(Nothing spectacular here; just wanted to put a thought down while I had it. I may expand on this later.)
I’ve spent the majority of this week training for my second stint at The Grand Rapids Press, learning the new system workflow it implemented since last summer. Between that and settling in on the northwest side of the city, I haven’t had too much time to really relax and read something.
But today was a bit different — Michigan is finally receiving sunny, mid-70s weather. In fact, it’s going to stay that way for the majority of the next week. So I grabbed something to eat, a drink, and a newspaper and sat outside.
Yup. A newspaper.
Being a Web guy who hears a lot of people call it prehistoric thinking, I have to get this off my chest: I love the newspaper. Even in 2010, when there are so many more efficient ways of delivering and curating the news, not to mention public forums, part of me is still partial to the print edition. Part of it is because I grew up reading newspapers. Part of it is because I can’t stand to read on a screen all day. But for years, the newspaper has been a community staple far and wide and, despite the shift that journalism is currently making, it still is — for now.
As I have repeated in previous blog posts, I went to college for five years in Mount Pleasant, a somewhat rural community compared to the cities other universities call home. About 23,000 people live there, and the biggest building in the area is probably the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort on the outskirts. I wouldn’t say it’s a closed-in community, since it’s home to a public university, but Mount Pleasant is very connected within itself. And from surveying people and living there for five years, the print editions of Central Michigan Life and the local paper, the Morning Sun, dominate their respective Web presentations.*
So what’s my point? Despite all the talk about how newsrooms need to move forward (which they do), sometimes we forget our readers need to move forward, too. And they’re going to do it at their own pace, sometimes even if you offer much more content and versatility online. We can try and entice print readers to move online for their news but, even in 2010, for many people, local news from the newspaper (and perhaps the 5 o’clock news) is all they need.
That’s still the case, largely, in Mount Pleasant. I know it’s probably different in bigger metropolitan areas. Students read CM Life’s newspaper in between classes, in class or at lunch. The Morning Sun still sells thousands of copies per day. I’ve debated with several people, including young journalists, a few months ago about why student newspapers don’t move Web-only. For me, it’s Economics 101: if there’s still value to the print product, even if it’s slowly diminishing, why get rid of it altogether? Why “skip to the end,” even if you know, in a general sense, where journalism is going (online)?
Think back to the 1985 film “Back to the Future.” Think of the scene where Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox, one of my favorite actors) performs the crazy guitar solo at his parents’ high school prom. Since the year is 1955, thirty years prior to the present day, nobody on the floor had a clue how to react to the solo. Even the band didn’t know how to react; one member asks McFly, “What do you call that?” His answer: “Rock and roll.”
Think of rock and roll as the Web, in this case, except we’re further along the process. Many people are used to the Web, true, but not everybody, particularly older generations not brought up on the Internet. We’re obviously transitioning to a world where every single person is connected to the Web in some way. There will be a day where the newspaper will come second to the Web among readership. But for many communities, today’s not that day. 2010 is not that year.
News publications have to make the slow transition from print to the web as reader demand changes and, today, that means including both in the process. As we already know, however, this is easier said than done; the biggest problem facing newsrooms today is adapting to a changing industry and figuring out how to make a modern news model profitable. Many don’t know how to ease along the process and sustain the business it has.
One thing, I think, newspapers need to do better: Linking their Web product with their print product. Their greatest advertising engine for their Web site is their print edition, and many don’t take advantage of it. I elaborated more on this in a previous blog post.
Stepping in
I’m primarily working on the sports copy desk at The Press this summer. But my hope is to get involved with the Web, too. I think the Web desk in Grand Rapids is doing a great job at taking advantage of some of the tools it has available, despite operating on what (in my opinion) is a flawed CMS design in MLive. Here’s one example: An interactive map outlining Grand Rapids and the surrounding areas. Visitors can use this map to find hyperlocal news by clicking on their respective neighborhood.
Over the next couple weeks, I’m going to assemble a list of ideas and, perhaps, some goals to complete during my internship, including on the copy desk. I may share them on here, depending on the circumstances. But the goal with every news organization or company I work for is to leave it better than I found it. Let’s see if that happens here, too!
* – This is a comparison of overall print readership with online readership in the Mount Pleasant area.
Posted by Brian Manzullo at May 20, 2010
Journalism