Month: August 2019

Categories
good news and bad news

The world isn’t as mean as the news might indicate

I know this may seem ironic coming from a newsman, but does the news make you feel good on a regular basis?

Television news broadcasts can be depressing. Your social media feed can be worse.

Admittedly, some news in your community newspaper can bring you down from time to time as well.

More and more often, people may feel more afraid, angry, cynical, and hopeless after watching the evening news.

Broadcast news has developed over the years to compete with entertainment for TV ratings.

Back in the days of Walter Cronkite, the evening news was a loss leader.

CBS made money on “I Love Lucy,” not the “Evening News.”

Not anymore. Network news is a cash cow these days.

As a result, they tend to sensationalize danger and wrongdoing, evoking fears of corruption and impending doom.

Media nerds like me learned in graduate school about the negative effects this has on society. But the implications for everyday people are worth discussing. A communications writer, George Gerbner, coined a phrase for this: “Mean World Syndrome.” It deals with the impact watching television has on how we see the world.

The Mean World Syndrome goes one step further, describing the perception that the world is more dangerous than it really is, based on what’s shown in mass media.

There are thousands of studies that suggest a strong connection between television watching and aggression.

Over the decades, much has been done to shield children from violence on television, but some say that is missing the point. Instead of focusing on ways to hide the violence, some question the ways in which the violence is portrayed.

Violence on television and video games can normalize aggressive behavior and make viewers become desensitized.

Gerbner said the mind then becomes “militarized.”

The more dangerous the news shows the world to be, the more we believe them. We become fearful and anxious, depend more on authority, and take other precautionary measures.

“Growing up in a violence-laden culture breeds aggressiveness in some and desensitization, insecurity, mistrust, and anger in most. Punitive and vindictive action against dark forces in a mean world is made to look appealing, especially when presented as quick, decisive, and enhancing our sense of control and security,“ Gerbner once said.

Sound familiar?

He wrote that back in the 1970s.

Where, then, have we come now?

Did you know that crime is at a 30-year low in this country?

We are safer than we’ve ever been.

In every category: murders, rapes, drug use… every category… crime is down.

You couldn’t tell it by watching the 10 o’clock news.

The average newscast is about 26 minutes. There are about six minutes for weather and five for sports.

That leaves the station 19 minutes to grab and keep your attention.

The advertising is more effective that way.

When 15 minutes of the newscast is doom and gloom, leaving only two minutes, after commercials, for something positive — what is the mind supposed to think?

I’ve been guilty of this too.

As a newsman, I know what sells newspapers. A terrible car wreck or controversy at the school board meeting wins every time.

It is what it is.

But we err on the side of positive whenever possible.

I don’t think the TV guys do that as much.

At the end of the day, you are responsible for the media you consume. If you take in violence, you will be in a violent mood and that is not good.

We need to keep up with the world around us, but take it with a grain a salt. For every story about a violent crime, there are thousands of stories about communities coming together.

Seek out those stories.

Seek out the good stuff. There is always more good than there is bad.

Categories
Circulation Future of news Subscriptions

Darrell Royal was right, and newspapers should pay attention

Darrell Royal was famous for his formula for winning football:  You gotta dance with the one what brung you.  In football, you have to keep doing what made you good in the first place. If you were undefeated by running the ball, you keep running it in the playoffs.

And that concept works for newspapers, too.

The doom-and-gloom crowd always focus on the “paper” part of the newspaper compound.  Paper is a dying medium, they say.  And they may be right.  But if we’re going to succeed, we have to focus on the first part of that compound – the one what brung us.  And that is news.

Newspapers aren’t popular because they’re printed on paper. They grew to popularity because they gave people the news they wanted.  Local events.  Names. Faces. Calendars. Sports. Opinion. Pictures. Information.

And guess what?  Scholarly research confirms what we have always known.  A Northwestern University study last year showed that regular reader habit and strong coverage of local news were the key factors in keeping subscribers.  But they wondered … was that also true for small news outlets?

So they did a follow-up study on 12 small news outlets.  Not surprisingly, they found that the same local news emphasis that causes people to read metros also sends them to your newspaper.

One of the things they found was that the more frequently subscribers connect with you, the more likely they are to hold on to their subscription. Large newspapers realize that even publishing daily isn’t enough, so they have rolled out a number of newsletters to make their brand more valuable for readers.

The takeaway for community newspapers: We have a hot commodity – news.  But we can’t just deliver that on paper once a week.  We have to be the go-to medium for news in the community every day.  At TCCJ, we used to say that you could be a weekly in print but you had to be a daily online.  That seems short-sighted now.  We can’t just put news up daily on our website – we have to use social media and newsletters to get that news in front of our readers.

Websites assume that readers come to them.  But social media and newsletters don’t wait for readers to come to them – they go to the readers.

We still have a commodity readers want.  We just have to get the news – branded with our name – in front of readers, and do it more often.

Categories
media criticism News coverage

Is community journalism the last bastion of news objectivity?

If you’re reading a community newspaper, chances are you are reading what seems to be a dying story format:  an unbiased account of the news.

A president who has been overly critical of journalism has driven newspeople on the national level to disregard time-honored canons of objectivity. In years past, we would have reported what a president said or did, and what others said about him.  Now many think they have to put a label on the newsmaker – calling the president a racist instead of just reporting his words and actions and letting the reader decide whether that represented racism.

But what about readers?  Does it matter to them?

Surveys say it does:

  • A recent Knight Foundation study reported that 66 percent of Americans said most news media do not do a good job of separating fact from opinion. Back in 1984, 42 percent held that view.
  • On a media trust scale with scores ranging from a low of zero to a high of 100, the average American scores a 37.
  • Unfortunately, media trust has itself become a partisan issue, with Democrats largely trusting the media and Republicans distrusting the media.

The recent flurry of news mergers and buyouts also concerns the public.  More than 9 in 10 Americans in a Gallup survey are very (68 percent) or somewhat (26 percent) concerned that corporate views would influence coverage if a large company purchased their local news organization.

When you talk with readers about these issues, remember that they don’t see the media landscape like we journalists do.  They look at newspapers, TV news, online news and other outlets and just see journalism.  We see hard news, news analysis, news advocacy, infotainment and lots more.

So tell your readers that you’re committed to presenting the news fairly and objectively – to airing all important sides of stories.  And that no matter what they may see on MSNBC or Fox or some national newspaper or news show, your newspaper is committed to the best traditions of objectivity, neutrality and fairness.

An old definition of public relations is “doing right and telling people about it.” At community newspapers, we’re committed to doing right.  But we need to be more about the business of telling people about it.

Categories
community issues

Rethinking how we cover the opioid epidemic

Rural communities have been disproportionately affected by the opioid epidemic, but rural newspapers have been disproportionately quiet about it. They seem to cover it as a criminal-justice problem, when it is primarily a health problem. Smart law enforcers and first responders will tell you that, but many if not most rural papers seem reluctant to cover it that way – to dig into the reasons for addiction, the struggles to overcome it, the search for treatment and the stories of success.

Part of this, I know from experience, is the natural reluctance of community journalists to report facts that reflect poorly on their communities. In many places, they probably think there’s already enough bad news.

Another big factor is the stigma that still surrounds people with drug problems. That is more prevalent in rural areas, and it keeps people from seeking help – and clings to those who do, putting them at risk for relapse. The role of stigma was well researched by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, and The Rural Blog reported on it at https://bit.ly/2MhNYlq.

The folks at Oak Ridge said local news media can counteract stigma with reporting. To help rural journalists cover substance abuse, behavioral health and recovery, they and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (which publishes The Rural Blog) are planning a one-day workshop in mid-November. Watch for details on it soon.

Meanwhile, start reporting. Get local data. Ask your coroner each month for death certificates, and for advice on what families might be willing to talk about the struggles of addiction that ended in death. Talk to people in the treatment community, and then to people with substance-abuse disorder.

See how the problem developed in your area, by using the pill-distribution database that The Washington Post and the Charleston Gazette-Mail uncovered. Aaron Nelson of The Paintsville (Ky.) Herald did, and gave his readers the names of the stores that sold the most pills. The Rural Blog took note at bit.ly/2MjX4Os.

The opioid epidemic has had a disproportionate effect on poor areas, but prosperous farm counties are part of it, too. The Farm Bureau and the Cooperative Extension Service are active on this front; we had a blog item about their program in Ohio at bit.ly/30RIMc2.

Farmers have been struggling for years with financial instability, loneliness, lack of insurance or access to mental-health care, and the pressure to not quit what may have been a way of life for generations. Now they have to deal with a trade war and unfavorable weather, and are five times more likely to commit suicide than other Americans. The federal government is funneling more money to hep them. Read about it at bit.ly/2GuQjpk.

Suicide and drugs go hand in hand. In rural areas, jail suicides are increasing, and the trend is linked to drug withdrawal and mental Illness,” says The Crime Report, a publication of the Center on Media, Crime and Justice in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, a good source for cutting-edge information on those topics. Read more at bit.ly/2GvQvF1.

Suicide is another touchy subject for community journalists, but it’s time to stop being timid about it. Did you know rural residents are more likely than those in large cities to think about, plan or attempt suicide? They are, and The Rural Blog took note at bit.ly/2yhmcgy.

Here some other topics we’ve had on the blog lately that you can localize:

A U.S. Senate report revealed nearly 400 poor-performing nursing homes whose problems were not made clear by a government website. Local papers picked up on it, and we did at bit.ly/2SOCqra.

Many rural hospitals are in trouble, but some have found ways to overcome adversity, survive and thrive. “The secret sauce is always … strong, collaborative leadership,” National Rural Health Association CEO Alan Morgan told U.S. News and World Report. This is just one of many hospital stories on The Rural Blog; read it at bit.ly/2Y8DUlH.

Rural electric cooperatives are overly reliant on coal, the Nebraska-based Center for Rural Affairs and two other nonprofits charged. We contacted the co-ops’ national trade group, which said they are moving to “cleaner energy sources.” What’s your co-op doing? Start reporting with our blog item at bit.ly/2ZcJNuV.

Electronic cigarettes are an epidemic among young people, but many school districts are lax about it. Not in Fairbury, Neb., which requires any student in grades 7-12 to be subject to random nicotine testing if they participate in extracurricular activities. We took note at bit.ly/2GwGHKO. What is your school district doing about “vaping?” (By the way, it’s not really vapor, as the tobacco companies say; it’s an aerosol, and it has a lot of nasty stuff.)

Community newspapers increasingly charge for obituaries, an unfortunate result of digital media’s erosion of their advertising base. But the news columns of the best papers still include news obits about people who made their mark on the community or region. And sometimes a paper will double down and run a long tribute to a truly unique individual. The Valley News of Lebanon, N.H., and White River Junction, Vt., did that with the moving, funny and insightful eulogy for a well-known dairy farmer and former state legislator, David Ainsworth. We picked it up at bit.ly/2YhoW8k.

Valley News Editor John Gregg sent us that story. If you do or see stories that should be on The Rural Blog, email them to me at [email protected].

 

Categories
Engagement Story ideas

For newspaper readers, advice can add a lot of spice

Former magazine editor Rix Quinn writes a weekly feature for 100-plus newspapers, and business biographies for trade magazines.

What writing format has flourished in American newspapers – and magazines – for over 200 years? If you answered “advice columns,” give yourself a warm handshake.

Yes, these features have been around longer than this country. Even way back in 1722, Ben Franklin wrote a question-answer column (“Silence Dogood”) for his brother’s newspaper in Boston.

An advice column offers three distinct advantages: (1) It gives the reader a chance to interact with the writer. (2) Experts can offer ideas on virtually any subject, and the column can even be sponsored by an advertiser. (3) Most important, advice columns are often cut out of the paper, saved, and quoted around the home or office.

Expert advice is big business

Think of all the famous writers who’ve offered advice over the years. We’ve all heard of Ann Landers and Dear Abby, who offer personal advice. And there’s also Miss Manners, and Hints from Heloise, plus loads of other columns about religion, and car maintenance, and animal care, and clothing selection, and internet use, and…well, you name it.

I’ve often heard that advice and self-help is a gigantic business. Americans reportedly spend $11 billion a year on self-help!

Let me share a personal story about how I discovered the power of advice features.

Many years ago, I worked for my Dad’s trade magazine company. He was a former newspaper editor.

He told me one informal way to gauge a story’s impact was to find out how many times it got forwarded to another person, or displayed in an office or home. This meant the reader cared enough to clip the article out of the publication.

What stories do people clip out?

I researched more, and found out folks displayed clips on office bulletin boards or home refrigerators. (Did that mean the news had gotten cold?)

In homes, people posted family photos, children’s artwork, obituaries, invitations, grocery lists, and advice articles.

At the office, workers displayed quotations, business cards, calendars, cartoons, and advice articles.

Of course, today that “clipping” is mostly electronic as readers link to the column in social media or forward a link by email.

Clip-ability equals memorability!

We made consistent efforts to shorten news and feature articles to under 250 words. We carried many brief quotations from industry executives.

We posted famous saying on the back of subscription renewal cards. And we regularly carried advice features from business experts…not only from the industries we served, but from experts in other professions too.

How to get started?

How many experts could offer advice in your community? Do you have an accountant, or a dentist, or an exercise studio, or somebody else who might want to write – and sponsor – a question-answer column?

I’m convinced that each column should be under 250 words. Each column should offer an e-mail address, and ask questioners to write to that address.

Here’s what we did: After we received a question, we did not publish the questioner’s name unless they gave us specific, written permission.

And…each column carried a disclaimer that said something like this: “Answers offer the views of this column writer only, and not this publication.” I am NOT an expert on this! You should check with your attorney for specific wording.

Finally…

I’ll be glad to talk to you more about advice columns…for free. Just call me at 817-920-7999 or email me at [email protected].