...Report Locally

An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal suggests that the future for local newspapers may involve staying close to home (sub req):

The Boston Globe said it would close all three of its remaining overseas bureaus, reflecting a painful issue for larger metropolitan papers: In the presence of steep budget cuts, do they get out of international and national coverage and focus relentlessly on their local markets?

Advertisers think they should, and so do some of the people interested in buying those papers. They see a world with wire services like the Associated Press and a tier of national papers like The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post providing national and foreign news.

To me, this is the only way that most newspapers will survive and even possibly thrive. Do what no one else is doing.

The high cost of supporting a reporting infrastructure overseas isn't the only issue. Cable news networks and the Internet flash news and photos from around the world instantaneously nowadays; local coverage is less vulnerable to these threats. Moreover, with so many other options for receiving news, readers don't necessarily expect their local paper to be their source for international coverage anymore. Similarly, advertisers are more attracted by local coverage; metro papers have had trouble attracting much national advertising amid competition from television and the Internet. Although papers are taking steps to correct this in their online ventures, many analysts feel that the future of newspaper advertising for these papers is to tap more deeply into their own markets, where big local papers can dominate.

Does the Star Tribune really need to have reporters in Iraq? No. But they can cover the crime scene in Minneapolis like no one else. At least they could if they wanted to. Or how about the locally based "flying imams" story, which received short shrift from the Strib?

Cover the stuff in your backyard in depth and leave the national and international beats to the big boys. Sure, that might mean passing up some glamour stories and Pulitizer opportunities, but it isn't as if finding space in the trophy case at 425 Portland Avenue is a big issue right now.