News-Record.com

That's customer service.

I have explained to readers how to use Google, Wikipedia and, in one bizarre case where I was just glad he was in his 70s and interested, Bloglines.

But Teresa has me beat with that one.

I get a couple of those every day.

Until you folks can figure out how to generate revenue from such calls, I'm afraid you haven't really put much distance between the newspaper and irrelevance.

I used to call the public library's reference desk with those questions. The last time I called, I needed contact info for a legislator down east and it took a long time to figure out where she'd find something that "new."

I remember suggesting she might have the NC Legislature's page bookmarked (I wasn't near a computer at the time) and then I had to explain what a bookmark was (and then, what the "big blue e" was for) and I thanked her and hung up. Like I said, it was a long time ago (our library is very I-forward today).

Keep the library's reference desk # close to the phone unless Teresa can also sell the caller a subscription.

Spoken like an economist, Andy. Let me just say that money isn't everything. We journalists think it's pretty important to have a place in people's lives. If they want to call us to settle a bar bet or answer a trivia question, that's fine by us.

I had a guy call the newsroom one night, who said he had a 'right purty pitcher.' He wanted to know if it was worth anything. I asked him what the picture looked like and he said it had flowers in it and was painted by a guy named Reener. I asked him to spell it for me.

R-E-N-O-I-R, the guy said. I told him that I thought he had a poster by Reener, that it was probably a reproduction and that it was probably best that he keep it to brighten up his living room...

John, of course there's more to life than money. But money is what pays your bills. So sure, if you want to wax philosophical about mattering to people (more specifically, to people who are too dumb or lazy to look things up for themselves), well, I think that's great. And there's no sarcasm there--I really do think that's great.

But you know full well that the feel-good stuff isn't what people are referring to when they worry that newspapers are becoming irrelevant. The threat of irrelevance that hangs over the head of every newspaper in this country is one of dwindling revenue streams. How do we make money from web ads? How do we avoid laying off reporters? How do we generate the rates of return that investors have come to expect of newspapers? These tough questions are at the core of newspapers' relevance, and you can't dismiss them simply because they're being raised by an economist.

But perhaps I'm missing the point. Perhaps this isn't about relevance per se. It's about wanting to feel good about running a newspaper at a time when the newspaper business is a jungle (as it always has been). And again I say, I think that's great.

Sorry, Andy. I wasn't intending to be dismissive of your point. That was just a gentle, friendly nudge.

The newspaper does a lot of things that don't directly contribute to it making money. Helping people with trivia questions is one. (For all we know that caller may have been a customer.) Corporate contributions to United Way, the Civil Rights Museum, Kids Voting, etc., bring us no direct revenue. Membership on community boards and in civic groups don't either.

But they remain important for the newspaper as a business.

Actually, I submit the relevance of the paper is about readership, first, and revenue, second. If you have strong, loyal readership, the revenue will come. Part of the reason people read is based on trust and authority. The problem is that more people are finding other ways to get what they need. (Perhaps that is one reason why the caller didn't know Canada is a country.) The more people who rely on us to provide them with information -- whether it is on paper, digital or over the telephone -- the better. Does it ultimately translate into revenue? Yes. Or, well, in the 20th century economy it did. Now, it's not so clear.

But it does seem to me that if people are calling you for answers to their questions, that's a good thing and suggests relevance, even if it doesn't directly bring in revenue. If nothing else, it's good customer service.

See, I read the headline to this post, read the post, and had a chuckle. I didn't assume John was making a serious argument that trivia questions would save the industry, but rather relating a funny anecdote and making a joke about the current mood at most papers.

Didn't take it very seriously. Guess I still have a lot to learn about blogging.

No, you don't, Chris.