{"id":43,"date":"2004-01-02T01:11:43","date_gmt":"2004-01-02T07:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2004\/01\/02\/loco-local\/"},"modified":"2006-02-15T01:15:31","modified_gmt":"2006-02-15T07:15:31","slug":"loco-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/01\/loco-local\/","title":{"rendered":"Loco local"},"content":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock<\/font><\/h6>\n

Friday, Jan. 2, 2004. <\/font><\/b>Remain skeptical about smaller newspapers insisting on local news, that local news is what local readers want. I’m not sure what readers want, but realize readership is dropping everywhere. This is a sneaking feeling that, oh, local TV newscasts contain just about all the local information that would-be readers want, those who are not watching "The Daily Show," old BBC sitcoms on PBS or Howard Stern instead.<\/font><\/p>\n

The people who want to read about proposed water rate increases, a new police station site, lengthening the airport runway, a train-car collision, the month’s tally of forged checks may well be prominent figures, advertisers or civic leaders themselves, or older folks long accustomed to keeping up with local affairs. They still see a need for it. They are not "mostfolks," though. Regrettable but for the local TV station taking in the train-car fatality for two minutes and the airport story for 45 seconds may well be enough for mostfolks, most of the time. The times they want an issue — the police station is going on my corner? — they buy single issues at the store.<\/font><\/p>\n

Solutions? News has to be covered and published. The journalism tricks of the past 20 years — so as to include USA Today — were temporary. These comments here only hit a some sides of a couple of aspects. Maybe we should acknowledge that circulation will continue to decrease despite graphic and other design changes, teaching reporters the latest trend in "lively" writing\/research, until readership drops into some stable audience pool. That rather small figure will have to be accepted as a given.<\/font><\/p>\n

Smaller papers that claim local is best either forego wire news or just slop it in with little thought. Smaller papers are killing the smorgasbord effect, the only thing that will hold on to a diversity of readers. I am sure today’s 24-hour clock is no more full for anyone than it ever was, but mostfolks’ priorities have shifted. Once we could say steady readers are older, not Internet savvy or whatever. I do not see that. Seniors don’t want to be bothered, either, I keep being told by them.<\/font><\/p>\n

So why do small newspapers exist? Because no one’s told retailers their ads don’t do much good, in the age of Wal-Mart. (It’s true in radio, too. How long has it been since you actually heard a radio spot? We all tune them out because they’re so obnoxious, in the way local TV spots for cars or furniture are.) Newspaper advertising runs the gamut in professionalism, but are they tuned out too much of the time, as well? Perhaps our single-copy readers would prefer, despite the much-higher cost relative to subscribing, to grab a paper on an odd Sunday even when there’s no issue they want to study up on. The reason is the huge ad outlay on Sundays. Ads still have a play in consumers’ lives.<\/font><\/p>\n

This all is probably terrible for participatory democracy. Lots of communities have vacancies on their appointed boards. It’s not cynicism, I don’t think, but that so many of us are newcomers to our current hometowns, due to jobs. Every community has its old-timers; they run the city; they read the paper. They’re not natives, increasingly, but they’ve been "here" longer than us. Always. Even 20-year newcomers have a disconnect. What do they care about local news? With variety of news near and far, and of commentary and features, though, there’s a chance. -30-<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Jan. 2, 2004. Remain skeptical about smaller newspapers insisting on local news, that local news is what local readers want. I’m not sure what readers want, but realize readership is dropping everywhere. This is a sneaking feeling that, oh, local TV newscasts contain just about all the local information […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":80,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/06\/14-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":0},"title":"14 people","author":"Ben S. 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Even with fewer than the 14 \"hits\" I assume I get, I worry about not just offending someone who may have some authority over me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/11\/cutting-myself\/","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":2},"title":"Cutting myself","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Monday, Nov. 8, 2004: I may see a trend in this Brick business, a hierarchy. When I work for pay, or at least print publication, I not only think hard about clarity of thought in the writing but how to frame the published writing to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/01\/disagreeing-to-agree\/","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":3},"title":"Disagreeing to agree","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2004. It is OK to for a publication, or an individual writer, to be superior to readers. Ps and Ws, increasingly in recent years, attempt to be either equal to the reader or beneath them. The first is thought to appeal to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/08\/being-baited\/","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":4},"title":"Being baited","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2004. Newspapers are suffering because they've lost both anger and humor, Jimmy Breslin said in a Poynter interview in late July. My slight spin would be that we're trying too hard to be nice. 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Besides, as cautious as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}