Alison GerberIt’s a question every local paper must answer: What stories get front-page real estate?
What’s more important – something happening half a world away, or something happening in Red Bank or Ringgold or downtown Chattanooga? We’re a local newspaper, so local news is obviously our bread and butter; reporting the news of Chattanooga and the surrounding region is why we exist.
Yet we still receive feedback from readers who want more national news, who think the latest out of Washington, D.C., or the United Nations or Wall Street should be on the front page every day.
Just last week, I spoke to two readers who told me they want to see more national news on A1. Local news, one man said, ought to be in the Metro section. Everyone looks for local news in the B section, he said, period. And while you’re at it, he said, keep football stories off the front page. People who want to know when the University of Tennessee names a starting quarterback can go to the Sports section.
We try to give readers a mix of stories on the front page. We try to cull the most relevant, most important or most interesting stories of the day from all our sections – including Sports, Business and Life – and also from the national and international wires. Some days, a football story may be in that mix. Today, for example, the Vols are on A1. After months of building anticipation over new coach Butch Jones, the Vols’ season opener is one of the most talked-about stories of the week. Hence, it’s on the front page.