A few weeks ago, I asked readers these questions: Can newspapers and journalism still deliver? Can we still make a difference? Can we create the platforms and delivery systems that readers want?
The questions were in a column discussing ongoing changes and uncertainties at The Bee and in the newspaper industry as a whole going into 2007.
I knew I would receive a good response, because readers around here revel in debate about the media and, in particular, about the paper. I wasn’t disappointed.
In fact, I’m heartened by the level of analysis and thought many readers put into their letters and e-mails. They outnumbered by far the quick hits and knee-jerk talk-radio criticism that the paper is too liberal or too conservative, or too this or too that.
The feedback reminded me yet again that many readers consider The Bee as “their paper.” It’s a relationship based on a sense of ownership, of place and community, and of having a stake in the paper’s future — a digital divide some worry they can’t cross or choose not to.
Not surprisingly, the bulk of the comments came from longtime subscribers. These are older, reliable readers in the habit of reading a newspaper every day. They hold strong opinions about what they think The Bee is doing right and what it’s doing wrong.
There’s a feeling among some of them that for all their years-long loyalty, they are taken for granted, their concerns minimized or ignored. They see the paper’s continual retrenchment in the face of financial pressures as ominous and self-defeating.
Whether you agree with them or not — and I don’t on every issue — they nonetheless carry an unmistakable passion for “their paper.” It’s theirs, and they care what happens to it.
Erik Olson of Sacramento is one such reader. He offered a detailed list of concrete suggestions to make the paper better and more relevant.
He suggested, among other things, the paper engage in a crusade once in a while, like the focus a few years back on the financial scandal at Sacramento Suburban Water District that led to changes.
He also urged The Bee to take the lead and use the Internet to solicit investigative tips from the public about government fraud, corruption and incompetence; to develop an attitude and a strong, confident voice; to be more like “60 Minutes” and emphasize good storytelling.
“It feels and appears that The Bee plays it safe in its coverage of the area,” Olson wrote. “Bee investigations are important, but safe. The forest worker series was wonderful, but it felt distant and safe. I wonder what would happen if the time spent on it would be focused on issues that affect Sacramentans more directly.”
That same theme — using the paper’s independence as the foundation for stronger watchdog reporting of government and the community — was raised several times.
“I like some of the watchdog and investigative reporting The Bee does,” reader Barbara Stockman of Sacramento said in her e-mail, “but feel that many of your series are geared more toward winning awards than toward your readers’ interest. Try a survey to determine how many people read all of a series versus skipping all or most of it.”
“I think newspapers can survive by maintaining integrity and not dumbing down what they deliver,” she said. “As an educated, working person I’m willing to pay for honest, unbiased news coverage of local, national and world news which may have an impact on my family and me.”
A few readers who value investigative reporting are worried about cutbacks to the paper and reaching a tipping point that would make it useless and irrelevant.
“As a newspaper addict, the loss of the number of pages and coverage in the past few years is quite troubling,” wrote Laurel Ames of South Lake Tahoe. Her fear is The Bee at some juncture “will simply not provide the most important service of a newspaper to me, which is long, thoughtful, in-depth analyses of the important events that affect our lives over time.”
Reader Betty Doty of Redding said the paper remains relevant to her, whether it’s via print — her preference – or the Internet. The Bee’s mission, she said, should remain the same whatever the format.
“Overall, what I see is that we out here are overloaded with access to information with too little time to process it,” Doty’s e-mail said. “We want journalists we trust to digest the news and tell us what’s really going on. That’s terribly important, I think, for our sanity. And The Bee’s news/editorials are a real comfort to me.”
One of the most interesting responses said it all to me about the paper’s relevance.
It was an e-mail from Lynda Demsher, the sole teacher at the Modoc Adult Community School in Alturas, located in the far northeastern corner of California, population just under 3,000. She teaches 10 students.
“Even with the online version of The Bee, we’ve found it to be no substitution for having the entire paper to fold back and scan for the big stories as well as all the telling little details of the human condition The Bee is so good at providing,” Demsher said. “My students … are coming to realize that a newspaper brings the world, even to places like Alturas (100 miles from the nearest fast-food chain or Wal-Mart) every day.”
Her students, she explained, “just don’t relate to the news on the (computer) screen the way they do in the paper — and to be honest, neither do my husband nor I. Again, thank you for extending The Bee’s reach clear out here — everyone of us who appear regularly at Four Corners Market (where highways 299 and 395 cross) to pick up The Bee appreciate it, even if, on occasion, we have to race each other there for the last one.”
