I have some advice for newspapers. I won’t even charge you for it. I know you can barely afford to have each reporter do 3-7 beats as it is, so consider this one a freebie. Hey, you underpaid me for 15 years, so I guess I owe you.
You are doing it all wrong. All of it. Wrong. Just stop.
Newspapers are running the wrong way.
Hey, it happens. We all can panic when we’re confronted with change. It’s called the fight or flight response. And newspapers have taken the flight route. Sad.
Step back five years, maybe 10. Newspapers see their penetration levels dipping, just a little, so they all do a redesign. They all switch to an a.m. cycle. (Is there an afternoon daily left? I’d love to hear about it.) They realize young people are not reading newspapers, so they decide to revamp to be alluring to said young people.
And don’t think they were, like, losing money. In fact, they were still making money. A lot of it. A fellow newsroom reporter characterized it perfectly. They used to make money hand over fist. Then, they were just making a shitload of money.
“Why, oh why, won’t 20-35 year old males read us?” they lamented! (Psst: it’s because they don’t like you, and they don’t have time for you, and they have wives and families who keep them far too busy to spend time with you.)
Flash forward to today and you can see how this strategy worked out for newspapers. Umm, yeah.
So here I am going to break down each thing you newspapers are doing, and why you should be doing the exact opposite to survive and even thrive.
So I’ve decided to start a series, one just for my own amusement because I know there isn’t a newspaper executive who is actually listening (or even knows what a blog really is). But hey, if you’re still working in newspapers you could, like, print this on paper and fax it to your editor. Maybe then they will listen to it. Let me know if you need a masthead.
I would worry this is burning bridges, but I pretty much set a torch to that bridge a while back anyway. So expect me to be quite blunt, open and frank in this series.
In this issue, one of the biggest, baddest, panicky things newspapers are doing: newspapers are going shorter when they should be going longer.
If people want short news, if they just want to know what happens when it happens, they are not turning to newspapers. Why would they? They can get it online or on TV faster. In this day and age, they can find almost anything one can possibly think of written sooner from a source other than the print newspaper.
There is only one thing the newspaper has to offer that a newspaper can do better than anyone. The long story. The investigative, special project story. The story that (now don’t sprain yourself) takes time to report. It takes time to craft it into an amazing piece of compelling writing that someone will read from lead to inch number 50.
Yes, I said time. So you need to quit doing what you call “beat shuffling” but all the reporters know is really downsizing. I was working at a Gannett newspaper, a reporter who was skilled at advanced computer-assisted reporting (as in building databases from scratch, followed by analyzing them, and then reporting, and then writing). I was told I would be the assistant business editor with loads of time for projects.
By the time I left (and left the news business entirely), I was expected to do the following in a typical week:
Yes, you saw the last one correctly. How hilarious is that? At my previous job, my entire job description was that last bullet although, of course, in reality I did much more… such as getting yanked off reporting and running a local news desk for a couple months. That kind of ate into my investigative reporting time.
Needless to say, with newspapers operating this constant “feed the beast” mentality in some vain attempt to keep up with the myriad faster news sources, that doesn’t leave much time for, well, journalism.
But newspapers should be embracing what they are. They are the perfect spot to do the opposite. There are few things in life better than kicking back with a Sunday newspaper, sipping on coffee, and reading an in-depth investigative piece and news feature. Nothing.
And that is the one thing newspapers have on all their competition. And it’s the one thing they flat-out refuse to do because it takes commitment to real journalism against all odds, commitment to real journalism because readers should be more important than profit margins and studies and demographics and penetration rates.
Part of the reason I got on this tear was something I read by the Queen of Spain blogger Erin Kotechi Vest, who is a fellow journalist turned blogger. If you haven’t yet, go read the full post, Damn You Harry Shearer.
Rarely was I able to dig any further, as the news cycle was short, the attention span of listeners shorter, and I had an average of 30 seconds to tell you everything you needed to know.
That is not journalism, that is marketing packaged as fast-food news and information.
On the few occasions I approached news directors and asked them for the time or leeway to dig a bit further, I found myself in that real journalism world where you are looking and striving to hold someone or something accountable. To find out what really happened, and make it public.
Damn brilliant.
So what is the solution in an industry that is laying off and consolidating left and right, even outsourcing local news to India? How can you do more with fewer reporters?
Well, I have a confession to make. When I was temporary editor for a Lee Enterprises newspaper, reporters would often tell me about a bigger, better story they could write if they had just a few days. You can ask any of those reporters, and they will tell you. If it sounded like a cool story, I told them to go for it. I told them I would much rather have a kick-ass Sunday story than a lame Tuesday story. I just made sure I didn’t have the whole newsroom doing real journalism at the same time.
Nothing bad happened. The beast didn’t attack. The newspaper was printed, and all the news holes got filled. Shoot, I rarely even used AP copy. But you newspapers can. If you really think 90 percent of your readers distinguish between AP stories (or an AP story with a local lead) and your own reporters’ stories, you are seriously deluding yourself.
If I’d told the powers that be about my strategy, they would have flipped. After all, this is a newspaper where we were told in-depth stories should be no longer than 10 inches. This is where I was working as a special projects/CAR reporter. Not good. I totally swear I am not making this up. This is not a joke. You can read the full internal memo sent to Romanesko if you don’t believe what you are about to read. Or if you don’t want to believe. This was a directive:
Routine stories need be no longer than 6-8 inches. In-depth stories should be within the 10-12 range.
Our technique must be – tell ‘em what the story is about, tell the story and get out quickly.
Wow. Yeah. Take a moment and just soak that in. This is what has happened to a business that once brought down a President.
What newspapers should do instead is feed the beast crap instead of tying up your reporters’ valuable time regurgitating press releases or compiling information for cutesy graphics or writing briefs. Use the wire for filler, not real reporters with real brains. Shoot, let the beginners do that.
But those reporters who want to do more, who have the skill and passion to do more, let them loose! Let them be newspaper reporters. Again.
And for those of you who just like newspapers, and miss them, go read real journalism where you can still find it from time to time. And when you do, write the publishers of those newspapers and tell them you want more of it.
Tags: burning bridges, gannett, investigative journalism, journalism, lee enterprises, longer stories, newspapers, what newspapers are doing wrong
I am a writer/blogger, SEO diva, foodie, social network maven/creator, travel junkie and former investigative newspaper reporter turned new media mom. I was named one of the 50 Most Influential and Powerful Women in Social Media. Find out more about me, about what people say about my work, or hire me for SEO, content, blog or social campaign services.
Brilliant. And right on the money.
kirtsy’d.
Jennys last blog post..Someday, I will NOT look back at this and laugh.
While you’re right about a lot of things, you didn’t provide any evidence that people want long stories from newspapers. Perhaps even that’s going to the internet?
I don’t think it is going to the internet, because I don’t think people read long online typically.
And no, I’m not aware of any studies that say people want longer newspaper stories, but I do know that this is one service newspapers can do best and don’t do nearly enough. I also think certain types of readers (like me) love the longer investigative story. No, it might not be the mainstream reader, but newspapers need to accept that their print product only appeals to certain readers.
wow! Kelby, I found your blog referenced in a presentation on to social media and taking the impact of the blogsphere into account. I thought it was just me that was despairing of newspaper owners!
I’ve worked in publishing for 12 years and dropped newspapers but for the Sunday subscription for exactly the issues you highlight: I can find everything short and pithy online. What I want in my paper is depth.
What newspapers really need to do is become like daily magazines. Like a daily Harpers, etc. That’s how magazines have survived and generally faired better than newspapers in the digital revolution.
It’s about engagement, and all studies point to print having a vastly higher level of reader engagement than online or any other media. But print won’t get picked up and read unless there is a compelling reason to pick it up and that HAS to come from journalism!
Thanks for the tips. Good points to be thinking about!