Your New AJC -- Nothing That Will Piss You Off.

http://blogs.ajc.com/ajc/2009/04/18/get-ready-for-changes-april-28/

Oy.

 

Not sure what pissed you off, but I wanted to stand up and applaud this part:

We spent much of 2008 listening to hundreds of readers about what they want from their AJC. What we heard was gratifying. You don’t want a magazine. You don’t want a splashy tabloid. You don’t want blogs on paper. You want a newspaper.

As a lifelong Chicago Tribune subscriber, I would to be able to bring a newspaper - clean design, relevant news easy to locate on A1, etc. - in from the porch these days instead of the New York Post on broadsheet.

 

Gee, people who read the newspaper want a newspaper? I wonder how much it cost to do THAT survey.

 

Waylon, with all due respect I think what pissed Fenian off was the unwritten part, which I have graciously added in bold now.

 

We heard that you want a newsy and fast-paced newspaper during the week and you’ll get that. We heard you want a more relaxing and rewarding experience on Sunday and you’ll get that. It’s a new look, a new nameplate (one for Sunday and one for daily). You want more watchdog coverage, and we’re providing it. You want a newspaper that’s easy to scan to find the things on which you want to spend time. We’re doing that.

In the past several months, we have been slowly changing and improving the newspaper. Yes, for economic reasons, we have had to eliminate some things and tighten the paper, but we’ve also added where readers told us it was important. The next step is the overall look – it changes a week from Tuesday.

The newsroom has also changed. We have a dedicated team focused on the Sunday newspaper. We have a dedicated team focused on aggressive breaking news online. And we still have strong reporters in key beats.

As we reduced the size of the newsroom — necessary because of our challenging business realities – we thought deeply about what readers want, and we decided what would stay and what would go. We believe unique local content makes us special. Therefore, even though we reduced the staff by about 90 people, we go forward with only five fewer news reporters. We have reduced our arts reporters, but we will be building a strong stable of free-lancers who are experts in the arts, including long-time AJC writers.



TOTAL BULLSHIT. HOW CAN YOU PUT OUT A BETTER PRODUCT WITH FEWER QUALITY PEOPLE? JULIA, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT (OR SHOULD I SAY DEW RESPECT?), SELL STUPID SOMEWHERE ELSE. IT'S SOLD OUT HERE.
-Drip

 

It's funny that with all the other pressures there on newspapers, the ones that readers come back to is bias (particularly liberal bias but could be bias toward a team or school, too).

And I don't know why more big papers don't have a least one right-wing nutjob frothing at the mouth on its editorial pages just to give the gripers something to read.

I am totally serious. Wouldn't be hard. We all know the drill.

 

Every time I read one of these, the comments sections is nothing but people bitching about conservative/liberal, GOP/Democrat, blah blah blah. It's getting fucking old.

 

And now if you idiots don't like THAT, then you can go fuck yourselves.

 

It's counterintuitive, but asking people what they want isn't always the best way to find out.

 

John Rich said it perfectly in his new song "Shuttin' Detroit Down": "They're selling make believe and we don't buy that here."

 

That's true. Mostly (other than bias bitching) people will say they want more "good news." Then if you ask them specific positive stories that were in the paper, they can't remember them at all.

 

Probalby enough to have kept a job or two in the newsroom ....