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May092006

They Never Told Me About This in Journalism School …

Filed under General by nick pappas at 11:53 am

Welcome to The Editor’s Blog, our online staff’s latest effort to bring me kicking and screaming into the Brave New World of Journalism. Actually, I’m looking forward to this opportunity to interact with readers of The Telegraph and www.nashuatelegraph.com on pretty much whatever is on your minds.

For starters, I intend to use this space to:

– Answer any questions you might have about how or why we do some of the things we do around here.

– Keep you abreast of our attempts inside the newsroom to make The Telegraph more responsive and essential to your daily lives.

–Perhaps give you an idea by the end of the day what stories you canexpect to see in the next day’s paper, or maybe an explanation thatmorning of why we played certain stories the way we did.

– Evensome commentary from time to time on some of the challenges andresulting innovations taking place in the newspaper industry today.

But more than anything else, I hope to use this space to engage you inan ongoing conversation about The Telegraph and our coverage of yourcommunities. Obviously, I can’t do that without your activeparticipation, so the success of this effort is pretty much in yourhands.

Don’t be bashful …

Viewing 9 Comments

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    Hi Nick,

    Look forward to reading your blog and gaining new insights into the world of the Editor.

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    Welcome to the new media world - its good to see you aking steps to survive when newspapers erverywhere are in a death spin. I'll be reading...

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    Nick, I think it would be greatly appreciated by the print readers if you publish as a supplement the salary/positions lists that are available online. Many older citizens in Nashua are not computer literate and will not see the lists on the website. However, our senior community would carefully read a print version. Most seniors will be astounded at the # of admin positions and will encourage the BoE to cut those admin jobs not teachers. Thanks.

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    First the Mayor short changes the budget on education and as a result Julia Earl is caught looking for a new job, where is your critique of the Mayor? Since he has entered office you have never written a negative piece about him..you may want to start now.

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    Thank you, George. Here's hoping you're not disappointed.


    Nick

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    Thank you, BAK, for your warm welcome. I'm not nearly ready to concede that we're in a "death spin" here, but certainly the challenges have never been greater for us and the newspaper industry in general. Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite lines in "Apollo 13" when Mission Control Director Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) responds to a suggestion that this could be NASA's worst disaster: "With all due respect, sir, I believe this will be our finest hour." I'm with him.

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    Judy:


    I fear that would be a pretty costly proposition for us, given the price of newsprint these days, but I would agree that there would be some interest in a print version of this list, at least in Nashua. Please give me a chance to research what would be involved in publishing such a list.

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    Nick,


    1. I thought the "Cast your vote for Tulsa school chief" item in "News Digest" of Saturday, May 20, trivialized the Julia Earl situation.


    Local television "news" is abysmal, and the decision by KOTV in Tulsa to host a poll on who should be the superintendent is predictably foolish.


    So, why would the "Telegraph," which is quite good at covering the news, notify readers that they can vote in the KOTV poll. Nashuans know very little about the other candidates, and it's not appropriate to weigh in on a superintendent's race in another city.


    In my opinion, this seems like a high-tech Internet facile novelty, and not worthy of the "Telegraph Staff" credited on the item.


    2. Guest editorials. On the one hand, I understand that the editorial board thinks "Telegraph" readers might be interested in what other newspapers are opinining about. On the other hand, I'm surprised that the "Telegraph" editorial board takes a day off from expressing its opinion of issues of the day. Is this a trait that other daily newspapers share?

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    Kirby:


    Two interesting points.


    1. I'm reluctant to quibble too much with your reasoning on the TV poll, given that there seems to be a backhanded compliment in there for us somewhere. Maybe it is somewhat of a "high-tech Internet facile novelty," but it does seem to be pretty harmless, given the small amount of space dedicated to it and where it was played in the paper.

    Had it been played prominently on Page 1 under a big headline, I would tend to agree with you. Some items in a newspaper are "newsworthy" and some are merely "noteworthy." I'd place this one in the latter category, figuring there may have been some readers upset/intrigued/amused that a Tulsa TV station was conducting such a survey in the first place.


    2. The purpose of the guest editorial is twofold: to indeed give our readers a look at what other papers are saying and to give Claudette Durocher, our editorial page editor and primary editorial writer, a chance to recharge her batteries. In a typical week, five editorials will be written by Claudette, one will be written by another member of the editorial board (four of us contribute on a rotating basis), and we run the guest editorial on the seventh day, usually Saturday. I'm not aware of how many other papers publish guest editorials. A quick Google search found that The Naples Daily News of Naples, Fla., does, so at the very least we aren't the only paper to do so. I'd be interested to hear how other readers feel about the guest editorial.

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