vision2020@moscow.com: Daily News meeting Wed 11/19
Daily News meeting Wed 11/19
Bill London (london@wsunix.wsu.edu)
Thu, 20 Nov 1997 11:08:04 -0800 (PST)
About 20 people assembled at the Daily News conference room, primarily to
toss angry and disappointed comments at DN editor Mark Trahant regarding
DN coverage and priorities.
I can't get it together to write a story on this meeting with
transitions and flow, so all you get are snips and interesting bits of
info I grabbed while there.
General support for local columnists, especially Vera White's new
Ink column.
DN has about 8,000 circulation (subscriptions are up....), of
which about 60 % are from Idaho (45% from Moscow).
The DN is owned by a public corporation that cares about the
bottom line (wants the paper to show a profit). A possibility in the
future: the DN could be sold to another chain which doesn't care at all
about coverage or the newspaper's role in the community. Then it could
become like the Blackfoot paper, which has 2 reporters for local news and
runs wire copy for the rest (in contrast, the DN has 17 reporters,
editors, etc doing local news).
As the Internet use grows, TV use goes down. However, INternet
use increases also increases newspaper use.
Goal of DN now is community journalism. Not being a cheerleader
or community booster (willing to search out what is wrong). Focus on
issues, not on events, to tell a story and begin a dialog.
Long discussion on need for DN to publish the news of record
(arrests, suits filed, etc). Trahant feels that since this is a safe
community that focusing on arrests would make residents feel unsafe for no
reason. He is also concerned with public humiliation of those only listed
as suspects, or arrested and released. Open topic, still unsure.
Discussion also on nature of major news stories written by DN
staff. Several members of audience, who favored a more traditional
journalism, wanted shorter stories that focused directly on the
who-what-where-when-why of the news (written in the info-first inverted
pyramid style). Trahant favors a longer, less direct narrative
style--which he says is better read and remembered by readers.
Daily News is suffereing from significant revenue loss from K-Mart
and Ernst going away. No replacement ad source.
General feeling was appreciation to Trahant for hosting such open
and straightforward discussion.
We all had free sodas and free coffee, and the last word from
Trahant to me was that this was not the DN's last public meeting. there
will be more.....
BL
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