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Covering and Coping with 9/11

Sept. 11 highlights importance of fundamentally strong journalism

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September 1, 2002 12:00 AM

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For newspapers, the essential lessons of Sept. 11, 2001, all revolve around the importance of fundamentals: the continuing necessity for us to serve the community-interest mission that animates the best of our industry.

Public reaction to our role in the immediate aftermath and subsequent months has been a gratifying affirmation that when we do our job well, readers respond. Many news organizations experienced increased circulation and audience after the attacks; those who did a good job in serving the public's need for credible, community-based information have continued to enjoy those fruits.

At McClatchy, we see much in the experience to affirm the importance of several core strategies:

  • We believe circulation growth is an essential barometer of franchise health and an important measure of our community service, which leads us to policies and practices that have yielded a record 17 consecutive years of daily circulation growth;
  • We think covering the news well and satisfying reader needs demands steady performance; thus we avoided layoffs and newshole cuts during the recent recession, determined to continue providing the quality news report our readers expect;
  • And we have been reaffirmed in our conviction to be local leaders in everything we do, recognizing that readers look to us for community connections that are not supplied by any other medium or source.

    Finally, we are encouraged to note that the lessons and insights gleaned by the Readership Institute provide us with a number of tools that newspapers can use to address just these kinds of concerns. While there is certainly no single, magic-bullet solution, we are convinced that prospects for success are great for newspapers that pay careful attention to these fundamentals.

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