By Peter W. Wagner
Founder and Publisher | The Sheldon, IA, N’West Iowa REVIEW
This month’s featured topic for Publishers’ Auxiliary is “how to get recognition for your paper.”
I’m sure my fellow contributors will offer Pub Aux readers some great promotional ideas elsewhere. But I believe the answer to obtaining respect and recognition goes much deeper than holding readership contests, having a booth at the chamber home show or plastering the paper’s logo on dozens of area billboards. I believe it simply comes down to ramping up local content to provide subscribers with an exceptional number of original, interesting and enterprising stories and features that can’t be found anywhere else.
I became aware of this undeniable fact for the umpteenth time recently while reading Missouri Press Assoc-iation President Dennis Warden’s column in the association’s monthly newsletter. Near the end of his column, Warden recalls his years as an employee of the Hannibal (MO) Courier-Post. One of his favorite fellow employees at the Courier-Post was Mary Lou Montgomery.
“Mary Lou was the food editor in the early 1980s for the Courier-Post,” Warden wrote. “After I brought in a sheet cake that I had baked to the newspaper, she asked for the recipe. She printed it and it was voted the best recipe in her column for that year.”
Now read carefully what Warden says next: “Mary Lou retired from the Courier-Post in 2014 as editor after she helped uplift the publication by focusing on local community journalism.”
If putting a focus on local reporting worked for Mary Lou Montgomery, it can surely work for you—and any editor or publisher wanting to regain a key leadership position in his or her community.
Too many papers attempt to slip by today, printing mostly supplied news releases. That’s bad! It’s bad because many of those news releases are nothing but self-serving, poorly written, boring, cold statements of fact. Worse, most are also available in every other weekly newspaper in your area. If news releases are going to be your stock in trade, at least be original by using them as a starting source. Make it a point to rewrite and expand the information by adding fresh details and a local spin.
I use to think readers wanted their stories short and to the point. But that was before I visited San Francisco this summer and found myself devouring exciting, enticing, full-page features in The Examiner.
But length alone does not make a news story or feature article worthy of printing. Every article has to have a “hometown” connection. Every news report and feature has to be as fresh as a new winter snowfall.
Here are some recent story ideas produced by my news rooms for The N’West Iowa REVIEW.
1. WHERE IS SUPERMAN SUPPOSED TO CHANGE, by Ty Rushing. He noted how many phone booths still exist in our five-county circulation area. The majority are now privately owned and on display in backyard gardens, basement rec rooms and decorating locally-owned businesses.
2. SEVEN FOR SEVEN by Kate Harlow. This multi-page series, published in our OKOBOJI magazine, featured seven articles highlighting each of the seven best places, interesting faces, restaurants, boat dealers, recreational trails and things to do around the seven lakes that make up the Okoboji resort area.
3. 104! CITY’S OLDEST RESIDENT HONORED by Tom Lawrence. A truly delightful, detailed look at the amazing Anna Rensink, Sheldon’s Labor Day parade grand marshal. Rensink, at 104, still lives alone, tends her own garden and walks downtown to shop every day.
4. FULL-TIME PIG FARMER AND PART-TIME PASTOR by Jake Rogers. The story of a man called to the ministry from his hog lot. Today, with much training, he farms and preaches.
5. COACHES EXPECT PLAYERS TO HONOR ANTHEM by Scott Byers. How local college coaches are working with their teams in response to the NFL athletes who refuse to stand for the national anthem.
Other recent stories with high reader reaction include:
6. EPIDEMIC: SOARING EPIPEN PRICES by Ty Rushing. He spent a number of hours finding and interviewing a local family impacted by the EpiPen price increase and how it was affecting their lives.
7. TAKING A FLING AT MATH. Our school expert, Tom Lawrence, used this story to reveal how a local sixth-grade teacher was using the trebuchet, an ancient weapon of war, to teach math to his students.
8. ORANGE CITY PAIR PROTECT FISH IN JAMAICA by Mark Mahoney. This story took us far away from Iowa to report on how residents of a nearby community have committed themselves to helping establish the White River Fish Sanctuary in the Caribbean.
The fact is, there are endless interesting and important stories breaking around every news team every day. Some can be found in the local school system, others at the senior citizen center and even more along the highway in some farmer’s field. The smart reporter will discover them at church on a Sunday morning, listening in on the conversation before a city council meeting or simply visiting with a local businessman or community leader.
Some are stories that lift up the community, introduce them to someone unique just down the street or make folks aware of some negative issue lurking around them.
These are the local stories readers remember. They just require a little research or enterprising effort and powerful, exceptional writing.
The printed newspaper is going to be around for a long, long time, at least in communities where there are still folks who love to put out a real home-town newspaper. © Peter W. Wagner 2016
Peter W. Wagner is founder and publisher of the award winning N’West Iowa REVIEW and 13 additional publications. He is often called “The Idea Man” and is a regular presenter at State Press Association and Publishing Group conventions and seminars. You can contact him regarding his programs “100 Ideas for Fun and Profit,” “Seven Steps to Selling Success” or “Watch Your p’s and q’s” by emailing pww@iowainformation.com or calling 712-348-3550 anytime.