Thursday, July 9, 2009
Comments (15)
Showing 1-15 of 15
here's a start: Why don't you cover the biggest story of the year in your goddamn newspaper?
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Sorry Whois, but your birthday doesn't count as the biggest story of the year, even if you DID get that pony.
Whois: I didnt believe you until I went out and picked up a copy of this week's paper. You are right. Granted that McNair was killed over the weekend, the paper's deadline is (or used to be) Tuesday afternoon. Although Im sure there are practical problems involved in changing the cover on Monday or Tuesday, this is, as you point out, the biggest story of the year. ( In fact,it's probably the most high profile murder story--from a national news perspective-- in the city's two hundred year history.) For a paper which depends entirely on rack distribution to miss the opportunity to put McNair's picture on the cover is.....unfortunate. We need the Scene but I fear for its future.
Henry Walker, I will not stand idly by while you insult the memory of David Akeman that way, good sir! (Hope it's obvious I'm just teasing.)
Also, I don't mean to point out the obvious, but isn't it clear that of course there's not going to be The Scene or The Tennessean the way we think of them now in the very near future?
Almost every comment thread on posts today seem to be obliquely discussing this, so let's just say it plain.
Why, if you're an advertiser, are you going to pay to put your ad in, say, the Davidson A.M. section when 75% of the people who get it pick it out of the front yard and deposit it in the recycling bin?
Why are people going to pick up a piece of paper with stories that were written a week ago when they can get online and get stories, even in bits and pieces, online?
The tipping point might be farther away here in Nashville than it is in other cities, but eventually the majority of readers will be here--this will be considered the "real" definitive Scene and the print edition, if it even still exists, will be, at best an anthology of the stuff that happens in this space.
I think, with the McNair story, you're already seeing that shift. To say that the Scene hasn't covered McNair is a strange claim--since every day since his murder there's been at least one post, if not more, and lots and lots of discussion.
Maybe it was the wrong decision AT THIS MOMENT to not put him on the cover of the physical paper, too, but that's not going to be the wrong decision in the very near future, because no one's going to think of the paper version of the Scene as being more "real" than this space.
Whether we like it or not, that's just how the world is turning.
(And no, I don't know how folks are going to make money in that model, but I think something will shake out.)
You wrote:
"Maybe it was the wrong decision AT THIS MOMENT to not put him on the cover of the physical paper, too, but that's not going to be the wrong decision in the very near future, because no one's going to think of the paper version of the Scene as being more "real" than this space."
We older readers tend to take the short view. So also, one suspects, do the advertisers who paid "real" money to be included in this week's print edition.
(sorry,AB;couldnt resist).
How many people at the Tennessean JUST lost their jobs, though? Sure, we can talk about short view, but let's be honest about how rapidly those changes are happening.
I think things are going to be awkward and weird until they sort themselves out.
And I'm not sure "But we're old and we like how things used to be" is going to forestall it.
(Sigh.) Im not arguing with you about the future or yearning for the good old days--at least not in these posts. My point, AB, is that the paper is still responsible to today's advertisers---and today's print readers--regardless of what the future holds. The Scene let them down and, in the process, hastened by a little bit the paperless (and perhaps Sceneless) future.
No, that only makes sense if either a.) the Scene somehow foretold the death of McNair and therefore charged more to advertisers because they would get more eyes on their ads this week or if b.) fewer people than normal pick up the Scene because it lacks McNair on the cover.
When, in fact, probably the same folks who always read the Scene read the Scene.
I'm actually surprised to see you arguing that editorial is somehow beholden to advertising. That's never been a good way to run a paper--editorial interests and advertising interests are always supposed to be kept separate.
Now, did the Scene let its readers down? I don't think so, but I'm aware there's room for discussion there.
HW: ...the paper is still responsible to today's advertisers---and today's print readers--regardless of what the future holds. The Scene let them down...
AB: ...that only makes sense if either a.) the Scene somehow foretold the death of McNair and therefore charged more to advertisers because they would get more eyes on their ads this week or if b.) fewer people than normal pick up the Scene because it lacks McNair on the cover....I'm actually surprised to see you arguing that editorial is somehow beholden to advertising.
I'm with Henry here. A press outlet's responsibility to its readers and advertisers transcends any one issue (in both senses of the word), and it dilutes its 'brand' both journalistically and commercially if it exercises questionable news judgment. And this is not about editorial being beholden to advertising; it's about editorial being beholden to the basic animating spirit of the enterprise, which is to publish content that readers want to read and advertisers want to support. The wall of separation between editorial and advertising exists at an operational level, but not necessarily at a strategic level. (For instance, it hardly violates the separation principle when a publisher decides to target Nashville businesses for advertising, and to print content about art, music, culture, and politics in Nashville, and not in Louisville or Kansas City.)
Thank-you, bb; I just didn't have the energy. (After all, we older readers tire easily. We also erroneously assume that other journalists, even the young ones, already know what you just explained.)
If you have a story that everyone in town is talking about--and those don't come up too often--you get it in the paper and online. That's it. No debate. You do it and you do it with urgency.
And I don't think it counts if you merely share your deep thoughts on PITW or write up clever summaries of other people's reporting. You have to do your own work and uncover whatever new facts, subjects, angles, people you can. At least that's what I learned from Dobie and Liz.
It's hard for an alt-weekly to beat a daily on a story like this, but you can at least carve off a piece of the saga and report that better than anyone else. You can challenge the conventional take on what happened. Or you can write a well-crafted narrative that ties all the disparate elements in a messy, complicated story together--while delivering a key scoop or two to keep your readers talking long after they've finished reading. Hopefully, we'll see coverage like that soon, but the Scene's editors and writers are talented enough to have pulled this off earlier.
Just my .02
Ha, well, of course, there's no worse arm-chair quarterback than the man whose playing days are over is there?
So, what can you do? Times are changing and things aren't how the used to be. Advertisers have wised up to the fact that newspaper ads are a lot of money for varying return. Readers don't feel loyal to papers full of press releases and the same syndicated crap they can read elsewhere. People know more about stories more quickly than they did even five years ago through means that have nothing to do with traditional news outlets (I even see you, MattP, wading in the Twitter stream). And without the money to pay people to do real reporting, what are you left with?
Anyway, I'm not a journalist, so what do I know?
Matt is absolutely right, and so are Henry and Bruce. I find it almost inconceivable that the Scene dropped the ball on this. The electronic "coverage" in PITW -- aggregations of what other media outlets have reported, or stray musings on the subject -- is no substitute for what the Scene could and should have done. Matt sketched out some of the possibilities very well. Nor should the timing have that much of an issue. After the tornado in East Nashville -- which occurred late in the week, as I recall -- Dobie turned things on a dime and made it the cover story the next week with pieces from a number of their writers.
Someone offer me some insight here: Is there a bureaucratic structure within the parent company that requires the Scene these days to get pre-clearance from HQ on their cover stories? I've heard tell of such but had no confirmation.
And I will say this for the Tennessean: As dreadful as their coverage generally has become, they seem to have jumped into the McNair story pretty thoroughly.
If newspapers would start reporting the NEWS rather than coloring all stories with their agenda, they'd be fine.
Even in the internet age many people like to have a tangible, physical newspaper to read; however, we want truth and not spin.
Of course, the same applies to the AP, UPI, Reuters, and the television "news" shows.
