A reader took us to task for recent story headlined, “Governor Warns of Revenue Shortfall.” In the fourth paragraph, reporter David Klepper attributes a quotation from Kathleen Sebelius this way: “said Sebelius, a Democrat.” The reader, another David, wonders why we had to refer to her party, and what implication we were trying to make – that if the governor were a Republican, there would be no revenue shortfall?
Sometimes, a Democrat is just a Democrat. The reference to the governor’s party wasn’t meant as an implication of anything other than identifying her political party. One thing to keep in mind as Sebelius’ name floats as a potential vice president candidate – stories about her are being read online across the country as people seek to learn more about her. Such seemingly minor details help readers less familiar with Kansas politics. So the party affiliation – while extraneous to some – can aid clarity for thousands of other readers.
Check out this terrific column by Adrian Pratt, publisher of the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa. The CDT is a sister paper of ours, also owned by McClatchy. Adrian’s column about being sworn in as a U.S. citizen last week is beautifully written.
A week after we eliminated most of our printed stock listings, phone calls are slowing down. We’ve taken a little under 200 phone calls or emails. Five years ago, when we reduced our stock listings to a single page, we took 1,500 phone calls.
The decrease in calls from angry readers is open to interpretation, but one probable explanation is that a dominant majority of our readers access stocks information on the Web, from Kansas.com or one of dozens of other sites that offer up-to-the-minute quotes.
I do understand why those 200 readers are angry. A reader named Melinda left me a voice mail asking me to share the numbers of complaints and subscription cancellations we’ve had. She’s furious that we dropped the listings, and hopes other stock-users have joined her in protest. I’ve had the same feeling toward companies I’m angry at – and I’ve hoped that thousands of people joined me in protesting a decision I didn’t like about rates, service or products.
In this case, though, we’ve had one subscription cancellation. A caveat: Unless a reader specifies that he/she is canceling because of stock listings, I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint a cancellation to the stocks decision. However, so far, we’ve seen no spike in general cancellations.
None of that means we don’t care that we’ve upset readers. We do. I recognize that some of our readers don’t have computers, or don’t want to be tied to them for news. Because we serve tens of thousands of readers each day, we have to focus our available space on features that are of use and interest to the widest range of readers. I know that explanation doesn’t hold much water when you’re angry or your routine has been upended – and I’ve been on the other side of unpopular decisions as a consumer. Our hope is that readers find much more value than stock listings to bring them back to the printed paper each morning.