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A word here about the Mercury News, rethinking and social networking… »

Welcome to the conversation…

October 30, 2007 | Author: cobrien | Filed under: Prototypes, Milestones

By Chris O’Brien

Last summer, we made some big, splashy announcements about how we planned to “Re-Think” the Mercury News. We said we were sending a bunch of folks out to talk to people in the community. And then, well, silence…

Well, we’re back. We interviewed about 120 folks about their lives and how they used media. We’ve had several staff sessions to discuss those interviews, what we think we learned, and what we do next. And now, things are getting serious. So it’s time to get back in touch with you.

This week, a steering committee of about a dozen folks began meeting to create prototypes of a new Mercury News. We’re still at an early stage of that process, that will run every day this week. But I wanted to start by sharing one of the biggest decisions we made, and why.

We decided that we wanted our Re-Thinking process to be as transparent as possible. And we wanted to begin sharing with our staff and our community the ideas we’re considering, why we’re doing it, and the progress we’re making. This is your newspaper, and we want this process to be a conversation between the Mercury News and its community. One of the philosophies that has guided us has been the notion that the solutions to the problems facing newspapers won’t be found inside the walls of our offices. If they were, we would have found them long ago. So as we proceed, we want to hear your thoughts, good and bad, and your suggestions.

We intend to blog here in as much detail as we can about our sessions and post examples of any prototypes we create. Our goal is not just to reinvent the Mercury News, but to make sure the result is that our journalism is better than it’s ever been. And we want your help.

So let’s begin by talking about what happened today. About a dozen of us gathered in a conference room to continue brainstorming concepts for changing our website to reflect what we’ve learned. We’re at a stage where these remain high-level concepts. But there were a few main ideas that emerged:

1. Dramatically simplify the current look and rebuild it around four general areas of people’s lives: Live, Work, Play, Learn. The content of each section would need to be fleshed out. But the idea is to reconfigure our concepts of news and information around the way people see their lives.

2. Rather than a single core site, we would create a network of sites based either on various communities, subject, or personalities. For instance, there would be a “Mr. Roadshow” site for transportation; other community sites could include food, jobs, politics, action, puzzles and games.

3. The site would be built on a social networking platform, where the goal would be to connect to other people locally around shared interests. The news and information from the Mercury News would be available, but there would be just as much emphasis on people building their personal profiles and networks to share not only stories they liked, but also milestones in their lives, practical information like restaurants they would recommend, and information about their community.

We then broke into 2 groups to being discussing prototypes around a couple of general concepts that we had begun discussing last week:

1. The Mercury News would shift to a format that focuses on Business, Technology and Innovation. Everything we would do would be covered through this view point.

2. Reorganizing the paper around the four categories: Live, Work, Learn, Play.

I was part of the group that focused on the second category, so I’ll fill you in on those discussions.

The biggest challenge was defining more clearly what each of those sections would actually include. For instance, “Play” would include things like sports, entertainment, electronic games and gadgets, and puzzles. When thinking about sports, ideally there would be more focus on participatory things like hiking and biking.

Another concept we considered was the idea that some number of inside pages would be “hosted” by particular staff members or guests. They would be responsible for not only writing, but selecting other elements to reflect their interests.

As we discussed various pieces of this, the conversation came back around to the idea that we want to make sure we’re doing better and more high-impact journalism than ever before. So we discussed the idea that each day, each section would have one, in-depth piece of substantial length. The idea would be to eliminate medium-sized stories that we felt were often unsatisfying to reporters and readers. Instead, there would be four high-impact stories each day. The best of these could be gathered into a weekly edition or magazine that people to get on the weekend to “catch-up” on the best of the Mercury News each week.

To support this idea, the newsroom would have to create a sizable team, of say 40 or more reporters, who were exclusively focused on long-term watchdog, investigative, enterprise, and in-depth features. This group would focus on telling stories people could only find in the Mercury News. There would be a single story on each section front, with a handful of windows highlighting the various elements that could be found inside.

We also wanted to address the type of writing that occurs in the Mercury News. We want to foster more distinctive writing that allows writers to develop their voice, rather than the bland, flat style that many folks have told us they don’t like.

Toward the end of the day, we also briefly talked about how this concept would look online. A quick thought was that there would be four tabs at the top of the site, plus a fifth tab for each user’s social network section, where they could collect and share the stories they had read, plus other interesting things about their lives, discoveries, things they found at the Mercury News, and in other places.

That’s where we left things. We reconvene Tuesday to build an actual prototype to see what this concept actually looks like. And we didn’t have time to fully address how we wanted our readers and community to fully participate in this new format.

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xygoxen

21 people have left comments

Yoiur paper’s got to be permeable (acessible) so that stories don’t just evaporate waiting for you to pick up on them, or go to the town papers just because they originate from a town. That just buries them in the micro-weeklies, justifying their little local existence. - Bill Costley (408) 247-1943

Bill Costley wrote on November 5, 2007 - 8:25 am | Visit Link

Please change the TV Guide back the way it was. It’s just too big to deal with and doesn’t even fold properly. Thank you.

E M Randall wrote on November 5, 2007 - 3:05 pm | Visit Link

I second the TV Guide back to the way it was. What we get now is useless. PLEASE!!!

My other big PLEASE is return the comics and puzzles page the way it was. I gave up on finding the puzzles (don’t want to look at the classified to find) so my daily puzzle now is where I will find the comics.

We are sooo very close to canceling our subscription!

Patt Daly wrote on November 5, 2007 - 4:59 pm | Visit Link

Change the TV section back to it’s original size! It’s too large and hard to fold the way it is now. I want my puzzle back with the comics, too.

Jean Snow wrote on November 5, 2007 - 6:36 pm | Visit Link

I really, really detest the TV section. It’s too large and cumbersome. Please go back to the old style.

Also, it’s very disconcerting to have to search for the comic page every day … it’s never in the same place twice. I don’t care where you put it, just keep it consistent. Aren’t the comics important enough to have their own “space”?

Thanks for letting me have some input.
Marie Fernandes

Marie Fernandes wrote on November 5, 2007 - 7:15 pm | Visit Link

Thanks for all the comments on the TV book. We know it’s not convenient yet. We made the move to save money in the short term as we try to figure out what we should provide.

One idea that we have talked about is a weekly guide that had TV highlights, plus a very smart puzzle and game section. It would not include all TV listings, just the things we highlight and what Merc TV critic Charlie McCollum would prioritize. That would free up space for more puzzles and games. It would be in the old smaller format and stapled into a book … Would anyone find a product like that useful?

mattmansfield wrote on November 5, 2007 - 8:50 pm | Visit Link

people who want new media tend to be those who do not use print newspapers, unless they are cat owners. I believe that many customers (myself included) cancelled subscriptions because the paper improved itself to the point of uselessness.

Bring the focus (and people) back to this part of california rather than try to fool us with a skim of the wire services and opinion columns written 3000 miles away for an entirely different audience.

george wooster wrote on November 7, 2007 - 3:05 pm | Visit Link

[…] all the details here […]

sqconnect » Comment on Welcome to the conversation… by george wooster wrote on November 8, 2007 - 3:00 am | Visit Link

The San Jose Mercury News had been an excellent newspaper, one that I have read over the many years, but the quality of the paper has declined significantly during the past year. I was very disappointed when the Perspective section was discontinued. The reporting of international news, at one time was very good. The focus of the paper is now on local news, which is, as a whole, not of much interest. The bulk of the paper is advertisement. Also, I liked the Sunday paper for the t.v. guide. The current t.v. guide is not readable due to the large format with much crammed onto each page which makes it difficult to read. Also I dislike the new format where sections have been scrambled together in a random fashion. Why the crossword puzzle in the classified section? I plan to cancel my subscription.

claudia whitman wrote on November 8, 2007 - 2:50 pm | Visit Link

here’s an idea: stop firing your reporters.

what once was a great newspaper has been pummeled and stripped down to the bones by its greedy owner, dean singleton of medianews, who, quite frankly, wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if the merc went belly up.

it’s time to stop this “rethinking the mercury news” b.s. and other p.r. charades, such as the “new” business section introduced a few months ago. it’s new, in that there are fewer reporters and more cosmetics like bright colors, fancy fonts and huge graphics to distract readers from the pathetic coverage of local businesses and industries.

medianews has gutted the merc in the name of cost savings. just visit the newsroom; i hear it’s a ghost town.

longtime reader wrote on November 8, 2007 - 7:33 pm | Visit Link

There was a time when the Mercury News was regularly listed among the nation’s top 10 papers. Now it’s a mere shadow of its former self. Most of the national and international news originates from the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, etc., but the articles are usually paired down (I know becuase I can read the articles on those newpapers’ websites). Some of the local and state coverage is original and pretty good. If it weren’t for that, I’d have given into my wife’s request to cancel the Mercury News in favor of the New York Times. As it its, we have the Times delivered on Sunday.

I don’t care how much you re-think the paper, if it gets any thinner I’m afraid I’ll just say “why bother.” Since I was a kid nearly 60 years ago, we’ve always subscribed. It’s rather sad. . .

Berkeley Miller wrote on November 8, 2007 - 10:23 pm | Visit Link

“stories people could only find in the Mercury News”
What would that be, exactly?
Local news, and columnists attached to the Merc or MediaNews, pretty much.
I can get better national news from the NY Times (or Washington Post online).
Bay Area news I could conceivably get from the Chronicle, although their South Bay coverage is rotten compared to yours, whereas their superior coverage of the City & the East Bay matters less to me than coverage of my home area.
So — local coverage & columnists. And the comics on two adjacent full-size pages (every time I have to go hunting for them in your stupid folio-sized section on Thursday, I think to myself “this is not a proper newspaper — it’s the living end! What am I reading, the Metro?”). And enough national & international news to keep me from subscribing to the NY Times.
Yes, these four things are what I ask of the Merc. And I can only find local news & your columnists in the Mercury News.

R L McCarty wrote on November 9, 2007 - 11:48 pm | Visit Link

“Emphasize participant sports like hiking and biking in the sports section.”

That was a big idea 15 years ago by David Yarnold. It was a dud. When the “Venture” section disappeared, no one cared.

On the other hand, your traditional sports coverage is well-read and a huge driver of page views on the Web site.

Next idea?

D. Peter Sinclair wrote on November 10, 2007 - 3:06 am | Visit Link

Matt, you’re really getting a lot of positive comments. (Not.) It looks like readers are seeing through this silly exercise.

D. Alvah Chapman wrote on November 10, 2007 - 3:12 am | Visit Link

Top 10 Ideas for the Merc

The Merc has redesigned itself several times over the years, each time pissing off regular readers. Remember a couple of years ago when you eliminated the local section as part of a redesign effort? The public was furious but the editor at that time stuck by her guns. Tony Ridder had to step in and order the Merc to bring back the local section.

You’re headed down the same road, unfortunately. The changes you’re proposing will make the Merc unfamiliar to readers, causing them to abandon it.

Instead, you need to focus the Merc on local news. Please consider these 10 ideas for improving the Merc:

1. Take the 200 people in your newsroom and divide them into two units — 50 for online and 150 for print. Let the online people do whatever they want, but don’t let them use the news stories generated by the print side for at least one month.

This will force readers who want local news to start picking up your paper again.

You want that because you need to make your ads more effective for advertisers in order to survive. Your online operations aren’t producing the kind of revenues that will allow you employ 20 journalists let alone 200. Until you find a way to make money online, you need a print edition that attracts as many people as possible.

2. To get the paper into as many hands as possible, go free! Distribute your paper liberally in every conceivable location. Your circulation and readership will soar. (Continue to charge people if they want the paper delivered to their homes.)

3. Instead of creating reporting teams and watchdog units, go back to basic news coverage of our communities. Start by assigning at least one reporter to every community with 10,000 or more residents. Tell them to go to all public meetings and meet as many people as possible. (You might be concerned that this would lead to a bunch of meeting stories in the paper. But by attending those meetings, your reporters should hear things that will lead to bigger stories of community-wide importance.)

3a. If possible, open store-front offices in those communities where the reporters (and sales people) would work. That would force them to stay in the communities they cover rather than mingling in the San Jose newsroom. It would also create a physical presence which is good public relations for the Merc.

And strongly encourage your reporters to live in the communities they cover and get involved in volunteer organizations that will give them more friends.

4. Cover all of the basic sources of news in our county. When was the last time you had a story on a Board of Supervisors meeting? The supervisors spend billions and you rarely see a word about what they do. Remember that series you did on the corruption in local courts a year or two ago. If you covered the courts on a regular basis (reporting on trials, new civil filings, hearings in criminal cases, etc.) there would be less corruption because everybody in the system would be worried about the newspaper looking over their shoulder. Currently, the Merc is a non-factor in the court system because you don’t cover much of what happens.

5. Instead of letting reporters take several days to write trend pieces about issues of little interest, require them to write stories on a daily basis about specific news events and occurances. Big long features give reporters too much room to editorialize. Covering basic spot news forces reporters to stick to the facts of whatever it is that they’re covering. Let the people on the editorial page analyze the news coverage for trends they might see. (Analogy — the editorial page should connect the dots while the reporters on the news side should merely report the dots.)

6. Never print an “analysis” or “column” on the front page or any news page. Put ALL opinion on your opinion pages. Readers will appreciate your efforts to keep the two separate. If you need more opinion pages everyday, great! But keep it as local as possible.

7. Print a full page of letters every day.

8. Try to get as many names and faces into the paper. More society coverage. Attend meetings of service clubs. More obits. In fact, have a policy that everybody who dies gets a free obit. Require every reporter and editor to write at least one obit every week — which will force them to contact people in the community, and in those conversations, they might pick up tips for other stories.

Cover the little things in life that have meaning to people, like the cozy corner restaurant that closed or a school that added lights for night football. If your reporters don’t want to do that kind of coverage, tell them to find work at the New York Times. But treat your circulation area as if it were a small town, where everybody and everything matters.

9. Make local, community news your No. 1 priority. Cut back on your tech/business coverage on your print side. Those readers are lost to the online side anyway. And lots of newspapers cover tech. But when it comes to local news, you have pretty much the whole game to yourselves — so make the most of it. Give me so much coverage of my local school board that the board members become household names. Reduce the number of wire stories you carry.

10. Zone, zone, zone. On Page 1, lead with very local stories above the fold on page 1 as often as possible — maybe 5 days out of 7 in a typical week. For the main story, use a big thick black headline font that can be seen from at least 20 feet away from your racks.

Follow these steps and the Mercury News will become the best LOCAL newspaper in the country. Demand for the paper will soar, and advertisers will eventually follow readers.

Dave in Saratoga wrote on November 22, 2007 - 12:04 am | Visit Link

[…] all the details here […]

domainhg Blog Archive » Comment on Welcome to the conversation… by Dave in Saratoga wrote on November 22, 2007 - 5:49 pm | Visit Link

Congrats, Merc owners. You’re killing a once fine paper. Pump more money into the thing, hire back all the great staff that left, and get all those executives who want to “blow things up” to leave the company. And tell them to stop covering their rear-ends. Cover the news. Go out into the communities again. Stop being so stupid and arrogant. The print version is thin these days. The online version is a joke.

zerosum wrote on November 24, 2007 - 10:09 pm | Visit Link

The Mercury-News “Rethinking” is one deprovement after another. There’s so little left of the paper, it’s practically transparent. The TV section is useless. It’s almost impossible to find anything since the location of some of the features floats around from day to day. I can’t think of one single positive change.

Beverly Friedman wrote on November 28, 2007 - 6:34 pm | Visit Link

Your meetings and interviews did not address the most important issue that you need to address to stay in business, and that is to report fair and balanced news.
Why do you think Fox News has far more viewers than the rest of the main line media? Give equal time to all issues, especially the candidates for political offices. Thats what all votors want. Don’t tell them how to vote,that is an insult to their intelligence.
You will go the way of the Knight Ridder Mercury News if you don’t change. Frank Licha

Frank Licha wrote on December 5, 2007 - 9:32 am | Visit Link

I have been following the “Rethinking the Mercury News” series with interest because I love newspapers and hate to see them die. There is so much discussion here about blogging and social networks and podcasting and twittering or whatever the latest thing is. Okay, sure, it is fabulous and I suppose someday we will all get chips implanted in our heads so information (and targeted advertising!) can scroll continuously across our eyeballs a la the Terminator. I don’t care, it’s still the quality of the writing and the reporting that will keep people reading. Personally I’d encourage you to focus on South Bay coverage because it seems to me that is where you can really compete and make a difference. And I’m not talking about more biz-tech or the usual “features” (immigrant grandma makes pumpkin pie for neighborhood kids! yeah!), I’m talking about all the local issues and politics that are being totally ignored. Example. A local city around here had a former police officer who was sentenced recently to federal prison for involvement in an Asian prostituion ring. There was a very short blurb in the Merc. quoting some B.S. from the guy’s attorney. This officer was originally arrested in 2002, I believe. Why did the U.S. Attorney’s Office take so long to sentence him? I mean, 5 years? And why did he only get a year in prison for involvement in a terrible crime like human trafficking? What happened to the women he abused? What do they think of his slap on the wrist sentence? There’s a story that is just crying out for a little investigatory coverage from the local paper, but — nada. Okay it’s an old school story maybe. Blogs were not implicated, and the only thing that was green was the money under the table. How very 1970’s. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening right here where we live. There’s probably one big local story like that a week, if not DAILY, that the Merc. is missing.

Julie wrote on December 11, 2007 - 4:21 pm | Visit Link

Création site internet bretagne…

Merci pour cet article intéressant. Bien à vous…….

Création site internet bretagne wrote on April 25, 2010 - 5:47 pm | Visit Link

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