The day after
I met in one form or another all day with reporters and editors. Some are angry. Some are sad. Most are some of both. Many understand the logic behind the action. Most are processing it and dealing with the emotions as best they can. Me, too.
And they're getting the paper out and filling up the Web site. Pros.
Next week, we'll begin reinventing the paper. I respect the people who left here yesterday too much to suggest that things will be the same. We'll focus on what we can do well and what our audience values, and drop the rest. That reinvention will center on:
* Public service journalism, including enterprise, investigative and community.
* Being audience-centric, not format-centric. A faster movement into online and mobile.
* Innovation and experimentation. We can create better cool, useful stuff.
I've neglected this site and the blogosphere because today the people in the newsroom are more important. Sorry about that, folks. I know you've been hungry for more red meat.
Comments (6)
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Tastes like chicken. Take it from someone who signs her name, it has for a long while now.
I am sorry for those caught in the crossfire.
In reading the writing on the wall, is the newspaper for sale?
Posted on June 8, 2007 9:00 PM
My heart goes out to all of you at the N&R, John, and especially the 41 who are no longer there. It may not be much comfort, but most of us who love journalism will miss them all, each and every one.
But I have to comment on "reinventing" the paper: Please don't.
Get back to basics, John. News. Hard news. Investigative stuff. Solid analysis. Balance that's more than he-said, she-said. National and international. Statewide. Local.
"Cool, useful stuff" is fine, in its place. But it should never, ever replace news.
"Audience-centric" is fine too, as long as that doesn't mean going for the lowest common denominator, which is, I'm afraid, exactly where the N&R has been focused for most of the last decade.
I'm probably considered a news dinosaur in this age of pod-casts & other techno-journalism, but if you want to preserve the paper edition you need to remember that that audience really is the hard core that wants you to succeed. We want the whole visceral news experience when we plunk the paper down beside our coffee cups--the smell, the feel, the oh-my-gosh feeling when we find a great piece of reporting, stunning photography, and well-edited copy.
We want a NEWSpaper, John. Not an entertainment rag, not a police blotter, not a mouthpiece for the corporation that further screws its former employees by running its announcement of the layoffs as a news release without comment from anyone affected by it.
Take care,
Liz
Posted on June 9, 2007 8:04 AM
I'm not a subscriber because I'm here in Chapel Hill, but I share Liz Wheaton's point of view precisely.
Excellence is the name of the game.
I know this will sound outrageous, but when I give business advice to companies (which I do every day), I invariably say this: Find a way to charge more.
In your case, the ability to "charge more" to both advertisers and readers requires better, tighter content being delivered to a highly desirable and loyal audience.
PS Thank you for getting rid of "b*sh" as the secret code. I had decided to stop posting here if I had to type his name every time.
Posted on June 9, 2007 8:30 AM
No, Mary.
Fair enough, Liz. But it will be more and more local. And entertainment rag? Police blotter? As for the news story, we played that story about us more prominently and with more length than we do other companies that layoff fewer than 50 employees.
Posted on June 9, 2007 10:37 AM
My apologies, John. I did not mean to imply that the N&R was either an entertainment rag or a police blotter, but it is distressing to see more and more fluff & gore taking the place of hard-hitting news throughout the media these days.
As for the yesterday's "news story," it was a press release, John. I can't remember the N&R (or any other paper worth its ink) running corporate PR about layoffs without interviewing at least a few of the people who were affected. Not even a comment from you!
I can't begin to imagine how hard this is for you all. And I hope what I've said doesn't come across as kicking you when you are down. My comments are based on sincere concern and deep sadness.
Posted on June 9, 2007 12:01 PM
I've dropped N&R a long time ago (5-6 years.) Time was, that I could not have breakfast without it! But when I saw the direction it took (towards tabloidism,) the decision to drop it was easy. The hardcopy edition, instead of carving out a niche for itself, decided that it would try to compete with the Internet. That could not be done! If, instead, it took the direction of more investigative, in depth reporting it could have carved that niche. Granted, that would give it smaller circulation but it would also be a higher-income circulation raising its ad revenues while it also raised the quality of the paper.
I now get my news from multiple sources on the internet, several times a day while I read hardcopy Rhino & Yes (adjusting my own conclusions for the biases of each)for in-depth investigative reporting in Guilford County.
Drive for quantity at the expense of quality is always a downward spiral: There will be more bad news to come at N&R.
Posted on June 11, 2007 11:07 AM