To coincide with Barbarian’s thread on TV news, I’d like to ask the Teeming Millions similar questions about newspapers.
As you may have heard, the print media industry has had some… troubling financial problems recently. Newspapers across the U.S. are laying off staff, cutting back on newshole, eliminating features and basically finding any method possible to save money.
If you had your druthers, what would you make sure was in your newspaper every morning? What kinds of stories do you think belong on the front page? What sort of stories on the front page would make you buy the paper? (Yes, those are two different questions.) What features would you get rid of? What would you add or bring back that’s been eliminated? How would you run a newspaper if you were the editor?
Gee, I guess this means no one reads newspapers. We get three, so I’m an expert.
I want in depth stuff, the stuff you won’t ever see on TV and which takes too long for magazines (even weeklies) to get to. We get the NY Times for this.
On the other hand, I want really local news, the stuff again too local for TV. When there was turmoil in our school district, it was good to read some detailed information about it. I also like the local crime reports. The free weekly actually does a better job on this than the local paper.
Balance, that’s what I like to read. Unfortunately newspapers here tend to have their own (left-leaning) agenda. But then again so does the CBC.
For really local news I read the local freebie newspapers. They’ll give me updates from my city councillor and things like police activity reports and maybe some information of what’s happening in my own community.
For main newspapers I like the letters to the editor and the opinion columns. I like the city section because it’s always chock-full of interesting proceedings at city hall, and how our tax dollars are being (mis)managed.
Word news and national news tends to be covered on the TV and through various on-line papers that I peruse, so I’m typically more interested in local news in the newspapers. Oh, obituaries too. Beats me why, but I like reading the obituaries to see if I know anyone who died, or the mother, father etc. thereof.
Trash the A section. I get my world and national news elsewhere. Give me local news. Tell me what those police cars were doing down at the Piggly Wiggly last night. Tell me about the puppy they rescued from the storm drain and are now calling Stormy and if you want to adopt him and many other good pets blah blah blah.
I process a lot of small town papers here at the library, and it’s really funny - these are mostly little weekly papers from Middle of Nowhere, SC. About half of them put national news on the front page. This is a newspaper you pick up once every Wednesday and it’s telling you what’s going on in Iraq? Hell, no - your small town paper should have wedding write-ups straight from the 50’s, people handing off giant checks to one another, people who have been married a long time, people who collect salt and pepper shakers - oh, and that big meth lab bust down by the highway.
A couple years back (okay back in the early 90s) I could tell by looking at the local weekly newspaper when the regular boss was on vacation, because they’d put a ‘big’ violent story on the front page – when it happened 3 or 4 days before the paper made it to my mailbox.
A much stronger business section. The business section of most major papers is laughable. Not just stock quotes, but actual business news.
A good editorial section. Several daily columnists as well as well written editorials on local events.
Coverage of state issues. Far too often there is coverage of issues at the national and local level, but no coverage of what is going on at the state level.
Coverage of the arts. If you want the local arts organizations to buy advertising, then at least report about what is going in the local arts scene.
What I would really like is a newspaper without all the advertisements. I’ve been wondering exactly how much that would cost, and I suspect I’m not willing to pay for it. The advertisements in and of themselves don’t bother me so much, but the sheer amount of paper used drives me a little crazy.
I always read the front section, with national and international news, and the section with the comics and advice columnists and movie reviews and so forth. If I have time, I will read the local news, the sports section, and whatever the special section du jour is. I never read the business section, and I never read the op-eds and letters to the editor. I’m just not interested in business, and the op-eds tend to piss me off.
I want a local paper that puts state, county and local news on the front pages. I’d really like it if that paper would also have in depth reporting of those stories, at least when it’s not something about a freak storm causing a massive pile-up on one of the interstates in the area. For national news, I’d rather have a story about something like this, that actually explains a bit more of the background. Like why a lawsuit involving the Great Lakes was in Federal Court in California.
I want a local paper that has a full page of editorials every day, and a page of Letters to the Editor. Even if many of them are mind-numbingly stupid. They’re fun. Don’t combine the OP/ED page and the Letters page into one on low sales days.
And I want a local paper that has some standards with respect to what advertisers it cares to take on. Any more full-page ads, disguised as “news stories,” for the wonderful investment opportunities involved with “government give aways” of dollar coins and I will go on an arson spree.
I want a local film and theater critic. The last one we had locally did very well of explaining why he liked a movie, and I could see where his tastes and mine might match or fail to match - as such his reviews were useful to me. The replacement, where Gannett papers are picking reviews more or less at random from several of their papers leaves me completely uncertain whether I can trust a given review. So they’re all useless to me.
I always wanted to live in a place that had a Piggly Wiggly - I just love the name. Plus, when I was a kid, we drove to the Land of Piggly Wiggly Stores when we went on vacation - you know you’re going somewhere when the stores not only are different, but have a name like that! But, back on topic.
You’d love my free local weeklies. The Iraq War is in the paper when the local Guard unit shipped out and when they got back, when some individual ships out, or is home on leave, or gets home alive or doesn’t.
The headlines in the Jefferson County Leader this week: “Charter draft unveiled tonight” about county govt., “Herky eyed as prime site for port” about business on a local town’s riverfront, and “Cedar Hill farmer nutty about chestnut experiment” (he grows 50 varieties!). The picture above the fold: “Celebrating victory”, the 5-year-old who won the watermelon-eating contest at the county fair.
Headlines in the News Democrat Journal: “R-7 will have a high school”, “Festival skydiver is decorated military hero” with a photo, “Area teens hunt for cancer clues” with a photo. And a photo of a competition at the county fair.
And we get the nutbag letters (oh, and one paper takes short recorded phone comments and transcribes them - fantastic stuff) that OtakuLoki wants. The movie reviews are local. Sports means high schools and VFW-style leagues. The NASCAR reporting focuses on a local short track. Page 2 has the court reports, the police reports, the Highway Patrol column, the safety hints from fire and health departments, all that good stuff. Business reports are the new nail salon over on the Rock Road, so-and-so opened an accounting company on Main, pictures of ribbon cuttings at some little store in the next town over. Recipe contests…mmm. I read 'em, but if I made that stuff it would kill me.
Stories and editorials galore about county and state politics and government. Lots of stuff about local roads and where they stand on improvements schedules. News you can use, too. After the tornado a few years ago, both papers had huge headlines when the state EPA gave us a blanket open-burn waiver. Lots of instructions on safety precautions were included and they made it clear when the waiver ended (I think we got about a month, and it really helped).
I guess we’re just lucky to have these papers; I wonder if the fact that there are two who compete helps keep them good. But…there was never an article about the big meth bust…next door. I watched it from my back yard; it was really cool when they realized the guy wasn’t there anymore. I had to break it to them that he’d sold the house and moved a month earlier.
I read the New York Times for world and national news, so like others, I want a paper that focuses on local and state issues. And not just the fluffy “look at the cute widdle kitties” or the tawdry “family killed in horrible car crash” stories my local rag runs. I want serious investigative stories of local and state politics. I would also cut down on the lifestyle sections. If I want recipes or decorating tips, I go to the Internet.
Its not just a case of what you want to read but having the time to read it(plus the required concentration)on a work day break.
As a Limey I prefer to read,given the leisure time,The Daily Telegraph and or the Guardian which are both serious broadsheets but on a half hour break after filling in three forests worth of paperwork I can just about manage one of the tabloids .
Its a waste of time saving a newspaper till the evening because by then the news is olds and T.V news has the latest happenings.