elsa

Not just here

I was at a wedding in Richmond this weekend, and a couple of the guests were lamenting changes in their newspaper. The front page was nothing but local news -- lots of it fluffy. They said it was dumbed down and they didn't like it at all. They just KNEW The Post and Courier would not go that way.

When I told them that the Charleston paper's front page is often mostly local news, and that readers who have been surveyed have said they want it that way, the couple reconsidered. Well, they said, they do get their national and international news  places other than the paper. And they really do look to the newspaper for their local news. Maybe it makes sense. (But they still didn't like it.)

Change is usually difficult for people -- even when it makes sense. Time will have to tell if the local focus is going to be the best approach. I think it makes good sense as long as the local stories showcased on 1A are stories of substance and not, as the Richmond folks said they  had experienced, fluff.

Disrespect

On Sundays, The Post and Courier publishes wedding and anniversary announcements. The paper charges a fee which is determined by the size of the ad and whether a photo is included. The exception is announcements of anniversaries for couples married 50 years or more. They are free.

Sunday, five couples announced their 50th anniversaries. A reader was furious about one of them. The couple, prominent locally, opted to include only the basics of their lives. Others went into more detail about their families, educations, careers and accomplishments. The woman who called said the paper should have added information to such a distinguished pair's announcement.

I tried to explain to her that the couple had requested the wording that appeared, but she was not satisfied. "If Mayor Riley had celebrated his 50th anniversary, would you have published such a brief announcement?" she asked. Well, yes. If that's what the Rileys were to request, that is what would appear.

It interests me that it was easier for the caller to assume the paper was prejudiced against this couple than to assume that the couple was simply a modest couple putting the focus on their marriage.

Obviously, we have some work to do to earn people's trust.

News complaints

The first time I attended a meeting of the Organization of News Ombudsmen three years ago, the between-session conversations among public editors/ombudsmen tended to deal with news judgments and readers' reactions to them: "How did your paper play the photo of the charred bodies of U.S. contractors hanging from a bridge in Fallujah?" "Did anyone cancel his subscription as a result of it?" "What does your paper do about comic strips that include offensive language? Are they edited?"

During that conference, the over-drinks conversations tended to deal with whether editors and publishers tried to interfere as ombudsmen made frank assessments of the newspapers' work. Some did. Most did not. ONO members were examining the essence of being ombudsmen.

Casual conversations at the ONO conference I attended recently had a different slant altogether. Members first apprised each other of the state of their papers. Had their newsrooms experienced layoffs? Which  papers had changed hands? Does the public editor's position appear to be secure? The answers were not all happy ones.

Along with those updates, public editors seemed to focus on the trend toward online news and blogs?
The nature of those exchanges seemed to say that the newspaper industry, often accused of being hostile to change, had changed dramatically since 2004.

That isn't to say that all the ombudsmen were celebrating changes with champagne toasts. Some were longing for the days when you didn't need to plug in anything to get the news. But most seemed on board with these new opportunities.

What seem counterproductive and wearisome to me are pundits who want to insist that the best thing for the public is news delivered online or that the best thing for the public is news delivered on your doorstep. I would say that it is exciting to see how the two work together for the public.

Citizen reporting through blogs doesn't undermine traditional reporting by trained reporters. In my view, it enhances it. And traditional reporting enhances citizen reporting. When the two extremes recognize each other's strengths, the reading public benefits.

Headline

On Monday, a Bonneau man pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Tuesday's story carried this headline: "30-year sentence for killer."

I was very sympathetic when a member of the man's family called to say that the whole family was distraught. The situation was dreadful.

But the worst thing, according to her? The newspaper's headline. It was insensitive to the family.

I wasn't sure what to say. Indeed, it's a painful thing to read what your family member confessed to doing, but was the headline wrong? No, she said. But it was cruel to call him a killer. I asked if indeed he had pleaded guilty to killing a man. She said he had, but she held fast. Don't call him a killer.

What would have been a better word? Would "murderer" have carried less of a sting? No. It would have been cruel, too, she said.

The only thing that would have satisfied this person, it seems, would have been for the headline not to suggest what actually happened. My heart went out to this man's family. But, to quote a colleague at the newspaper, "A newspaper is not about NOT reporting information."

Complaints

Sometimes humor is right there and I fail to see it. Take the complaints I get. When people start to rant, from time to time, I tend to get uncomfortable. Maybe I should see the humor in it.

The San Francisco Chronicle has made a splash recently by putting on its website a podcast of a reader's complaint. It has since been the inspiration for several video offerings on YouTube.

One of The Post and Courier's readers got pretty exercised about Ken Burger's column on the Sports page dealing with the tension between the academic and athletic interests at Clemson. The paper printed what he had to say in Tuesday's paper.

What do you think about The Post and Courier sharing some of its more interesting reader complaints (like the Clemson sports fan's) with our online readers via podcasts?

Obits

Here's the conundrum.

In my experience, lots of public discourse has a sharp edge -- not just a keen insight, but bloodlust. I attribute it to political polarization; to the combative tone of radio talk shows and some cable TV shows; and to the darkness of pressing world issues like war, global warming and terrorism.

But more and more I get comments from readers who want the newspaper to be gentler. They want "good news" on the front page. They chafe at news that might taint politicians they support. They only want comics that make them laugh, not ones that challenge them to think.

A recent complaint took me by surprise. The reader said the paper exhibited "extreme bad taste and the height of insensitivity" when its obit page one day included the funeral notices for both a woman who had been shot to death and for the man who shot her. His suggestion was that, while the alleged killer's family was likely suffering too, the family of the woman should not have had to look at his obit when they saw hers.

Certainly The Post and Courier wants to be sensitive to readers. But it is unreasonable to think that a NEWSpaper will be filled with only information which is not offensive. It was important to  readers to learn information about the funeral arrangements for both people. Both families paid for the information to be published, and both families will likely need support from people who know how to give it because of information they read in the paper.

To laugh or not to laugh

Brian Hicks is a funny man, and he has a way of finding the humor in the world around him. Last week, he was asked by an editor to go to Rock Hill, SC, and write a story for The Post and Courier about why Gregg Marshall would opt to stay there instead of accepting a job as basketball coach at the College of Charleston. Rock Hill? Really?

Brian did what he was asked. He reported on the Catawba Indian bingo parlor. He reported on Rock Hill's statues touting Rock Hill as a "functional city." He compared Rock Hill's "Come See Me" festival with Charleston's Spoleto Festival. He did it tongue-in-cheek, thinking he was making as much fun of Charleston's haughtiness as he was of Rock Hill's foibles.

When the story appeared on the front page, the outcry was loud and strident. People thought it was unkind, arrogant and inappropriate. They wrote me. They wrote Brian. They wrote the editor.

The editor of The Herald in Rock Hill saw a good controversy and published Brian's story along with his own response taking a few swipes at Charleston. The Post and Courier saw a good controversy and published his response for Lowcountry readers to see.

After the initial outcry, I've heard from readers that they really enjoyed the exchange. One man said, "It's just good, clean fun."

Here's my question: Is it appropriate, once in a while, to use some 1A space for some humor -- particularly when it has a link to something in the news? I think some variety is a good thing, and I know I need a reason to laugh. But I recognize that people who are accustomed to finding substantive news on 1A can be confused by it.

SUV bashing

When does being meticulous turn into being goofy? Maybe today. Or maybe you'll tell me I'm the goofy one.

The Post and Courier today published a photo on 3B of a North Charleston building director inspecting a store which was damaged when it was hit by an SUV. The photo headline said "SUV backs into building." The caption explained that the driver had "mistakenly backed into the business after getting an oil change."

A reader charged that the newspaper is guilty of SUV bashing. He said that the headline was inappropriate because the SUV did not back into the building. A driver backed it into the building.

Headlines, of course, don't tell the whole story. They give readers an idea of what is to come if they read further. Moreover, I am surprised that a reader would see "SUV backs into building" and conclude that the SUV was not driven by a person. It seems to me that is a given. If the car were driverless, that fact would likely appear in the headline.

I am also interested that this reader would see this as an intentional move to discredit SUVs. I ran a check. In the past several months, the paper has reported on a number of accidents in which a car/truck/train ran into a tree/car/building. I didn't hear from people that we were trying to discredit cars, trucks or trains.

Think maybe SUV drivers are a little sensitive these days?

Mailbag

For every call I get about whether The Post and Courier has fairly, accurately and effectively given readers information they need, I get 10 calls about things like the TV listings, the horoscope and the Sudoku puzzle.

What does that say about newspaper readers? Some would say it does not bode well for newspapers. It indicates readers are using other sources for learning about news stories.

Others would suggest it shows people use their papers in their daily lives -- even if it is just to decide what movie to record. Another thing -- they expect it to tell them what they want to know.

A man today called because he couldn't find truck racing events listed in TV highlights in Friday's TV Week tab. (They are listed in the schedule itself, and they are listed on Page 2 of the daily Sports section.)

Another man hung up in the phone in anger when I explained that it was a financial decision to pare back the space devoted to describing televized movies. "If you can't give that to the readers, you might as well get out of the business." (Readers also feel passionately about their paper.)

A woman found her horoscope in the D section but wanted to put us on notice that the feature should never be omitted from the index on 1A.

And more readers than you might imagine want the Sudoku puzzle to be on the edge of a page, not in the middle, because they find it easier to fold the page and fill in the numbers.

A newspaper is a lot of things in addition to the news. It is entertainment, advertisements, obituaries and TV listings. But news has been and will remain its primary function.

Newspapers/blogs

Several months ago, I was on the red-eye from the West Coast back to the East Coast. I wanted to sleep. My seat mate wanted me to stay awake so he could convince me that blogs were about to replace newspapers altogether. I fell asleep despite his best efforts.

Now that I have a foot in both worlds -- the world of daily newspapers and the world of blogging -- I'd be inclined to stay awake a little longer and hear his thoughts.

The future of newspapers is a hot topic. Knight Ridder is to be sold. Most papers are experiencing drops in circulation. The average age of newspaper readers is inching higher. Blogging is growing exponentially.

Some are prophesying doom for newspapers. Others say the industry is stable and point to their financial bottom lines to prove it. 

A recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review says, "The majority of readers are in one place -- online -- yet the great majority of ad dollars are still spent at another place: the paper product. That is the fundamental disconnect that has left all of us watching as members of a bewildered industry struggle like fish in an aquarium in which the water level drops each year."

Another article in the Wall Street Journal says, "Newspapers may not get the kind of stock-market valuations on present profits that the big Web sites do. But there is not yet one of those sites, as far as we are aware, that currently does what quality papers have done for years -- independently gather, edit and supply reliable news and analysis."

Maybe the answer isn't either/or. Bloggers need newspapers for content. Newspapers need to find a way to embrace blogging. Figuring how all that happens is the challenge.