Let’s try a simple count of locally produced news stories in your daily newspaper. Yes, the print edition. The whole news system feeds off the flow of newspaper content, right? Lots of people asking, what’s going to replace newspapers if they can’t make it? Expecting amateurs to step in is dumb, and it won’t happen. But before we can face this matter of “replace” head on we at least need some current numbers.
Let’s find out what the printed newspaper on the local level has been able to deliver recently, so we know in rough, round terms what we have to replace. Once we know in a ballpark way what the newspaper journalism, replacement level is, we at least know how far we have to go in realizing some comparable framework for a new system. (An even harder problem: how do you get the news to the people the print edition once reached if it comes to the point where you do have to replace the newspaper? First step: how many news stories were those people getting?)
That’s where you come in. You’re here to help.
Simply enter in the comments:
Your hometown:
The name of your newspaper:
The url for its website:
and the count for the print edition…
Number of locally-produced NEWS stories for which original reporting is required, including business and features and news sections:
(A re-written press release does not count. “Required some original reporting” is the key marker. If it did, then count it.)
Number of locally-produced SPORTS stories:
Date and day of the week that you counted:
Vincrosbie advises me on Twitter: Counts should include number of wire and syndicated stories, produced by others so we can see proportion of stories that are indeed homegrown. And so…
Total number of stories that ran in the paper.
Thank you, that’s it.
Now this part is totally optional, not part of the study. But if you wish to discuss how hard it would be to replace that number of stories, you may also do that in the comments. Also, why my count is unfair, flawed, misleading, won’t work— put it in the comments. Thanks!
Another option: do the count, blog about it, and drop the link in the comments.
A little background. Kathy Gill, who teaches at the University of Washington in the Digital Media Program, wrote at her blog: “Today’s Sunday’s Seattle Times, for example, had two locally-produced news stories in the A section (three if you count the front-page photo); three locally-produced stories in the B section; one in business; and one in real estate. (I didn’t check sports.)” That’s a count of seven.
Geoff Doughtery, who runs a news start-up in Chicago, said in this comment thread that the Chicago Tribune had that day published eight homegrown, original-reporting-required non-sports stories. (I followed up with him by email and got his counting rules correct.)
Then Techdirt took it a bit further. “We’re not talking about huge numbers here.”
I don’t know if that’s true or not. Maybe we are talking about huge numbers, or very very solid service. Maybe it’s less than some of us think. Or more! But it’s worth knowing. So thanks for helping us out.
UPDATES;
Andrew Cline posts his answers: 7 news stories in Springfield, Mo, 2 sports.
John Zhu has his newspaper’s count and a good number of complications to factor in.
I agree that it would be a mistake to equate “output” from Newsroom Zebra with “number of stories in the Zebra’s print edition,” but it is not a mistake to begin there if we are trying to right size our thinking. To draw large, quick or global conclusions from the simple figures gathered here would be extremely unwise.
Ryan Chittum at Columbia Journalism Review picks up the theme: Just What’s Left in the Metro Dailies? He says,“If we’re going to figure out the next model we need to know what exactly we’re ‘replacing’—to use that term. I love newspapers as much as anybody, but many are ghosts of their former selves, and becoming more spectral seemingly every day. It’s getting less and less difficult to ‘replace’ them.”
Also, what about the Turing test? :-)
View Comments (49)
Sacramento Bee counts, quite carefully done over several days, are here:
http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/5240/Bee_survey
Sample:
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Total: 89
Bee: 53
Bee/Local: 34
McClatchy: 5
A) Front (Total: 27 Bee: 14 Bee/Local: 4 McClatchy: 4)
The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||
McClatchy: ||||
Los Angeles Times: |
Associated Press: ||||| ||||| ||||| ||
New York Times: |||||
Washington Post: ||
Denver Post: |
Public Policy Institute: |
B) Our Region (Total: 32 Bee: 26 Bee/Local: 20 McClatchy: 1)
The Sacramento Bee: ||||| |
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| ||||| ||||| |||||
McClatchy: |
Associated Press: |||
Fresno Bee: |
Washington Post: |
San Jose Mercury News: |
C) Sports (Total: 21 Bee: 11 Bee/Local: 8)
The Sacramento Bee: |||
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||||| |||
Washington Post: |
San Jose Mercury News: |
Associated Press: ||||| |||
D) Outbound (Living Here) (Total: 9 Bee: 2 Bee/Local: 2)
The Sacramento Bee:
The Sacramento Bee Local: ||
Columbia News Service: |
Universal Press Syndicate: |
Horoscopes: |
Associated Press: |
Fresno Bee: |
Western Outdoor News: |
United Media: |
Another count from Meranda Watling of the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, Ind.
http://merandawrites.com/2009/03/30/how-many-stories-in-the-print-edition/
A sample from a more extensive list....
Tuesday, March 24
Number of pages: 28
Number of local, biz, features: 13+2+2 = 17
Number of local sports: 5
Total number of wire stories: 31
Total stories in the paper: 53 (local 41.5%)
Wednesday, March 25
Number of pages: 24
Number of local, biz, features: 12+3+1 = 16
Number of local sports: 7
Total number of wire stories: 25
Total stories in the paper: 48 (local 47.9%)
Thursday, March 26
Number of pages: 28
Number of local, biz, features: 12+2+3=17
Number of local sports: 6
Total number of wire stories: 25
Total stories in the paper: 48 (local 47.9%)
Hometown: Peterborough, Ontario
Paper: Peterborough, Examiner
URL: http://www.peterboroughexaminer.com
Monday, March 30, 2009
Local news stories: 17
Local sports stories: 4
Wire stories: 36
Total stories: 57
(I included small stories as well as large stories)
I've got two Canadian papers for you - one is the The Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper (but still a Metro) and the Hamilton Spectator (a mid-sized Metro, a la Bakersfield):
Hometown: Toronto
Newspaper: The Toronto Star
Online: theStar.com
Local, Biz, Features: 35
Sports: 7
Columnists: 9
Total Stories: 59
Day, Date:<bold> Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Newsroom Staff: 352
Hometown: Hamilton
Newspaper: The Hamilton Spectator
Online: theSpec.com
Local, Biz, Features: 13
Sports: 5
Columnists: 1
Total Stories: 44
Day, Date: Friday, March 20.2009
Newsroom Staff: 93
Even before you posted this request, I kept track of the local stories in the Seattle Times and the paper I edit, The Herald in Everett, WA.
The Times is three to four times bigger than the Herald:
220,000 circulation v. 50,000
215 staff v. 63 staff
So the Times produces a lot more local copy, right? Wrong.
Over the past 10 days, Mon-Sat, the Seattle Times has averaged 20 local news stories per day.
During the same period, The (Everett) Herald has averaged 21.7 local news stories per day.
(I did not tabulate Sunday, because the Times has several addition Arts and Travel sections.)
In today's editions (April 8):
Seattle Times:
10 news stories
3 arts/lifestyle stories
9 sports stories
The (Everett) Herald:
13 news stories
2 arts/lifestyle stories
7 sports stories
Not quite fair to use the present as your standard for how much locally produced news there is in newspapers, since many have reduced their news staffs by 25-50 percent in the past 2-3 years.
@ Tim Wheeler -- I think the present is the only fair standard. Today's local news is covered by the news staff of today, not the news staff of 2-3 years ago.
Hometown - Chicago
I am not sure if the count should include all of the stories (entertainment, business, metro, etc.), no matter the length, but I counted them all except for commentary and obits. The Chicago Sun Times - http://www.chicagosuntimes.com - for today had a total of 61 stories; 47 stories (excl. sports) - 31 homegrown
14 sports - 10 homegrown
This seems pretty high (compared to what others are reporting)...
i find all these numbers shockingly low. imagine all the money that gets poured into producing these papers, and how much money they lose, just to produce that tiny number of stories. it's probably a very bad business model as compared to how an independent freelance journalist running a blog could do it. tens of thousands of dollars a day are spent to bring out just a few original pieces of information.
these numbers can also be analyzed from the point of view of representation. lets say there is a city of 3 million people. and that city has 15 orignial stories in the local paper that day. how many reporters do they have representing them? lets say each reporter does two stories a day. so that means that each group of 430,000 people is 'represented' by 1 reporter. is that right? in our work, we talk about how every village in India should have one person who knows how to capture and get out critical information, so we are talking about representation of 1 reporter per 3,000 people. i would have thought america would do better.
a final thought -- this reminds me of an exercise that we do with our community producers in india. we ask them to measure out the column width in a local paper that is given to a particular topic. how much space is given to crime reporting? how much is politics? how much is lifestyle? and how much is the critical issues of the poor -- health, water, education. the results always shock them to see how much the media doesn't represent them. it would be interesting to analyze the content of those stories, and not just the number of them.
I think it will be interesting to see, as time goes on and content goes more toward digital distribution (with perhaps even newspapers having updates throughout the day because they are distributed on e-Reader technology), whether people will care more about the number of updates to a story as much as the number of stories.
On the same token, I wonder if newspapers are likely to merge with the television stations in their area as they go to digital distribution. On the one hand, this could be a bad thing due to decreased competition, but it might be a good thing if the depth and breadth of coverage improved.