After the horror and grief of the 9-11 terrorist attacks came the realization of how woefully ignorant Americans were about international news.
Wanting a crash course in world affairs from their daily newspapers, readers demanded news, analysis and background information on all things terrorist and on Asia, Europe and Latin America in general. This led news wire services to concentrate on providing more international stories and prompted newspaper editors to pack more of that content into pages on a daily basis.
But as the immediacy of the attack on American soil passed, editors started pushing local stories and features out on the front again.
Prior to 9-11, newspapers across the country tailored front pages to suit readers’ appetites. More and more reader surveys indicated that subscribers wanted local news and some light news on the front page, so editors concentrated on providing that content. Many newspapers (including The Salt Lake Tribune) reserved a space on A-1 for an oddball story or a funny story the kind of yarn people talk about around the water cooler. Newspapers in general were trimming world and national news and concentrating on local and state news.
Readers in the 1990s seemed to like this approach after all, the stock markets were up, jobs were plentiful and life was good for most Americans. But times have changed: The economy is having a hard time pulling out of a recession that economists say finished ended at the end of 2001; the threat and reality of terrorism continue as America has toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq and still pursues Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and Afghanistan while keeping a nervous eye on American borders and terrorist incidents in other countries. It is not an easy time.
But that does not mean it is a unique time. Certainly, the fact that America was attacked on such a large scale in a world where TV and Internet connections mean news can get to virtually everyone in minutes jolted people into an awareness they may not have known otherwise. But the more world problems change, the more they remain the same. People can get around the world and from one country to another with speeds not previously known, but the human problems are the same. Think not? Try this lyric from a Kingston Trio song in the early 1960s:
“They’re rioting in Africa, They’re starving in Spain.
“There’s hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain.
“The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
“The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
“Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.
“And, I don’t like anybody very much.”
Over the last few months, however, readers have called every week to complain about the focus of the Tribune’s front page. And some of them have written e-mails.
One annoyed reader wrote: “Please, Please, Please end your practice of placing huge local human interest articles on the front page of the Tribune. I, and most people I know here in Utah, would prefer actually expect to see only national, international, and weighty local news highlighted on the front page and in the “A” section. Make the Utah section bigger, if you wish, but please let your readers have a glimpse of the world!”
That comment is typical of what I hear. Sure, local news is important, but so are national and international news. And, I suspect a content analysis of the front page over the past three months would indicate that local stories are outweighing national and international news by a ratio of at least 3 stories to 2. Some days only one international or national story appears on the front page.
That emphasis on local and state and regional news probably will not change. As Tribune Editor Nancy Conway explains, “Readers tell us they buy local newspapers for the local and regional news. That’s what is important to them.”
But she realizes national and international news also are important. Keep an eye out for ways in which The Tribune can focus reader attention on world and national news, even if it is not on the front page.
Newspaper editors practice a craft that is part art and part science. If readers had the time to go to sources and find the news and then evaluate it and present it, they would not need newspapers. So far, readers do not seem to have the time to devote to that effort, so they expect editors to do it for them.
If nothing else, recent reader reaction indicates subscribers are interested in serious news and that’s good news to people in this business.
This week’s stats:
Number of readers who say nothing about the LDS Church should be printed anywhere except the Religion section: 22
Number of readers suspicious about who owns The Tribune: 5
Number of readers who hate the new format of the newspaper’s weekly TV supplement: 27
Number of readers who want only world and national news on the front page: 48
___
The Reader Advocate’s phone number is 801-257-8782. Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, P.O. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110. reader.advocate@sltrib.com
