What's the bigger story for a local paper?

This was just basically an argument over the importance of a "national" golf tournament that no one gives a shit about. Plain and simple.

This event is one of maybe six that said girl is going to be in this year and sure, it would be newsworthy....if we weren't going to be covering her the rest of the way.

The reason we brought up the local race as a comparison is because my coworker doesn't understand that for a local paper...local stories and features matter. He'd just rather brush off this feature on a local teacher/cross country coach placing second in a chairty race to go to the golf tournament (in the event we had to choose) because as he says "Anyone can enter the race" and "It's running. Even I could run."

But he is right about something....I hate golf and given the choice would rather cover ANYTHING else because A.) High school golf girl might go to the pros but aside from her friends and family, right now the best a casual reader might say about the story is "Oh, that's nice". B.) No one gives a shit about high school golfers and C.) no one especially gives a shit about Rhode Island high school golfers who are going to get their coverage all golf season and in the big Am events.

For what it's worth, I still think I'm right to choose A over B if it were to come down to it. But, as others on this board know, sometimes I am a stubborn prick. I don't claim to be the most experienced journalist out there and am still learning the ropes, but in my opinion, teacher boy trumps golf girl.

 

How do we know this? We seem to take this as a given, but why?

I think sales indicate that people want local news as a whole -- having a shitload of local stories is important -- but individually, the kind of story you describe is insignificant to most readers and is no more satisfying to them than the story about the local golfer or a big fish being caught or the garden club electing a new president (and less interesting than the local burglar being arrested again). Both stories fall into the category of "completely boring, useless shit that we're compelled to cover only because it happened around here." Good local stories do exist. Your charity race does not fall into that category, and arguing over it vs. the local golf kid is like arguing over McDonald's vs. Burger King -- they fill your requirement to have a meal of some sort, and that's all it does.

 

"Dimitri, lobster AND cracked crab for everyone!"

 

Pork bellies!

 

Research at our local paper indicates that people want to read about people they know. That's a big reason why they buy a local paper. If they preferred interesting enterprise on someone they don't know, they would go to a different source.

If you just did a story on the golfing girl, and have an opportunity to get the names of a bunch of other locals in the race story, that's a better option. Besides, a little homework can help you find an interesting story somewhere in there.

 

B. There is always a local something with a local something going on. The golfer story also sounds more interesting.

 

Think about this for a moment. If they know the person, what is a reporter going to tell them that they don't already know? Like, I've seen this person get drunk and puke all over the table ... I know his mom and dad fight all the time, I can hear them from up the block ... His cousin is gay and moved to the city ... In the second grade, he picked his nose and ate it and we shunned him for a month. The newspaper isn't going to have any of that. It'll have boring shit that can't compete with what people REALLY know about someone they know. A good newspaper story takes people someplace different -- they meet people they ordinarily wouldn't, they see a slice of life that's radically removed from theirs.

 

In many ways I agree with you F_R. I'm not making this shit up. It's one of the many differences between a local paper and a bigger one.

I'll take you one further and say a good local newspaper story gives you a fresh perspective on someone you know. It's why the police blotter is one of the most popular elements in many local papers.

Besides, you may know a bunch of shit about many people, but they always have things about them that you don't know.

 

And if you don't cover the local something that's going on then you aren't doing your job as a local newspaper. We forget the golfer was just featured last week. Unless there's a new angle besides local golfer plays in national event (a card that has already been played) How is that better?

 

Sure, they want to read nasty shit about people they know. But as for reading about the local guy who ran in a race that raises money for people who suffer from impacted earwax because impacted earwax killed his Aunt Mabel, I don't think that sells newspapers. I think newspapers need to stop perceiving "the readers" as a separate species. Editors need to ask, "Would I read this? I mean, really, would I, if they weren't paying me to read it? We're not talking theoretically, like would a dumber-version-of-me-who'd-never-traveled-more-than-10-miles-from-this-shithole-town read it? But would I?" If we asked that question and answered it honestly, most of the stories a paper runs wouldn't run at all or would be cut to five inches.

 

That's why local reporting isn't as easy as it sounds. Making the everyday, boring and mundane stuff an interesting read is tough to do.

I'm not trying to make this a pissing match, I agree with many of your points. If you cover the local stuff the same way each time, it does get boring and people won't read it. BTW, "the readers" include me. Even if I stopped working for the local paper tomorrow, I'd still read it to see what's going on in town and if some of my friends and acquaintances might be in it. It's why I still read papers from old shops I've worked in before this one.

As for selling newspapers, since we've taken an approach to get more local names in (without sacrificing creativity), our circulation has gone up. It's not about what I think.

 

If there's a way to get both, I'd at least try for both. Of the two, I'd probably focus on the race rather than the phenom. One can be "the big story," while you could run art with the other and make it centerpiece.