Conventional wisdom in modern journalism is that the future is digital, and the bigger your news organization's online footprint, the better. Without a digital presence it's more difficult for a wider audience to hear about an important story. But there are still cases in which rural papers that rely on print subscriptions and print advertising, can break news of considerable interest, even if not online.
The DuQuoin Weekly in Southern Illinois recently broke a big story: State officials had removed a country music band Confederate Railroad from the DuQuoin State Fair in August because they considered its name racist. The paper and its sister publication, the Pinckneyville Press, didn't put the July 3 story on its Facebook page or mostly defunct website because they thought it would hurt paper sales, Jackie Spinner reports for Carbondale-based Gateway Journalism Review.
“It didn’t take long for us to learn we were competing with ourselves when we throw stories up on Facebook or on the website," Jeff Egbert, publisher and co-owner of the newspapers, told Spinner. The story went viral anyway, as readers shared pictures of the story on social media, which was then picked up by regional, statewide and nationwide news outlets (most crediting the Weekly). "It’s a reminder that for community newspapers, word-of-mouth still goes a long way," Spinner reports.
The Weekly scooped the Du Quoin Call, but the daily has followed up. In its latest story, John Homan reports, "A Marion business has lined up the band for a September concert, and the Williamson County Fair and the city of Harrisburg have also been trying to get them."
In a comment on the above report, Editor Ben Kleppinger of the Advocate-Messenger in Danville, Ky., wrote: "Sounds like they learned exactly the wrong lesson. The story wound up online and on social media anyway, but it didn't come from the newspaper and the newspaper gained zero ad revenue or online subscription money from all those additional eyeballs. The story went viral without any financial benefit for the community journalists who did the reporting. Perhaps someday the epitaph on the DuQuoin Weekly's tombstone will read 'never competed with itself online'."
In an editorial for his paper, titled "You may not realize who originally reported the news you consume," Kleppinger wrote, "We publish our work for the benefit of our readers and our communities. Once it’s published, it often gets snapped up by other media organizations and republished for their audiences. Whether or not these secondary media outlets acknowledge the source of the story, they certainly never return any of their revenues from re-publishing back to the community journalists with boots on the ground in the communities where the news happened. The megaphones of radio, TV and national news outlets can be great for spreading important information beyond a small community, to the region, the state, the nation or even the world. But the system as it’s built now is broken. As a result, the public’s ability to get that important information in the future is at risk. . . . The redistribution of local papers’ news by other media companies has helped create an assumption among the general public that news is free."
The DuQuoin Weekly in Southern Illinois recently broke a big story: State officials had removed a country music band Confederate Railroad from the DuQuoin State Fair in August because they considered its name racist. The paper and its sister publication, the Pinckneyville Press, didn't put the July 3 story on its Facebook page or mostly defunct website because they thought it would hurt paper sales, Jackie Spinner reports for Carbondale-based Gateway Journalism Review.
“It didn’t take long for us to learn we were competing with ourselves when we throw stories up on Facebook or on the website," Jeff Egbert, publisher and co-owner of the newspapers, told Spinner. The story went viral anyway, as readers shared pictures of the story on social media, which was then picked up by regional, statewide and nationwide news outlets (most crediting the Weekly). "It’s a reminder that for community newspapers, word-of-mouth still goes a long way," Spinner reports.
The Weekly scooped the Du Quoin Call, but the daily has followed up. In its latest story, John Homan reports, "A Marion business has lined up the band for a September concert, and the Williamson County Fair and the city of Harrisburg have also been trying to get them."
In a comment on the above report, Editor Ben Kleppinger of the Advocate-Messenger in Danville, Ky., wrote: "Sounds like they learned exactly the wrong lesson. The story wound up online and on social media anyway, but it didn't come from the newspaper and the newspaper gained zero ad revenue or online subscription money from all those additional eyeballs. The story went viral without any financial benefit for the community journalists who did the reporting. Perhaps someday the epitaph on the DuQuoin Weekly's tombstone will read 'never competed with itself online'."
In an editorial for his paper, titled "You may not realize who originally reported the news you consume," Kleppinger wrote, "We publish our work for the benefit of our readers and our communities. Once it’s published, it often gets snapped up by other media organizations and republished for their audiences. Whether or not these secondary media outlets acknowledge the source of the story, they certainly never return any of their revenues from re-publishing back to the community journalists with boots on the ground in the communities where the news happened. The megaphones of radio, TV and national news outlets can be great for spreading important information beyond a small community, to the region, the state, the nation or even the world. But the system as it’s built now is broken. As a result, the public’s ability to get that important information in the future is at risk. . . . The redistribution of local papers’ news by other media companies has helped create an assumption among the general public that news is free."
Sounds like they learned exactly the wrong lesson. The story wound up online and on social media anyway, but it didn't come from the newspaper and the newspaper gained zero ad revenue or online subscription money from all those additional eyeballs. The story went viral without any financial benefit for the community journalists who did the reporting. Perhaps someday the epitaph on the DuQuoin Weekly's tombstone will read "never competed with itself online."
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