Opinion: Readers breathe life into newspapers

We’ve had a busy year here at SBJ, with our annual events and special projects. Year-to-date, we’ve finished the Book of Lists, Dynamic Dozen and 40 Under 40, and are gearing up for Economic Impact Awards July 27 and Most Influential Women Sept. 22. We also launched our sister publication, Joplin Tri-State Business, on April 10.

Our publisher, Dianne Elizabeth Osis, is, like the rest of us, excited about what the future holds for SBJ.

She is, however, quick to remind us not to forget our bread and butter. The bread and butter being, of course, the weekly SBJ, which in July will celebrate its 26th year in publication.

So when I headed to AABP in Little Rock, Ark., improving the newspaper was on my mind.

As a member of the editorial department, of course, the improvements I can help bring about are related to content. And having come from a reporting background and moving into an editor’s spot, I tend to think of content as copy, the facts we put forth in words.

Turns out, I was wrong about that. Content is words, but it’s also pictures and graphics.

I’m working on moving past story tips and coverage ideas, to think more about how they can be expressed on the page, in a visually enticing way.

One session, “Visualize This,” was tailor-made to help me as I work to do my part to make SBJ better. The session was led by Charles Apple of the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va. Something he said during the session keeps running through my mind.

“The most important part of a newspaper is not the writing, the photos or the graphics,” he said. “It is the READER. Gear everything to the reader.”

Those of us in that particular session spent the better part of an afternoon learning how to think like a reader. In other words, how to get past what we thought would be good treatment of content, and to look at it as a reader-on-the street. What can we do – or avoid – to make a businessperson glance at SBJ and think, “Hey, I need to take a closer look!”

The thing is, getting into reader-mode takes some knowledge about who our readers are. Here at SBJ, we know who we’re writing for in general: the business community – company owners or executives, and the people who work for them and with them. But getting to the bottom of what our readers want also requires input from the readers, and if you’re reading this page, that’s where you come in.

We want to know what you think. The most obvious way to share your thoughts with us is through a letter to the editor, though you might not think that given that they’re something of a rarity among our pages. I can assure you that’s not by our choice. We’d love to hear from our readers, whether in positive or negative reactions or commentary to our coverage. It’s odd; I’ve been here nearly seven years, and during that time, we’ve always had a Letters to the Editor feature, or tried to, anyway, but letters are few and far between. Sometimes, we’ll run a story and I’ll think, “Surely that will get us some feedback,” and I’m puzzled when it doesn’t.

Even if you don’t want to go so far as to send us a letter for publication, there are other ways to communicate.

With our new Web site, we’ve added a way for readers to express their opinions anonymously, in the form of a poll question. It’s a completely unscientific tool that helps us gauge community sentiment on various and sundry business issues in the area. We publish the results regularly in our print version. No one has to know who you are, but you can vote, and we can learn from you. Past polls have addressed utilities, immigration, health care and local voter issues. Responses, though, haven’t grown to the point where we’d like them to be. So next time you’re tooling around on the Internet, visit sbj.net, and let your voice be heard. While you’re there, you can check out our daily and weekly headlines on our award-winning Web site. It’s free and easy to use, so what have you got to lose?

You can also access our e-mail addresses from the site, so if you want to drop us a line or ask us a question, go right ahead. Our addresses also are published in the weekly paper, not because they have to be, but because we want to be accessible to you. No good at typing? Give us a call. The number’s (417) 831-3238.

Our lists, which are published weekly in the newspaper and annually in the Book of Lists, are another way for our audience to contribute to SBJ’s content. We’re constantly tweaking the lists and adding new ones. Two new lists, Taney County’s Largest employers and Largest Local Clothing Companies will be published in the July 3 and July 10 issues, respectively. But they’re not as in-depth as we’d like them to be. While the research has been completed on both lists, SBJ Researcher Joyce Embree reports that very few companies responded to her faxed questionnaires and follow-up phone calls or e-mails.

We know that we have readers. Our continually increasing subscriber numbers tell us that. They don’t tell us what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see in SBJ, what you liked, or didn’t.

Let us know. I can’t promise that a letter or phone call will result in sweeping changes to the publication, but what I can promise you is that we’ll listen to what you have to say and carefully consider it in our efforts to bring you the most comprehensive business news in southwest Missouri.

Maria Hoover is SBJ features editor.