News-Record.com

Idle thoughts on a busy news day.

If the newspaper is gone, does this story get reported? I don't mean the actual news conference, but the run up that lays out piece by piece what is taking place behind the scenes. Does this one about development in the path of the highway? Or this one about financial problems at Greensboro College? Or these about the closed door politicking at the county courthouse? Or this about the sweet salary arrangement for the chancellor at A&T after he's no longer chancellor?

I know those questions sound self-justifying, and perhaps they are a bit. Neither this newspaper nor this Web site are going away so the questions are rhetorical here. But they aren't for other communities where newspapers aren't so healthy.

This kind of journalism isn't the sole province of newspapers. That's a given. Anyone can do it as some in the blogosphere here have shown us. But while it is fulfilling and exciting, it can also be expensive, time-consuming and thankless.

Perhaps if newspapers die in those places, local television will pick up the journalistic slack, but I doubt it. The current wisdom that thousands of journalistic flowers will bloom to take their place makes sense to me. How is it funded? How will the journalism resonate to the wider community? Is it enough to believe that "if the news is that important, it will find me?"

Smart people are trying to answer these questions, and I have faith they will. There is a market and a civic need for this type of journalism, now matter who does it or how it grabs your attention. Meanwhile, we'll keep after these stories and others, posting them as soon as we know them online and in the paper.

The News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer have announced that they are merging their features sections. They have already merged their political coverage and sports coverage.

Each staff could take the lead in planning and executing certain coverage areas or certain days of the week (or certain sections). We will explore the possibility of sharing copy editing and designing. When it comes to reporting, we will seek to expand our reach by avoiding duplication. We want to preserve as much local content as possible. But some stories, if reported in a certain way, could be effective in each paper.

In this environment, it makes sense. Covering the two largest metro areas in North Carolina, the papers' readers share many of the same political interests. I'm sure their readers share some of the same sports interests, particularly when it comes to the ACC. I'm less sure of the features arrangement. The Charlotte reader could be interested in a Raleigh feature story, although I don't know that the Raleigh story would be any more compelling than, say, a New York Times story.

Andy Bechtel, a UNC journalism prof and N&O reader, refers to an ailment he calls Charlotte Creep. But it's ironic that in the era of "hyper-local news" that North Carolina's two largest newspapers seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Careful editing -- from story selection to word choice -- will be essential to ensure that each paper maintains its identity.

Ted Vaden discusses issues, too, back when he was the N&O's public editor.

That said I understand the efforts to cut expenses while sharing like-minded resources. As a sometime reader of both, I think their political and sports sharing arrangement has paid dividends to their combined readership, for the most part.

Charles Womack, publisher of Yes! Weekly, sent me and, I presume, reps of other media outlets an e-mail about missing copies of the tab.

John, we have just discovered that so far nearly 400 YES! Weekly racks have been emptied of all their new issues (9,000+/- copies) between 11pm Wed and 8am thurs. All of downtown, except for one of two were emptied and all of High Point Road. We are in the process of back tracking delivery in other areas as I write this. Someone obviously doesn't want people to read this week's issue. A police report is being filed, surveillance tapes are being requested, and media is being alerted.

First, I didn't do it.

Second, if an item is free, is it a crime to take as many as you want? (The question is only half serious. I know that newspaper theft is fully a serious matter, as is suppression of the ideas and information in the paper.)

I almost forgot it was National Buy a Newspaper Day today. I almost forgot because it is National Buy a Newspaper Day every day in my world, but I know that's not the case with many people. Which is fair enough.

I appreciate the sentiment and know that many people -- I'm one of them -- prefer to read newsprint in the morning. Others get their news digitally. I'm one of those, too, because I'm online much of the day, like the convenience of it, have a variety of updating services, and enjoy the interactivity. (I said UPdating, not dating.)

A day for buying a newspaper? OK. But the emphasis should be on "news" and not "paper."

But, while we're talking about it, what the heck...buy a newspaper. There's a lot in there!

With the recent buyouts, I've been asked more often than I like why I didn't apply. After all, the severance package was generous.

The easy answer is also the true answer: I love what we do. If you believe, as I do, that the purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing then no other job will do. The ability, the responsibility to pursue the truth as part of informing and nourishing a democratic society is a powerful motivator.

Of course, I could do this kind of journalism lots of places. After all, this isn't about newspapers; it's about independent-minded journalism. So, the answer to why I stay is more complicated. There are two other reasons: I love the people I work with, and I embrace the challenges facing the industry.

Journalism attracts such a variety of free spirits, creators, social misfits, intellectually curious idea people and risk takers that it is impossible to be bored. It's a stimulating environment that is never the same from moment to moment. The experience of leading and watching reporters chase a good news story, photographers frame a compelling photo, and designers and copy editors make a page come alive is just plain fun.

It is hard to imagine any group of people with more passion for what they do and less concern for the pay or the hours they work. When the entire staff is dedicated to telling the community's story, warts and all, it is easy to look forward to going to work.

Oh, I have bad days. The problems of the news industry are well chronicled. The challenges are daunting as the traditional business model crumbles. It isn't fun to say goodbye to colleagues with whom I have shared the trenches. Sometimes I think that it must have been fun to be an editor when newspapers were the only game in town and all you had to do to make a lot of money was to open the doors for business. But I suspect it wasn't fun so much as it was just easy.

The world has flipped that on its head. Riding the wave of cultural, technological and financial sea change isn't easy, but it is certainly fun. It is a wonderful time to be in journalism. With all the tools available, a journalist can do more now and reach more people than he ever could. The challenge now is to take full advantage of that.

How can we use crowdsourcing? Social networks? How, in this time of downsizing, can we expand our Web sites, our mobile offerings, our niche publications and maintain a robust and vital newspaper? How can we devote the time to tough-minded investigative and activist journalism? How can we help our community by nurturing citizen journalism efforts and local journalism start-ups? What should we be doing with video and audio, which aren't yet running through our veins the way ink does?

What is ahead? My friends at the Carnival of Journalism make some predictions for 2009. Working to figure out the answers to these questions is why I stay. If there is a journalism laboratory where innovations are tested, pursued or set aside, why shouldn't it be this newsroom? Yes, there will be setbacks and frustrations. What business doesn't have that? But there are a lot of good people around to help, to question, to innovate, to push and to succeed.

As Tony Kushner said, "The world only spins forward."

That's why I stay. I can't imagine doing anything else nearly as fun and fulfilling.

Like newspapers all over the country, we have essentially sold out of the paper today. We believe that there are some papers still in racks and at stores, but my guess is that there won't be for long. I can't remember that happening before.

Plans in the work to print more!

And you can go to eBay.

Update: Best line I've heard so far. Put the newspaper away for your grandchildren. When you pull it out, you can show them what a newspaper was.

Thursday update: Reprints available this morning. There was a crowd of people in the lobby of our building buying multiple copies.

Tomorrow, Lorraine Ahearn reports on the whereabouts of Mark Hoffmann, the homeless man who hung out on a bench near Friendly Center before he suddenly disappeared in May. The response we got from people who had seen Hoffmann over the years on that bench or walking the bike trail along Bryan Boulevard was overwhelming. I think he has more friends than I do.

It gets better. A Pennsylvania woman, who hadn't seen her father since 1989 and had lost track of him, saw the column and connected the dots. Hoffmann is her father.

Now a News & Record reader visiting Maryland recognizes Hoffmann in church. Some calls are made. His daughter drives to meet him. Lorraine tells the story better so I won't steal any more thunder.

I'm only doing it now because there's a little debate out there about whether newspapers should build community. Over at Newspaper Death Watch, the post is titled "The Fallacy of 'Community.'" Steve Yelvington calls BS. I'm with Steve.

I don't know if Lorraine's tracking of Hoffmann from disconnection to reconnection is building community, but it feels like it to me.

The layoffs at the McClatchy papers has caused some reorganization -- yes, synergy, between Raleigh and Charlotte -- that makes sense. In fact, some of us have being waiting for it since McClatchy bought the Charlotte Observer. By combining the political and sports coverage, they've made both papers better.

Andy Bechtel has a fine roundup.

Both papers have strong reporters covering state government and politics in Raleigh. Why duplicate efforts? Do I think less of the N&O when I read a Jack Betts article in it? Heck, I wish we had Jack, who used to work for us back in the day.Today's N&O has a piece on the Bobcats and the NBA draft written by an Observer reporter. I didn't even notice who wrote it until I went back to look.

The tradition is that my reporters can do better than your reporter when covering the same event. That's why we 1,000 reporters staff the Super Bowl. But the fact is that that is true in limited cases. Some traditions must die for other, smarter things to grow. When the two papers decide they are partners rather than competitors -- at least in these two areas -- both papers will be stronger for it.

Inserted in The Charlotte Observer bought here:

It is with great sadness that we must end the delivery of The Charlotte Observer in your community, beginning June 22, 2008. For a number of years, we have supplemented the cost of delivery in your community, and we cannot continue to do so.

Personally, I've been surprised they've come this far north for this long. Many newspapers -- us included -- have purposely eliminated circulation far from its primary base because of the cost and because local advertisers don't want to pay for the circulation miles away from their stores.

Some people have responded to our elimination of the weekly TV book by describing it as the arrogant act of a monopoly.

The local daily newspaper is hardly a monopoly any longer and that is especially true in Guilford County. We are one of two daily newspapers located here, and one of four that are delivered to people's homes. (I am counting the High Point Enterprise, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.) For your TV listings, you could subscribe to TV Guide or use any number of Internet services.

Meanwhile, in addition to the dailies and the Internet, there are at least three weeklies and four television stations that carry local news.

We may be a lot of things, but monopoly isn't one.

Seth Godin reminds us that William Randolph Hearst built his newspaper empire by understanding that the goal of newspapers is to sell newspapers, not to report the news. That was 110 years ago, but still....

Godin adapts that idea to news Web sites. The product they sell is drama. He makes the point effectively using a screen grab from CNN and big fat green check marks.

I'm not going to disagree with him, either. We do sell drama. We know what happens when all we give the people is spinach. (Those that eat it become strong like Popeye -- OK, a little misshapen, too. Those who don't, well, you have Bluto.) We want to grab attention. We have a bias in favor of drama, which is a nicer way of saying we have a bias in favor of conflict.

I don't see anything wrong with it either. Looking at the CNN example, the headlines don't pander. They don't link to nude celebrity photos or crash diets. As Seth notes, they simply emphasize drama on the political front.

For comparison purposes, our Web front. It probably doesn't market enough.

Tish Grier at Poynter E-Media Tidbits wonders how much the National Do Not Call Registry has affected newspaper circulation sales. The short answer is a ton.

I don't have the figures, but we saw an immediate drop off back in '03 when we couldn't call people at home and peddle the paper. It was harder to reach people who subscribed for three months at a time, let it drop and waited for the expected call to re-up. (Yes, there were a lot of those.) We had created a habit, fed it and then stopped cold turkey.

We responded with a greater presence at kiosks and grocery stores and public gatherings, but the sales were costlier at a time when we weren't all that interested in costly things.

I wouldn't say that the Do Not Call Registry is the industry's major problem when dealing with circulation declines, but it shut down a good sales option at a time when we needed all the sales options we could get. Hmmm...maybe we could get a registry of e-mail addresses of non-subscribers and....nah.

Full disclosure: My phone number is on the registry...but, of course, I wasn't getting calls from the newspaper as I am a seven-day subscriber.

Contrary to the theory that newspaper circulation is down because of the Internet or the lack of time or the irrelevance of the content, I have a different theory: the decline of paperboys.

There was something about the teen-aged paperboy -- his innocence, his pluck, his salesmanship, his buyer's soft heart, I don't know -- that sold papers. Ask a circulation director and they'll tell you the same thing.

Most newspapers eliminated teenagers as paperboys years ago as delivery routes got larger and adults with cars could deliver the papers faster and more efficiently. Plus there was the sticky issue of safety: no one wanted to be responsible for a 14-year-old out walking around town at 4 a.m.

I was a paperboy when I was 14. It never occurred to me to be worried when I was out there, but I was a dumb kid. Now, I can't imagine what motorists passing me walking to the paper drop-site thought I was doing out. And I'd no more let a child of mine do it than I'd let him play on the interstate. But it was good money for a boy who couldn't get a worker's permit for another year and a half.

It may not be possible to bring them back. But maybe we should have the kids sell the paper and the adults deliver it?

Not a week goes by when someone doesn't accuse us of "trying to sell newspapers." As if that's a bad thing.

When we published a photograph on the Sports front of a security officer spraying mace into a crowd of fighting N.C. A&T and Central football players. When we wrote about a former private school teacher being charged with having sex with a student. When we publish a photo of a homeless African boy sniffing glue on World Poverty Day. When we publish virtually any story about Americans dying in the Middle East.

People refer to "selling newspapers" with disgust, as if we're not supposed to want people to buy our paper.

It is time to drive a stake through the heart of this cliche. It may have been relevant back in the day of Pulitzer and Hearst, but those days of yellow journalism are pretty much gone from traditional newspapers, having moved other places.

Single copy sales are driven by two things: What prospective buyers can see above the fold on the front page; and coverage of some event that they already know will be in the paper, such as a story about their favorite sports team. Oh, wait. Three things. When we cut the price of the single copy paper, people buy because they can't resist a bargain.

What sells and what doesn't?

* Disasters -- the geographically closer to the Triad the better -- sell papers. Government scandals don't.

* Sensational stories involving sex, murder and/or celebrities sells papers. Think Britney, Lohan, OJ, Phil Spector. Tough to play up as we don't have that many local celebrities doing scandalous things. Chris Daughtry is still here; Fantasia fled to Charlotte and Broadway.

* Intensely local community news -- read about someone you know --- sells papers. International news doesn't.

* Carolina winning sells papers. State and ECU winning doesn’t (here, at least). Don't shoot the messenger, all you ABC (Anybody But Carolina) fans. It is what it is.

* Advertising -- the Toys R Us Christmas catalogue! -- sells papers.

Actually, if we were just "trying to sell newspapers," we wouldn't write about the candidates for city council. We wouldn't write about the latest proposal to fund a new Eastern High School. We probably wouldn't write about the drought, unless it was to reveal the names and addresses of the water scofflaws. Most serious policy issues aren't big drivers of newspaper sales. We write them because they are important for the community to know about.

With the decline of mass media and the rise of individual media, "sensationalizing" the news has less and less effect in selling newspapers. People can go online for news of disasters, of celebrity scandal, and, to some extent, for intensely local news. Expect that to spread and deepen. Perhaps that contributes to the reputation that newspapers are boring: Too much government stuff, not enough sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

We want to sell newspapers by publishing unique stories and photos that matter and will help improve the community. Some days we're better at it than others, but the value of the information will always trump the sensational.

Personally, I want to sell newspapers. Giving readers information they can use is why I got into journalism. (Well, that and because it's fun.) Besides, people who buy the paper keep us in business.