Today was LG’s speaker series, this time at the N&R. Over a nice lunch with great company at our table, the *large* audience-who-didn’t-act-like-one quickly became involved in the conversation. It was also my chance to share a few words with President and Publisher, Robin Saul.
Typically, the Q&A focused more on news and profitability than it did on editorial (but I didn’t get to ask my second question). They gave us paper, so I took notes.
Two folks asked about business stories — the difference between a story and an ad plus “giving up” on local business in deference to national business. JR replied that just today there were 2-3 stories about local business on the front page. He also replied to a questioner about government and other ongoing stories, when is enough enough?
Funniest (to me) comment of the day: Robin Saul stating that blogs aren’t news and that the bloggers in the room made eyeball contact and smiled in that knowing way we are wont to do. In our later conversation (which I was glad to have) he narrowed that to “some bloggers are better with facts than others,” and that’s accurate. I disagree with his first comment; many blogs *are* news, measured by the “news” is covering what the blogs report.
We heard about why Monday and Tuesday papers are shorter than later in the week (advertising space), learned that the N&R has 2.3 views per paper (“eyeballs”) from Regina of-the-impressive-resume in charge of circulation, and that the newspaper’s traditional meat-and-potatoes revenue is car, homes and job advertising that other media have successfully infringed upon. Other topics: People & Places (zoned publications with a great “micro-local” comment by Robin Saul), copy editors (and what you need to be come one), whether Landmark exerts pressure on the N&R (they don’t), what gets your press release covered and how to respond to what you perceive as a negative story. There were lots of nonprofits in the room wanting to know how to get their events covered.
The question I didn’t get to ask due to time constraints: when will the N&R consider signing their editorials like many other publications are doing? (Doug Clark did talk about that in his remarks by saying that the editorial is the position of the paper, so I guess we should infer that it doesn’t need to be signed. I believe there’s a trend away from that; wanted to know if the N&R is considering it.)
The question I did ask: what parts of the online area is the N&R considering growing? Robin Saul responded that would be in two general categories: blogs (which has been successful for the N&R to engage the community) and video. I think that both of those areas are good ones; I’d just like to see the N&R get cozy with an information architect to put a better homepage together (white space is valuable) with the goals of easier navigation, better look & feel, improved information flow, and getting a few domains or domain architecture to create an easier linkage structure. [Example: http://news-record.com/blogs/ should take you to a home page for blogs that is current - and not this. /video/ should take you there, and so on, but I'm getting pretty geeky.] Sometimes, I have to remember that a lot of other people are not as online as I am (and as many of my friends are) and that change happens agonizingly slowly in many industries.
We had a great carpool and I got to meet a new person which made it more worth our while and we saved gas. I plunked down 50-cents for the parking meter and considered it a real bargain.
I’m really glad everyone had a great time but why didn’t some one ask Saul why the N & R is failing! Could it be slanted Liberal bias……….?
Actually, Beau, the question of why news (print) is having a hard time financially (as is TV news; see CNN’s revenues for TV v. online) was the backdrop of the entire conversation. No one needs to ask Mr. Saul specifically about the N&R if one reads anything about the industry. We know why newspapers all over are having hard financial times and to single out the N&R is simply short-sighted and produces no new information.
When people talk about slant, they are usually referring to editorials (as opposed to Faux News which mixes editorials with ‘news reporting’). We were talking about news, circulation, advertising, customers, and online stuff. In fact, JR asked repeatedly if anyone had a question for editorial (represented by Doug Clark) and very few people did. There were at least 100 people there – I guess this “slant” isn’t so perceived by the community because people asked perceptive, to-the-point and straightforward questions.
Besides, where were you? Why didn’t you stand up and ask a question? Please don’t play the “why doesn’t someone do this” game if you don’t have the wherewithal to ask the question yourself.
“Besides, where were you? Why didn’t you stand up and ask a question? Please don’t play the “why doesn’t someone do thisâ€? game if you don’t have the wherewithal to ask the question yourself.”
Exactly my point in this “citizen journalist” game, Sue.
For a long time.
[...] ad department lady (I believe that this is the “Regina� that Sue refers to in her post about the forum) said that the N&R has 95 people in its advertising department, including 50 in sales. She [...]
Hi
I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but shrug. I just don’t have anything to say recently.
Bye