There's always tomorrow in this business
I got an e-mail from one of my pen pals about the play of this story on Tuesday's front page.
"I was astonished to discover yesterday's front-page story about the machines at UNCG that dispense video games and movies. Surely front-page stories should have some news value?"
He went on to speculate that I must be secretly embarrassed about some of the stories we put on the front page.
It's an interesting side of newspapering that some people think we only publish those stories and photographs we enjoy or agree with. In fact, we do publish stories on the front page that I'm only vaguely interested in. But, fortunately for the readers, the newspaper isn't my personal playground. Editors consider what we think readers might be interested in or should know. Some days we're more successful in that than others. Some days we have better stories to choose from, too.
Was the UNCG story worth A1? It's an arguable point, and I'll cede that it could have run other places in the paper just as easily. Still, it was something a little off the beaten path for our readers, particularly those who haven't been on a college campus since the 20th century. Maybe they learned something about a part of the city and a large population -- students -- they had forgotten existed.
The front page is occasionally a moving target. What runs there depends what's happening in town and in the world, the photography we have and the mix of story topics available, among other things. We're trying to emphasize local more and more, and we're trying to find interesting articles that tell you something about the community you might not know. That occasionally upsets the traditional newspaper readers. Heck, it puts me outside my comfort zone some days, too.
But if we go off kilter, we welcome the feedback. Besides, we get to try it again in 24 hours.
