“Honesty and Competency”
When Wes Maurer gets asked what will save newspapers, his simplified response is good writing and good journalism.
Maurer, the publisher and editor of the St. Ignace News in St. Ignace, Mich. and the Mackinac Island Town Crier, represents an old school style of newspaper journalism that isn’t focused on tweets and web prowess, but more so the content that fills the space between the reader’s thumbs as they hold the paper in front of their face.
“If a reporter is using social media at work, I’d fire ‘em,” Maurer said during a panel on re-thinking the news at the Michigan Press Association’s conference in Grand Rapids, Mich. Jan. 29. "I've got a paper to put out.''
Maurer makes the point that some struggling newspapers seem to miss. The number of tweets, the quantity of facebook friends amassed and page impressions recorded are meaningless if the stories don’t mean something.
“It’s about honesty and competency,” Maurer said.
Clearly an applicable mantra to newspapers or any business, striving for excellence in your core production will garner the necessary success. Page views, re-tweets and the facebook friends are a byproduct of quality of one’s craft. College newspapers can and should focus on the same. Tweets are not how to tell the story. Tweets are how to get readers to the story.
Of course, web presence is necessary for collegiate newspapers. The students comprising the majority of the readership have grown accustomed to the web as a primary source. But, whether in print or digital, the quality of the content should be a first priority. The rest is just a delivery.
4 Responses
I really liked the honesty and competence comment from Maurer. He said that in reference to trying to be unbiased in reporting — which too often comes out reading like bland and boring. Instead, put away the obsession with unbiased partly because it’s impossible to achieve, and go for writing that is honest to the information and to readers and shows competence of the facts and the situation at hand. Writing that fits the bill will be engaging and worthwhile to a lot of readers.
I like Maurer’s attitude. It is definitely one that is going by the wayside. I think a newspaper does need to concentrate on technology in today’s industry, though. As long as reporters focus on writing quality stories, I don’t see why a web developer can’t spend his time worrying about tweets and page hits. In fact, that’s exactly what he should be concentrating on. Let the writers write, let the copy editors copy edit and let the web people concentrate on the web. These are all pretty basic positions for any major publication today, and I think web presence is important.
His point was largely that there is an obsession with new technology — that too many reporters are not reporting, too many copy editors are not editing, etc,…
If good writing and photography were what made newspapers work we wouldn’t have lost any in the past decade. Maurer is about 90% wrong.
Newspapers worked because they had a monopoly on the information.
The truth is they still DO in the sense that they are the dominant news gathering organizations. But now they offer it free, and open to be copied,
re-transmitted, linked to and all in association with advertising that is worth far less per reader.
News’papers’ are becoming less sustainable because of the ease of access to the same information faster. Control the information, control the dollars.
But the bifurcation of news will come first …pure facts are and will be free once made public. Writing, analysis, exclusive video, exclusive photos, in depth information, all these will cost something. In THAT arena good writing and good journalism will matter.
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