Temple: Papers still drive the news engine

Published June 16, 2007 at midnight

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Just because something is said, it doesn't mean it's true.

Just as because something is printed, it doesn't mean it's true.

Those truths are self-evident; they're why it's important to get your news from a number of different sources.

Just as you may wince some days when you read the paper, there are days when I can't believe some "facts" I hear on TV and radio.

I found myself in that position this week when I was driving in my car and heard a talk radio host and caller discussing where people get their news today - and suffice it to say newspapers were lucky if they were lining bird cages. Listening to Dan Caplis - a KHOW talker I respect - it would have seemed that the whole world is getting its news from programs like his, and if not there, from the even more powerful Internet.

And, oh, by the way, a caller told him,rubbing in the bad news: The local papers are nothing but advertisements. If you take out the ads, all you'd have is about three pages of news, and those pages would be covered with traffic accidents and other minor events you could have learned about on TV or the radio the day before. (Fact check: the average weekday Rocky has the equivalent of more than 60 open pages for non-advertising content, ranging from news on Iraq to the comics.)

Maybe this show was just the last straw, building on the interminable fundraising drive for NPR, where local hosts tout the "depth" of their reporting staff, one that wouldn't fill a corner of either Denver paper's newsroom. Or hearing the fuss about Yahoo getting into the content business by hiring a single reporter. Yes, you heard it right. Dozens of stories were done about a multibillion-dollar company investing in a single individual to produce news.

I recognize that by bringing up this topic - the audience of respective media - I risk sounding defensive. So be it. But facts are facts. In my view, newspapers are still the main places where journalism is practiced in this country, even as they face significant financial and readership challenges that are driving buyouts and layoffs.

You, too, have no doubt heard the bad news about newspapers. Well, some of it is true. But, as Mark Twain said, "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

The truth is that even with the explosion of media choices today, the Denver papers have huge audiences - more than 1 million adults weekdays and more than 1.3 million on Sundays, according to Scarborough, an independent research company that measures audiences for advertisers.

According to Radio Station World, there are seven talk radio stations in Denver that are measured by Scarborough.

All of those combined have an average workday morning drive-time audience (6 -10 a.m.) during any given 15-minute period of 79,000. That's 4 percent of the metro market during the period with the most listeners.

The total combined net audience for all of morning drive time for those talk stations is 289,200 adults. That means 14.8 percent of the metro market tuned in to at least one talk radio station for at least one of those 15-minute periods.

The local NPR stations combined have an average morning drive-time audience of 36,200, or 1.8 percent of the market during any given 15-minute segment.

And KHOW? Why, KHOW snags a morning drive-time audience of 20,500 - 1 percent of the market - or 67,600 during the entire morning drive time.

As for the Web, 10.2 percent of Denver adults report visiting CNN.com in the past 30 days, and 7.9 percent have been to -MSNBC.com.

You get the picture, or at least the picture from a different perspective. Yes, people are getting their news and information in all kinds of new ways, including on their cell phones and PDAs, from talk radio and of course from the Web. But even as this migration occurs, they often are getting information that originated with newspaper reporting.

I credit my friends at the Caplis & Silverman afternoon show with original reporting and often intelligent discussion. But I also seem to notice that they and NPR and KOA and television stations and many others - you know who you are - also rely on stories from the pages of newspapers. Which is as it should be. Good newspaper reporting should be the stuff people talk about.

The good news is that's still what's happening, despite what you might hear on the radio.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax, Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.

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