What's local news?
I was filling my coffee with cream and sugar at Chick-Fil-A downtown one day last week when I noticed a man hovering behind me. I moved to the side and apologized for blocking his way. He said, "Take your time. The way you're dressed, it's clear you're a working man. I'm retired. I have all the time in the world."
He asked where I worked. I told him.
"That's such a terrible paper," he said. I've long gotten used to the freedom some people feel when talking about the newspaper. I chalk it up to what Ed describes so articulately in his column this morning: people just don't know how to act in public any more. (In a perverse way, I appreciate those sorts of comments because they suggest a passionate response to the paper, even if it's a negative one.) I asked him what he didn't like.
"There's nothing local in it anymore," he said. "It is filled with wire stories from someplace else."
This surprised me because the newspaper was filled with local news last week. Most days A1 was entirely local or had only one wire story on it. He couldn't be immediately specific about what he meant by local news, but he didn't back off his assertion, either. My guess is that he could have identified other characteristics of the paper we could improve, but I had to be elsewhere so I didn't get a chance to sit down with him.
The conversation reminded me of the complexity of our objective to increase and improve our local news content. With the world the way it is, most everything and everywhere is local. Depending upon your interests, local coverage is the break-in at the house two doors down and it is what is going on in Baghdad because your co-worker's son is fighting there somewhere. (That's why we added Baghdad to our listing of weather conditions in the weather package three years ago.) And local changes every day. While my children are in public school, I'll be intensely interested in local education. When they leave home for college -- they leave, right? -- my gaze will shift to their college towns.
I'm in the process this weekend of going through the surveys about the newspaper that a couple hundred readers clipped and sent in. One of the initial results is that most of those who responded rated "local news" is the most important component of the paper. Hooray! But some of those same folks also said they didn't care about news about local government, education or crime. Hmmm, it's a riddle we're trying to solve.
We're placing our bet on moving away from the institutional coverage and building a paper that's more consequential to your lives, that is filled with stories and photos that resonate with you, either because they make you feel smarter or make you angry or make you feel better. Today's paper has some good examples. We aren't where we want to be yet, but we're trying to get there.
(Want more? Read this post by Tim Porter.)
Comments (4)
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Mr. Porter hit the nail on the head when he wrote of "a (newspaper) beat structure . . . that is institutionally oriented, one designed to cover news from the point of view of the government instead of the point of view of the governed."
So many local newspapers tell us what to think . . . and so much of that is about the "local" power structure or bottom line . . . about "economic development" . . . or the "recitation" of someone's political agenda/"strategy".
Nobody is really telling us a story anymore - or putting out ideas - or challenging the status quo - and letting the reader decide. It's all about shock-jocking, talking heads and spin. Of course, Fox News is pretty successful.
Mr. Porter went on to say that "officials and bureacrats and cops and criminals are not our only audience - the public, the victims, the ordinary people are the audience." You wouldn't know it by what's flown under the "public service" radar for so long . . . piloted by the Jack Abramoffs and Jim Blacks of this world and their ilk . . . and only now getting some real press attention . . . stories NOT broken by the newspapers, but offered in the press releases of prosecutors (more often that not with political agendas) making deals.
The question is, how long will the "outrage" last? And, if the newspapers really care about us "ordinary folks, don't the newspapers have a responsibility to fuel that fire? So many times, the scandal of the day gets one or two day's print and then it disappears.
"The governed", I think, are numbed these days by information overload - one scandal or horror after another, day after day. And attention spans are shortening by the nanosecond. After all, we don't really have to think. Someone will do it for us.
And then there's the fact that (as you said) "everyone lies". So what? Who cares (except as a neat new blog scheme to garner traffic)?
Posted on January 16, 2006 3:03 PM
I've definitely noticed the increase in local news in the A section. However, the Life section (is that D?) is still lacking! There are too many wire stories that just don't apply. For example, last week there was a random wire story about the dwindling number of surfboard manufacturers that had orginally been published in the Orange County Register. While the impending lack of surfboards I'm sure is a big issue in South Orange County (California, that is) , it's not a big issue in North Orange County, much less central North Carolina (Wilmington, maybe).
Also, it would be great if the food section on Wednesdays was more about the local food scene, rather than stuff off the wire. "Mel's Kitchen" is a welcome addition, as are local articles like the one on the Tex and Shirley's owner and the local chef profiles. But it seems that often there will be an wire article about a subject that's either not relevant or that is relevant but doesn't do any reporting on what's happening locally with respect to that subject.
Gee, I've kept this bottled up for awhile! Thanks for giving me a chance to put in my 2 cents. :-)
Thanks- Anne
Posted on January 16, 2006 4:36 PM
Thanks for visiting and keep watching, Anne. The Life section is a little different from the news sections because there are so many features out there that are just plain interesting and can still apply to local readers. The food section is an excellent example...food being food, generally speaking.
But the Life section is getting more local and will continue so.
Posted on January 16, 2006 5:53 PM
I agree with Anne that I'd like to see more local info in the Life section, particularly on Saturday. There are some interesting wire stories about home trends, and a companion story with a local connection would be great.
I would also like to see more local news in the High Point edition. There have been days recently without a single High Point story in the High Point section. And a recent story on the front page of the High Point section had a headline that indicated that the murder rate increased last year, particularly for children. But the headline referred to Greensboro, not High Point.
Posted on January 17, 2006 12:12 PM