Mediaboss Marketing

Originally published May 28, 2012 at 12:42 PM | Page modified May 28, 2012 at 12:55 PM

One question people want to ask the journalist-turned-Web-entrepreneur Larry Kramer is: Why would he take a job as publisher and president of the troubled USA Today?

He doesn't need money or success; the founder of MarketWatch sold that thriving financial website in 2005 for more than half a billion dollars (his share: about $20 million). He has won journalism prizes, run two local newspapers and served as a senior editor at The Washington Post.

He's comfortable, too, with posts on corporate boards and homes in tony Tiburon, Calif., and Manhattan's Upper West Side (although he's going to sell the one in Tiburon and buy something in Northern Virginia). And his wife, Myla, is dabbling in New York show business, sinking money and time into shows such as "End of the Rainbow," "Hair," and "Priscilla Queen of the Desert."

The answer, Kramer says, is he wanted to get back into the fray of digital journalism. "Being a board member and consultant is wonderful, but the one frustration about it is when you really want to get something done," he said in an interview. "You can give all the advice you want, but you can't say, 'Give me two weeks, and I'll get it done for you.' "

There's plenty to get done at USA Today, which announced Kramer's appointment last week. The national newspaper of Gannett, a chain of 82 U.S. dailies, "has been struggling mightily," says Doug Arthur, a media analyst at Evercore.

While it is a strong brand, Arthur says, "it needs a lot of work." Advertising has suffered during the recession, he adds. Although USA Today won a measure of respectability and is no longer ridiculed as the McPaper, or junk food of journalism, the paper has grown thin.

But in an industry enveloped by the gloom of dwindling circulation and sinking ad sales, the genial Kramer sees opportunity.

"This is like a Gutenberg moment," he said. "We're reinventing storytelling on a digital platform. Suddenly, we can use every form of storytelling in one place pictures, graphics, words. If we need an interactive map, show me the map. If it's a plane crash, show me the video. We see a new art form that's going to be a much more dominant form of storytelling. That's the exciting part for me."

Kramer says USA Today needs to distinguish itself. "We don't just need to have a voice," he says. "We need to be an orchestra of voices."

See the article here:
In Person: Kramer will take USA Today into digital tomorrow