Sunday, February 24, 2008
Local news given precedence on the front page
Michael Stowe
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Every weekday at 4 p.m., about a dozen editors gather in our news conference room to talk about and debate which stories, photos and graphics should appear on the paper's front page the next day.
Leading that meeting is one of the most interesting and rewarding parts of my job -- but it's also one of the most challenging.
The front page is the most important page of the paper, our first opportunity to connect with readers and draw them into the paper, and it's also the most scrutinized. Editors learn quickly that we can't make everyone happy.
The story selection and look of our front page have changed dramatically in the past 10 years. For years, the page was dominated by the top national and international news. Local news generally ran small on the front page or inside the paper.
That's reversed today.
You can get national and international news from dozens of sources -- but we believe our newsroom uncovers and tells the stories of Western Virginia and its residents better than anyone else. And those are the stories that we display most prominently on the front page.
That local focus was evident at our 4 p.m. news meeting Tuesday, the day Cuban leader Fidel Castro resigned. We talked briefly about displaying the Castro story prominently on Wednesday's front page -- dozens of papers did the next day -- but decided instead to feature the unveiling of the new Martin Luther King Jr. statue in Roanoke. It wasn't a blockbuster news story, but the King ceremony was the day's most prominent local event, attended by about 500 people.
Thursday's front page -- anchored by reporter Laurence Hammack's story on how Roanoke City Councilman Alfred Dowe had used his city-issued credit card to pay for nearly $15,000 in meals and travel expenses -- offered an example of the local watchdog reporting we believe readers value.
Of course, there's no way to design a front page that appeals to everyone.
I get four or five calls or e-mails a week from readers who are unhappy with the stories or photos we picked -- or often the ones we didn't pick.
The most common concerns: not including enough national or international news; a belief that we've shown a preference for one candidate or political party; or a frustration with sports or entertainment news running on the front page.
The front page is the place where we put the most important local and regional news, but it's also a place where we strive to put the most interesting and compelling human interest stories. Sometimes those stories are sports news, such as the large photo and "Super Shocker" headline we featured on our front page Feb. 5, the day after the New York Giants upset the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Sometimes they are about entertainment news (don't be surprised if the Oscars are on tomorrow's front page).
Those aren't the most serious subjects -- and it would be a mistake to feature them too often on the front page -- but they do focus on topics of high interest for a lot of readers. That's why we put them on the front sometimes.
The front page is also a window to the rest of the paper -- an opportunity to guide you to the best and most interesting stories in other sections of the paper.
We do it with teasers or "promos" that run above the newspaper's nameplate (they often refer to content in the Sports or Extra sections). We also do it by designing the paper to include short news summaries of interesting stories on the front page -- with longer and more in-depth versions of the same story inside.
We don't always get it right. In hindsight, we probably should have given more space on the Feb. 15 front page to the Northern Illinois campus shootings and less space to a local feature on a Valentine's Day wedding proposal. I heard from several readers -- and a few newspaper staffers -- who wished we had.
That's just one example. There are many mornings where I wake up second-guessing some of the decisions made at that 4 p.m. meeting. A great aspect of working at a daily newspaper is having the opportunity to come back and do it better the next day.
That's our goal every day -- but we need you to keep telling us how we're doing.
Interested in attending one of our afternoon news meetings? Give me a call or drop me a note to set up a day that works for both of us.
