First Draft by Tim Porter

The Sunday Not-So-Funnies

There are three Sunday newspapers on my kitchen table - the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Marin Independent Journal.

Collectively, they represent the breadth of the current state of American newspapers - the consistent excellence of the national Times, the more sporadic quality and struggle for focus of the large regional Chronicle, and the earnest, but frequently mediocre locality of the small Independent Journal.

Individually, none satisfies my local news needs. The Times has no local. The Chronicle spreads itself so thin across a region of 7 million people that its local impact outside San Francisco is occasional and diluted. The IJ delivers the rote basics of institutional coverage, but without flair, nuance or sophistication.

Together, I paid $7.75 for these three newspapers - the cost of a paperback, two issues of Vanity Fair, a movie matinee or eight iTunes, any of which I would have used more fully than the newspapers. Rarely do I not finish a book or walk out of movie or buy songs I don't want to hear. But, I do toss 90 percent of more of most newspapers onto the recycle heap unread. As a media bundle, newspapers offer the poorest signal-to-noise ratio available.

Like Michael Kinsley, there was a day when I could not have imagined a day without reading a newspaper. Increasingly, though, I see that day coming - even for me. Getting the news online is far easier (my wife's Wall Street Journal is delivered without fail in the parking lot, even in the heaviest rains, despite numerous requests to toss it on the porch), far cheaper and far more timely (my Sunday Chronicle often doesn't arrive until after I've fed and caffeinated myself and gone through the Times.)

I would disregard these inconveniences for my "local" papers - because, truly, the delivery annoyances of newspapering are much the same today as they've always been - if only the newsrooms delivered on their promise of interesting local news. But they don't.

As I said the other day [Read: Big News, Big Coverage, Big Opportunity], for all those papers that Are Not The Times, local news is the franchise, produced both for print and for electronic distribution. It is an area in which each newspaper can create a unique journalistic mix that, at minimum, separates the paper from the glut of available media and, at best, appeals to an audience looking for news that comes with guidance, context, interpretation and the ability for interaction.

Unfortunately, most newspapers fail to meet one or both of the standards needed to create a signature mix - enough local information to draw the attention of a multiplicity of readers or fewer stories that are sophisticated enough, human enough or simply understandable enough to attract readers who already have heard the basic news and need to be enticed further. In short, they either lack quantity, quality or both.

Naturally, most newspaper editors will disagree with what I just said. They will rebut with claims of numerous local stories, enterprise projects and staffing that, while too-often these days reduced, is devoted primarily to local news. Fair enough. Many newspapers produce hundreds if not more of column inches of local copy every week, but what is the subject matter of all this ink and pixels? In most regional and smaller newspapers, two-thirds to three-quarters of all local, non-sports stories are about institutions (government), crime (courts and cops) and reports (more institutions.) Count them in your own paper. And, as the papers get smaller, these stories become increasingly eye-glazing, devolving into either recitations of agendas or, worse, poorly executed attempts to mimic the more difficult forms of journalism (narrative, analysis, columns) practiced with excellence by only the best papers.

The Readership Institute has beat this drum for years, pointing out that the routine grist of daily journalism - crime, government, traditional newswriting - is a turnoff not only for younger readers, but for the newspaper's aging audience as well. [Read: Readership: Survival Lessons for the Future from Minneapolis.]

So why are newspapers not attempting to reinvent local news? (Some are, such as the one led by this man.) Why are newspaper editors who were forced by the boardroom to cut staff in the newsroom simply rearranging the deck chairs? It is not the chairs that are the problem. It is the boat - and that's sinking. A friend of mine who works for a larger newspaper just emerging from a round a job losses read me the "openings" posted by the management - suburban court reporter, assistant suburban bureau chief, planning, etc., etc., etc. These are part of the same beat structure that has existed in newsrooms for decades, a structure that is institutionally oriented, one designed to cover news from the point of view of the government instead of the point of view of the governed and one that is taken for granted as the right way to do newspaper journalism budget year after budget year. This orientation makes it nigh on impossible to provide readers with the one thing the Readership Institute finds resonates most with the public - an experience. They want reading the news to give them an experience - make them smarter, make them feel safer, make them shudder, shake or other twinge with human emotion. You won't find these characteristics in the halls of government.

Don't misunderstand. Journalists must cover government and journalists must cover crime - but officials and bureaucrats and cops and criminals aren't our audience; the public, the victims, the ordinary people are the audience. Why in this time of journalistic crisis are newsroom managers rebuilding shattered newsrooms in the very forms that contribute to their breakdown? Why are they not questioning core assumptions about what is "news" and how should it be presented? Why is their No. 1 priority for 2006, when more than 2,000 newspaper jobs were lost in 2005, not establishing a whole new set of priorities? Why are they not zero-basing their budgets and their thinking and asking: If I could rebuild this newspaper from scratch, what would I change? Would I have the same beats, the same staffing allocations, the same editors? (Answer: Of course not!)

Too harsh? Let's look at this past Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle (disclosure: I have numerous former colleagues working there). The Chronicle, even after several months of painful cuts and buyouts, has 400 journalists on staff. It's front page is a telling display of the paper's priorities about deploying those editors, reporters and photographers: Two staff-written stories about the coming Samuel Alito hearings, a Washington Post story on Tom DeLay, a staff (stringer?) story from Jerusalem on Ariel Sharon, a staff story on the Bush administration's spying on private citizens and a staff progress report on the issues facing the San Francisco mayor.

In essence, the Chronicle had one local story on A-1. One. And that story was about government. The only non-tease art were three mugshots of white men. No stories that reflect regional issues. No stories that depict the everyday lives of everyday people. Nothing that reflects the region's diversity. Nothing fun.

On to the "local" section: Two columns, one about a woman arrested for carrying a gun; another about a sculpture vandalized in a wealthy neighborhood; a spot story about a cop killed in shootout 40 miles south of San Francisco; a feature about a Hurricane Katrina victim returning home. Pretty bland stuff. A final story reported on living in the "flood zone" and "low-lying areas" (although the one of the file cover pictures was a car caught in an upland mudslide, not a flood) and had four paragraphs out of 1,500 words about my county, Marin.

The rest of the eight-page local section contained jumps, a lengthy story on the state budget (labeled "analysis" but in fact a series of quotes from politicians and bureaucrats), another political story from the suburbs and - drum roll, please - four full pages of paid obituaries. Talk about harvesting your readers for revenue!

There is nothing unique, nothing special about this Sunday's edition of the Chronicle. The New York Times has all the same national/international news and more. (In fact, the Chronicle's 16-page A section contained eight stories from the N.Y. Times, the L.A. Times or the Washington Post.) The Marin newspaper, as it should, had much more on the flooding. The Chron was outdone on both ends of the news scale.

Here's my point: Why is the Chronicle (and other similar-sized newspapers) wasting costly staff salaries and yards of newsprint replicating national stories it has already purchased from the Times/Post news services and the wires? Why is it equally wasting costly staff salaries and yards of newsprint writing regional stories better done more local papers?

Answer: Because that's what it's always done, that's what the newsroom value system produces. Traditional newsroom values place a cachet on a bylined national story. Traditional newsroom values compel editors to assign lengthy regional roundups that cast a wide, but thin net. Traditional newsroom values dictate sterile language and chunky design that hides the diamonds in even the most polished pieces of journalistic coal. (Point: The Chron A-1 had six stores, each showing about 3 inches of type - not enough to draw anyone in to the piece regardless of its strengths.)

A newspaper trying to rebuild for the future must discard these values and develop a new set unique to its own condition (resources) and its own community (issues, demographics). From these values will come new priorities, new forms of local news, new beats and new voices in the paper - from those formerly known as the audience. (Thank you, Prof. Rosen). Perhaps there will also come partnerships between the larger regional papers and the smaller local ones and with the online services like Flickr (where flood pictures were plentiful) - shared content, cross promotion, joint online presence and revenue sharing. In a networked world, newspapers continue to stand sadly alone.

Local news is the franchise for most newspapers - in print and online. But offering more local news cooked from the same tired recipes is like opening a restaurant that advertises: Bad food, but a lot of it!

News managers need to fundamentally rethink how they use their newsroom resources. They're not going to get more of them. Scrap the staff-written national stories. Don't send to non-local-franchise sporting events. Use wires for movie reviews (add local from readers). Redirect these resources to investigations, better writers and stronger designers. Develop more resources through editorial entrepreneurship with local writers, bloggers, artists and photographers - aka talented citizens.

There is so much that can be done, so much that is different from what as been done for so long. [Read: Explode the Newsroom: Six Ways to Rebuild the System.] Just because the suburban planning writer took the buyout doesn't mean you have to replace him or her.

Think different. Be different. Give me something different for my $7.75.

Tags: Journalism, Newspapers, Media

Posted by Tim Porter at January 9, 2006 03:32 PM