Tribune’s COO Randy Michaels (a veteran broadcasting executive with long-term ties to Sam Zell):
“We need to build — especially in markets where we have multiple media outlets — a breaking news center.”
Well, this is what a newspaper used to be.
But when almost all the news is a commodity, the only option for a print newspaper or a local online news service is not to record the news, but to find the news.
We need scoops!
Online and in print.
24/7.
But this is not easy.
Or cheap.
And to find the news, you need more, better news hunters: reporters.
And you explain the news with more, better cooks: editors.
So, if you want to become a “breaking news center” and you are just cutting, cutting, cutting … you will end up with no hunters, no cooks, no reporters, no editors, and no real news.
Scoops, my dear, is what readers want.
Smart explanations of the news are what readers need.
(Watch here the standard speech from Randy to Tribune’s newspapers)
