REUTERS MAKES A CASE FOR CHOOSING TO COVER THE WORLD

British service embraces the Web by holding on to hard news

It's all about choice. The conundrum of journalism in recent years has been the matter of choice. While readers have more and more choices (ranging from magazines to web sites to – Eureka! – newspapers), editors have had diminishing choices in their supply of national and international news.

With United Press International weathering a decade of decimation – it is now but a shadow of its former self – editors have begun to rely solely upon the Associated Press. Though many newspapers purchase supplemental services from the likes of the New York Times, Chicago Tribune or Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, many others take the AP and nothing else.

This may change. As related inside, Correspondent Julius Duscha visited Reuters on Fleet Street in London to find out what executives of the legendary wire service are thinking these days. What they're thinking is news – specifically, newspapers.

Despite the fact the organization makes most of its money in the world of financial information, its leaders all told Duscha that its heart is really in breaking news, and that it is tailoring its offerings to give smaller U.S. newspapers a package that is affordable and compelling.

Affordable is certainly an important factor in this equation. Editors don't see their budgets growing, and the acquisition of a service like Reuters usually requires axing something somewhere else. Reuters has had a history in the United States of not understanding pricing structures. I remember a decade ago having to unravel the picture service pricing and put it back together in a manner my bosses – and the accounting department – could grasp, and so this change is important.

The irony, of course, is that maybe national and international news doesn't sell newspapers – in fact, it may depress circulation.

Senior Editor Pete Wetmore got the bright idea recently to take a look at newspapers whose circulation rose in the latest FAS-FAX, coming back from losses reported in ’96-'97 (his story is inside). One of the themes he encountered among both circulators and editors was that local news rates.

Apparently, it sells papers.

A recent article in the American Journalism Review suggests, in fact, that international news has "vanished" from American newspapers – especially smaller ones. Which brings us to the problem American newspapers have confronted for decades: Do we give readers what they want, or do we provide them what they need?

When a sitting U.S. president proclaims that he doesn't eat broccoli because he doesn't like it, what does that say about the rest of our society?

U.S. newspaper executives rarely look at the newspaper as a whole. The editorial people throw away the classified section, the sports editor rarely looks at the main news section, and all the editors see the advertising as an intrusion upon their turf.

Readers, on the other hand, see the newspaper as a complete package. Weather pages, TV grids and two pages of comics are part of their expectations. If an editor cuts a comic, the world as we know it comes to an end. If that same editor cuts out an international news story, nobody notices.

For the average U.S. newspaper (25,000-circulation and smaller), putting international or national stories on Page 1 is probably not the direction to take – whether the editors think it is the broccoli that the readers need or not.

But a more vibrant and sprightly wire report – produced by something in many places still called the "telegraph desk" – could be a wonderful side dish (vegetables or not). And though I have the utmost regard for the AP's international and national reports, more papers taking a Reuters report not only improves those papers, it improves the AP as well.

Though Reuters still makes most of its money on financial data, American newspapers should encourage it toward more news (by buying its service).

It's all about choice.

-- David M. Cole

Inside ...

• Gauging readership is goal of new service ABC plans for summer
• Reuters is betting its growth on news, and newspapers
• Papers relate battle plans for winning back lost circulation
• Oldhams of Orem step into the daily ring
• File full: final third quarter earnings are more positive than not
• Maybe one reason software is crummy is the way it's made
• Persons

From NEWSINC., Nov. 23, 1998, Copyright © 1998, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved.