Can you hear me now?
I'm tempted to make a dramatic change in the newspaper every six months or so just to provoke readers to call and talk with us. One pleasant offshoot of our redesign is that people have spoken loudly and clearly to us about what they want from the paper. Zounds!
I've heard about crossword puzzles and the bridge column. I've heard of columnists to add and to drop. Readers have called with story tips and story comments. While some of the feedback has been painful, it's been fruitful. Best of all, much of it has had nothing to do with the changes in the paper. People are telling us things they've wanted to tell us for a while; the redesign just inspired them. That, plus our front-page requests that they call. Hello? McFly? You learning anything from that?
We think we bend over backward to listen to readers. Our phone numbers and e-mail are all over the paper. I invite readers to call or write with nearly every column. Seems like half the staff contributes to blogs. Editors here accept every speaking engagement they can.
Yet I'm hearing suggestions and comments from people who've never called the paper before. Unfortunately, we had to make some of them mad, first. The others seemed to sense that we were changing things and they wanted to take advantage of the moment to pass on an idea. Love the ideas, but in a way, this all troubles me. I want to hear from readers more routinely and not just when we've made a dramatic change. We're going to be working on ways to make that happen. Would love to hear suggestions.
Comments (2)
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My first paying job was delivering newspapers for the Charlotte Observer when I was thirteen. I thought when the paper increased in price from a quarter to 4 bits for the Sunday edition that my sales would go down but I actually sold more than twice the number of papers.
I asked some customers why they bought one when they never had before and they said "Must be special and will be valuable one day."
I don't know about that but i liked what it did for my spending money. Yea, sometimes change is good.
Posted on April 23, 2006 10:53 PM
JR just said "Hello? McFly?"
That made me squirt coffee out of my nose.
Posted on April 24, 2006 10:15 AM