Readers weigh in on changes at The N&O

Your turn: Last Sunday's column discussed the elimination of movie summaries from the Channels section, as well as other N&O initiatives to save expense and shift more content to the paper's Web site, www.newsobserver.com. Here are some readers' reactions, excerpted:

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I read your article in today's paper titled, "Worries about the shrinking newspaper." I just wanted to say I think that in some ways, it is actually a good thing that the paper is shrinking. Although I am a Web programmer and spend most of my day online, what I value about the print edition is that I can scan through the main section and the City & State section to find articles about local transportation and land-use issues. I end up recycling the entire remainder of the newspaper without giving it more than a cursory glance. I feel bad about wasting so much paper, so a thinner paper will make it easier for me to justify subscribing to The N&O. -- STEVEN WATERS, Raleigh

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I think the whole attitude of economizing yourself back into newspaper prosperity is about like the tale of the farmer who wished to economize by feeding his mule corncobs instead of corn. It is said the old mule began to like the corncobs about the time he died of starvation. I hope we are not the mule to your farmer.

My daughter, who is a guidance counselor in the Triangle area, says some of her high school students get their news from the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And a very few years from now, they will be given the right to vote. May God help us all. -- JOHN BISHOP, New Bern

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I understand the need to reduce cost, but how about a compromise? Wouldn't it be possible to include [movie listings] on The N&O Web site and regain some of the perceived lost value? I suspect the cost to do that would be negligible and that most of the people who miss this feature are computer-literate. -- TERRY TENHOUSE, Chapel Hill

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Your article resonated with us. For some time we've been noticing (and grumbling) about the gradual decimation of the editorial/text content of The N&O, while the percentage of the page area containing advertisements (which mean little or nothing to us) continues to increase. And the recent "retirement" of several columnists that we followed regularly has left a void that is yet to be filled. -- RAOUL & JERRIE LEUTERITZ, Fearrington Village.

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Unless means are found (a) to continue the financial support of multiple (and competing) suppliers of real reporting and (b) to ensure that such reporting continues to be read or seen by a broad enough segment of the populace to create a national "information consensus," we will end up effectively lacking a Fourth Branch to keep the other three honest.

A society without accountability for government or corporations is a prospect I don't even want to think about. And though we're still blessed with McClatchy [owner of The N&O], the [New York] Times and many more suppliers of what we need to know, I worry that we're already somewhere along that road. You don't always know what you needed to know before it's too late. -- ANN THACKREY BERRY, Raleigh

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The downsizing is unfortunate. The quality is also being compromised. Two pages for a barber retirement is excessive. A short column would have been adequate. This is just a sample of many other articles from time to time. Your column, and other staff writers could be shortened. Particularly when the content is biased in favor of the paper. -- HOWARD CUNNINGHAM, Raleigh

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I love my N&O .... Love my paper. Love to flip the pages, love to cut out the recipes, love to send articles to my mother. I miss that part of Channels too, but that's the way life goes. -- DOT RICE, Raleigh

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You and I both know a tremendous amount of resources are being diverted to online publication of the news. Any story in the daily paper is generally found online the day before it reaches print. Frankly, I think The N&O is making a tactical error in judgment by opting to rely on the Internet as the future prime source of reader captivation. To be honest, when I check online I usually gravitate toward CNN, Fox News or Yahoo for any stories I might find interesting enough to click on. I do, however, rely on the local print paper to fill in the other gaps. ... -- BOB SULLIVAN, Raleigh

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As to The N&O receiving only "about two dozen complaints ... out of a Sunday circulation of more than 200,000," the nature of complaints is complex. Some people, such as myself, complain when we truly care about a business and wish for it to improve because we want it to survive. Other times we do not complain because we do not care whether the business disappears, or more cynically while we care about the business, we do not believe that our complaint will do any good. In that regard, I feel that this e-mail is a complete waste of my time, but I am breaking one of my rules of complaining and sending it anyway. -- EDWARD H. WILLIAMS, Raleigh



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