Two cues for local news

[Crain’s Chicago Business kindly asked me to contribute some thoughts to its special-edition “Forum on local journalism and the news.” The version posted to Crain’s website omitted the explanatory hyperlinks I included. For the record, here’s my original draft—hyperlinks included.]

By Charlie Meyerson
Publisher, Chicago Public Square

As a mentor to up-and-coming journalists and a consultant to news organizations—legacy or startups, profit or nonprofit—I often cite two priorities for those plotting local news’ future.

1. Growing audience is Job No. 1, and email’s the key.

That means: Gather people’s email addresses. The top of any news website should include an invitation to “Sign up for updates via email.” I’ve gone so far as to recommend one local publisher announce loudly—on front page wraparounds for months—something like “This print edition is going away on [date certain]. If you want to keep getting the news, get us your email address now.” Then shut off the presses, pour all that production and distribution money into digital journalism, and charge advertisers a premium for reaching a community you’ll own like no other.

Email’s ability to connect all manner of content with an audience makes it the logical successor to everything from a daily or weekly newspaper to a nightly or hourly newscast. It can alert subscribers to text, photos, podcasts, video and more. Unlike the ever-flowing rivers of social media or the vagaries of search engine behavior, your email will be seen. And unlike websites, which an audience must remember to visit, your email’s always there, waiting, whenever anyone checks the inbox.

That said: Whether anyone opens that email or not is overwhelmingly a function of the subject line. So the corollary: Make your email great. That means compelling, non-repetitive subject lines, where the most interesting and engaging words come first—and so won’t be obscured on small screens. It also means informative but tight content—a dispatch designed as a satisfying experience in itself but also engaging enough to get readers to tap over to ad-supported web pages.

Bonus: Email can provide unmatched insights into your audience’s priorities.

2. Lose the paywall, put out the tip jar

Paywalls crimp audience growth, and that limits what you can charge advertisers. People won’t share content with friends or colleagues—your potential new readers—if those friends will smash, Wile E. Coyote-style, head-on into a paywall. A better approach: Make your content free for all—as public broadcasting and other media (notably in Chicago, the Sun-Times and the Reader) have done—but ask that growing audience to support your free content voluntarily. Maybe just 10% or 15% of your audience will kick in, but 10% of a growing number is … a growing number. (Compromise: A generous “gift link” program for paid readers.)

The mission’s vital

The plague of local government corruption, school and library book bans and election skulduggery with national consequences has made the importance of vibrant and engaging community news clearer than ever.

As a growing number of Americans get their news not on paper, but via phones and computers, the news business needs to meet them where they are. Email’s ideal for that—and for persuading them news is worth supporting.
_____

After 20 years in Chicago radio news—including WXRT-FM—Charlie Meyerson joined the Chicago Tribune in 1998 to launch its pioneering email newsletters, including Daywatch. Since 2017, he’s applied the principles above daily in “Chicago’s new front page,” the free, reader-supported Chicago Public Square email newsletter. He’s also vice president of editorial for award-winning podcast production company Rivet360. (Photo credit: Steve Ewert.)

Want to podcast? Create a gripping open.

(Adapted from my “Four Keys to Creating a Great Audio Interview” for the Orbit Media Studios blog.)

No one gets to the end—or even the middle—of your podcast without listening to the beginning. And a long, wordy, boring open is one of the best ways to ensure people don’t stick around for long.

One key to engaging listeners—especially people new to your podcast (and who doesn’t want a steady flow of them, huh?)—is to open your show with some of the most interesting words from what’s to come.

Here’s a great way to craft a compelling intro for a typical podcast interview:

1. A one- or two-sentence preview, beginning with the most compelling words you can muster, leading into …

2. A short (20-30-second) excerpt from your guest or guests—the most exciting, emotionally powerful cut in the whole show.

3. An ID for the guest(s), yourself, your show and your underwriter or sponsor—mixed, if you must, with theme music (which, based on Rivet360’s groundbreaking data, often will prove a tuneout; keep it short if you use it at all).

Here’s a sample (click to hear audio):

Here are more examples:

■ Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal tells his not-favorite things

■ Barack Obama’s 1st biographer, David Mendell: Michelle didn't care for the book

■ Music journalist Jim DeRogatis: ‘Every system in this city failed … to protect these young black girls’

Tip: You can save yourself and your team production work by crafting your “live” intro (the one you read while you’re sitting with your subject), to include a brief pause where you can later insert a cut. The key is to write an intro that alludes to a question you’re sure you’ll be asking. If a stronger cut emerges, you can recut your first few opening words to match that clip and let the rest of your original recording flow from there.

Example: An interview with two veterans of the Second City comedy organization, Tom Yorton and Kelly Leonard. (Photo credit: Charlie Meyerson.)

Tip: Spare your listeners the waste of time that is “Thank you for joining us” or “Thanks for being here” at the opening. That just brings things to a halt. (Because we all know what comes next: “Great to be here.” Or “Thanks for having me.” And then a brief, awkward pause.) Thank your guests as profusely as you like—before and after your recorded segment. If you must thank guests—it is hard to resist—don’t wait for an answer; just move directly to your first question. Keep it moving, start to finish. 

My Hall of Fame induction speech: Cherish your friends, embrace your rivals (2008)

On this date in 2008, I was fortunate enough to be inducted into the Illini Media Alumni Hall of Fame. Here’s the speech I prepared for that evening. (Note: About 60 seconds before I wrapped it up—in a bit we’d worked out in advance—fellow inductee and Chicago Blackhawks announcer Gene Honda kindly interjected, as he has at so many hockey games, shouting “One minute remaining!”)

It’s hypocritical of me to stand here, because I really think Hall of Fame honors should not occur before the honoree has shuffled off this mortal coil with a clean rap sheet. On the other hand, I’d have a harder time conveying my gratitude then, so what the heck.

I want to give my thanks and my love to my wonderful family—parents, siblings, kids—and my wife, Pam, without whose amazing ability to sleep through a clock radio at 3:15 in the morning I would have almost no career at all.

And I want to share what I consider three of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the 35 years since I first cracked open a mic at WPGU’s Dorm Broadcasting System.

NUMBER ONE: Teach when you can, share when you can. Teaching others makes us better, more responsive professionals. The very act of explaining yourself helps you become better at what you do—whatever it is. And the karma comes back, in rewarding and surprising ways.

NUMBER TWO. There’s no day so bad it can’t be improved by listening to “Go All the Way” by the Raspberries. Preferably several times in a row. The repeat button on your music player was meant for this song.

NUMBER THREE. Be nice—play it straight, play it fair—with everyone, all the time. Because, if you’re lucky enough to have a career that lasts a decade or more, one day that rival could be your colleague, your neighbor, your boss—or your kid’s boss. This is a tough one, because, let’s face it, we in the media are a darned competitive bunch.

And that brings me to the story of a colleague back in my days at WPGU. He was a couple of years older and, as such, his show on WPGU used to follow my graveyard shift radio show. We had an on-air rivalry. I would insult him or play a derogatory song to introduce his show. But he taught me the hard way not to poke a stick at the guy who controls the microphone—or at least, who takes control of it after you do. One time, he proceeded to take the controls only to dedicate to me Loudon Wainwright’s classic song “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.”

Now, it would have been easy for this kind of thing to get out of hand. I’ve seen it happen time and again in this profession. And, clearly, I gotta say, that memory did stick with me. So, of all the people I met during my years on campus, you might not have guessed that Tom Thomas would have become so close a friend years later. And I surely wouldn’t have guessed back then that Tom, bless him, would pass away all too soon this year while working on Illini Media matters, including—as I later came to find out—my nomination to this great, great honor.

And so, I want to thank him publicly—and say to you all: Life is too short for petty competition and emotional rivalries.

Cherish your friends, embrace your rivals. Make them a part of your life, and you’ll be glad you did.

Thank you all.

From dorm broadcasting to the digital frontier: A journalist’s journey

I can trace the origin of my broadcasting career back to Aug. 24, 1973—early in my first year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, when a tradition known as Quad Day gave campus student organizations a chance to introduce themselves.

In particular, I got to know student radio station WPGU—a story I shared in some detail with a speech to the University of Illinois Library team on the occasion of Homecoming weekend, Oct. 14, 2022.

To mark the 50th anniversary of that life-changing encounter, here’s video and a rough transcript of those remarks.