Communications, not newspaper people

At the turn of the 20th century, the men who owned and profited railroads were some of the richest, most successful men in the United States. But by mid-century, those in the automobile industry were rolling in the big bucks and the railroad men were all but forgotten.

The problem? Railroad men were too narrow in their thinking. Instead of becoming part of the change in transportation, they gripped tightly on what they were already doing and stayed inside their comfort zone. Had they thought of themselves as transportation men rather than railroad men, they could have been part of both movements and continued building on their successes.

One of my professors in the School of Journalism has begun both of the courses I took with him with this story. He makes the corollary between the railroad men of the 20th century to the newspaper people of the past decades – that we must be able to change and adapt ourselves, or we are bound to fail. We must think of ourselves as communication people if we want to succeed.

I’m open to that change. And that’s why I am optimistic about my future, and the future of others, in the newspaper industry.

At the Missourian, there are already several ways the students and management are working to make the news available in other formats. Text casting is done with breaking news and there is a partnership with the KBIA radio station to feature a story in the morning newscast. Articles are often shared with KMIZ/Channel 17 in Jefferson City. The online newspaper, eMprint is offered once a week and the Web site columbiamissourian.com is in the works of a complete overhaul scheduled for March 1. Currently, additional photos and convergence such as videos and sounds blurbs are uploaded to the site, with refers to the material in the daily print edition. All in all, the staff is exhibiting the characteristics of communications experts, with an obvious emphasis in newspapers.

In class, we talked about how it’s our responsibility to fill the plates of readers with “healthy” information – news they can use and learn from. But how can newspapers do that when, according to the PowerPoint with research from the Reynolds Foundation, the topics they excel at covering, such as politics and international news, are those that readers, especially the young, say they care least about? My solution is to change the types of news we give and how it is delivered. Just as our parents would put a treat on our plate every now and then or make our pancakes to look like Mickey Mouse to make them more appealing to us, we as journalists must find ways to make the news we think is important appealing to all people. We also have to find a way to integrate the news people want – music, entertainment and more – into our product. Perhaps there could be a Friday arts and entertainment page. Newspapers can’t afford this space daily, but a people in the news box or listing of entertainment briefs may help attract more readers, including a younger demographic.

According to the PowerPoint, “Technology has created major behavior and lifestyle changes that pose serious challenges to the traditional print news business.” In class, we also discussed how the baby boomer generation is the demographic with the highest Internet usage. As journalists, we need to find ways to attract them to our Web sites to use as a news source. We can include AP and local updates throughout the day, which will help keep the news from getting “stale,” a problem outlined both in the PowerPoint and in the “Beyond News” article in the January/February 2007 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. We can use technology such as Olive Software, which reproduces the entire paper, including advertisements, on the Web and charge a subscription rate to see the information. That way, readers can consume news throughout the day, not in a morning rush, in addition to not having the clutter of newsprint.

We should continue to develop our print product, too, though. The same article describes the worries editors and news directors have concerning the Internet. In it, journalists were urged to sell something other than news by adding additional layers of information. As Downie and Kaiser wrote in “The News About the News” radio and network news may give one or ten sentences respectively about big news. A newspaper’s job is “to be definitive, authoritative about all the subjects it covers.” (page 104) Once again, we return to the example in several texts and class discussions about the increase in newspaper sales following the Sept. 11 attacks on America – the newspapers provides meaning and credibility to the developing story.

The most important thing we as newspaper – I mean communication – people can do is be flexible. We should not abandon our beliefs and standards. But, we do need to find compromises to make newspapers and our products appealing to all demographics. And if that means we have to include a candy bar with dinner every few days, I’m all for it.