(Washington) Post Discusses Circulation, Diversity (going USA Today route)

[kskiska]

Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. met with hundreds of newsroom staffers yesterday to outline management's latest attempts to combat declining circulation. However, the more intense discussion at the meeting involved diversity at the newspaper, as several minority staff members lamented that a white man recently was chosen over a woman and a black man as the paper's new managing editor.

(snip)

In an effort to win new readers, Downie said Post reporters will be required to write shorter stories. The paper's design and copy editors will be given more authority to make room for more photographs and graphics.

The paper will undergo a redesign to make it easier for readers to find stories. It is considering filling the left-hand column of the front page with keys to stories elsewhere in the paper and other information readers say they want from the paper, which they often consider "too often too dull," Downie said.

"Newspapers should be fun and it should be fun to work at one," Bennett said.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61383-2004Nov18.html

[flowomo]

1. ah, the USATodaying of the newspaper biz.....

[aquart]

2. Honey, that's not why your circulation is declining.

It's declining because you prop up a fascist government and we've noticed your inability to tell us the fucking truth.

But, definitely, go with the shorter, dumber stories. Maybe even George will start reading.

[The Zanti Regent]

6. All they have to do is to go back to being a newspaper!

They won't, they love blowing Der Führer too much!

I cannot wait for the UK Guardian to start publishing here and put this fascist apologist rag out of business!

[daleo]

3. Newspapers are losing circulation around the continent

That is what happens when you push one side of the political spectrum almost exclusively. Especially the conservative side, as a good proportion of conservatives (the religious ones especially, I suspect) are not inclined to read newspapers. With the internet as an alternative, left and centrist people are drifting away from the one sided agenda. I don't suppose a lot of Russians subscribed to Pravda, either. The same thing will happen to cable news (I think it has started).

Making propaganda "more fun" or easier to find won't change things for the Post or any other paper going this route.

I mostly keep my subscriptions for the puzzles.

[WMliberal]

4. wtf... are DC area people going to switch to the Times or

Baltimore Sun? Very unlikely. Dumbing down a paper won't help. The people who don't read newspapers don't read it not because the paper is too complex (it's written at the 6th grade reading level), but because they're the President of the U.S. and teir staff tells them what they need to hear.

[Eric J in MN]

5. The reason people turn to newspapers is for more details than tv

provides.

[Flammable Materials]

7. Newspapers should be enlightening and informative, Bennett, you fuck.

Why not feature a PAGE SIX GIRL while you're at it?

Fuck, I hate the media in this country.