the Star Democrat's new media operation consists of little more than his salary. He occasionally gets help from high school interns, whose work frees him up from some of the Web site's grunt work. The paper's ad director is enthused about the paper's Web operation, so he talks up the idea of online Web advertising sites to newspaper clients, and refers them to Williams to pursue as possible Web customers.

The paper pays nothing for its server space, which is the main way that Internet costs have been kept down. Williams explains that he entered an agreement with a regional Internet service provider (ISP), with the newspaper serving as its branch office. With a T-1 line connected to the main ISP and a bank of modems in the newspaper office, the Star Democrat markets Internet access accounts, co-branded between the paper and ISP, to local residents. In exchange, the paper gets free server space for its Web sites, and