media maven / By Marcy Burstiner

A Questionable Enterprise

(Jan. 4, 2007)  Mention the words “focus group” to most reporters and they’ll groan. That’s because for years, the focus groups whose opinions publishers sought wanted articles short and sweet; happy stories about dogs and babies that would fit easily on one page.

That was before the Internet siphoned off readers with more timely and customized news. Fearing extinction, newspapers are turning to the Readership Institute, a think tank out of Northwestern University supported by newspaper publishers. It’s telling them that to attract and keep readers, focus on substance rather than speed.

If you’ve been reading the Times-Standard, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times, the new trend is obvious: long, multi-part front page stories. The Chronicle came out with multi-parters on San Francisco General Hospital and homicides in Oakland. The New York Times spent a week with three sisters in a Mexican family split by the U.S. border. The Times-Standard put two of its reporters on the street to give us a look at homelessness in Eureka. In journalese, this is called “enterprise reporting.” Enterprise stories are in-depth and proactive rather than reactive. That means that the news organization sought out a story rather than responded to a press release or event.

New Times-Standard Managing Editor Rich Somerville is a former research associate of the Readership Institute and a true believer in enterprise reporting. It’s great news for Humboldt County readers that MediaNews owner Dean Singleton thinks he can fight his newspaper battle against Rob Arkley on substance.

This represents a major change. Over the past two decades, most newsrooms, especially in Singleton-owned papers, became workshops where reporters were expected to turn out as many as four stories a day. When at Gannett in the early ‘90s, I was once given two days to do one story. I considered that a great luxury.

I cheer on all enterprise reporting initiatives. But if you have any real respect for your readers, enterprise reporting requires time and resources. If a newspaper isn’t willing to give it and reporters aren’t willing to do the hard work, they shouldn’t take on the project.

So let’s get back to the Times-Standard‘s story on homelessness.

We need more in-depth reporting on this issue. In 2005 I sent 24 students out into Humboldt County to report on poverty. They conducted more than 100 interviews and we barely scratched the surface on what it means to be poor in this area. We did discover that poor people want their stories told, if only someone would seek them out and listen.

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