Today we are listening to research by a UT professor George Sylvie, and he says the better idea is to deliver convenience, comprehensiveness and timeliness.
“Rather than try to build it and they will come, why not give them something they want when they want it, and why not also offer timeliness and comprehensiveness in the same breath… How unique is what you do? Jim said local is inimitable, but I think you can become too local."Who’s right? What do you want from your news? Is it all about niche niche niche, location, location location? What happens to a sense of nationalism if all the big newspapers start concentrating only on New York, or only on Dallas? Is a sense of nationalism even still relevant and important?
The second point I'd like to make: Why can't we do both? I think a newspaper can respond to and match its demographics while also providing timeliness, comprehension and convenience. Often I believe that the professed market strategy of "local" is really code for "cutting back."
5 comments:
I have to agree that we can do both because nationalism still means something in this country. For one I can't see a newspaper wouldn't incorporate any national or international news coverage on their Web Site. Point two, this could be argued as ethnocentric news coverage. Local, local, local is the way newspapers need to go to survive, but that does not mean international and national news shouldn't be covered. It seems we already don't understand the rest of the world, or even other regions of the U.S. for that matter so why divert from covering those areas?
In fact, if it comes to that, why not weave an international issue into a local issue and find similarities? Nationalism is still alive in this country, but more and more it's becoming localized nationalism, regionalism if you will, and metro newspapers are feeding into those ideals.
I agree with Quinn, we should still be able to cover both. I think this country is becoming too "me-centered" people only looking for local news leaves them ill informed about their country and the World, both of which also affect their lives. As Quinn mentioned, I also can't see a news paper fully cutting out National and International news, although it may not be as popular as local, it is still important to report on and would be a neglect of social responisibility not to include it.
I think the way to get some National and International news read by the public is to cut down the stories to shorter, more concise stories that people can quickly read and gain the important facts, without having to spend too much time on it. This would go along with what the UT professor was saying about timeliness, convenience and comprehensiveness.
I believe nationalism is still important and present in this country, however as a population we tend to like things fast, online news has begun to fill the gap of people who didn't have time to read the newspaper in the morning, but the information included should be more than just local and fluff news. I think we as a nation do still crave this international and national news just in a manner that better fits our lifestyle.
I would agree with both Quinn and Dana - that we can cover both national and local news. But, I think if newspapers decide to remove national news from the papers and include it only online, many people won't take the time to look for the national stuff if it isn't right in front of their faces. Although I agree nationalism is still alive, I don't think people - especially Americans - have such a strong sense of it as other countries do. By cutting national news from a paper may in fact be giving the people what they want, but journalism is more about giving people what they need to be balanced citizens, and to force them to form opinions about national topics.
I think a way that many newspapers are making national news interesting is by storytelling and frames. Like the article the NY Times ran about all the soilders that have died in the war, newspapers can cover national and international news by choosing to cover it with a certain frame or myth. This will help the audience become more connected with the story and the hard news aspect of the article.
It seems like we are all on some level of agreement here. I think an increased emphasis on local news, is, in a way, a nice term for downsizing. Papers across the country are getting rid of international correspondents and focusing on more localized stories. Even esteemed papers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post- two papers that many of us look to for any kind of news story- contain less international news than ever.
If there is one thing I realized while I was studying abroad, it's that the rest of the world knows a lot more about the world than we do, and probably knows more about us than we do.
I think the more emphasis that is placed on local news by major papers that we look to for international news, the more our society will be dumbed down.
Almost every community has a local newspaper that covers local news. It seems to me that other than financial restraints there is no reason for major papers not to have more of a focus on major issues, be they in our own backyard or a continent away.
I believe that if more localized news is a trend that continues, it may open up a market for newspapers that concern themselves more with national and international news, which could, over time, be a good thing.
I think the best way to combat a problem like this is actually to subscribe to media convergence on some level. If the reason behind going local is because of budget issues, then networks and news corporations shouldn't be afraid to work together to cover local and international issues. Even though we connote media convergence with greed and money, this could be a situation where it would benefit our citizens and continue to allow us to choose what kind of news interests us.
With all of the resources our society has produced, i.e. the Internet, it seems somewhat counter-intuitive to go local when the current focus is to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. By not utilizing our ability to acquire information from around the world in a matter of minutes, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Local news and information is important, but the world needs to be put in perspective. We can only gain such perspective by learning about other people and cultures.
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