Paper data

Sunday afternoon I bought a copy of the Advocate so that Menckles and I would have something to play with at Tracey's while we waited for the Saints game to come on. We had intended to pick up the final daily printed copy of the Times-Picayune that day but it turned out a lot of folks must have had the same idea. More folks than the Walgreens could supply anyway.

When I pointed out the Advocates available on the rack, Menckles blew me off.

"Isn't that like the Scientology newsletter or something?"

I was surprised but only for a second. Menckles didn't grow up in Louisiana, has only lived in the state for about six years and even then only in New Orleans... in the same neighborhood the whole time.   In that time, she's become enough of a New Orleanian to not give a shit what or if anybody outside of the city is reading.  So I was filling her in on the whole story about the Baton Rouge-based paper's decision to open a New Orleans bureau and begin daily delivery in the New Orleans area just as the T-P was scaling its back. The cashier overheard us.

"They're not making the Picayune anymore?"

And it was then that it occurred to me that maybe I'm living in a bit of a bubble.  While it may seem to a myopic news geek that the ro-busting of the T-P and all its little side dramas, "digital alliances" and overwrought symposia on the meaning of it all was a major story in 2012, the truth is many people really could not care less.

Which is where this LSU Public Policy Research Lab survey comes in.  The report is titled The State of Newspapers in New Orleans Survey: Citizen’s reactions to the loss of the daily Times Picayune The title actually does a far better job of explaining the document than the "Executive Summary" which follows. The study is produced in part by the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication which is noteworthy since the Manship family still owns and publishes the Advocate and were no doubt interested in these results.

The report is only marginally helpful, however.  The questions asking respondents why they like to read the news in print or why they like to read online are poorly designed.  I suspect the flaw is the multiple choice options conceptualize the respondents more as consumers than as readers.

I use both print and online sources for news because I think each has a specific value. I like the print version of a newspaper because it assembles the events of a day in a whole document; a static archive of the moment that tells us not only what happened but also how the editors chose to prioritize those events.

Meanwhile the great advantage of online news sources is the opportunity they afford the reader to interact either through direct feedback in a comment or an email to the author or by sharing and discussing the news with others.  This is kind of the point of the whole internet, really. And it's staggering that this survey disallows something like it as a response.

Also, and this is a small thing, the report is poorly written.  The narrative repeatedly insists that this or that datum is "interesting" or happens "interestingly." One item is described as "slightly bizarre."  There is an improper usage of the word "it's." As someone who delivers daily truckloads of typos to the world myself, I'm not usually one to pick these nits. But, for something produced by an academic institution and concerned specifically with the communications business, this is especially weak.

Anyway here are the bits that struck me as actually rather than just nominally interesting.

More than 4 out of 5 New Orleans area residents (82%) were aware that the Times Picayune was moving to a 3-days a week publishing schedule. Of course, that also means nearly 1 out of 5 residents were unaware.

One of those "1 out of 5" sold me my Advocate on Sunday.

At the time, this survey was conducted less than 1 in 4 (22.8%) New Orleans area residents were aware that The Advocate (the local Baton Rouge paper) would be publishing a special New Orleans edition daily.

I was momentarily surprised Sunday to learn that in my own household only 50% of residents were aware of this.  But it turns out even that is above the metro rate of awareness.

But those factoids are probably interesting only to me.  Here's the thing to pay attention to.

The percentage of users who read news about their local community online everyday is noticeably higher than the percentage of users who specifically read NOLA.com everyday; NOLA.com being the web presence of the Times Picayune. This suggests users are getting their local news online from a source other than local newspaper itself

NOLA Media Group has deliberately backed away from a format where it enjoyed an insurmountable market status in order to focus on an area where it is far less dominant.  Furthermore they're making this move on the cheap by choosing to drop many of the veteran reporters and opinion writers who had been tightly associated with the paper and its brand.  What they're looking to do now is  trade  primarily on the name NOLA.com.  If this flawed survey is to be believed, then that may mean they have taken a weaker position than they think they have.