Orange County Register to have staffers pictures accompany each story

Sorry, we had to cut the bottom four inches off your story to make room for your mug. There wasn't anything important in those final inches, right?

 

I think it's a good idea.

Through Twitter, radio shows, etc. etc., there's already a benefit in branding your beat writers as THE source on the team they cover. Associating a face with the brand can't hurt. Like it or not, beat writers are minor public figures and newspapers shouldn't shy away from that.

And taking away space from copy? C'mon. Why don't we just take away paragraphs too, and have the newspaper be one big block of text. Photos? They take away from copy too.

In an attention-deprived society we live in today, you've got to make things more visual.

 

I think the Los Angeles Times still does sketches. And Sports Illustrated does, too.

 

I don't know that I think this is a good idea -- but it's not a space issue.

Unless I'm missing something in the description, cutting a mugshot into every story is probably going to "cost" a couple of lines of type, depending on how each story justifies.

Murphy, I know you were just making a point -- but it ain't 4 inches...

 

These will be one-inch by one-inch thumbnails, maybe slightly larger, that will go near the byline.

 

So you're saying we're going to have local art with every story? Sweet.

 

People don't read stories for the bylines...enough said.

 

Oh, there's plenty more to be said.

Experience proves otherwise, particularly for reporters on highly visible beats ... not just sports, but politics, entertainment, cops & courts, etc., etc., etc. Saying people don't pay attention to bylines is a frequently used crutch, easily pulled out of the briefcase and presented as irrefutable truth, but it's an outdated belief. It wasn't all that true even when I started in the business 25 years ago, and it's just plainly a wrongheaded notion today.

In an age of multimedia choice, people are paying attention to who's covering the things they care about. They care about who's telling them the news, mostly to decide whether they can trust them (for whatever specious and mercurial reasons they choose to make this decision). Building a brand, as was noted earlier, is becoming more and more important. We're trafficking less in news than in trust and likability nowadays.

Should it be that way? Hell, no. But that's reality. While those of us in the business believe reporters should be interchangeable (at least in theory), readers DO pay attention to who's bringing the information to them.

Do I like the OCR's new strategy? I'm dubious. But I certainly understand the thinking.

 

Experience proves? Or data proves?

I bet if you ask 100 people in NY to name three writers who cover the NBA for any of the local papers, you'd have a hard time.

Columnists are a different issue. When people are spouting opinion, it matters who the source is. (But it still doesn't matter what they look like, IMO)

 

I'm not sure there's any reliable data one way or the other on the issue. If you know of any, please share with the class. But in my experience, as well as that of many friends and colleagues working in editor-level capacities at major newspapers around the country, the overwhelming anecdotal evidence is that readers do care who's reporting the news for them. Most of them? Probably not. But certainly a significant portion. And I'm talking about beat reporters, not columnists.

I don't pretend to have done any scientific surveys on this myself, which is why I'll only go so far as to say it's been my experience to the contrary. There have been many studies showing "trust" and "rapport" -- whether real or perceived -- are major factors for consumers of news when they're selecting a news source, which is why "building a brand" is a crucial consideration for any reporter -- and their outlet -- today.

And, no, I don't have any in front of me to share or even go find at 11:38 p.m. on a Thursday night. My beef was with the knee-jerk reply of "enough said." The conversation doesn't end because of a dogmatic response ... especially when there's at least some evidence to the contrary.

 

I thought reformedhack stated what I was going to say pretty well, so no point rehashing.

And ringer, in a weird sense, you're kind of making the point: If people aren't identifying with bylines, make it more personal and give readers a face, too...

 

Paper I used to work at did this on its website. Then one of the female reporters got herself a ... fan. And the mugshots went away pretty quickly.