When my wife was working on a master’s in journalism at the University of Minnesota, her thesis argued that newspapers should have an independent local agenda.
Don’t try to be a newspaper of record, documenting all the day’s events as thoroughly as possible. Instead, select the most important topics and report on them in depth. And prioritize local coverage — news of your community — over national and international news.
Her faculty advisers recoiled at the notion. They made her throw out the thesis and start over.
Some 20 years later, the destructive power of the Internet has forced newspapers to do what my wife’s aborted thesis argued for. Every newspaper has less money and fewer people than it used to have.
Meanwhile, industry pundits now tout the value of local news. National and international news are commodities, they say; survival for traditional media lies in giving the audience what it can’t get anywhere else.
Put it all together, and the smartest news organizations are husbanding their reduced resources and deploying them for maximum impact with enterprising, high-profile coverage of their communities.
Twin Cities readers are fortunate to have a newspaper doing that better than just about anyone. I was traveling recently and missed a week’s worth of Star Tribunes. Rather than putting them directly in the recycling pile on my return, I decided to play catch-up, looking at seven front pages to assess how the paper deployed its resources over the course of a typical week.
It was a pretty impressive showing. The paper ran 34 front-page stories during the week: five every day except Thursday, when 1A was opened up for a big package on the new pope.
During the week, the Strib ran 22 front-page stories focused on local and state news, and 12 that dealt with national and international topics. Thus the paper typically gives two-thirds of its front page to local news.
And the stories ranged widely, with a mix of news, analysis and investigation covering business, politics, demographics, crime and more. These weren’t stenography, either. Most were deeply reported, hard-hitting pieces that shed light on important issues.
The only quibble a regular reader might have would be the consistent lack of any light touch. The Strib’s front page is generally a pretty serious place. But with Lolcats just a click away, it’s hard to quarrel when the leading local news organization leans toward a high-minded approach.
This may not matter in the long run. The loyal newspaper audience is still graying and dying, with young people getting their news from other sources. The glory days of market monopoly are gone forever, and digital revenue at newspapers won’t replace print revenue losses. News staffs probably will continue to shrink, forcing even tougher decisions on what the paper can cover.
But for now, readers of the Star Tribune should realize that they’re getting one of the nation’s best, deepest and most enterprising local news reports. Enjoy it while it lasts.
It’s an interesting divide
I’ve been a newspaper reader all my adult life, and among my first actions once settled into my Minneapolis house after the move from Colorado was subscribing to the ‘Strib. The paper is my companion, as it were, for breakfast virtually every morning, and I read every section except the classifieds and, during the winter, the sports section.
My failure to spend an hour with the paper’s advertisers, multiplied by thousands of readers, goes a long way toward explaining why newspapers are having a hard time.
I abandon the sports section in the winter because I have no interest in football, basketball or hockey. That would still be true in my previous cities of residence, Denver and St. Lous, so it’s not a slam on local winter sports teams, at least not specifically.
My son and his wife read the ‘Strib with some enthusiasm on the rare occasions when I bring a paper with me to babysit the grandchildren (I usually bring a book if it looks like I’ll have time for reading), but only if I happen to bring one. Like most of the younger generation(s), they rely on the web for news coverage.
I will watch local network affiliates at 5 or 6 o’clock, though those programs often make me cringe. My son and daughter-in-law ignore local newscasts altogether.
I’m usually a little more up-to-date regarding national and international news than they are, while they’re usually more knowledgeable about local issues. They’ve lived here far longer than I have, so make connections between the lines, so to speak, more readily than I do.
broadcast journalism isn’t doing well
After watching a ’60 Minutes’ segment on the newspaper business a couple of weeks ago, Morly Safer declared newspapers as a dying industry. That piqued my interested on how ’60 Minutes’ is doing.
According to Nielsen:
In 1998 the average number of homes reached by ’60 Minutes’ on any given Sunday was 20 million homes. In 2009, it dropped to 15 million homes. And at the beginning of this year it was down to a little over 10 million homes. Thats 50% drop in 14 years. Local news casts for Channel 4, 5 and 11 are even worse dropping double digits each of the last 5 years.
Why stay up to 10 pm when I can access sports and weather anytime on my IPHONE?
Lets get real. Between the website and print versions, newspapers are increasing reach from the early 90s. Their challenge is monetizing it.
The Pulitzer judges agreed
As the author of this piece, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note this for posterity: A month after this item ran, the Star Tribune won the Pulitzer prize for local reporting.