New version of Toledo Talk

'Deconstructing the newspaper' - "What is the role of a newspaper in a community and in readers’ lives? Local news is what should matter most to a newspaper. And newspapers need to find new ways to gather more local news. If you reduce what you’re spending -- read: wasting -- then you can afford to spend more on the news that matters in your market, the news only you can provide, the one kind of news that makes you indispensible in any medium."

Interesting thoughts from Jeff Jarvis of the BuzzMachine.com. Read his lengthy posting for details.

Some excerpts:

"If [a newspaper] is still expected to be all things to all people in a nichey world, I’m afraid the business will not work. That’s why newspapers need to figure out their essence."

"At the end of this, I believe, the essence of a newspaper is local news with some other services and distractions. It is important for newspapers to boil themselves down to their essence and figure out how to do better at providing that unique and valuable service. That’s when you can start reconstructing what a newspaper — on paper or not — can be and should be today."

"But not all local news is worth the effort. I have long argued, without much company, that one of the greatest wastes of newspapering is editing for prize committees. Writing overlong, show-off series that are aimed at winning Pulitzers and lesser awards is often done for institutional ego over actual service. Tracking meth across the globe sounds cool on a prize application but I’ll bet you that most readers don’t give a damn. If, instead, you took those resources to get rid of a crooked mayor or reform property taxes, you’d be performing a far greater journalistic service. It may not get you awards, but it will get you readers."

"In an era of shrinking circulation, classified, and retail ad revenue — and in the face of shrinking audience and increasing competition — papers have to find new efficiencies and cut these expenses to concentrate instead on their real value (which is local reporting)."

"Newspapers have to have the guts to stop trying to produce one-size-fits-all products that serve every possible reader and interest in one edition."

"And newspapers have to take an even more frightening step: They need to start driving readers from print to online."


Trimming the fat in a newspaper ...

1. "Stock tables have to go."

2. "National business news is covered well in other publications, online, and on cable. Can a local paper really compete? I don’t think so."

3. "Local business news is, clearly, part of the franchise. But many markets now have local business weeklies."

4. "Personal finance is more of a national story than a local one."

5. "Critics are luxuries. Newspapers don’t all need their own movie, TV, and music critics. The movies are no different in Terre Haute than in New York. If you’re going to continue to employ critics, concentrate on the uniquely local, like local bands, to help serve a different audience."

6. "TV listings are a goner. They take up lots of newsprint and don’t work well as more channels are squeezed into a tighter space. Lots of people get their information from their TiVos, cable boxes, and online."

7. "Movie listings are tougher, for they can be comprehensive and they are convenient. Some papers are switching to paid listings only and that makes sense."

8. "Entertainment listings work best online if they are comprehensive and searchable."

9. "Most sports columnists are, according to sports-fan-friends of mine a waste of ink. Are you better off paying their salaries or syndicating the best?"

10. "National sports coverage is a luxury … for the guy doing the coverage. Do you really need to send your own guy to that golf tournament?"

11. "Sports agate will be the next to go online, after stock tables and TV listings. Sure, keep listing the details for local teams. But send users online for the national stats. Better yet, provide more comprehensive stats for local school teams online than you ever could in print. Change readers habits to expect the fine print online."

12. "Comics are a killer. Comics take up a lot of paper with no advertising; they strictly support circulation."

13. "Syndicated features like bridge and advice columns, similarly, get no ad revenue and have nothing to do with the local mission of a paper."

14. "Food, home, fashion, and travel coverage get low readership but high ad dollars."

15. "National and International news: News is news. But I’ll be that half the papers that maintain third-rate bureaus in Washington would do better running news from syndicates — AP, Reuters, Washington Post, NY Times, Knight-Tribune — and covering local pols with local news staffs."


I still like holding a newspaper in my hands. I sometimes read the online editions of a newspaper. We get the Fri, Sat, and Sun print editions of The Blade. I ignore news stories, op-eds, and columns that are not specific to our local area because I can read about national and international issues online.

I'm the same way with talk radio, TV news, and this website. Personally, I prefer the news and opinions on issues specific to our area. I have little interest in the local perspective on a national or international issue because the local opinions won't be any different than the opinions of those living in Boise, Santa Fe, or Raleigh. But I bet those other cities aren't discussing Westgate, Carty, Toledo Public Schools, Jeep, GM Powertrain, the Toledo sports arena, the Marina District, the MLK bridge, the new I-280 bridge, etc.

Not just local, hyperlocal.
posted by jr to media at 8:50 P.M. EST     (10 Comments)

Comments ...

I could actually do without paper papers. I could accept a PDF sent for downloading to a PDA or laptop, or even just web versions. I actually have started to prefer the Web format because I can quickly scan all of the stories and decide which stories I want to read.

I think newspapers need to change how they operate. The print should be the basic story, but they should operate online sites to add further details to a story. Imagine reporter notes, resources in researching the story, observations, etc... Newspapers need to go above and beyond reporting the news. They already do this; they can just put their procedures into process and take advantage of their inherent competitive advantage of professional journalists and rich resources.

Anyone now can get the news online, which is why newspapers are suffering. What do they offer that vanilla news sites don't offer? Right now, nothing. Embrace the future or be run over by it.
posted by chrismyers at 10:18 P.M. EST on Wed Jan 18, 2006     #

I agree....I can't remember the last time i read a national news story in The Blade or any other local paper. By the time it is printed I've already seen it for the millionth time whether it be cable news, online news, or radio.

The only reason I read the Blade is for the local stuff.
posted by HeyHey at 12:19 A.M. EST on Thu Jan 19, 2006     #

I read most of my news online but when I go to the laundromat I always read the City Paper, when I go to Barry Bagels I always grab a copy of the Free Press.

Once in a while I get a Sunday Blade, but we have to remember not everyone has access to the internet, especially high speed internet. While it may become an issue decades from now, I think the print media will still exist though there might be even less to select from.
posted by psyche777 at 09:31 P.M. EST on Thu Jan 19, 2006     #

Although the cough, cough BLAH comes to us every day, I hardly ever read it, execpt for an occasional aritcle someone has brought to my attention.

I access it for local political stories online rarely.

I'm more comfortable reading the local weeklies, with local editors, and a more "mostly local"
flavor.
posted by Hooda_Thunkit at 10:26 P.M. EST on Thu Jan 19, 2006     #

For those with Internet access, the Blade provides RSS feeds of their stories. It makes reading the on-line version quicker for those with dialup access. I installed the NewsFox RSS plugin for the Firefox browser.
posted by jr at 12:50 P.M. EST on Fri Jan 20, 2006     #

Thank you for the excerpts. I think they are right on. I think newspapers do need to "rethink" their "essence" and try to find different ways to sustain.

A close look at lacal news would be a grand start. Good to hear Barry's Bagels is frequented my some in here, I like that place.

J
posted by jdmsbyrd at 01:38 P.M. EST on Fri Jan 20, 2006     #

I don't know what the point was of Roberta de Boer's Sunday column. Doesn't matter. I did notice this from her column:

"Now, I'm not saying Google is a national measuring stick, but it's interesting that a search for "Republican, GOP + God" yielded 3,490,000 hits, while a search for "Democrat, Democrats + God" delivered just 485 hits."

What's interesting is Roberta's search results numbers.

Now, I'll admit that my search skills are not on par with Roberta's. I don't make use of the plus sign and comma when searching. But I'm confused about her searches, and maybe someone else can straighten me out.

If I use Roberta's exact wording in a Google search, minus the double quotes, I get:

Republican, GOP + God = 3,670,000

Okay, that's similar to Roberta's search results. But for the next one:

Democrat, Democrats + God = 12,700,000

Over three times as many as the first search and quite a difference from 485, which is what Roberta got.


The following searches return:

God Republican OR GOP = 18,300,000

God Democrat OR Democrats = 16,500,000

The above searches translate into:
God AND (Republican OR GOP)
God AND (Democrat OR Democrats)

Was Roberta searching for web pages that contain a mention of God AND a mention of either Republican OR GOP? You'd think that coming up with only 485 hits would be a red flag that maybe something isn't right with the search criteria.

A Google search on:

God Democrats = 13,000,000


The following searches at news.google.com return:

God Republican OR GOP = 2,560

God Democrat OR Democrats = 3,200


I don't know the relevance of Roberta's Google search exercise, but 485 hits?
posted by jr at 10:19 A.M. EST on Mon Jan 23, 2006     #

Story from CyberJournalist.net:

"Online pioneer Rob Curley -- who earned widespread praise and many awards while running the Lawrence Journal-World's Web site -- is at it again, making his first big splash at his new paper with a redesign."

"Curley's site, NaplesNews.com (of The Naples Daily News), launched a new design earlier this month that has lots of classic Curley traits, including a large feature lead story image on the home page, SMS alerts for entertainment listings, stories you can read on your iPod and a section called "dot.cool" "

Some of the features available for users at NableNews.com:

* Read stories on iPods: Every story on our site has a link so that it can be downloaded to your iPod so that it can be read at a later time, like say your flight from Fort Myers to Chicago.

* Podcasts: We're not a radio station, but we play one online. Now you can listen to the Daily News on your drive to work.

* We: This new section of our site puts you in control. Your photos. Your stories. Your videos.

* Blogs

* Restaurant guide

* Enhanced movie listings

* Calendar

* Mobile phone/SMS alerts

* Video and other multimedia

* Ads from the print edition
posted by jr at 12:22 P.M. EST on Thu Jan 26, 2006     #

This comment isn't about a newspaper, but it's about media.

A good Blade article about locally-published Clamor Magazine and the independent publishing biz.
posted by jr at 09:56 P.M. EST on Mon Feb 27, 2006     #

61% get local news from newspapers"

"A survey by the market research business Outsell Inc., which echoes other recent studies, determined that 61 percent of consumers look to their newspapers as an essential source for local news, events and sports, followed by television (58 percent) and radio (35 percent). About 6 percent turn to the major Internet search engines for local news and information."

"The survey of 2,800 consumers' news habits found that television is consumers' top choice for national news. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they rely on network, cable and satellite TV as primary or secondary sources of national news. Thirty-three percent choose their local newspapers first or second for coverage of national events, followed by 28 percent who access sites such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL News. Eleven percent of consumers are relying regularly on their daily newspapers' Web sites, the survey said."

"Consumers, the study found, "prefer the Web as the best route to news and information about health, personal finance and travel." "

"In a recent Harris Interactive poll of 2,985 U.S. adults, 75 percent of those surveyed said they watch local broadcast news and 71 percent said they watch network news. The Harris poll also found that 64 percent of people get their news by going online and that 54 percent listen to radio news broadcasts, 37 percent listen to talk radio and 19 percent listen to satellite news programming."

"A third poll found that as the pace of modernization has accelerated worldwide, so has computer use and access to the Internet. The Pew Global Attitudes survey found substantially more people using computers and going online than in 2002. And the poll found that although Internet users in 2002 were predominantly younger people, the growth rate for adults older than 50 has outpaced that for young adults in the United States and Western Europe."



A Baltimore Sun columnist compares her readers' reaction to a column on abortion versus a column about her hometown of Pittsburgh.

"On Super Bowl Sunday, I wrote what I thought was a sweet, sweet Valentine to my hometown, Pittsburgh, which happened to have a football team in the big game that day. And, recently, I wrote a column about abortion in which I welcomed a revisiting of Roe v. Wade, not because I oppose abortion, but because I thought it might force this country to come to honest terms with alternatives."

"The column on abortion generated only two e-mails, both thoughtful, responsive and positive. The column on Pittsburgh, however, made me afraid to turn the ignition key in my car. There were perhaps 50 e-mails waiting for me, and most of them advised me, in the most unpleasant terms, to go back where I came from."

"The problem? Pittsburgh is in the same football division with Baltimore's Ravens, and readers expected me to have switched allegiances when I switched my driver's license."

"Maybe we are a country of shallow, hollow citizens who don't deserve the earnest debate on important issues that goes on around us. Perhaps the press and our elected officials have no good sense of what people care about, and there should be a lot less talk about, say, gay marriage, and a lot more coverage of mayors betting each other cases of oranges and cases of crabs on the big game."



News College - A collection of simple, useful and practical journalism tips
posted by jr at 02:10 P.M. EST on Tue Feb 28, 2006     #

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