Respecting readers
By Doug Fisher
It’s been a rough 2004: Ethics scandals; debates
about journalists’ role in telling the “truth” about
the Iraqi war; a divisive election that seems to have left
few, if anyone, trusting “the press”; and a
drumbeat of stories about declining circulation suggesting
that in the electronic age we simply “don’t
get it.”
Yet two moments during the
holidays kept bringing me back to the same question: Do
we respect our readers?
The first was at a service
station in rural South Carolina. We were driving home from
a family visit, watching for
cheap gas. A sign for a station that always seems to have
the best prices indicated it would deliver again.
But “Out of Regular” was on all the pumps.
Another bait and switch, I thought. Who hasn’t been
burned by stations that promise a low price but then have
only the more expensive mid-grade or premium?
Then I looked again. This
station had repriced its mid-grade gas to the lower price
of regular. We filled up with better
gas at 10 cents a gallon cheaper than normal.
Did this station lose some
money? Maybe. But it also made sure I will do my best to
go there, even if it means running
on fumes the last few miles.
Gaining and keeping respect,
for the journalist, is about respecting our readers. Do
we think every day about what
people want from the stories we write, the photos we take
and the pages we lay out? Do we make that extra call to
secure comment from all sides, make sure the relevant information
is before the jump and make it easy for the reader to find
that jump? Do we make sure the photo caption is complete
and easy to understand and that our graphics make sense?
And do we pay attention to our grammar and our language,
the things too many readers keep telling us they notice
when we get it wrong?
Do we try to be rapidly
relevant at a time when our customers can find another
information “station” just
down the cyber highway? Do we make it easy for our readers
and viewers to contact us, maybe even contribute to the
process, and thus cement their loyalty?
Or do we just say take it
or leave it – in other
words, pay a premium price for a low-test effort – and
we’ll get back to you tomorrow (still too common
on many media Web sites).
The second moment came as
I watched a television ad for that holiday fixture, the
Hess Oil Co. toy truck.
I thought Hess trucks were
pretty neat when they first came out 40 years ago, though
I was a little past the toy-truck
stage. I bought them for our boys when they were young.
A marketer would wax poetic here about brand loyalty and
triggering memories, but few of us who have studied recent
marketing research will believe for a minute that today’s
young people will read a paper or go to a news site because
that’s what their parents did.
However, in the Hess ad
was this line: “Energizer
batteries included.”
Including a couple of batteries
is a small thing, but as a parent who has discovered too
late on Christmas morning
the warning “batteries not included,” it speaks
volumes to me as a customer. It says: ”We respect
you. This is one less thing you’ll have to worry
about on Christmas. We’re making sure you get the
complete package.”
Our readers expect us to
give them the “complete
package,” too. Our papers don’t arrive every
morning with a map, a gazetteer or a decoder ring. Readers
expect editors to think about their needs: a map or some
kind of geographical reference to an unfamiliar place (and
don’t forget that to some people, a neighborhood
across town can be an unfamiliar place), a numerical comparison
they can understand, a nut graf that makes clear why they
should continue reading.
We no longer live in the
era of if you print it, they will come. It’s now about showing me you respect me as
a reader, and while I may not give you my undying loyalty,
I am more likely to return as a customer.
If we ask ourselves daily
what we have done to respect our readers, 2005 can be a
lot better year.
