This is an apology to Cate Brett, editor of the Sunday Star-times.
It’s for the angry email I nearly (but didn’t) send her today when I got to the end of my daily Sunday ritual with her newspaper.
The reason Cate didn’t cop it is the thing I was about to complain about didn’t happen. In her recent re-design of the SST’s “Escape” section, Cate didn’t dispense with the feature in her newspaper that engages me without fail: the Target puzzle. My wife had borrowed the puzzle page to do the crossword, so all was well.
But it did get me thinking: how come I got upset enough to want to complain to an editor who I’m sure has better things to worry about than whether the puzzles were all present and correct.
Then I started to recall the real reason we read a newspaper: the HABIT.
The habit has little to do with how clever the design is, how well-written the stories are or how much news we do or don’t get. It’s to do with expectations. We grow and live with a newspaper, those of us who still read them, and we expect certain things to be there, no matter what may be happening in the world.
How do I know this?
Here’s some evidence. Some years back I read that a US newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, sent its staff (journalists, managers, ad people, beancounters) out into its circulation commnunity every few months to knock on doors and ask people what they thought of the product.
The response they got was chastening. People didn’t comment on the great news stories or the editorials or the terrific sports coverage the journalists all thought they were producing. Feedback largely concerned ink coming off on people’s hands, the colour of the newsprint used for the TV section, regular mistakes in the crossword clues, the usefulness of the births, deaths and marriages page, etc.
I tried the same stunt with a bunch of journalism trainees in Christchurch. One day, we got the then-daily Christchurch Star delivered to every house in one suburb, then next day got the trainees to knock on doors. They came back dispirited. Nobody commented on the editorial content. People liked the births, deaths amd marriages page, the classified section, the coloured newsprint used for the TV section, and hated the ink coming off on their hands.
When asked to comment on the feature story about drugs, 50% said it was good. Problem was - there was no such feature in the paper.
When we launched the Sunday Star, we sat back and waited for the accolades, so sure we’d produced something special. One hundred and forty people rang - to complain we hadn’t included the Monday TV programmes. My father said he wouldn’t buy it - because we didn’t have the late trots results.
When we delivered free copies to the whole of Paeroa, then went door knocking the following week, the feedback was much as I’d now come to expect: ink coming off on the sheets (rather than hands), etc. But I’ll never forget one elderly man who said in a kindly way: “It’s a great paper, son, but I won’t be buying it.” “Why’s that, sir?” “It’s too big. I’d just fall asleep trying to get through it.”
I was reminded of all this again shortly after completing my second journalism course, when a student who’d gone to the NZ Herald told me she had to work on Boxing Day, and couldn’t believe the number of calls she fielded from readers complaining that a clue in the crossword was wrong. I also remember the Herald getting into huge strife when it stopped the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon: there were conniptions for days.
Ask me today why I read the Dominion Post and I’ll say it’s essential to the job because I have to conduct current affairs discussions with students first thing every day. But I wonder. If the paper doesn’t turn up for some reason, the two things I truly grieve for are the Target, and the comic, Dilbert, which so accurately captures the banality of office politics.
Actually, I nearly did send Cate the email. Turns out the Target was there, but there was no target, no number of words to aim for. Not much use doing it, really. Never mind: I’m sure the DomPo will have one in the morning.
The only thing guaranteed to jam the switchboard at the Daily Telegraph in London was running the wrong crossword