News-Record.com

MiniMediaGuy, a.k.a. Tom Abate, addresses a subject dear to my heart: Boringly written news stories.

The lesson of the last two decades has been that these institutions which house journalism have bored their audiences into ignoring the very issues that exercise the muscles of democracy.

We journalists may not be able to stem the flow of traditional advertisers from the newspaper. We may not be able to deliver the newspaper before 4:30 a.m. when some people -- heaven help them -- want it. We may not be able to master the MoJo's job of handling video, still, cell, ink, paper and driving. But we can do one thing.

We can stop writing news in boring ways. We know that people are as interested in news as they've ever been. The challenge is to write it so compellingly that people want to read our take. Going beyond the mundane and writing with flair takes both time and talent. When deadlines essentially occur every moment, reporters and editors face a choice of balancing two very basic instincts: getting the information out there as quickly as possible, and taking the time to report, think and write longer. The answer to that equation is what we, and every other newspaper, need to find. Unfortunately, we've made it harder by reducing the staff. Less time and less talent. We're trying to reduce time spent on work with a low return so we can invest more time on those stories that make a difference. And write them better.

And who knows, the current adversity may be just the shock journalists need to rediscover what drew their audiences in the first place -- the people who invented this craft a century ago delivered stuff that made people's eyes pop, not roll.

And there are other ways of grabbing the audience's attention.