Random Thoughts

Reinventing the newspaper

Over the past few years, newspaper publishers across the country have been knocking themselves silly trying to figure out ways to keep readers from abandoning ship. Then there‘s that other little problem: how do you entice Junior Go-Bot Gameboy to read the Daily Bugle when his main news source is The Daly Show or theonion.com?
It‘s a pickle, and you can read about it most every week in “Editor & Publisher,“ a trade magazine that‘s been keeping the pulse of the press since 1884. Lately, that pulse hasn‘t been so very strong, for mainstream papers, anyway.
A pity, because the daily press is irreplaceable in terms of providing the information we need to keep our representative republic healthy. Recently, for instance, Traverse City‘s daily did a superb job of covering the mayor‘s race and city commission election. Their daily stories provided a resource that no radio, TV or weekly‘s coverage could possibly match.
We need newspapers. Newspapers are the firewall separating civilization from the barbarism of Adolph Hitler‘s Third Reich or Mao Zedong‘s Red China, where freedom of speech was virtually the first thing to go. Newspapers create an “enlightened electorate“ which preserves us from recreating the dark ages of the past. That’s why protection of free speech -- and newspapers -- is our First Amendment in the Constitution.
Unfortunately, the people in charge of saving today‘s press from extinction are those who happen to run the press. From what I’ve seen at various press conventions, these tend to be country club types who did just fine when America looked like the “Main Street“ novels of Sinclair Lewis, where a small clique of good old boys steered the course of Anytown, U.S.A. Today, these publishers seem to know all about the internet, but are out of their depth when it comes to knowing what will keep readers re-upping their newspaper subscriptions.
Currently, the biggest papers in the country are trying to get youth back into their folds with the publication of free tabloids similar to the Northern Express.
Ironically, the Express spent three years in the late ‘90s marketing a “canned“ version of our paper to some of these same publishers. Our Express Weekly was Fed-Ex‘ed to publishers on a CD each week, offering a print-ready version of a national paper which needed only the addition of local listings, features and ads for completion.
Although many publishers were interested in our project, most just didn‘t “get it.“ Over and over again we heard that their readers were “too conservative“ for a home town version of Northern Express. The publishers apparently planned to march off a cliff with their aging readership, rather than trying something that might actually appeal to readers under the age of 30.
Today, the stakes are a lot higher, because it’s the 25-year-old secretary and her 27-year-old husband who are buying the washers, dryers, first homes, kids clothing, TVs, appliances, furniture and hundreds of other items which older readers already have. Newspapers have wised up to the fact that youth must be served. No young readers, no advertisers, no newspaper.
Many of the same newspapers which deemed our modest product “too controversial” are rolling out youth-oriented tabloids, such as Chicago‘s Red Streak and Red Eye, published by the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune, respectively; or the new CiN Weekly published by the Cincinnati Enquirer. These are intended to “hook the MTV generation on newspapers.“
It‘s hard to imagine these new papers attracting hordes of young readers because they’re packed with carefully masticated AP wire copy that‘s been dumbed-down and regurgitated in the artificially “hip” Maxim magazine squib style with the addition of tidbits on the likes of Justin and Britney. And the comics (which are what really bring young readers to the table) are as ho-hum as Beetle Bailey. Young readers may not know Iraq from Iowa, but they can spot something phony in the twinkle of an eye, so good luck there.
In another area where mainstream newspapers are trying to hold onto readers, Gannett, the biggest newspaper chain in America, has launched an initiative called “Real Life, Real News,“ which will teach editors at its 100 daily newspapers “how to look at the community from the outside in.“
This sounds like the marriage of a focus group and a car bomb, given that Gannett is responsible for the creation of the so-called “McPaper,“ which downsizes editorial staffs for replacment by cheap wire service copy. The greed-driven McPaper model of newspapering has been copied by many chains across the country. The bad news for beancounters, however, is that it‘s the McPaper‘s dull blend of wire copy that has driven readers away, so the “Real Life, Real News” campaign is a come-to-Jesus revelation on the need to get back to local reporting.
If newspapers wish to hold onto readers and lure in the young’uns, there would seem to be two easy steps. First, newspapers should ditch their free websites -- you can‘t keep a whorehouse in business if you‘re giving it away free out the back door.
Second, what‘s missing in American newspapers is plain old-fashioned good stories. How many times have you read a newspaper story lately and come away feeling unfulfilled by its half-there amputee quality? Its lack of heart or daring? Its pandering to the “conservative“ reader the paper fears offending? Newspapers will begin attracting readers again when they get back to being a “good read.”
Gannett plans to create good stories by having teams of reporters and editors toss ideas around in focus groups -- a recipe for chewing rawhide into baby poo. Here again, good old-fashioned gut instinct might be a better source. Great artists and musicians, for instance, go with their guts, not focus groups. Nirvana didn’t use a focus group to come up with “Nevermind,” nor did Van Gogh need a committee’s advice when he painted “Starry Night.”
During my last year in high school, the Detroit Free Press sent a 25-year-old female reporter to my school, posing as a student in her senior year. When the series came out, it was a statewide sensation. What would the reporter reveal about students, cliques, drugs, drinking and sex? What would she say about our teachers and the cafeteria food? How would her no-longer-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman classmates react when they saw her mature body disrobed in gym class? Mercy! Some readers said the series was trash, but it sure got people reading -- even the kids. View On Our Website