Kirk Lapointe, ex-Southam, ex-CP, ex-National Post, ex-CTV, ex-Hamilton Spectator, and currently Managing Editor at the Vancouver Sun, (and my old boss at several of those spots) is speaking at a breakfast sponsored by Canada Newswire. Some journalists are here but this talk seems to be primarily for public relations and commmunications professionals (judging from the cards on the registration table, anyhow).
Kirk talks about one of his favourite topics: Giving readers a reason to read the newspaper. For Kirk, that reason involves a commitment to long-form journalism. He rejects the thesis that readers want a newspaper with short items.
“Papers that invested in longer-form are now starting to succeed again.”
“Contextual content is absolutely fundamental.”
Newspapers cannot outdo the Internet, all-news radio, all-news TV for the quick, news-of-the-day, the bare facts. Newspapers arrive on a reader's doorstep the day after and so, to compete for the time of readers, newspapers have to add value, context, and analysis. They must go beyond the press release.
Kirk throws up a slide titled Media Paradox. The paradox for media is:
- More information, less context
- More competition, less variety
- More training, less capability
- More standards, less respected
- More openness, less trusted
Here's another slide: Challenges for the media
- High consumer expectation: news cycle, oversight, first and fair
- Resource pressure
- Cover too much, uncover too little
- Inundation of staged news
- Information commodity, no meaning
Kirk says the public, readers, are “on to” the media. They spot mistakes, bias, inaccuracies faster and more frequently. The Internet is a big factor in this.
“There's a myth we publish the truth. We don't. We pursue it.” He says what we publish each day is what we believe in our hearts to be true.
Newsroom managers have to careful about matching up scarce resources for the staged news events of the day, he says. Newsrooms should not be in the business of information, but into the business of meaning. And he says newsrooms should try and get into the business of wisdom. That would be something.
Here's his tips for the PR industry;
- Think like a reader, viewer
- Think like an editor
- Get up early, don't wait. “The people who get to us before noon have about 10 times more chance than the people who get to us after 4 o'clock”
- Understand the “why”
- Evaluate trends in coverage
- Tell the truth
- Accept rejection
- Identify connectors, mavens
- Visit newsrooms
- Greet the north wind. “When bad stuff happens, don't hide.” Most controversies result, not because of what initially happened, but because of the way it was handled.” The public is tremendously forgiving if you cough it up. “Get it over with.”
- Use technology for access
- Really use the human touch for access.
Speech over. He's taking questions but I have to dash to get for my panel in a few minutes.
Dave – Thanks for taking the time and trouble to blog the conferernce. As a fomer Kirk hire myself, it's good to see the old guru is still firing on all cylinders, still hammering home his core message: take control of the news, give it context, chase meaning and wisdom.
But he is (in this talk anyway) neglecting another core mission of newspapers, one I've been thinking about a lot lately: creating community. That, more than chasing truth or adding context, is the real reason most newspapers are still alive and profitable in this crowded media market.
That's always been a key job for the news, letting a community see itself, and thus direct or control itself. But I'd argue as our society's old bonds (of work, school and church) become weaker, as we becoming increasingly isolated and urban, newspapers (or any mass media) need to find new ways to meet that old need of creating communities.
Kirk's vision is an admirable recipe for creating an intellectual community, the kind of trans-border or pan-geographical readership the NY Times aspires to. But it's only one piece of what most of us who work a lot closer to the
ground must do.