You may have noticed the letter in Wednesday’s paper taking the G-T to task for not playing the story about the plane crash into the Hudson on the front page.
In retrospect, I think the reader has a point — we probably should have played the story that first day on the front page. In our (somewhat lame) defense, I will say that during the 3 p.m. news meeting on that day, it wasn’t clear yet just how heroically the pilot and crew had performed in making sure that everybody got out of the plane alive. We also worried that by the time the G-T got to your front doorstop the next morning, the story might seem like old news.
In addition, we had a relatively strong crop of local stories for that day’s paper. The next day, as more details about the crash were available, we did run a story about the pilot on page one.
About the 3 p.m. news meeting: Every weekday afternoon, G-T editors gather to look at all the local stories we have ready, and also look at all the world, national and state stories we have available on our news wires. The main purpose of the meeting is to decide which four or five of those stories make it onto page one.
Since we’re a local paper, if we have four or five local stories that seem worthy of page one — and no world, national or state story that must go out front — I won’t think twice about using all local stories on page one. My reasoning is pretty simple: You have plenty of other sources for those other stories. But we’re your only source for local stories. Obviously, we try to provide a selection of world, national and state stories in each edition, but we try not to forget that our franchise is local news (and local advertising, as well, of course).
With all that said, I wanted to remind you that we welcome guests to sit in on those 3 p.m. news meetings. We ask that you give us just a little advance warning so we can make sure that we’re prepared for your presence, but generally people have enjoyed the experience. If you’re interested, send me an e-mail (you can reach me at mike.mcinally@lee.net) and I’ll make the necessary arrangements.
3 comments
Francis says:
Jan 29, 2009
You are not the only source of local news. Many many times, I’ve seen a story at the DH long before it appears in the GT. I’ve learned about some pretty serious local stuff from the DH when the GT has been silent.
Francis says:
Jan 30, 2009
An airplane left a contrail in the sky. This is front page news in Corvallis. Yesterday’s planning meeting must have been a hoot.
Mike McInally says:
Feb 5, 2009
Just FYI: According to our Internet statistics, the contrails story was — by a considerable margin — the G-T’s best-read story of the week. Francis, I’ll grant your other point: The D-H occasionally dips into Benton County to cover a local story and sometimes gets to it first. We sometimes return the favor in Linn County. Since we’re both Lee papers, we’ll trade stories — the two papers have very little duplicated readership. If it’s a really serious matter or a big story in Benton County, though, my preference is that the G-T gets the news first — and one of my goals for the paper is to make sure that happens.