Reaching Out to Readers: They Do Notice

Several refused, citing unhappy past experiences with the media. Other were guarded but spoke to the reporter and prayed for the best.

The story was a revelation. In their eyes, the article was accurate, balanced, complete and respectful.

“People were refusing to talk to the reporter because they figured she had a point of view and that their religious beliefs would come out looking silly,” recalled Ken Brusic, the Register’s executive editor.

“After the story was published, some people who wouldn’t agree to interviews called her to say, ‘I would have talked to you if I had known you were going to be fair.’

“That suggests to me that people notice a difference in coverage, especially when they are closely connected with the topic.”

The differences in coverage at the Register have evolved during the past two years in hundreds of newsroom conversations. The conversations have given the journalists freedom to experiment with different ways of working together, choosing stories and reporting and presenting them.

Editor and reporters, in interviews, cited subtle but significant changes that play out in their daily work lives:

• Coverage that promotes connections. For instance, the newsroom carefully recruited a “Citizen Senate,” during President Clinton’s impeachment trial. Each day, at least one “senator” was interviewed in depth about the proceedings. At key points and the final votes, all 12 “senators” were presented with the impeachment coverage.

  “That was a way for readers to see both the national story played out as a spectacle on a stage and so see how their neighbors in Orange County were dealing with the issues. They could see how thoughtful people were in processing the information and how that played into their own sense of morality and politics,” Brusic said.

• Coverage that leads readers to ways they can act. When a child died after an injection at an unlicensed neighborhood clinic, the police and investigation coverage was immediately complemented by deep understanding of the Latino immigrant community. That helped readers understand why parents would avoid official medical care and trust their baby’s health to a shopkeeper selling drugs and giving injections in the back room.

  The reporting team quickly came up with a special section about clinics and health care, printed in Spanish and distributed through the Register’s Spanish-language paper, Excelsior.

• Coverage that is competitive. The Register’s coverage took a distinctly different approach from The Los Angeles Times Orange County edition when demonstrations erupted in the Vietnamese-American community after a video rental store owner hung a picture of Ho Chi Minh and the flag of Communist Vietnam in Orange County’s “Little Saigon” district.

  That area contains the largest concentration of Vietnamese living outside of Vietnam; mostly refugees from the south. Through profiles and contacts within the community’s networks of leaders, the Register’s reporters were able to unearth the deeper meaning behind the protests and to take the story beyond the First Amendment issues of free speech and freedom to assemble and protest.

  Vietnamese community leaders credited the newspaper for trying hard to report deeply,” coverage leader Chris Meyer said. “They also said we have a ways to go to get it exactly right,” he said.

• Reporters used to working in “teams,” such as government reporters and editors, now are working in “neighborhoods,” which also include photographers, designers and copy editors. The collaboration brings more creative ideas to the table and suggests additional perspectives for a story and how to present it.

• Rolodexes are getting fatter because reporters are expanding beyond official and institutional sources, moving around the community.

  “We are looking for people who spark change and people who connect various groups, in other words, people who know what is happening in our community before it reaches the city council or the county board of supervisors,” said Rebecca Allen, a newsroom editor. “One way reporters do this is to go to community leaders – such as Rotary Club presidents, homeowners’ association leaders, PTA members, the ministers of churches – to find out what is going on in their communities. Those sources often refer them to people who have no official title, but who are very knowledgeable about a particular issue or group that is trying to change something.”

Anecdotal evidence suggests people have begun to notice the different approach the Register takes to news – and that they appreciate it. Consider these comments about overall coverage:

• “For a number of years I did not take the Register. Now it is the only paper allowed in our house. You are writing stories trying to deal with the whole community. Stories that reach us. I can get ‘stuff’ other places. What I want to see in my paper are stories that recognize that people are more complex than what happened one second ago, that there is more to this person than this awful thing that just happened. I like that.”

• “I talk to a lot of people. They like the Register. It seems to have its finger on the pulse of the important issues in the community. It’s not just getting the juicy quote; it’s getting the right story.”

Their statements came when I approached them as ombudsman to talk about their perceptions of the fairness of news coverage. Their comments suggest that they view the coverage as more believeable and the journalists as more trustworthy – not that they have suspended rational judgment.

I viewed their thoughtful comments as hopeful signs that the newspaper’s credibility can be restored or enhanced through its coverage. The American Society of Newspaper Editors survey of readers suggested that repeated mistakes and suspicions of bias are killing credibility. Those findings, unfortunately, are reflected in the more than 3,000 reader contacts I have had in my first year as ombudsman.

But many conversations also reflect where readers’ expectations intersect with journalists’ aspirations: Everyone wants the newspaper to be an accurate, balanced, complete report of community life.

Brusic believes the Register is moving in that direction. “The differences in the way we approach things shows up when you walk around the newsroom and see people in clusters talking about the best ways to do their stories,” Brusic said. “Our conversations are different, too. We are not afraid to talk openly about our biases and how to deal with them; we are less willing to accept things at face value.