Mike Smith, associate director of the Newspaper Management Center, told the 30 editors at the meeting that the findings raise a fundamental question: Is the problem what we put in the paper or how we present the information?  "In fact, I think it’s heavy doses of both."

He noted that readers’ desire for local coverage, useful information and solutions fall under what goes in the paper, while presentation involves such issues as voice and credibility.

Here are some success stories shared by editors who addressed the committee.

Local News

Readers’ emphasis on local and community news, a major strength of newspapers when compared with other media, is particularly important to efforts to make better connections.

"We need to build on this even more," said Frank Denton, editor of the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison. "We’re not losing readers to other media, we’re just losing them for lack or interest or time. If we did better at local news, presumably some of them would find us of greater value."

Sue Schmitt, editor of Copley-owned Sun Publications, said Copley dailies had been having trouble capturing new readers as the suburbs around Chicago gained population, so the group created free-distribution weeklies around hot growth areas. The first defined its circulation area by contiguous ZIP codes, giving the papers the nickname "ZIP." One used the school district to define its circulation area. Others are actually named after their ZIP code.

"The Chicago Tribune can outdo us (in many areas), but local news is our franchise," she said. "This will work wherever you find a like group that you can target."

The papers’ content was developed by using a lot of market research about the target audience, "but a lot of it was just good journalism. We created a community magazine of sorts," she said.

The strategy was to target new residents who often "have no loyalty or understanding of their connections to the region," Schmitt said. "I consider what we do is like missionary work. We create a need where they didn’t realize they had a need for information in print. When they’re hungry for more, the daily can cement that need. But some will never take a daily paper."

As a result of the tabs, Copley gained 65,000 new households; the next step, she said, is to convert them to paid circulation.

Useful News

Newspapers have an advantage over other media, particularly television, because they are rich in data, Urban says.

"If you turn the (research) data on its side, everything that showed up on our positive side had agate — information-rich content," she said. "(But) we do a lousy job on agate — it’s too small and it should be about the next events instead of the past."

Indeed, at The Oregonian in Portland, Sandy Rowe has shown how to do agate well — especially with a well-organized, detailed and easy to read TV grid that several editors at the conference planned to copy. The paper created the new grid as part of an upgrade of its entertainment section, called A&E, to make it more useful, relevant and easier to read.

"Utility shows a newspaper respects its readers’ time, intelligence and overall needs," she said. "It’s undervalued by most of us … But it’s one of the few things TV cannot do well at all."

Before making changes, the Oregonian conducted focus groups and found that traditional entertainment stories missed areas that readers consider part of their entertainment: coffee shops, shopping and bookstores.

 "It was amazing how much more useful we could be," Rowe said.

The A&E revamp doubled its news hole and added space for such features as "Reader Raves," a "Neighborhood Browser," "Cheap" columns on inexpensive restaurants and activities, "Family Fun," and an art gallery grid. And, of course, the movie guide, which she called "critical."

Rowe said the paper insists on measurements to judge the success of innovations at regular intervals. A&E added 2,000 single-copy sales on Thursdays, she said, and its success taught her three lessons about readership opportunities:

• Fixing problems or creating new products are not the only opportunities for fixing the newspaper; sometimes gains come from improving on strengths;
• Even when a section is good, it’s not always good for the reasons editors think;
• It’s especially difficult to change a section when the newsroom doesn’t  think it’s broken.

The Media Usage study found newspapers fared badly when compared with other media in their seriousness of purpose, which researchers said related to investigative stories.

Bartolomeo said newspapers should be dominant in this category and reminded the editors that promotion may be the culprit. TV "I-Teams" are constantly touted on the air, even when the stories are routine, he noted.

Lou Clancy, former managing editor of the Toronto Star and NMC’s editor-in-residence, said his paper’s string of award-winning investigative series on domestic violence and child abuse helped boost the Star’s readership a huge 11 percent.

"They were part of many things and over time, but it was a big jump," Clancy said. "My goal for ’97 was 40 percent of readership in the city. We had 37 percent and went up 3 percentage points. We’re right around 40 percent now."

Clancy said, however, the paper’s reasons for doing the series were "journalistic," not for circulation gains.

"When we looked into domestic violence, we found huge holes in the social service system that needed to be addressed. And they fit perfectly with a newspaper trying to increase circulation in certain segments of populations. Our readership during that period went up most significantly among women. But we didn’t do it to attract women."

He said the projects brought in design editors early and included extensive reporting on solutions.

"We’re part of the community," he said. "A healthy community makes everyone (including the paper) more healthy."

Solutions

At the Wisconsin State Journal, Denton said "populist journalism" that helps leaders and average folks create solutions to problems has proved successful in raising the newspaper’s credibility.

"People didn’t see us as providing solutions, but as part of the problem," he said.

To change that perception, the paper embarked on a project called City of Hope that focused on Madison’s poor. Civic leaders were invited to convene in the paper’s auditorium, once before the series was finished and once after it was finished but had not been published.

"It worked," Denton said. "An economic summit resulted, dealing with economic problems that were keeping the poor from succeeding."

A second project addressed the city’s schools, particularly why black students appeared to fare worse than white students; a TV station joined in the project.

"This time we added intense public involvement to our investigative work and listened to leaders critique our journalism in advance," Denton said. Many newspapers are reluctant to show unpublished stories around, but doing this had a great benefit. Because of the comments they received, the editors added a story after black leaders said they were left with a sense that there was no hope.

There are two keys to solutions-oriented journalism, Denton said:

• The sheer volume of reporting required is immense;
• The community must take leadership of the issue quickly.

Engagement

Philadelphia Daily News editor Zachary Stalberg recalled one attempt to engage readers at the Philadelphia Daily News. It was Oct. 22, 1980, and the Phillies had just won the World Series.

Editor Gil Spencer proposed a front page for the tabloid: "We Win." A lot of staffers thought it eliminated the distance they’d been trained to keep from readers and suggested an alternative: "They Did It." Two mock fronts were created.

Ralph the janitor walked in on the newsroom discussion at that moment and Spencer said Ralph should decide. "Which do you like the best?" Spencer asked Ralph, who pondered the two mock-ups, and then pointed to "We Win." Only later did Spencer learn that Ralph could not read, said Stalberg, who succeeded Spencer as editor.

"That put us on the course of not worrying so much about keeping our distance from readers," Stalberg said.

Because the paper is 95 percent single-copy sales, the paper had to "deeply satisfy" readers to survive, he said.

"We try to make a visceral connection with the reader every day on every story. We try to surprise the reader, to be selective in which stories we cover and then offer depth," Stalberg told the editors. "It’s serious journalism, but we try to keep the reader from choking on it and from taking ourselves too seriously."

The paper also routinely offers a point of view on its stories as part of its strategy of engagement.

Stalberg said the success of the Daily News’ strategy depends on:

• Making sure everyone understands the mission: to be local, entertaining, fun;
• A willingness not to be objective;
• Using columns aggressively to give the paper a strong voice;
• A willingness to use emotion, like the banner "The Woman We Loved" for Princess Diana’s death;
• Heavy reliance on presentation;
• Strong enterprise reporting.

The Chicago Tribune decided at the start of the 1990s that inaccuracies and errors were hurting its credibility.

"If readers are looking for ways to go away from newspapers, the last one you want to give them is that you’re wrong," said Editor Howard Tyner.

The paper first hired a proofreading company to search out errors and the public editor began to record corrections.

"Simply focusing attention caused people to take it more seriously," he said.

In 1996, the editors created an "error policy" that requires a form to be completed with details of every content error.

"We talked a lot (prior to instituting the policy) to get acceptance in the newsroom, that it wasn’t punitive," Tyner said.

Analysis showed half the errors occurred during news gathering, 18 percent in editing, 12 percent in displaying the story, 9 percent were unavoidable, 6 percent came from syndicated material and 5 percent were from "brain lock."

From those numbers, the editors concluded they needed:

• Accuracy guidelines;
• Basic management training related to editorial goals;
• Copy editing training;
• Obituary boot camps because a more errors occurred in obits;
• Tailored information for section editors because the types of errors differed by section.

What can we learn?

At the start of the meeting, Jennie Buckner, editor of The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer and chair of the Readership Issues Committee, urged her colleagues to use the research to "move from insight to action."

To get to the point where each newspaper provides unique, relevant news and information that is valued by readers, the editors found a number of possible paths, many interconnected:

• There is no such thing as too local, and local means news about neighborhoods as well as cities. Newspapers have more local data than other media and should exploit it.
• By providing solutions a paper strengthens the community. If the community is weak, the paper ultimately
• will be weak. Solutions narrow the distance between the paper and its readers and make readers more engaged in the news.
• When you make changes, don’t just tinker. Be bold and make sure the changes get noticed by readers.
• Set measurable goals and be sure the newsroom understands them.
• Get the newsroom involved in the projects to improve readership by talking in advance to get the staff to buy in.
• Give serious attention to improving writing and reporting so the paper is more entertaining and has a strong voice.
• Know your voice and what you stand for, make sure you reflect your community, and stick with the message.