Newsworthiness with demographic

By: Hannah Pickett

This week was the most political of the 52 weeks in a year with the election held Tuesday. Tuesday's election was not just to determine our country's next president, but also local communities' sheriff, and other offices.

With the Madisonian's deadline Tuesday night, the main editor decided to stick around and wait for the ballots to be counted to run a lead story on the results. I thought that went without saying, but also thought that the front page headline would have more to do with community results. I imagined it would read something about not only the presidential results, but about the county's offices.

When I looked at the paper after it was printed Wednesday, the main headline stretched across the front page was "It's an Obama Nation" and the sub-heading read "McCain leads in Madison County." Much to my disappointment, there was one sentence in the story naming the county's newly elected sheriff, but the key point of his story was a lazy version of a CNN report announcing Obama the winner.

I was more disappointed to read the last line of the story saying more results of the local election next week. More? Try all of it.

The main problem here is realizing what news is to your demographic, to your key readers. If I wanted to know who won the presidential election, I am not going to wait for the Madisonian to come out Wednesday afternoon to find out. I will turn on my television, get online, or read a daily more credible newspaper for the inside scoop.

The readers of a small town paper already know who the presidential elect is by the time the Madisonian is available; what they don't know is who won the local election seats. Writing a knock off, lazy report on Obama sweeping the country and mentioning McCain's Madison County victory is not what the average Madisonian reader will be interested in. That stuff is reported everywhere. It's like beating a dead horse after a while. People get sick of it and want to see new angles.

People want to read about what changes their votes have made that will directly affect them; i.e.:sheriff.

Considering newsworthiness of a topic within your publication's demographic is very critical in my opinion, and is something that I think should be taken more seriously.