Reader critiques of the Star-Telegram’s new format often focus on one issue: too many ads in the A section, where national and international reports typically are anchored.
Those readers are among the 50 percent who take the newspaper primarily for the news. For the other 50 percent who take the paper primarily for the advertising, there’s no more compelling development than, say, a huge sale.
Still, hard-news devotees resent the dominance of advertising in the first section. They sense obsession with profits, not journalism, and ask: Why so many ads in the A section?
Quick answer: Because so many readers are there, and advertisers love crowds. Every day, more than 80 percent of all Star-Telegram readers — roughly at least 475,000 readers daily and 680,000 on Sundays — read the A section, says Executive Editor Jim Witt. Other sections draw about 55 percent of readers.
A big-picture view mixes helpful perspective into the ad-volume issue when consideration is given to the entire newspaper.
Measurements of space devoted to news and advertising in the Star-Telegram versus other dailies our size — such as the Sacramento Bee, Charlotte News-Observer and San Antonio Express-News — find more news space in the Star-Telegram.
“I think we can safely say we run many more inches of news than almost any newspaper our size,” Witt said. “In a week’s time we will run the equivalent of more than 75 open pages of news with no advertising on them.”
The difference shows up in space for local news.
“Our national and international news is the same you get from everyone else,” Witt said. “We put our space into local news in the local section, Sports, Work & Money and YourLife. That’s where we can offer real value to readers and exclusive news they can’t get anywhere else.”
On a recent Thursday, Witt’s reply to one reader (who wrote, “Thanks for putting a little bit of news in between the ads”) included some of the above information but added other detail:
“Because our press will only handle up to 28 pages in the first section — 18 of which can carry process color — [the A section] winds up being about 70 percent advertising/30 percent news.
“Today, for instance, we had 30 columns of news and 60 columns of ads. But the local section had 53 columns of news [and] 32 columns of ads, the Sports section had 66 columns of news and only 6 columns of ads, the Work & Money section had 32 columns of news and only 4 columns of ads, and the YourLife section had 36 columns of news and only 16 columns of ads.
“So overall today, the paper had more news — 217 columns — than we did ads — only 118 columns. That’s a 2-to-1 ratio of news to ads. But because almost all those ads are in the A section, it gives you the impression that the paper is all ads and no news.”
In truth, aside from the A section, the Star-Telegram overall isn’t the ad hog that some readers suspect, mainly because Publisher Wesley R. Turner wants Star-Telegram readers to have a credible newspaper. Many journalists elsewhere would agree.
Recently, an editor at a daily well east of here called to ask about the Star-Telegram’s “news hole” (the amount of space for news). Numbers like Witt’s came up. The editor sighed.
“You’re on average about 60 percent [paid space] vs. 40 percent [news hole]. I’d kill for that kind of space. We’re 70/30 in every section.”
One gets his drift when imagining local, Sports, Work & Money and YourLife sections as 70/30 A sections.
In those sections, news content dominates. And readers aren’t complaining.
