91视频

Shortly after the 91视频 announced it would scale back its print publication from five days a week to three, a reader approached me with a question. 鈥淗ow,鈥� she asked, 鈥渨ill this change the way you cover news?鈥�

My answer was simple: It won鈥檛.

I understood the concern that spurred her question.聽 These days, when a newspaper announces plans to cut back on the number of days it prints a hands-on publication, readers immediately worry the result will be a decline in the quantity and quality of stories.

An article that appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review last month did little to dispel those assumptions.

The author, Dean Starkman, acknowledges that good things can come in small packages, newspaper stories included. But he believes that some topics by their very nature and complexity demand more space 鈥� and more time and attention by reporters. And after crunching some numbers, Starkman determined that newspapers are leaning away from long-form journalism in favor of shorter stories.

The Los Angeles Times, for example, last year ran 256 stories of more than 2,000 words, an 86 percent drop from the 1,776 similar length stories it ran in 2003.

Now take those numbers and calculate what would happen if the Los Angeles Times sliced off four of the days it produces its print publication. In other words, there鈥檚 a reason readers of The Times-Picayune nicknamed it the 鈥淪ome-Times Picayune鈥� after the New Orleans news outlet shrank back print publication from seven days a week to three.

I haven鈥檛 done official data drilling for the 91视频, but it only takes attending a few story meetings to realize that the number of stories our reporters turn out hasn鈥檛 decreased over the past few years. Nor has the average length.聽 In some cases, our stories have actually gotten longer as our reporters work to help readers understand issues that have grown in complexity in recent years.

What has changed is how, and when, we make those stories available to readers.

Unlike the larger dailies that print their papers in the wee hours of the morning, the 91视频鈥檚 files are in the printer鈥檚 hands by mid-afternoon. By 8 p.m., our papers are printed and on their way to the post office, to be delivered to local readers with the next morning鈥檚 mail. For decades, that meant we were often chasing the larger dailies when it came to getting the news out on late-breaking stories.

But a few years ago, we realized that by posting our stories online at as soon as they had been filed by reporters and fact-checked by editors, we could keep up with 鈥� and even beat 鈥� our media competition. And we could do it while remaining committed to provide the in-depth, long-form, analytical stories that our readers needed and expected from us.

These days, we no longer say we work for a 鈥渘ewspaper.鈥� Instead, we identify ourselves as working for a news outlet that publishes first for the web and second for print. Our online stories are available to readers around the clock. We even offer a daily morning email that highlights the most recent stories posted online. The strategy allows us to keep our news coverage consistent no matter how many times we published a print paper during a single week.

The best news, like all good things, comes wrapped in paper packages big and small. But these days, it comes first and foremost online.

Stephanie Basalyga is the editor at the Daily Journal of Commerce. She can be reached by email at [email protected], or call her at 503-802-7222.