Otterblog

Among my favorites sites is this one from the Newseum. It gathers front pages from more than 400 newspapers from around the country. They’re in order by state. You can see how news was covered in Bend, Ore., Williamsport, Pa., Detroit, San Francisco etc. (One note, if you read this after 12/7, the front pages will be different...)

Today’s front pages are interesting, and I think they show the wide range of thinking about how newspapers look at coverage of local and non-local news. A phrase you hear in newsrooms these days is “hyper-local,” which means a lot of things to a lot of people but essentially says that newspapers need to be less of gatekeepers in deciding what is news and more of traffic conductors, just figuring out where to put the stories. Bake sale at the local elementary school? News. Traffic light out at the busy intersection? News. You get the idea. Point being, if somebody is interested in it, there’s a story. This can obviously—at least in my opinion—be taken to extremes.

You can see the impact of hyper-local thinking in front pages from today, because there’s a confluence of events that made for some real decision-making on the parts of newsroom editors.

First, was the release of the ISG report, a blue-ribbon blueprint that gives a direction for extricating the US from Iraq. It’s big news. Not as well-written as the report of the 9/11 commission, but an important and sobering look at where we are and what are our realistic options ahead. But if you look at newspapers from across the country, many of them buried this story. It’s at the bottom of the front page or not there at all.  The Journal made it our centerpiece and we devoted 2 inside pages to its content and reaction.

Second, today is the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and many newspapers devoted considerable resources to local stories about the event, often with profiles of vets and splashy presentations. This is also an important story, even if it happens every year. The attack changed our nation in profound ways that still affect us to this day.

I didn’t do an exact count, but a rough scan at the papers suggests that given a choice between a local centerpiece about a WWII-era vet and a government report about the situation in Iraq, a surprising number of editors chose the vets. We used our local front to profile a survivor of the Pearl Harbor attacks and ran a story at the bottom of our front page.

The short-term question for choosing stories for a front page is whether a local story on Pearl Harbor is better/more important/more relevant/more newsworthy/likely to sell more papers in a rack/enhance the brand value of a newspaper than a well-presented story on a road map for the most important issue of today.

This is not to suggest there’s a right answer or a wrong answer in choosing stories. Local news is a big part of our franchise. It’s what we do. But the other real power of a newspaper is the ability for a lot of smart people to synthesize the day’s important news and present them in an easy-to-read fashion that makes clear the scope of an issue. It’s too reflexive to say that “TV covered that. It’s not our story.” And we give that power up at our own peril.