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* As you may have read by now, an investor group has offered to buy the Sun-Times and its parent company. It appears that the deal will happen.
* The Question: What one piece of advice would you give this new owner about how to run his paper? Explain fully, please.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:39 am
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find the best way to be different from the tribune.
Comment by been there Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:41 am
That’s not exactly helpful. A bit more specific, please.
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:41 am
Your best bet to sustain your readers is to keep the good columnists like Mark Brown and Rich Miller and focus on local news coverage. You should try to find a way to use your network to expand beat reporting in the City and Suburbs. Don’t worry about investigative stuff or international news.
Comment by siriusly Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:45 am
It is clear that Mike Sneed is winding down, as evidenced by her one to two columns a week now. And her Sunday column is a joke. How many people can get away with copying and pasting letters to the editor as pass it off as work?
That said, the Sun-Times should hire Rich Miller as their new political columnist!
Comment by Joe in the Know Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:46 am
Show Mike Sneed the door. And Mary Mitchell. Replace Fran Spielman with a tape recorder to cover City Hall. Double Rich Miller’s pay.
Focus on your sports section, the only reason to buy a printed newspaper these days. Stay aggressive and focus on shining a spotlight on public issues like corruption, quality of life, etc. Hire Steve Rhodes as your managing editor.
Comment by 47th Ward Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:47 am
===the Sun-Times should hire Rich Miller as their new political columnist===
I don’t think I want that job. So, let’s move along, please.
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:48 am
More local investigative stuff. Drill down deeper into budgets, contracts, zoning changes, assessment changes, etc. and make the connections on who’s getting what.
They’ve done that pretty well in the recent past, and they could devote more resources to it and do it better. I mean, how many gossip and sports columnists do they need?
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:50 am
Bring in new editors and actual investuigative reporters. its Chicago, you are missing a lot of stories becuase everyone waits to stumble upon somthing instead of investigating whats out there and hidden in the weeds.get rid of the current editors. Consider reporting styles not just by topic but also target audience.
Focus on delivering electronic content for a small fee over print. Try to put together a subscription protal where for a small fee a ubscriber has access to many papers content, then share proceeds to the papaers based on hits or access.
Comment by Ghost Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:50 am
Before the internet the ad revenue model sustained the business. Since the internet became widely available people are actually reading more, and from a greater number of sources, they’re just not buying the printed edition as much. The problem isn’t that the news business is losing eyeballs, it’s that they can’t seem to match advertisers to eyeballs without newspaper ink. Sure, Craigslist has killed the classified section, but they can still sell ad space surrounding every printed story, and they can sell video ad space before every replayed internet video story, so they’re just going to have to do a better job of targeting ads to readers.
If they can figure this out it should be more lucrative. Rather than just selling ad space to an insurance company that will be seen by whoever turns past page 23, they can sell the same space online to whoever reads stories related to the insurance industry.
And Jay Marriotti has only been right about one thing in his life, the Sun Times website really sucks and it’s killing their business.
Comment by Scooby Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:51 am
(1) the tabloid presentation makes the paper look silly.
(2) get solid and younger editorialists. Be like the triple AAA of newspapers. The Sun-Times can build quality by mimicing Billy Bean’s Oakland As. Find the cheaper young talent before they are invited to more major rags. The blogs are full of these people. I’m Republican, so I read (www.thenextright.com) as an example. Put these good minds in print. This will also help get the Sun-Times linked in the blogosphere and widen the advertisement pool.
Comment by phil Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:52 am
More Rich Miller and less Stella and Roeper would be a good start. Get rid of the stupid full page photo on the front page and try putting some news on there. Lose the 2 inch font headlines every day. Those should only be used for a real disaster or a declaration of war. Quit trying to look like the RedEye and never mention Michael Jackson on any page ever again. If there was real news content and plausible analysis of the day’s events people might start buying the ST again.
Comment by Bill Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:53 am
Localize, localize, localize.
Down to the granular level.
Local stories in a city the size of Chicago — how many stories are untold about the Chicago 2016 bid — could easily carry a paper.
And stop publishing two day-old Gawker stories about the celeb flavor of the day — everyone who cares knew before you did.
Carry some mixed-martial arts stories in the sports section — “Kickboxing. Sport of the future.”
– MrJM
Comment by MrJM Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:56 am
Don’t endorse Todd Stroger like the paper did last election. Fire Mary Mitchell. Put Michael Sneed out to pasture.
Concentrate on local corruption stories, there’s a lot out there. Putting Jackie Heard on the defensive was good stuff.
Sports: Please axe Taylor Bell. For a guy who is supposed to be “retired” he sure writes a lot of blog entries.
Comment by Ravenswood Right Winger Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:58 am
Remember that the only thing a lot of people buy the newspaper for is the sports section. Don’t let that atrophy.
Comment by Joe Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:59 am
ok, it’s not one piece, just one answer…
The investigative reporting at the Sun Times is among the best in the country. it should be valued. Local reporting cannot be overemphasized. (see a story in Today’s Tribune regarding a Chicago Police Officer and for which the Tribune hired a reporter from Colorado to talk about the treatment, in Colorado, but who didn’t really explain how and when the Chicago officer was injured in Chicago.) you have some very good reporters on
your staff.
Treat some of your columnists….Ebert, Roeper, Falsani, Miller, Washington, Brown, like gold. seriously reevaluate some others.
E.Harris on the sports pages is a waste of an entire page of space. cover sports, not laddie mag material.
Aside from that waste, the sports pages in the Sun Times are great. Mr. Bowman covers natural resources and sports like hunting as no one else I have ever encountered. Fair, accurate, interesting, wide ranging. he’s a treasure. (and a Sox fan.)
And, your cartoonist Mr. Higgins, is often a terrible sexist, in his cartoons, which your editors allow to be published. public figures as witches, a historical sexist depiction. this is not opinion, just like racism is not an opinion. please don’t allow that in your paper.
I am a life long Sun Times reader, from a time when the Tribune was not allowed in my home or my mother’s home. I’m sure that there are many others like me who hope for the best for the new ownership.
Comment by Amalia Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 11:59 am
What ails the Sun Times, ails all newspapers, including the internet sites: with the exception of a few hard hitting investigative reporters, reporters are lazy! Bring back the old City News Bureau. Train reporters to “check it out” if their mother tells them she loves them.
There are so many stories in the naked city that need to be broken. Many reporters want the stories written for them instead of getting their hands dirty.
Comment by Joe in the Know Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:01 pm
Bring back Zay N. Smith and Quick Takes. He had great quirky and cerebral news items.
Comment by If It Walks Like a Duck... Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:02 pm
Hire back the laid off columnists and employees get rid of Sneed.
Comment by Third Generation Chicago Native Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:03 pm
Assuming that the new buyers have a clue as to how to make some money from this venture: make your focus keeping the CST a distinct alternative to the Trib. Both papers are shells of their former selves but at least the CST has been able to keep some of their strengths throught the cuts. Keep the columnists and the investigative reporters in place. Don’t decimate comics. Keep the focus on the sports section. Bring back Quick Takes - Zay N. Smith. Oh, and more of the Miller guy.
Comment by Bluefish Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:05 pm
In these days of cable pundits and spin, please do not be a progressive, conservative or liberal voice for people, businesses, animals, whatever. What is really needed these days is straight, factual, verified (and double verified) news with depth and the perspective of how it impacts people locally and/or how it impacts the nation or world.
Not too hard!
Comment by Levi voted for Judy Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:09 pm
Give consumers what they want. That is center-right political stands. Fight corruption in government. Fight the fraud in Springfield. Fight against the status quo, the liberal elitists, the snotty class attitudes and those who think they are better than the folks shopping at Wal-Mart.
Fight against the career journalists who have fallen for the fraud passing as objective journalism and social science in our universities.
Listen to your readers, stop preaching to them. Stop it with the condescending attitude that passes for journalism today.
Knowing certain facts doesn’t make you more right than your readers, because your readers can collect the facts for themselves.
Stop regurgitating yesterday’s headlines. Stop printing yesterday’s news. Drop the news wire services when possible and start manning the blogs, the Twitters and Google. Give readers without the time, technology or ability the latest events on the Internet.
There is no one thing to do - or it would have been done. Journalism as practiced before 2000 is dead - good riddance.
Now create the future, or be buried in it.
Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:16 pm
fire the opinion writers: steinberg, foster, washington, mitchell. They contribute nothing but 80’s era liberalism, uniformed drivel and political spitballs. I haven’t read one column from any of them with anything fresh or thoughtful in years. I learn more from commenters on here than I do from their appearances on chicago tonight regurgitating conventional wisdom.
remind lynn sweet that her job is to be a political reporter, not the mouthpiece of david axelrod and that the white house social secretary is not a beat for the d.c. reporter for the 2nd biggest newspaper in america’s biggest city between the coasts.
promote brad biggs-they guy has been a force, and one of the few rising stars there.
Comment by Shore Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:23 pm
i meant to say uninformed not uniformed.
Comment by Shore Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:24 pm
Send an army of low-paid photogs out every Friday night to as many high school football games as possible and then put all the pics online for free download and run a best of photo section every Monday for commerative purchase. Try to partner with SnapFish or some other online photo processer so page viewers can easily order prints of their pics. Then repeat for basketball.
You’ll have parents from throughout the region speeding to your site to see their kids pics, traffic you can market to advertisers who’ll fince your Monday “best of” print collection, which you can use as a teaser to get new subscriptions in places like the ‘burbs. Nice pics of suburban football for sale at $5 a pop or free with a one-year subscription to the Sun-Times.
Quality journalism is all fine and dandy someone’s got to pay the bills. That’s high school sports, not political coverage.
Comment by Michelle Flaherty Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:28 pm
Hire John Conroy formerly of the Reader.
Then fire about 1/2 of the people called “columnists” for that paper.
Almost Every day should have a corruption type headline.
Unfortunately, the days of newspaper greatness may be in the past.
Comment by Irishpirate Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:32 pm
The Sun-Times can start by fixing its home page. I haven’t been able to access it for about an hour — ever since this discussion about the Sun-Times kicked off.
Comment by Coach Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:35 pm
1.) Increase print circulation by giving your paper away for free. Make sure you have papers in boxes at Metra & CTA stations for commuters. Fight the RedEye. Circulation revenue can’t be that much of a loss and you’ll probably gain more in circulation.
2.) Revamp your Web site dramatically. Don’t try to be a typical newspaper dot com site. Become Chicago’s homepage that aggregates and links out (even to stuff that’s not your own content) and refresh it every 30 minutes (if not more). Use web analytics to see when your peak traffic times are and use that knowledge to push readers toward your best stuff.
3.) Stop running bad banner advertisements (ie: remnant ads) on your site. Reduce the number of advertising positions on your homepage. Stop giving away online ad space as an “upsell” for print ads sold. Use bigger, bolder, customized ads for clients to create high-impact campaigns. Sell creative services.
4.) Pay your columnists a base salary, but give them bonuses for pageview performance. Cut the columnists that don’t perform well enough to earn their base salary. Replace them with new voices that can drive traffic and interest to the site.
5.) Don’t try to be a national news destination. You can’t compete on that level and it’s very crowded. Instead, dominate the local market. Sell your advertisers on your Chicago-specific audience.
Comment by IL Yeezy Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:38 pm
I’m no media expert but maybe try writing about something that warrants killing a tree. Just a thought.
There’s already a TMZ on free tv.
Comment by just sayin Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:48 pm
For the suburban papers:
1.) Turn each paper into a free weekly. This will dramatically reduce printing and delivery costs.
2.) Develop a better online classifieds system that’s free to users with a few exceptions (car dealers, realtors, landlords, but make these costs relatively cheap). Craigslist might dominate Chicago, but it’s not very useful in most suburbs. Having a good interface and search is key to making it work. Upsell people on the ability to upgrade their free ad to a paid ad with better placement. Automate everything, but have a 24-hr phone number for people to call if something goes wrong or they need help.
3.) Online, don’t try to do a news site. Go in a simple blog format that constantly updates with community news. Encourage reader participation to contribute. Write short, save depth for the printed edition. Don’t just dump your print content to the site, or vice versa. Make two stand alone, stand out products.
4.) Make advertising online more small and local business friendly. Automate as much as you can with video tutorials if need be. But also be prepared to do a lot of customer service. Provide options, but limit the number of them. Explain what web metrics really mean and why your online ads are better for their business than Google Adsense. Also, see who’s advertising on Google Adsense and see if you can steal them away to advertise with you.
Comment by IL Yeezy Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:51 pm
Michelle Flaherty: your idea on high school sports pix rocks!
Comment by Amalia Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 12:58 pm
1) Make the SunTimes group local newspapers relevant once again. The Daily Southtown used to be my source to find out what’s going on in my local schools and governments, and provide at least some thoughtful analysis regarding what people need to know. Unless there’s some “crisis”, there’s virtually no coverage.The reporting staff has been gutted, editorial staff all but gone, and advertising prices far higher than their value.
One foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel?
2)Have national columnists for national issues, but balance it out so that there is a “point-counterpoint” feel. Provide the left and right wing debates and let the readers judge which argument has more merit.
3) Build loyalty to the readers through investigative reporting and follow up on the crooks. If the people believe your fighting for them rather than your political friends, they’ll often buy your product to keep you going. I know I do.
4) With all the excellent and immediate news sources on the internet, the hard copy requires more thoughtful insight to be relevant. Newspaper “scoops” are a thing of the past with electronic media.
Essentially, the newspaper needs to provide something that people can’t get on biased blog sites; deeper, unbiased analysis and advocacy based on the best interests of their readers.
Oh….don’t forget continued sports info from writers that aren’t completely in the bag for the teams they cover, as most of the college and pro sports blogs are.
Comment by PalosParkBob Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 1:02 pm
Regularly work through the non-profit community for stories, including encouraging frequent op-eds from non-profits.
This is a little self-serving but also I think a great way to make the news local and desirable. Every non-profit has about 20 stories they want to get out in the media. Some of them aren’t great but most of them are. And, with the help of a good journalist, they often get even better. These are stories that have both information people want to know about (what is happening in my community) and find compelling (many of these stories could also be thought of as human interest stories).
With the Pioneer Press papers involved as well, the Sun Times could be hyperlocal and fully regional.
Comment by nonprofiteer Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 1:07 pm
Sun Times: Chicago is one of the most wonderful, interesting and enigmatic cities in the world. Treat it that way in your paper. Please back away from the dime a dozen tabloid craziness and return the Sun Times to be the serious second paper this city deserves.
Recognize that the loss of the city news bureau was a terrible blow both to the quality of local coverage and the training of fledgling reporters and try to find ways to overcome that void in your newsroom. Recognize that printing so many vacuous and ubiquitous AP stories is an insult to your readers. Recognize that using mainly very young reporters who generally posess neither the depth of knowledge of Chicgo culture and history, or the breath of life experiences and perspective with which to formulate compelling stories is a serious problem. (This reporting has not drawn in the younger readers you were hoping for, while turning off the existing readers who already DID buy your paper.) If only on a short term basis bring back some of Chicago’s warhorse reporters whose work can both help you regain some readership while helping train the newbie reporters. Reconsider whether having so many opinion columnists is necessary and if they really do shed light on issues–or whether they just perpetuate stereotypes and take up space.
Comment by Responsa Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 1:09 pm
Never ever allow me to buy you.
Comment by Sam Zell Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 1:15 pm
Craigslist might dominate Chicago, but it’s not very useful in most suburbs. Having a good interface and search is key to making it work. Upsell people on the ability to upgrade their free ad to a paid ad with better placement
Truly excellent advice.
The other key way to get revenue is via job ads. Careerbuilder is quite bad in that it delivers a lot of “not relevant” results to a job seeker. it seems they use “fog” tech rather than “cloud” tech.
People actually CARE about salary and full time va part or contract. Make those fields REALLY mean something.
For firms, make the sign up for job seekers a bit more rigorous, so that the firm can actually select more relevant candidates. Upsell some of the more selective filtering features
If it’s a great place to search for jobs, it will be a great place to look for people.
Comment by Pat collins Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 1:17 pm
More cowbell!
Comment by phocion Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 1:54 pm
Have a section from each neighborhood. Chicago Lawn, Rogers Park, Beverly, West Lawn, Englewood etc. Cover events, or even which events are coming up in each neighborhood. Road closures for the neighborhoods would be good, and how long they will last will also be good, not everyone lives in the Loop, Gold Coast, Mag Mile, the only areas that ever get coverage, cover the rest of the City.
Have a different Alderman each day write an artilcle about concerns events etc, in their area, same idea for each Cook County Commissioner, different one each day or one a week etc. Have each Chicago HS put an article in, and rotate each day which school.
Comment by Third Generation Chicago Native Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:03 pm
Just about every comment here strikes a similar theme: If you want your paper to return dividends, you have to invest in that paper to make it an even better product.
That means building it up - or, the opposite from the tear-it-down and sell-it-for-parts M.O. at pretty much every other paper in the country.
I agree with these comments, of course - and I sure hope Jim Tyree does too.
Comment by Reality Check Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:05 pm
Cover news like its news, not hearsay and allow reporters to follow leads and make sure they are sourced correctly. Write the truth in a clear, and grammatcally correct, style. Hire columnists who know how to write. Pretend like your audience is literate, and that is who will be attracted to you and sustain you.
Comment by Captain Flume Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:06 pm
–Give consumers what they want. That is center-right political stands.–
Lord Black tried that. He didn’t know his market. It’s Chicago, not Boise.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:12 pm
wordslinger is right. That pretty near destroyed the paper’s relationship with its subscriber base.
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:21 pm
yeah but their left wing stuff is pretty awful. As I said I learn more from the commenters on this blog than I do from people like laura washington and mary mitchell whose work is not edifying and not worthy of the inches they get.
As well they should get a new set of editors-people who don’t let folks like neil steinberg slobber all over obama’s post-partisanship while they call every republican they see nuts.
Finally, I get that an urban paper doesn’t see it’s community reading conservative stuff, but the new york times has douthat and brooks and safire and that doesn’t kill them. As well, perhaps if they gave voice to the other side, they wouldn’t have to write the same editorials year in year out complaining about how corrupt and incompetent the democrats are in the city.
Comment by Shore Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:44 pm
Take out a $50 millioni insurance policy
Hire Arlington Park consultants
Prepare to bemoan the tragic fire
Comment by Steve Neal Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:50 pm
I totally agree with “Third Generation Chicago Native”’s comment about having news sections for each neighborhood in Chicago. If there was a page — even a quater page — that covered news in Edgewater/Uptown/Rogers Park each day not only would it be a huge community service but I would buy the paper just to see what was going on in my own ‘hood. The ward I live in has 60,000+ people in it. Put three wards together and you have a population that is bigger than most cities and yet we have no news coverage.
I also currently get a daily email from the NYT with headlines from that day’s paper. It was free to sign up for, but this eamil includes ads, and I often click through to articles where I see more ads. I love this service and it seems like a potential source of revenue.
Comment by Lakefront Liberal Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 2:51 pm
Most of your commenters say the same thing: Go Local. The S-T already owns the Southtown/Star (or whatever it’s called these days) and Pioneer and other suburban papers. I canceled my subscription to my local Pioneer paper a couple of years back when its news hole dwindled to about a page and a half.
But here’s how you beef up: Hire kids on all the local rags — expand their news holes (I promise I’ll subscribe again) and turn them loose in the wards and townships. Reprint the best of their stuff in the S-T. Promote the best of the kids to the S-T.
Love the idea about expanding high school sports coverage: Print the names of as many potential subscribers as you can as frequently as possible.
I don’t know if Sneed is winding down or being cut back — this is why other columnists are going on extended leaves at the S-T, often (they say) to write books but also because they’re taking forced leaves. If Sneed is winding down, groom a replacement.
I miss Zay N. Smith terribly too.
Expand the Watchdogs coverage.
Give Second City Cop credit now and then for the many stories it inspires. Are there other sites that can be mined as well?
Except on Fridays (when Mr. Ebert is healthy) I finish the S-T every morning on the train before I get downtown. Mr. Tyree can do better — I hope.
Comment by The Curmudgeon Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 3:05 pm
Curmedgeon, the size of the news hole has historically been determined by ad sales. You don’t incur the cost in press time and newsprint without the ads to pay for it.
Fewer ads, smaller papers, disappointed readers. It’s what’s killing the print edition.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 3:10 pm
Adding — re: other sites that can be mined — besides this one, of course. I enjoy your columns of course. But I hate to sound like a suck-up.
Comment by The Curmudgeon Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 3:12 pm
Wordslinger — I understand the economics. But, re: Pioneer Press, there were any number of features-y, food-y fluff pages that could have been sacrificed instead of the news pages. They weren’t. Why have separate movie reviews in the Pioneer Press when you have Ebert? To sell movie ads? Use Ebert’s reviews in capsule form. I believe the MBAs call it “synergy.” Meanwhile, I just freed up some pages for news — and reporters on the suburban weeklies don’t have to be paid anything close to what toilers at the downtown dailies make.
Comment by The Curmudgeon Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 5:26 pm
Joe in the Know at 12:01 is right.
Plus…fashion! Lots of local fashion trends, too!
lol
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 5:32 pm
As a former newspaper employee- Here are my thoughts.
Free papers do not hold value- become valuable instead of free-
Be customer focused, micro leveled- follow the Virginian Pilot model- offer a bi-weekly pull out specific to neighborhoods.
Advertisers need to reach a limited geographical region- localized coverage builds on that model- hire cheap ad execs and expensive, trained, seasoned writers. Stop treating the editorial as the fluff around the ads.
BE relevant- I care about high school football- I can’t find that at ESPN but pro sports has proven study after study to not drive newspaper readership- too many places I can get that online faster and with deeper analysis.
Give me what I can’t get anywhere else- Local stories, the reasons to love my city, political coverage that mirrors Tim Russert’s approach
- intelligent and balanced.
Know your community and always stay in touch.
Circulation income doesn’t off set the cost but it protects the value- see the demise of the Denver market during the penny wars.
Comment by Inish Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 5:54 pm
As far as the Chicago market goes, the Sun-Times as a daily conceded all but the inner ring suburbs long ago. They try to make some headway with their Pioneer weeklies in the farther suburbs and a combined ad buy with the daily, but obviously with mixed success.
The Trib is more interested in retaining subscribers in the farther suburbs, where they go head to head with the Daily Herald. That’s where the higher-income demographics are that you can charge more for advertising.
For the print edition of Sun-Times, the market is the city, particularly transit riders, where they’re competitive head to head with the Trib on a daily basis. But much of that is honor box and newstand sales (hence the big front page headlines and photos) which are less valued by advertisers than subscribers.
Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 5:55 pm
Also- add more prep coverage to your website- it is the ONLY thing that the NWherald seems to do right but they do an extrodinary job with Prep online.
News alerts, traffic alerts and breaking news to my handheld…
Comment by Inish Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 6:05 pm
Late to the game and probably no one is still reading. If we get the Olympic Games in the next few weeks, keep a laser focus on the contracts, back room deals, sweet heart arrangements, friends of friends things.
Chris Fusco and Dave McKinny have done a great job on this. Follow the wrought iron fences. That’s where the money is. The ST has a Watch Dog page that reports. Make it one that exposes stuff before it gets out of hand.
Comment by And I Approved This Message Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 7:05 pm
Less columnists, more factual reporting.
Comment by casual observer Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 7:48 pm
Try not to embezzle funds from the paper. That’s a good start.
Expand the city desk so there’s more coverage of issues on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. More attention to what aldermen say, and how their constituents feel about it/them.
Expanded prep sports, as Inish mentioned above, would also boost interest in the neighborhoods.
Comment by Boone Logan Square Wednesday, Sep 9, 09 @ 10:56 pm