I'm extremely frustrated as I write this.
About a year and a half ago, we made the decision to start a daily Community page, where we would publish news items and photos submitted by readers. It's a catch-all page, with a community calendar, news briefs, student news, celebrations (weddings, anniversaries and engagements), menus, honor rolls, and more.
Before our redesign in November 2006, we published most of this information when and where we could. It was spread throughout the paper, sometimes used as fill rather than as a feature.
We decided to give reader-submitted news more of an emphasis, with a page or two dedicated to it daily.
I have no quantitative evidence that proves we receive more information from readers now than we did before, but it often seems like we do.
Unfortunately, even devoting a page or more daily isn't enough. Sometimes, news items and photos we'd like to get in quickly are delayed or, on occasion, don't get published at all.
I just got off the phone with someone who was upset that we didn't publish a submitted photo on the Community page that went along with a news item that was published. I understand the person's frustration, and also would have liked for the photo be printed.
We simply didn't have the room, given the information was time sensitive (essentially, we had to publish it in one of two editions) and given the number of submitted items we have in the queue at the moment.
It's frustrating to tell readers we don't have the room to get their information in the paper. But it's the truth, given the realities of our page counts, news hole and dedicated space.
I can tell you that the phone calls (our news clerk received a couple, I got one) sparked a conversation about what we can do to dedicate even more space to Community news items. I can tell you that everyone in the discussion was frustrated by the situation.
I have a few ideas that may enable us to get more Community news in more quickly. But any extra space we create for reader-submitted news will come at the expense of space dedicated for something else.
But our commitment at the Times is to being a "hyper-local" newspaper, meaning the local news always comes first. We run some Associated Press stories, but there are many days when our "wire" report is very slim. Could we run less? Yes. Would that upset another segment of readers? Perhaps.
We run comics daily that aren't local news. Could we take those out of the newspaper? Yes. Would we make some readers angry? Most definitely.
I can assure you that there are far more days that the newsroom has a hard time fitting all the local news into the newspaper than it is busy filling empty spaces with wire stories. Our front page, Record page and Views pages are mostly local. Our Community page is all local. On our local page, news that isn't staff-generated are stories from the Wisconsin Associated Press, and many would rightfully call state stories local, as well.
Our Sports pages are mostly local most days, particularly during the high school sports seasons. But even some of the wire we run then is of local interest - stories on the Brewers, Packers and Bucks, and Scoreboard material that interests all sports fans.
There just aren't many places where local news doesn't already reside.
But we will create more space for Community news items, one way or another. I'm committed to it, and so is our newsroom staff.
About a year and a half ago, we made the decision to start a daily Community page, where we would publish news items and photos submitted by readers. It's a catch-all page, with a community calendar, news briefs, student news, celebrations (weddings, anniversaries and engagements), menus, honor rolls, and more.
Before our redesign in November 2006, we published most of this information when and where we could. It was spread throughout the paper, sometimes used as fill rather than as a feature.
We decided to give reader-submitted news more of an emphasis, with a page or two dedicated to it daily.
I have no quantitative evidence that proves we receive more information from readers now than we did before, but it often seems like we do.
Unfortunately, even devoting a page or more daily isn't enough. Sometimes, news items and photos we'd like to get in quickly are delayed or, on occasion, don't get published at all.
I just got off the phone with someone who was upset that we didn't publish a submitted photo on the Community page that went along with a news item that was published. I understand the person's frustration, and also would have liked for the photo be printed.
We simply didn't have the room, given the information was time sensitive (essentially, we had to publish it in one of two editions) and given the number of submitted items we have in the queue at the moment.
It's frustrating to tell readers we don't have the room to get their information in the paper. But it's the truth, given the realities of our page counts, news hole and dedicated space.
I can tell you that the phone calls (our news clerk received a couple, I got one) sparked a conversation about what we can do to dedicate even more space to Community news items. I can tell you that everyone in the discussion was frustrated by the situation.
I have a few ideas that may enable us to get more Community news in more quickly. But any extra space we create for reader-submitted news will come at the expense of space dedicated for something else.
But our commitment at the Times is to being a "hyper-local" newspaper, meaning the local news always comes first. We run some Associated Press stories, but there are many days when our "wire" report is very slim. Could we run less? Yes. Would that upset another segment of readers? Perhaps.
We run comics daily that aren't local news. Could we take those out of the newspaper? Yes. Would we make some readers angry? Most definitely.
I can assure you that there are far more days that the newsroom has a hard time fitting all the local news into the newspaper than it is busy filling empty spaces with wire stories. Our front page, Record page and Views pages are mostly local. Our Community page is all local. On our local page, news that isn't staff-generated are stories from the Wisconsin Associated Press, and many would rightfully call state stories local, as well.
Our Sports pages are mostly local most days, particularly during the high school sports seasons. But even some of the wire we run then is of local interest - stories on the Brewers, Packers and Bucks, and Scoreboard material that interests all sports fans.
There just aren't many places where local news doesn't already reside.
But we will create more space for Community news items, one way or another. I'm committed to it, and so is our newsroom staff.
