Comments on: Motherless children.

By: harry near indy

harry near indy — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:43:34 +0000

very good article, nancy.

By: alex

alex — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 01:58:14 +0000

In the wake of… yes, that’s old-school journalese. Edward R. Murrow would talk like that. Eating the dust of would be a little more Gen X. In the queef of… there, now that’s more the style of the Gen Y and younger set.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 21:12:44 +0000

I read the article and was duly impressed. I do a lot of worrying when I read about the current state of the newspaper business since I have a daughter so new to it. But the paper she works for is family owned and seems very stable. I just trust that everything will work out for her. She loves her copy editing job, and she’s learning design now, too.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 20:33:26 +0000

Connie, if you only knew how many times I suggested covering a meeting by phone …

No, it made much more sense to have a reporter there for two hours, plus another hour writing the story.

By: Connie

Connie — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:57:54 +0000

Well Jim, the Elkhart Truth has a library reporter, he usually just calls me up the next morning and asks me if anything interesting happened. I love it when I control the local news!

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:16:50 +0000

Well, Jim and I got the super secret sneak preview, before succumbing to premature release.

The rest of you will just have to wait…

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:07:01 +0000

I hate those premature releases …

By: nancy

nancy — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:54:56 +0000

Actually, I think that was a premature release (if that doesn’t sound too dirty). It’s off the site now.

That essay was written for the next print issue of the Indiana Policy Review, which won’t publish for another couple of weeks. The editor usually shares its contents elsewhere, but I don’t know if he meant for that to be public quite yet.

Anyway, you’ll see it later. And I’ll link.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:11:46 +0000

Wow, that is a great article. Newspapers are so bound by the motto, “Because that’s how we’ve always done it.”

When I worked for The Goshen News, I covered meetings of the aviation board and the library board — yes, the libary board. And I would often ask why it was worth having a reporter sit for two hours at a meeting to come up with a 12-inch story on actions at the library board. The answer: “Because we’re the paper of record. Our readers expect that.”

Of course I knew that nobody was buying the News because of my vigilant coverage of the airport board. The paper’s bread-and-butter was its sports coverage — people wanted to read about the local high school basketball team.

There’s a big disconnect between what papers want to be and what the customers want. You could print an editorial calling the president of the United States a communist and get a few angry letters and maybe some phone calls; screw up the TV listings and you’ll be hearing nothing else but complaints for the rest of the week.

I’m not sure how many newspaper editors have figured out that what they are selling is not paper, but the content on the paper. Right now, many people can get that content (to the degree they want) online — why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Editors need to find a way to sell the content — in whatever medium.

By: brian stouder

brian stouder — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 17:44:28 +0000

Hey!

I’m sure Madam Telling Tales will link to this from her main page - but in case she’s being modest, go to

http://indiana.typepad.com/fwob/

Good stuff!