Mommy Dearest. At Least, That's What The Dallas Morning News is Banking On.

By Robert Wilonsky Wed., Mar. 14 2007 at 10:40 AM

Categories: Media

This is what The Dallas Morning News is cooking up for new mommies. Daddies, you already have this.

There's nothing less interesting to newspaper readers than newspaper writers and newspaper editors wringing their sweaty hands over the future of the newspaper business. But here's something in which you might have a small interest: the future of The Dallas Morning News, specifically a venture into which it has poured way, way more than $80,000 developing: GuideFamily.com. Now, don't try to visit it just yet; it's not live yet and won't be till the end of the year, should it even stick to the wall in the first place.

And what is it? Well, in short, it's Belo Corp.'s way of luring in the "more than 700,000 mothers in the Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW) area [who] are online each month." That comes from a report released by Newspaper Next, a sorta think tank assembled by the American Press Institute to discover ways the newspaper business can save itself from extinction.

The News' project can be found on page 72 of the document, where it lays out how the paper will create the new site and just what it will feature: "options for 1) summer camps, 2) kids' lessons and activities, 3) family activities, 4) family-friendly restaurants and 5) birthday parties...mom-tested recommendations and ratings similar to Amazon.com, 'Guide' branding and depth of content and recommendations from The Dallas Morning News trusted staff."

The paper's been working on the project for more than a year. Indeed, we mentioned it way, way back when API first announced The Dallas Morning News was getting some of the $2.25 million slush fund API was using to pay for several newspapers' execs to find the "new" in "newspaper." Us, we're assembling something similiar, though it consists mostly of pornography, cigarettes and expensive bourbon -- in other words, for new daddies? --Robert Wilonsky

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