"We don't do dead deer"

My introduction to newspapers' efforts at building readership came long before I encountered Mary Lou Montgomery, editor of the Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post. For those unfamiliar, however, her story provides a perfect introduction. The headline topped a column from Montgomery reprinted in a Missouri Press Association publication. "Dead deer" refers to a possibly lost newspaper practice of running photos of hunters who want to show off their quarry. You used to see this in community newspapers in other forms, too: large homegrown vegetables, a prize steer, a big fish. Montgomery realized the paper no longer printed such pictures. She listed 10 other things that readers loved and editors hated that no longer appeared in the paper--wedding gown descriptions, long lists of names, club officers, "chicken dinner news." In the name of "journalistic standards," these things have disappeared from newspapers, she said.

You can read the entire column I wrote here and Montogomery's column here (free registration required). Long story short, Montgomery started putting that stuff back in the paper. The result has been more circulation and higher readership. Montgomery told me some of the comments readers had following the transformation. Two stick out: "I feel like I got my paper back" and "It's fun to read it again."These are comments newspapers need to hear to survive.

I've told many papers that focusing on readers will not automatically result in an instant circulation boom and a flood of ad revenue. Readership builds in increments. Readership takes time. I also tell them, "What do you have to lose? More readers? More circulation?" Of course, journalistic standards must be maintained, but there is room for dead deer and big vegetables. It seems to be working in Hannibal, which means the paper's enterprise stories now have a bigger audience than they used to have. Isn't that the point?