Breaking with newspaper traditions. And not.
What do journalists value that readers don't?
I started thinking about that question as I discussed with another editor whether we should refer from a front page story to an editorial. (Refer -- pronounced reefer -- is journalistic jargon for a brief line of text telling readers about a related item elsewhere in the paper.)
In traditional news ethics, the separation of news and editorial is right up there with the separation of news and advertising. But I wonder how often that separation disregards what best serves the reader. Pointing readers to related content is not dissimilar to linking to other views from the same blog post. It is a convenience, not an endorsement.
But it's not something we traditionally do because of the separation between news and editorial.
What other newspaper traditions do we hold dear but which no longer -- if they ever did -- help the reader? Some of those walls between newspaper journalists and readers have fallen already. We have ads on the front pages of some sections. We publish ad stickers, covering the nameplate of the paper. Editors hate them -- I'm one -- but readers didn't object. (You could argue that those are walls that have fallen between news and advertising, too.)
It wasn't that long ago that we didn't publish news as soon as we knew about it even though we could, thanks to the wonders of online? Thank goodness, that wall has fallen.
What about long, explanatory, "important" stories? We know that all but the very best stories lose readers paragraph by paragraph, but it sure is tough to wean ourselves from them.
"We did that same story last year" is a common explanation for not doing a perfectly fine story. Think first day or last day of school. Allergy season is here. Mother's Day. Is our journalism so memorable that readers are going to recall a story a year later?
Advertising is anchored to the bottom right on the page and never anchored on the top. We have broken with this tradition on occasion.
What else? How else do we stymie those want to use us?
Comments (6)
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John, is it possible that the editorial writers may have indeed mis-understood and confused the meaning / pronunciation of the word "Refer" as you noted above? This would go a great deal of the way in explaining some of their compositions.
Posted on May 19, 2008 4:15 PM
The pronunciation predates the editorial writers we have now. But I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Here is the meaning of reefer. Are you asking about some kind of coat? :)
Posted on May 19, 2008 4:48 PM
Actually, we did reefer from news stories to editorials only a few years back, John. Don't you remember?
Posted on May 19, 2008 6:02 PM
John have you written your letter of congrats to future President Obama on his spectacular win in the NC primary. Oh, be sure to complement him on how pretty he talks, you remember, like you did with Skip.
Posted on May 20, 2008 10:17 AM
Now that you mention it, Allen, yes, you're right. Premature senility.
Posted on May 20, 2008 1:17 PM
Aren't Jeri Rowe and Lorraine Ahearn deviations from the news/ed wall of separation? Both do news--at least on occasion--but from an unapologetically "personal" point of view. And they're not on the editorial pages. Reporters? Columnists? Fish? Flesh?
Another potentially "broken" tradition having to do with news and advertising is the real estate section (an "advertising supplement" that looks like the "real paper"?). You explained it once, but I'm still unclear as to whether the print columns, interviews, and stories are straight news or something else.
Do the long, "important" stories even if it kills you. You've gotten enough positive feedback on the end of the Civil War story, e.g., to suggest that some people are reading them. Less is never more.
Posted on May 20, 2008 2:11 PM