A core newspaper value: The strong voice of the editorial page

Posted on by
2

Yesterday, Andria Krewson and I had a good email exchange about Amendment One, newspapers, editorial pages and the influence of written opinion. She writes about her findings this afternoon in CJR. As usual, Andria does an excellent job researching and analyzing N.C. journalism. (Full disclosure: she quotes me.)

Among the things I told her was my fear that newspapers, including editorial pages, were quickly losing their influence and impact (which I wrote about here and here). I have no research on how a town’s newspaper editorial position correlates with the area’s vote on Amendment One. It would be an interesting study for some journalism student.

Editorial pages are a destination in newspapers. Strong, fist-pounding opinions are a must. (What is there to lose?) So is using every tool at their disposal to engage the community. (Video, anyone?) I know how hard it is when you don’t have enough people or technology. Times of desperation — that’s where we are, isn’t it? — require focusing on your fundamental values. Strong community leadership provided by the voice of the editorial page should be a fundamental value of every newspaper. That means, provide appropriate resources to make it a treasured, nourishing destination.

Bidding Don Patterson adieu

Posted on by
Reply

TV promotes itself and its people so much better than newspapers. You can watch WFMY anchor Frank Mickens sing the National Anthem. You can help celebrate WGHP reporter Chad Tucker’s marriage. News? Not on your life, but TV is about personality as much as it is about news, and they know how to sell personality.

So, I’ll take a moment to recognize Donald W. Patterson, who has been a reporter for the News & Record since, like, the Civil War. Don announced his iimpending retirement yesterday. I’m guessing 7,000 is a conservative estimate of the number of times his byline has appeared in the paper, usually on the front page, including this morning.

As soon as I heard the news yesterday, I posted it on Facebook. So far, it has been “liked” by 37 people, near and far. (Sorry, Jeff, if I was the one who spoiled your announcement later, but you should know that newspaper news travels fast in Greensboro.)

Don is a good man. Oh, we would fight over the length of his stories and how long it took him to write them. I once banned him from writing history pieces and stories about gas prices, which lasted about two months. He would lecture me on journalism and I’d lecture him back. For the 27 years I was at the paper, he had one cardinal request: Let reporters work on the very best stories and put them in the paper. It was something I tried to do, although I never acknowledged to Don.

In my mind, he rivals Jim Schlosser among the longtime N&R reporters who had a true impact on the paper and the community. He has a style and personality that is recognizable in the paper and in the newsroom. When he leaves on July 3, he’ll be happy and the readers will miss him.

My guess is that Jeri Rowe will write a column about him. Maybe Jeff will, too. His departure is one in which the readers should be allowed to celebrate and say goodbye.

More advice for newspapers; it’s time to take it

Posted on by
4

Newspapers get a lot of advice these days. Much of it is repetitive or derivative and contradictory. Much of it doesn’t answer a key question: How will we make money? Regardless, at some point, papers are going to need to step out and take some real chances. I didn’t take enough when I had the opportunity. I wish I had done more.

Stijn Debrouwere raises some great questions and provide answers in a post last week called Fungible that every editor and publisher should read. ”Because the entire point is that journalism is not being disrupted by better journalism but by things that are hardly recognizable as journalism at all. Stepping up your game is always a good idea, but it won’t save you.”

And Debrouwere lists oportunities for newspapers to up their game.

Meanwhile, people who have been paying attention know that The Atlantic has successfully remade itself into a digital magazine. “Our history is in traditional print media,” said Smith. “What we set out to do was to disrupt ourselves in a sense. We decided that we wanted to be a digital media company participating in the high-growth markets and digital media. We went about the process of thinking through the questions, how do we disrupt our own company if we were challenging digital brands attacking us?”

I am a fan of the Atlantic Wire and read it on my reader every morning. I keep wishing a newspapers would give something like that a shot.

Mostly, though, the journalist in me likes Dave Winer’s River of News idea. “Once you have a river, do something bold and daring. Add the feeds of your favorite bloggers and share the resulting flow with your readers. Let your community compete for readership. And let them feel a stronger bond to you. Then when you learn about that, do some more. (And btw, you’re now competing, effectively with your competitors, Facebook and Twitter. Don’t kid yourselves, these guys are moving in your direction. You have to move in theirs and be independent of them. Or be crushed.)”

Fact is, ask people where they get their news and many will respond Facebook and Twitter.

But here is the opportunity for newspapers: Get Winer to work with you. ”I wish I could work with the teams of the best publications. If that could happen, we’d kick ass. But I’m here on the sidelines giving advice that you guys take on very very slowly. It’s frustrating, because it’s been clear that rivers are the way to go, to me, for a very long time. A lot of ground has been lost in the publishing business while we wait. There’s a lot of running room in front of this idea. We can move quickly, if publishers have the will.”

It would be gutsy to take Dave up on his offer. Gutsy and smart.

Update: Dave’s response, via Twitter. ”I am so under-utilized, it’s really a shame! :-(“

Teens having sex at home!!! Oh my! Oh. Wait.

Posted on by
9

You know it’s sweeps week for local TV when they do stories that seem, well, a bit sensational. That’s what WFMY’s story on parents who let their teens have sex at home seemed to me. It also seemed unlikely that this is a trend in the Piedmont or North Carolina…particularly a North Carolina that just voted the way it did.

So, I turned to Google. Here is the beginning of WFMY’s story that aired last night. Patty Skudlarek told her 18-year-old son that if he wants to have sex, she’s not only OK with him having sex in the family home, she actually prefers that he do it there.

Here is the beginning of ABC News’ story that aired last year. Patty Skudlarek strives to be a responsible parent. That’s why she says she told her 18-year-old son that if he wants to have sex, not only is she okay with it, but she’d prefer that he do it in the family home.

Here is the beginning of a Tampa Bay television station’s report last November. TAMPA BAY, Fla. — Patty Skudlarek strives to be a responsible parent. That’s why she says she told her 18-year-old son that if he wants to have sex she’s not only okay with him having sex in the home, she’d prefer it.

WFMY never says that the story is local. But it never says it isn’t. Best I can tell, the parents interviewed in the studio aren’t from here either. (They are the same ones interviewed in the ABC report below.) In fact, at the end of the online story, it shares credit with the Tampa story.

YouTube Preview Image

I suppose this kind of racy story gets ratings and the sweeps period is when you want ratings. But, to me, it is just the sort of story that erodes trust in the media. No evidence of this as a trend happening here. No suggestion that the people pictured are not from around here. And a story that gives the impression that society is going to hell with loose morals and bad parenting.

Understanding Amendment One: N.C. is better than this

Posted on by
2

Update: Well, that didn’t go quite the way I thought.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the polling that says that so many likely North Carolina voters — 46% – don’t fully understand the so-called marriage amendment. I get that uninformed people go to the polls and vote. (How is anyone really supposed to know which judgeship candidate to vote for? Or the Council of State positions?) I also get that misinformed people vote. Happens in every election.

What puzzles me is how they can not understand that the marriage amendment is not an up or down vote on gay marriage.

53% of voters in the state support either gay marriage or civil unions, yet a majority also support the amendment that would ban both. The reason for that disconnect is even with just 24 hours until election day only 46% of voters realize the proposal bans both gay marriage and civil unions. Those informed voters oppose the amendment by a 61-37 margin but there may not be enough time left to get the rest of the electorate up to speed.

Now, I know that sowing confusion was purposeful in how the amendment was written. The wording is broad and full of misdirection. The Republican representative who championed the amendment through the House as much as admitted it to the Fayetteville Observer on Sunday. “(Rep. Paul) Stam, the Raleigh lawmaker, said he wanted a more narrowly worded amendment but was ‘overruled’ by ‘national experts’ he identified as the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group.” (That story buried the lede, if you ask me.)

Still, with all the publicity of the last week, I am befuddled by the polling that suggests tens of thousands of people don’t understand what it means. Newspapers across the state — country, actually — have written endlessly about it. TV stations have run report after report. Facebook and Twitter has been lit up over the past few days.

I know that readership of newspapers is down, and viewership of TV news isn’t great. But is this a case of people getting all their information from friends and acquaintances, information that is incomplete or wrong? Is that what is going to decide an amendment to the state Constitution? Say it ain’t so. North Carolina is better than this.

For the record, I think the amendment has a decent chance of going down…and I’m betting it will be closer than the 14-18-point range by which the polls predict it will pass. Perhaps that is my heart talking rather than my head, but I think people are learning what the amendment really means and I think the energized anti-turnout may well turn the tide.

To editorialize or not

Posted on by
1

As I thought about the News & Record’s decision not to editorialize on the same-sex amendment ban, I wondered if no editorial is better than an editorial that opposes the position that you take.

So I did what any self-respecting person did. I went to the crowd. I took it to Facebook.

I wrote: “Here’s the scenario: Let’s say there’s a hot issue on the ballot and you feel strongly about it. Would you prefer the local newspaper editorialize in favor of a position you oppose OR take no position at all? (You cannot choose “the editorial page should take the position I agree with.”)

In two hours, I have 46 comments and they’re still coming in. Without question, they are overwhelmingly in favor of taking a position, regardless of what it is. A selection of comments:

John Cochran: “Staying silent on the issue is a failure of duty. A “majority” position alongside a “dissenting” position is fine … or even one piece presented as a dialogue between the majority and dissenting positions, which would be helpful potentially as a model for how to have a civil discussion of such matters. If the editorial board and the publisher are disagreeing among themselves on the issue, why not have the debate in print?”

Kitty Lowrence: “I’d rather read an editorial I disagree with than be left to assume that the paper doesn’t want to get its hands dirty by taking a position.”

Barclay Williams:  ”I would love to read a well reasoned position that opposes my own. ”

Charlie Brummitt: “Whether I support the position or not, I want my local paper to analyze it fairly then publish their opinion.”

Jim Kennedy:  ”I expect our local newspaper to TAKE A POSITION on issues as important as this.  We are not talking about a minor matter here.”

Anu Mannar: “It is embarrassing to not take a stand.  There might as well not be an editorial page if it avoids actual issues.”

Fiona Morgan: “Take a position. In doing so, be as transparent as possible about the process of coming to that conclusion. Present facts and evidence, including as fair-minded a presentation of the opposing viewpoint as possible. Give people enough leads to do their own research, but know that people don’t have time to do their own research: they read the editorial page because they value the informed opinions of people who do have the time.”

Chris McCoy: “I say stay neutral. As it is nothing more than an opinion at that point and you know what opinions are like….. Everybody has one.”

Update: I should have included this. I was discussing this issue last night with someone whose opinion I respect. My thought was that opponents of the amendment would prefer no editorial rather than an editorial that supported the amendment. That was my position, too. That’s why I posed it here. The answers surprised me and schooled me. You’re right; I was wrong.

The Charlotte Observer changes its mind

Posted on by
Reply

At a time when my newspaper is getting justifiable criticism for not taking a stand on the hottest issue before voters in the May 8 N.C. primary, the Charlotte Observer editorial board shows another way things can be done.

It changed its mind and its endorsement this morning about a congressional candidate.

What a run for Republican Jim Pendergraph. After winning the Observer’s endorsement in his bid for Congress, he has done nothing but embarrass us and himself.

By buddying up to one of America’s more hateful egomaniacs and then joining with fringe “birthers” to question President Obama’s citizenship, Pendergraph has contradicted much of what he told the Observer’s editorial board in his endorsement interview last month. As a result, we have lost faith in him, and urge voters to consider Edwin Peacock or Ric Killian in the 9th Congressional District race.

Editorial boards don’t change their minds often. It suggests inconsistency — even though it’s not — and that they may have been wrong in the first place. Not surprisingly, the paper is taking it on the chin in the comments. But the critics are wrong. The Observer did the right thing. What it did was what any thinking person would do when he realizes he no longer likes or trusts a candidate — it explained itself and endorsed someone else in time to let voters know.

Refreshing.

“Good government should always trump politics.”

Posted on by
1

I had a funny dream the other night. Well, it wasn’t funny, but it is fun to think about.

It seems that the state’s top Republicans called a surprise news conference in Raleigh. The media was abuzz, not knowing what would bring Thom Tillis, Phil Berger and Pat McCrory to Raleigh when the General Assembly wasn’t meeting.

McCrory stepped to the microphone. He had volunteered to make the announcement because he expected to be governor of all North Carolinians soon. He wanted to start clean.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice. Like you, we have seen the polls that indicate how North Carolinians feel about same-sex marriage and civil unions. Likely voters plan to vote in favor of Amendment One ensuring that marriage is between a man and a women, and that pleases us. However, the polls also indicate that people are confused about the amendment, and that once it is explained to them, they oppose it.”

Berger and Tillis shifted uncomfortably behind McCrory. They had championed the amendment and led it through the legislature. They weren’t sure they liked what was coming, even thought they had agreed to it.

McCrory pressed on.

“We don’t like that. We don’t like the idea that a poorly worded amendment obscures what we think is good law. We don’t like that people don’t understand what they’re voting on. We want people to make the right choice for the right reasons, not because our amendment writers screwed up. We don’t like that we have so divided the good members of the clergy. When God-loving ministers can’t even agree on what the Bible says, we’re in some kind of uncharted territory.”

He swallowed. “Consequently, we are asking the General Assembly to reconvene in an emergency session and withdraw this amendment. We will rewrite it and put it back on the ballot next year. We want voters to understand exactly what they are voting on so that the will of the people is truly represented. If they vote to support a marriage amendment, which we think they will, fine. But if they kill the amendment, then so be it.

“We know this is an unusual occurrence. We know that we may pay at the ballot box. But we learned in school that good government always should trump politics. And we learned from our parents that doing the right thing, even when it was hard, should always trump doing something underhanded.

“When I am elected governor of this great state in November, I will represent all of the people in North Carolina and their voices should be heard. Thank you.”

I said it was a dream. Still, it’s fun to think about.

 

How can newspapers cover elections to serve readers better?

Posted on by
3

On Saturday, I referred to a survey that I thought would send chills down the spines of journalists, but really shouldn’t. Today, the Elon University Poll reports one that should send chills down the spines of newspaper journalists, but probably won’t. (Full disclosure: I’m the director of communications for the poll.)

The poll reports that North Carolinians, when asked where they get most of their news about the May 8 primary, responded 42% television, 24% the Internet, 11% newspapers, 10% radio and 7% talking to people.

I single out newspapers because they devote a great deal of energy covering the elections, more than the other news sources. Oh, you can see a great deal of presidential coverage on television and the Internet, and that’s great. It covers one of the dozen or so issues on the ballot. But governor? Lieutenant governor? Congress? School board? Board of County Commissioners? State Senate? If you’re going to be informed about those, it’s likely going to be from information published in the local newspaper.

And about as many people get election information from the radio as from newspapers? OK, I implore television to devote more attention to the local elections than to crime and inconsequential stories that they air because they have video. But they won’t. So, let’s move on.

It may be time for newspaper editors to question some of their traditional principles.

* If only one in 10 people rely on the newspaper for election information, should editors devote their efforts to covering other issues more important to their readers?

* If the primary purpose of journalism is “to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society,” is there another way newspapers can cover elections that is more helpful to their readers?

* This is counter-intuitive to those who still consider television news competitiion — here’s a secret: TV has won — but is there an opportunity to partner with television to take the information that citizens need (elections) where they are gathering (television)?

* 24% of respondents cited the Internet as their No. 1 source. Presumably that includes some newspaper websites. Presumably the percentage will climb in the future. Doesn’t this suggest that newspapers should provide citizens with deep, detailed election information online?

There are ways to discount the poll response. People were only talking about the presidential race. If asked about the other races, they’d say newspaper. When people were thinking of Internet sites, they were really thinking of newspaper internet sites. These are probably true of some of the respondents.

One thing’s for sure: Changing nothing is the wrong response.

When news is not news

Posted on by
3

The statistic’s even starker for certain age groups: 31 percent of people ages 18-24 get no news on an average day, and 22 percent of 30-34-year-olds get none either.

Nearly one in three people 18-24 years old get no news? That’s a factoid that sends shivers down not only the spines of journalists but also anyone who cares about civic life.

That quote in italics is from Poynter’s report on a slideshow prepared by Lee Rainie of Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. (It isn’t on the Pew site, and it’s dangerous to draw conclusions from slide from a survey with no attached methodology, but here we go.)

My first thought was that it is just deserts for a news media that identifies the top story of the morning a woman who doesn’t have monkeypox, as the news channels did yesterday. (Hey, I don’t have monkeypox either! Put me on TV!) Or the second big story of the day, a missing child in Tucson. Neither story makes a difference in the lives of more than a few hundred people. These are the empty calories that the national networks call news. A man catches a baseball at a game and doesn’t give it to the crying three-year-old next to him? The 18-24 year-old age group isn’t stupid. They see this stuff and know it’s not news to them.

We’ve turned the definition of news into mush. That said, I don’t believe the statistic.

The 18-24 year-old age group is the ”if-the-news-is-that-important-it-will-find-me” generation. Those folks are on Facebook. They get news every time they log on. Their friends tell them the news in their worlds. (And for you not on Facebook, don’t think that they talk about what they had for breakfast.) Ths generation doesn’t immediately call it news the way we old-timers do, but when they watch, say, the president slow jammin’ the news, it is news. When they see the “Trending Articles” foisted upon them by Facebook, that’s news. (Well, some of them are.)

But if you ask them where they get news, the answer is Google and Yahoo and Jon Stewart and Huffington Post. It’s rarely actual, traditional, mainstream news organizations. The news may originate there, but they don’t identify those as the sources. And that’s one of the problems with using the generic term “news” in a survey.

I teach a class of 33 people in that age group. Because they are in college, perhaps they aren’t typical. (For the record, 68% of high school graduates last year went to college.) They are informed. They know what is happening in the world. Many of them say they get their news from friends. Ask them the news source, they say Facebook. But do they call Kony 2012 or Laurelynn Dossett and Friends singing about opposition to Amendment One news? No. But that’s what I call it.

News is being redefined — by news organizations that sensationalize and pander. By aggregation that blurs the original source of information. By a public that has lost trust in traditional news organizations. That’s not bad necessarily, but it is important that we understand what’s going on when we talk about things like this. And to say that nearly a third of the population between 18-24 get no news on any given day? Unbelievable.