Like many of the people on this list, I can work up a pretty good rant about
how the Star Tribune doesn't cover the city the way it ought to. I think the
old Minneapolis Tribune did a better job--or at least a more continuous and
daily job--of covering Minneapolis, even though the newspaper's circulation
area at that time went nearly to Montana. When I first worked as a reporter
at the Minneapolis Tribune, I covered dozens of Minneapolis Park Board
meetings--and issues outside the meetings. Editors at that time clearly
believed that it was important for the newspaper to cover the city's major
governmental bodies, and we did, even with a newsroom that was tiny compared
to today's Star Tribune.
Over the years, the focus switched to thinking in terms of the metropolitan
area, rather than the city. And it definitely turned away from covering--or
even going to--meetings as a place to get news. (I heard "We'll develop our
OWN agenda" as a rationale for not covering meetings more times than I'd
like to think.) Top editors pointed out that most of the newspaper's
readership didn't live in Minneapolis. (Although, at least up until I left
the paper six years ago, the largest single group of readers DID live in
Minneapolis.) So the newspaper has looked for trend stories, for interesting
feature stories and for high-profile stories. But it does not devote
resources to having a strong, daily sense of what is important in the city.
The Readership Institute, a part of the Media Management Center at
Northwestern University, issued a report on "The Power to Grow Readership"
at the American Society of Newspaper Editors this month. (No, I wasn't
there, not being the editor of a daily newspaper, but you can download the
whole report from the Web.) The startling news? "a strong reader appetite
for news that is intensely local and personally relevant." But, according to
the report, it also must be written in a "people-centered" way. "...the fact
that a newspaper covers more 'local' news--news of politics, government,
business sports and other topics with a local focus--does not necessarily
result in a newspaper with a local feel. it is the approach to story-writing
that creates of localness."
I have to confess that, beefs about the Star Tribune aside, my first
reaction was to clutch my chest in a bit of panic. What if the Star Tribune
decided to be much more Minneapolis-focused? What would that do to a
newspaper like the Southwest Journal? Would it make us irrelevant or
redundant? Or, worse, would it only APPEAR to do so, but then leave a huge
gap in city coverage?
When the Southwest Journal added a few neighborhoods, a little over a year
ago, we talked to people at the neighborhood organizations first. A couple
expressed concern about their neighborhood publications, like the Bryn Mawr
Bugle or the Wedge newspaper. Would the Southwest Journal make them
irrelevant or redundant? We answered, honestly, that the publications offer
different layers of information. If you want to know what's happening in the
state, you read the Star Tribune or the Pioneer Press. Then you read the
Southwest Journal for another layer of information about the city of
Minneapolis. And your own neighborhood newspaper or newsletter for some very
specific information about the garage sale or the zoning requests on your
block.
The Star Tribune has resources galore and, as a city resident, I wish the
newspaper would devote more of those resources to consistently understanding
and covering Minneapolis. As the editor of a community newspaper, I partly
appreciate the information gap because it leaves my staff plenty of room in
which to find stories we think are important and then run with them. I think
my status as resident wins, though, in this little competition in my head.
As an editor, I know that if the competition for finding city stories were
stronger than it is now, my staff would be challenged in a different
way--and would rise to that challenge--and the result for residents of the
city would be more information about more topics, and probably in more
depth. So a win-win all the way around, at least for those of us who care
about the city of Minneapolis.
My point, through all this rambling, is that there is not only room but also
a need for several layers of information. The Star Tribune can do more than
it does�and many of us want it to�but it can never do AS MUCH as the Star
Tribune PLUS the Southwest Journal (or Northeaster or Longfellow/Nokomis
Messenger or Whittier Globe, etc.) can do about events, issues and people in
Minneapolis. And you are still going to want and need neighborhood
association publications, individual school publications, etc. to be fully
informed about things in your neighborhood.
Having multiple layers of information is not a bad thing. At each layer, the
publications (or Web sites or whatever) can focus resources to do what they
do best, rather than trying to spread themselves over too broad a territory.
It's in this last area that I would argue most with Star Tribune choices
about how to use its resources. The overload on sports, the decision to send
Star Tribune reporters and photographers to events elsewhere that have no
particular tie to Minnesota other than that they're big news... Too often it
seems (at least to this reader and former editor there) that the decision of
what to cover is a kneejerk reaction--"If the New York Times is there, we
better be there, too!"--rather than part of a philosophy or mission for the
newspaper. Thinking in terms of layers, the Star Tribune might better say,
"If the New York Times is there, we know they'll do a terrific job, and we
can use that story. So let's do the one the NYT will never get to because
it's too specific to Minnesota." Then readers would get the best of all
possible worlds: the great NYT piece AND more stories about local events,
issues and people.
Perhaps because we are small--although our resources are relatively rich for
a community newspaper--my staff and I constantly have to assess whether a
story is right for the Southwest Journal, or the wisest use of our
resources. Does it provide something our readers won't get elsewhere? Does
it give a different perspective and context than they will get reading a
daily story in the Star Tribune? Is it really an issue in our part of the
city? Can we show how it's important in our part of the city? We don't
always get it right, even by our own standards, but we do--every one of
us--have a sense of who we are and what that means in terms of our coverage.
I'm not at the Star Tribune anymore, and I don't remember clearly how those
discussions went--or if they happened at all--while I was there.
I don't mean to take cheap shots at the Star Tribune, which is loaded not
only with talented people I admire, but with some who are still good
friends. The newspaper is in the wonderful position of having people care
about what it does. I'd love to see it think hard about its philosophy of
city coverage, and to not only articulate that philosophy but also to
demonstrate it regularly--whatever it is--with a consistent focus and use of
resources.
Linda Picone, Editor, Southwest Journal
Kingfield resident
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