I’ll never be a chef as I can barely boil water, nor will I be a pilot because I don’t know north from south and perhaps I shouldn’t even be a journalist due to not being interested in the news. By news I mean newsy news; political, financial, criminal stuff. I do care about human interest type stories.
At dinner time I’d rather watch ‘Judge Judy’ than the local news with repeated weather forecasts. I even watch the Lifetime channel more than I do C-Span and when the President speaks, I watch a movie. So it seems fair that I question my career choice, the only problem is there is no other skill that I’m halfway good at. However, I do feel there’s a place in the news for upbeat, feel good stories about people, businesses, and events in the neighborhood.
It’s no secret that newspapers are sinking and readers of them are becoming a rare breed. I’m among those who enjoy reading a paper, but can look through it very quickly when it’s full of newsy news. I realize and fully agree that it’s important to inform citizens about their cities political dealings, but it’s not why I read the paper. I’ve noticed a growing trend where papers are very heavy on the newsy news and the rest is an afterthought.
Granted I’m biased, but I’ve never seen an article about the city’s zoning board hanging on someone’s refrigerator. Am much more likely to find one about their kids award in sports or about their favorite teacher. Should small-town newspapers be dominated with news of City Council or of the people who make up the community.
The mission of every newspaper, whether for a large metropolis or a tightly bound community should be to please its readers. What I think doesn’t really matter, I’m wrong most of the time anyway. So just out of curiosity, what kind of stories do you the reader most like to read in newspaper? Please, share your opinion with me or at least explain the zoning law to me.
