I am suggesting this for a long time:
Newspapers have to figure out what makes them different than the other competitors.
Q: What are print newspapers doing the best?
A: They (at least those good ones) tell me what is exactly going on in my own backyard?
Yes, we are amazed how easy now is to know what is happening in China or Russia, but what we always want to know more are the issues that can affect us immediately and those that will most likely have impact on our everyday life.
Kevin Alfaro couldn’t be more to the point:
As Thomas Friedman has said, the world is flat. At the same time as this happens, the newspapers have something that the internet would be hard press to provide. It is the local effect.
Online Journalism Blog quoted Philip Meyer
What service supplied by newspapers is the least vulnerable?
I still believe that a newspaper’s most important product, the product least vulnerable to substitution, is community influence. It gains this influence by being the trusted source for locally produced news, analysis and investigative reporting about public affairs. This influence makes it more attractive to advertisers.
Instead of trying to be global, reach everybody and satisfy all the tastes, print newspapers should stick to what they do the best.
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October 20, 2008 at 12:48 am
Andrea
I just had this conversation with someone! I can’t remember who, but I said that I think newspapers could cut out several parts of the paper and fill those sections with local stories. If I want news from another part of the country, I look at that place’s newspaper online. When I want information about Wichita, I should be able to find it in our local paper.
The Eagle has several opportunities to make improvements in this area. I think after the front page of each section (on most days), the content is boring and insignificant. If we featured more local stories, I would be more interested in reading the paper.
I think as a young person, if I want national news, I look for Time magazine or GoogleNews–not The Eagle, unless it’s a huge story (then I pick up the paper the next day after looking online immediately). Newspapers need to stick to what they can do best–local coverage.