Newspaper leaders: Find local ‘passion topics’

Mizell Stewart III

Newspaper management around the country is trying to find and concentrate on “passion topics” in the community.

At last week’s Newspaper Association of American conference in Denver, which drew 1,000 participants, former Beacon Journal managing editor Mizell Stewart III, vice president/content of the newspaper division of E.W. Scripps, said that the 11 Scripps dailies have been working on something similar, “franchise topics” — three or four for larger papers like those in Memphis or Naples, Florida, two at smaller papers.

Stewart said that editors and newsroom teams have used consumer research to identify “what can we do that no one else in the market can do.”

The theme: The general store approach – a bit of something for everybody – doesn’t work any more.

Just looking at the BJ’s A1 front page shows you that local news is the hook to draw in readers who otherwise would stay on the Internet. That’s what many BJ newsroom retirees, in particular Tom Moore, have been preaching for years: Local news, local news, local news.

Potential newspaper readers can get everything else elsewhere, and hours or days before the newspapers get around to printing it.

Twinsburg native and Bowling Green graduate Mizell worked in Tallahassee, Florida before coming to the BJ in 2006.

Bruce Winges succeeded Mizell as the highest ranking newsroom person in 2007, when Bruce was named BJ vice president/editor and Mizell became Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press editor for one of Scripps’ newspapers. In 2012 Mizell was named vice president of content for the newspaper group of E.W. Scripps, which is based in Cincinnati.

Louisville native and University of Kentucky graduate Winges previously worked in Huntington, West Virginia. Bruce and wife Bonnie Bolden, a West Virginia University graduate and a former Beacon Journal department editor, live in Cuyahoga Falls.

To read the News About Mizell Stewart web site article, click on http://newsle.com/article/0/133734478/

Since attending the NAA conference in Denver, Mizell had a detached retina. He's been cleared to return to work and expects his vision to be normal in two or three weeks.