Posted on 10/12/2006 4:48:40 AM PDT by abb
Newspapers are all looking for ways to gain readers, and many have hired consultants to help them. In an unusual twist, The Los Angeles Times is looking to chart its future by using its own reporters and editors, who rank among the best investigators in the business.
The Times is dedicating three investigative reporters and half a dozen editors to find ideas, at home and abroad, for re-engaging the reader, both in print and online. The newspaper’s editor, Dean Baquet, and its new publisher, David Hiller, plan to convene a meeting today to start the effort, which is being called the Manhattan Project. A report is expected in about two months.
“The newsroom is energized about innovation,” Mr. Hiller said. “And having the code name of the Manhattan Project captures the sense of significance and urgency that I think is altogether called for.”
The name refers, of course, to the American effort to develop an atomic bomb during World War II, an-exaggerated-for-effect overstatement of the problems facing ink-on-paper newspapers: declining circulation, stagnant ad revenues and rising costs. While visits to newspaper Web sites are increasing, they account for a small part of revenue and do not draw enough advertising to support newsroom operations.
The Los Angeles project sprang from recent turmoil at the paper, when Mr. Baquet and the previous publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, said in the pages of the newspaper that they would not go along with cuts ordered by the corporate parent, the Tribune Company. Tribune has cut more than 20 percent of the 1,200 newsroom employees since it bought the paper.
The company dismissed Mr. Johnson last week. Mr. Baquet said he agreed to stay because he was convinced he would have the chance to make a new case for shoring up both his staff and budget.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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"Newspapers are all looking for ways to gain readers, and many have hired consultants to help them. In an unusual twist, The Los Angeles Times is looking to chart its future by using its own reporters and editors, who rank among the best investigators in the business. "
It's tough to gain readers when you only editoriaolize DNC talking points for 25% of the population.
Here's some free advice to the Times. TELL THE TRUTH!!!
And where is raouls first rule of journalism?
1. Assign competitive teams to cover each area of the city. Cover those areas as if each were small towns (which, in a way, they are.) Find positive stories and human interest stories and print them, not just crime reports. Include pictures. People will start to buy a paper if they recognize their neighbors in it, or if their kids get a mention for their participation in Community Service or sports or something.
2. Make a true, concerted effort to make your reporting impartial. Political viewpoints should go to the editorial and op ed pages.
3. Find a non-partisan cause to support...cleaing up litter, Boys and Girls Clubs, tree-planting, etc. and get the community involved. Devote your efforts to this cause instead of constant snarky comments about Republicans.
4. Require all reporters to spend 2 weeks each year riding with a cop, working construction, following a small businessman around, etc. They need a dose of the real world. Better yet...require all reporters to take their vacations in small Midwestern towns. In the winter.
It doesn't matter what the Times or any other print newspaper does -- the future of news is on the internet. You'll hardly find anyone under the age of 40 who subscribes to a newspaper.
Their editorializing of the war in Iraq alone just proves they may not be able to turn things around. How does a newspaper become fair and balanced when everything they stand for is antiwar and anti American? If they really believe a lie is the truth, there's no way they can become fair or balanced.
So simple, so easy to understand, yet totally ignored........
How ludicrous. The media reports directly from the DNC fax line. That's free.
How about Fair and balanced.
You have to get them to withdraw from national and international news for the most part.
It is my contention that ALL papers can only survive if they go to the covering the stuff that isn't usually on the internet...and that is LOCAL stuff. And coupons.
Of course, I am looking at this from the point of view of establishing a successful business. I fear a great many newspeople would find this type of coverage unimportant and boring, and therefore will continue on their present course.
My theory rests on the one thing that will get people to buy papers: seeing their name and/or picture in it (or even more important, their child's). This is the only thing I can see that would get a person interested in buying a paper. All other news is found faster on the internet and cable news.
The only reason I subscribe to my local paper is to read the obits...other than that I toss it.
.... Assign competitive teams to cover each area of the city.....
You should apply for the consultant's job. Your insight should be worth $$$$
bump
That may be true for larger papers, such as the ones that have targeted newspapers for suburbs but it isn't necessarily true for small town newspapers. Our local paper ran a subscription special, 6 months for $10. There is no way they can be making money. If every family in the three surround towns subscribed at the rate they offered, they would still operate at a loss. They did close their offices for a short period of time, and have recently started publishing again. As much as I dislike the NY Times, I would hate to see the loss of our local paper.
How about a tag-line "Proud Member of the Democratic Apparatchik, and Hollywood Left, since 1967"
That's why it is a scandal when it is discovered that papers are inflating their subscrition base. It means that they were defrauding the advertisers.
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