TODAY'S LETTERS: Steve Outing's Column

By: E&P Staff Readers wrote in today about Steve Outing's column about newsroom changes.

What's Needed in 2008: Serious Newsroom Cultural Change
Sorry Steve, but the reality is that edit staffs are being cut while more work (re: online) is being foisted on staff that remains. Meanwhile, online revenue can't begin to replace previous revenue, meaning online staff is difficult to justify.

People can talk all they want to about the growth in online revenue, but 50% growth (or whatever) in online revenue does not really amount to much on the bottom line, since that revenue is so small to begin with.

And as to two-way communication, that is nothing new, it's just more immediate now. Quite simply, online revenue cannot support the type of news gathering and staffs that are necessary.

Ken Anderberg


When will newspapers quit coming up with seat-of-your-pants answers to do-or-die questions? This isn?t the first industry facing overwhelming change. Ask Kodak. Ask GM. Ask public schools and hospitals. Ask the Pentagon, unions, travel agents and the mortgage bankers hitting the streets.

Reporting years ago on tops like the American Society for Quality and the Malcolm Baldrige Award program convinced me that with few exceptions, newspapers didn?t take organizational culture seriously. Industry practices have been handed down from one poorly trained, monopoly spoiled generation to another.

Changing culture is long, hard work. Road maps for doing it are out there. We don?t have time to reinvent the wheel, or waste 30 minutes with a consultant who should know better.

Kevin McKenzie, Reporter
Germantown & Collierville Appeal


Wish you had provided illustrations of differing approaches to covering the news.

Jerry Adams
San Francisco


It seems to me that you have put the cart in front of the horse.

There is only one question that information gatherers/distributors must answer satisfactorily in order to survive: what business model will produce enough revenue to support a sophisticated gathering/distributing operation? Without such a business model, media companies as we know them will die regardless of what occurs under the heading "theme of changing the newsroom."

Until our creative thinkers start with that question (as repugnant as it may be to professional journalists), a slow death is inevitable.

Roddy Stinson
San Antonio, Texas


I'm a freelancer with 20 years experience as a journalist. I came into print fulltime in 1988 and left in 2001. I taught first. Now I freelance - including a blog - and write for magazines and websites. I also read (make that past tense) my daily paper each morning. I not only wanted to be informed, but since I worked for the paper, I wanted to keep up with friends, etc.

I'm on the other side of the desk now, but I have insights gained from reporting and teaching. If I could wave a magic wand, here's what I'd wish for: interesting, relevant, well-written (well-presented) content.

When I read your column, I noticed most of the sources talked about presentation: going from print to the web; adapting web 2.0 tools; convincing those skeptical, stubborn reporters to come around to a new way of thinking.

I long for content: good stories that stay with me after I've put down the paper. Yes I read one. It's great not to have to depend on the web, or to wonder whether the server will stay up long enough to stream the audio-visual presentation. But I abandoned my local paper because it had no news. The emphasis was on sports and the stories were quick hits. I felt like I was eating cotton candy all day long.

I don't care whether the content is in print or on-line. I miss in-depth, well-crafted, well-considered stories. I go where I can find them, and that's why I'm on sites like the New York Times, bbc.co.uk and NPR. If my local newspaper did journalism well, I'd go there. But they don't. They're trying everything in the book instead reinforcing their brand as the city's accurate, innovative news leader.

As for becoming a "community conversation leader": It's hard to respond to comments if your editor is after you to get the news on the web first, on the web right, and on the web fast. I mean, someone has to cover that press conference, and the reporter who would have written the story took the buyout.

Afi Scruggs