Not so fast, there, buddy
My friend and former co-worker Giles Lambertson, currently associate editor of the Wilson Daily Times, apparently is laboring under a misimpression. In his Sunday N&R op-ed column (not online, unfortunately), he wrote:
The theory [driving newspapers', and particular the News & Record's, emphasis on local news] is that hometown people have less interest in the events occurring outside a newspaper’s circulation area than they do events closer to home.
I can't speak for the industry, but that's not the theory here at the N&R. The theory is that people have less interest in getting news of those events in their printed N&R because 1) we don't have any staff devoted to getting it and 2) by the time the paper lands on the doorstep every morning, much of that news, arriving as it does via our wire services, is 18 to 24 hours old. Put another way, they can get that news via the Internet from many of the same sources the N&R relies on, and more besides, and they can get it much sooner from the Internet than from us.
We have to use our resources as efficiently as possible to give readers what they need and want, and sometimes the cost of doing those things we must do, or that only we can do, is not to do things other outlets can do better and/or faster. If that means linking to a competitor sometimes, so be it. The point is to be the place where you can find stuff, not to be the place that provides it all. Nobody has that much money.
Comments (7)
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Sensible explaination, Lex. Lambertson does seem to have jumped to conclusions. Also, I'm not sure who among us (anywhere) isn't a "hometown" person.
Posted on June 13, 2005 3:26 PM
I don't know, Roch; he might simply be quoting accurately from a study or report that misstates the issue. In any event, I e-mailed him a heads-up regarding this post, so perhaps we'll get an answer directly from him.
Posted on June 13, 2005 4:18 PM
Well, its five hours later and no response.
It could be that Giles is just not a 'net' kind of guy and is still getting all of his news via the print edition. That might partly explain his position.
Perhaps you should fax him your post. Then, he could read it and type out a response and send it to you... also via fax. Then you could scan the response and post it as a .JPEG.
Posted on June 13, 2005 7:01 PM
A friend of mine who works in TV claims that if "we" do stories on, say, Iraq, it needs to have a local connection. Are we getting less "Iraq" coverage because there are only so many hometown connections?
Yes, I often see print N&R stories 2-4 days after they're online. But that doesn't mean I don't want to read them.
Giles made an unwarranted leap that one locus of news is valid and the other is invalid (ah, the Cartesian gameboard!) and that the N&R chose one v the other. That's part of what's wrong; that only one can be right.
Yes, I want to see local stuff in the paper and online (let's POST all of it, shall we?) but if you left out page 2, we'd all be poorer. Giles mistake is deciding that there's a side to choose.
Posted on June 13, 2005 9:38 PM
David/Sue, I've heard from Giles and he does not wish to respond publicly. I'm disappointed, because he had some thoughtful things to say, but that's certainly his right.
Posted on June 14, 2005 9:04 AM
It seems to me that the issue for any local paper is its limited real estate. You only have so many column inches and you need to use those inches to make the product as compelling for the readers as possible.
The one thing that local papers can deliver that local broadcast and national media outlets can't is in-depth and extensive coverage of local issues. That's where they should, and mostly do, deploy their intellectual assets, and since the paper is the most expensive delivery vehicle then that's what should be printed.
Sue's right that local papers should carry national stories online, but they should mostly be relegated to breaking news feeds and secondary pages. Local papers' online advantage is the same as in print: deep coverage of local issues, and as the N&R is showing, engaging the readers in discussion of those issues.
Posted on June 14, 2005 11:49 AM
That's right, Jon. I would agree with Sue to the extent we have local resources available to ensure that we've got at least links to national/world stories on our site. As I said, I'm OK with our being the place where you go to find stuff because we can't afford to be the place that produces all the stuff. But some days, we can't even afford to make sure the links are there, and the Associated Press is about to start charging for its material used on member papers' Web sites, so I'm not sure what the ultimate solution will look like.
Posted on June 14, 2005 11:55 AM