Hank Grezlak is regional editor in chief of ALM Media, responsible for all of its regional publications.
That job includes developing and executing editorial strategies for The Legal Intelligencer, The New Jersey Law Journal, The Connecticut Law Tribune, and the Delaware Business Court Insider.
In June, he added additional papers to his responsibilities, including the Daily Business Review, the New York Law Journal, The Recorder, Texas Lawyer and Daily Report.
Grezlak is responsible for training, coaching and directing reporters and editors, as well as editing and writing stories and working on special projects and events.
Grezlak, a Cornell University graduate who played defensive tackle on its football team, has been with the company since 1993, when he started as a reporter.
Earlier this week, one of Grezlak’s weekly publications — The Connecticut Law Tribune — became an online-only publication. It had already seen a 42 percent increase in online readers this year.
Grezlak spoke by telephone with Talking Biz News about that transition. What follows is an edited transcript.
How did the decision come about?
It was a bunch of factors. The world is going more digital. That’s where we have seen across the company where our growth is coming from. And I think that is the future from a content standpoint and a business standpoint. It was a combination of factors. We looked at the growth that the publication was seeing online. And there are things from my viewpoint that being tied to print ties you up in a number of ways. Being digital frees you up.
I still get three print newspapers at my door every day. But there is something about being free of print that allows you more flexibility in how you cover things and when you cover them. From a journalistic standpoint, the publication was still built around a print weekly, and we were missing out on covering live events like court hearings. The Connecticut Supreme Court holds hearings a short walk away from the office, but we rarely covered them. By going digital only, we’re not tied to print. We can cover as many stories as we want and we can cover to as much length as it needs. We are free to cover and post as stuff comes in.
Most of our major competitors don’t have a print component. They are online only. It freed up the staff from having to worry about print
What was the staff reaction when you first told them?
I think there was a little bit of concern. Why wouldn’t there be? But they were pretty upbeat. When we went in there to tell them, we asked, “What do you want to cover and do that we haven’t done before?” They were the ones bringing up more live things like court hearings and doing more data journalism and more multimedia.
How do you change the mindset of the workers that it’s online only?
I found it can mean different things. With the Connecticut staff, I think they were ready for it. One of the reporters said to me, “I want to write a story to the length it deserves, not to the page.” So his mind was already there. They were the ones who wanted to post more frequently. One of the reporters was already more aggressive with social media. So there wasn’t a problem with this staff.
In general, doing your job doesn’t really change. You want to produce good stories and write to the length that is necessary and focus on that. Don’t get hung up on where it winds up. I think people get hung up on that notion. I think people have a notion that if it’s online only it doesn’t have the worth of something in print. But you can look at the metrics and that provides a real valuable tool for editors to provide information to reporters and get them over the unease.
The essentials of a good story don’t change. Big stories and good stories drive traffic. The essentials of what they do don’t really change. Getting them over that is a big component. When they see the reaction a story gets online, they start to embrace it.
What are the logistics involved with making the switch?
Honestly, we were pushing them there toward that anyway, getting them to file every day instead of at the end of the week. We were getting them in that workflow already. It was more about the fact that we still have a digital edition and the components that we still have to have.
From a workflow standpoint, it hasn’t been that complicated. It’s been more from a production standpoint a work in progress.
How much content is being put on the site daily now?
I haven’t done a count on that right now. I am assuming we are putting two to three stories a day, if not more. I want the staff to get used to that and then if we have to ramp it up a little, talk about ramping it up.
My big belief is that the middle is going away. We will have more long stories and more short stories. The middle stories are going away. I think in general the reporters are averaging a story a day, slightly better than that. Over time, I hope to move that metric up and in between sprinkle in more enterprise.
In my ideal world, most average stories should take 90 minutes to four hours, and they spend the rest of the day working on another story or an enterprise piece.
What was the most difficult thing about the transition?
The biggest one is just sort of making sure all of the elements that you want to preserve are preserved. We’re still doing a digital edition, and there are still loyal advertisers who want to be featured in something like that. So we had to come up with a digital solution that satisfied the advertisers that wasn’t complicated for the staff.
So our digital edition is a simple design, but a cool one, for our staff to use. So that was a difficult balance. We wanted to preserve that. I think we worked through a couple of different options and came up with something clean that gives us something to build around.
What was the one thing you were surprised about?
I think it was the staff’s attitude. I thought they were very eager, and it was a pleasant discussion. They were very eager to share their ideas, and they had a lot of good ideas. I thought I was going to have to hand hold, but I didn’t have to do that. They were chomping at the bit to try things. They wanted to cover the live stuff and recognized the value in covering Supreme Court arguments. They were a very receptive crew and had good ideas.
How do you replace lost subscription revenue?
I really don’t think we’re in that kind of situation. I think we’re in a real positive situation. You can get up to five articles free behind a paywall, but then it’s a subscription. The publications that have protected their content have been the ones that have fared better. In general, we have had five to 10 articles free per month. Generally, the publications I have worked on have a pretty good renewal rate, so I believe we are doing something right.
Does the journalism produced by the staff change in any way?
Long term, it is going to change. I think we need to do more business of law coverage. I think there will be more trends and analysis of litigation. We need to look at court stats. I am a big believe in looking in court filings. I think there is a lot of value in covering oral arguments. You can’t always predict how a court will rule from oral arguments, but they do give you an indication. I think you’ll see higher volume and more efficiencies. I think you’ll see more coverage of trends in verdicts. Sometimes you can see things by looking at those. We want to cover patterns, trends and anomalies.
You’ll see more in depth. In other markets, coverage of mid-sized firms, there’s a lot of hunger for that coverage. Even as small as 20 to 30 lawyers. That is something that the staff is going to focus on.
After the first week, what tweaking needs to be done?
I think we need to talk a little about pacing, producing stuff at what pace. We need to get together and plan a little more. We need to start planning out the enterprise pieces more. I need to follow up with them and talking about the things I know they are interested in, the things that they talked about. That is the kind of tweaking we need to do.
