To understand why the Democrat and Chronicle is
losing readers, one needs to understand the formula it used to attract them in the first place. That formula is a common one for all Gannett papers, and it's based on the success of USA Today. Like USA Today, the D&C looks bright and inviting. It is full of big graphics, color pictures, and "news you can use". The graphics and color are fine. It's "you" who's the problem.
Gannett's big insight in the 80's was that readers are more likely to buy papers that contain news relevant to their lives. As a result, Gannett doesn't print what "you" ought to read -- they print what "you" want to read. Unless something really big happens, at least one or more of the front-page stories will be designed to catch the attention of one or more of "you".
This strategy was a great one back in the 80's, a time when the dinosaurs of mass media ruled the planet. When Al Neuharth launched USA Today in 1982, MTV was two years old and cable TV was relatively rare. The Internet was a year off. VCRs were just starting to be used widely. In other words, "you" had little choice, and a paper that hit a few of your interests was better than one that ignored them all.
Fast-forward to 2007, and the dinosaurs are feeling some heat. "You" are becoming used to reading and watching what you want, when you want. And what you want is far more specific than the generic, formulaic categories envisioned by Gannett.
To understand these categories, consider Gannett's other properties in Rochester, each of which is targeted at a different segment of "you". For Gannett, "you" consists of 20-somethings, Women, Men, Latinos and Moms. The 20-somethings get the
Rochester Insider, a free weekly paper full of pictures of 20-somethings drinking (because 20-somethings don't have a lot of money and only want to party). Women get
herRochester, a glossy magazine. (Because she doesn't want to get her fingers dirty on newsprint?) The rest of "you" aren't important enough for print. Men get
rocmen.com, "Your home for all things manly". (Not a joke, unfortunately.) Latinos get
ConXion. ("Tu Conexion a todo la basura de Rochester."). And Moms get
rocmoms.com. Gannett must think Mom is an adulterer or single, since today's top story is "The beginnings of dating".
When a paper divides the world into these giant interest groups, and then tailors content to appeal to them, they invariably write dull stories. Consider this week's paper D&C. On Monday, the "you" story on the
front page was Thanksgiving travel foul-ups. On Tuesday, "you" needed
to know that the Public Market will be open on Sundays in December, and
"you" needed to know it so badly that it was by far the biggest story
on the page, accompanied by a huge color photo.
These stories weren't newsworthy -- they were written solely for "you". Monday's story appealed to all of "you", because "you" need know that "you" weren't alone in getting hassled when traveling through the Rochester airport. Tuesday's story was for "her", because "she" wants to shop on Christmas, and "she" needs to know that the Public Market will indeed have special Christmas hours for the thirteenth year in a row.
There's nothing exciting,
interesting or new about travel screw-ups or the Public Market. What's worse, these pieces divert reporters and photographers from real news to write puff pieces that serve nobody's needs. If you need to know whether the Public Market has holiday hours, a quick
Google search will get you that info. If you're wondering whether your flight is screwed up, you'll probably
look on the airport website. Gannett might as well be selling thin ties, shoulder pads and Flock of Seagulls tickets, because their main product is written as if its still 1982.
Next in this series: the D&C's dysfunctional approach to the Internet.
Comments
Story in today's D&C - "Diabetes in kids takes a worrisome twist"
It takes a liberal slant pushing the idea that we are not smart enough to take care of ourselves or our children, but the government and school districts can do it for us.
Another story "Canandaigua class wins national video prize" - the story was about the class winning a prize for promoting females in technology (not males or children in general)
They were good stories and probably should have been covered (who knows what else wasn't covered), but they both have a liberal slant.
Both of those stories are certainly aimed at interest groups, and the first one is definitely paternalistic. I prefer to call it misplaced, smug paternalism and sucking up to interest groups, since I think those descriptions better identify what's wrong with those stories. But, no matter what you or I call it, I agree that putting this kind of fluff on the front page is bad journalism.
I think it's a more constructive discussion, and one that might get us somewhere, if Republicans and Democrats, Liberal or Conservative, demanded more serious news reporting from their local paper under less inflammatory labels. If you go to the D&C and accuse them of "liberal bias", you'll be ignored as a partisan, rightly or wrongly. If you say that the way they spend their news budget is bad journalism and bad business, perhaps they'll listen.
The diabetes story is a perfect example of how the D&C wastes money. The early-onset of type II diabetes story has been around for a long time. It is a national story well-covered by the wire services. No matter. The D&C, a newspaper that can't even "afford" to insert how the local congressional delegation votes into wire copy, has to task a reporter and photographer to go interview doctors, teachers and parents on how Type II diabetes affects them. They basically re-do work that's been done by scores of better-informed reporters just to find out how local people "feel" about more kids getting type II diabetes. There is no special local angle on diabetes -- it's just to elicit "feelings". Here's all that needs to be said on that:
ROCHESTER NY -- Local residents feel shitty about that fact that our kids are getting a terrible disease. They also feel "crappy", "terrible", "bad", "not-so-good", "a little sad", "forlorn" and "verklempt".
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