(EDITOR'S NOTE: Tom Callinan, editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, wrote me with the following response to my Nov. 3 post about Gannett's new Information Center strategy. The following is published here with his permission.)
Dear Amy: One problem I have with your post is that you use an inset showing The Des Moines Register and assert that "it's not newspaper anymore...it's an information center."
Well, kind of.
I can't speak for Des Moines, but in Cincinnati, The Enquirer remains very much a newspaper. But it is one (albeit the dominant, most precious and important) part of the Information Center approach.
Our daily newspaper remains the most important means of information delivery to our community. It will be that way in the near future and I hope generations. But we need to look to other ways of reaching audiences. It calls for broader thinking than the way we've looked at our jobs in the past.
Thirty years ago when I got into this business I worked for a newspaper. That was it. There was no 24-hour cable. Fewer local broadcast options. Niche magazines were on the fringe. And, certainly no Internet cell phones or PDAs on which we could receive news. How simple things were, looking back.
These days, most newspaper companies have expanded into new avenues. We must. In any given day I may spend time with breaking news online, planning video projects, reviewing blogs, coordinating content synergies between The Enquirer, our magazines and more than 20 weeklies. And, yes we continue to strive to put out a very good newspaper.
Yes, it's more work. But with with strategic focus, smart decisions and new technologies we can push the envelope.
The alternative? Wish for the old days and cling to the core newspaper as our only solution. We could wring our hands as we watch classified advertising and younger readers move into new directions. Rather than watch our reporters, photographers and editors follow those trends out the door, we are retraining our people and repurposing our content to reach new audiences.
That's what the Information Center is all about. It's about "and" not "or."
