Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Connecting to the Disconnected
Reconnecting can be hard, jarring, painful
Despite unpleasantness, reaching beyond the newsroom
and traditional sources is key to reaching the disconnected reader
By Craig Branson
It’s not a new issue, reconnecting to the community. In fact, Doug Clifton
of The Miami Herald says that he’s been hearing editors talk about it for
the past 15 years. Well, editors still want to talk about it.
They did at a session called "Connecting to the Disconnected," in which
all manner of solutions were brought up: from editors attending church
services in minority communities to opening up the editorial or feature
pages to local writers; from meeting with members of a targeted group to
working on avoiding the typical story "frame."
Editors agreed, however, that they should lead this fight and that it
can be a difficult process.
"Top editors need to be involved in bridging this disconnect," said
Gilbert Bailon, executive editor of The Dallas Morning News. There is a
tendency to delegate going in the community to editors and reporters. "It
is good and we endorse it, but I ask you, what are you doing? Are you in
those neighborhoods? Are you in those churches, mosques and synagogues
yourself?"
He said that getting out in the community — attending that church service,
eating that chicken dinner — does two things: It establishes that you do
as you say, and it gives you story ideas.
"I’ve never gone to any of these meetings and not come back with a notebook
full of story ideas and contacts and people we might profile or write an
obit piece for us," Bailon said.
Karla Garrett Harshaw, editor of the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, said
that in addition to getting into the community, our newsrooms must reflect
our community.
"When it comes to issues of minorities, given the percentages in our
newsrooms and how few minorities there are, we are not apt to really know
what that is all about," Harshaw said. "When it comes to our social interests,
our leisure interests probably don’t mirror the communities that we serve."
That, plus journalists’ storied insularity, doesn’t make them any closer
to the community.
Harshaw, a champion of ASNE’s Journalism Values Institute, said that
the lessons of JVI are to ask the right questions. "Is it just getting
two sides or are we thinking more of wholeness, where we are really looking
to go out and get a variety of perspectives," she said. Two polar viewpoints
don’t make a balanced story. "We understand that there are issues in the
middle, there are perspectives in the middle."
That perspective can be tainted by a reporter’s preconceived "framing"
of a story, said Steven Smith, editor of The Gazette, Colorado Springs,
Colo. He recalled a scene from when he was a reporter covering government
meetings from the press table instead of the audience.
"If you are going to be covering from the center of your community,"
Smith said, "sitting in the audience inevitably means that your frame will
be civic. Sitting at the press table means that your frame will inevitably
be institutional."
That concept of framing — of thinking about your own perspective in
coverage — applies to sports, arts and entertainment, and more, he said.
Sandy Rowe, ASNE vice president and editor of The Oregonian, Portland,
asked if reaching all these communities means trying to be all things to
all people.
"I don’t think it is so much a question of being all things to all people
as it is to being more things to more people than we have been before,"
Smith said.
Bailon explained why it wouldn’t be easy: "We got to get ... where we
can feel comfortable moving around in our own communities talking with
people who don’t necessarily like us and listening to why they don’t like
us."
Story and coverage ideas were many:
-
One paper eliminated the editorial page editor position and sent that person
into the community to "listen."
-
Another divided its readership into 32 groups — doctors, Realtors, land
activists, etc. — and decided to meet with each one of them, no matter
how hostile.
-
After running a house ad for writers on its obituary page, one newspaper
received over 300 responses from local people. Not only did it increase
the local presence in the newspaper, but it reduced the syndicated column
costs because they didn’t need to run them.
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Still another newspaper is reaching out to the conservative religious community
to bridge the gap.
Newspapers are taking on the challenge of reaching out to the community
through various means, but the struggle isn’t guaranteed. Clifton of Miami
named several efforts his newspaper is spearheading, yet the Herald’s penetration
is decreasing.
"We have to not only do all of that," he said, "but we have to do a
hell of a lot more, and we have to stop talking about it and start really
doing it because we are just nibbling at the edges."
Branson is publications director of ASNE.
