People say they want good news stories, but the numbers show otherwise

Quite often reporters hear: “Why don’t you write good news” or “I don’t like all the bad news in the paper.”

Really? Is good news what readers want to read?

Before newspapers put their news stories online (yes, millennials, we used to put our stories only on paper), they were limited in how they could determine what people were actually reading — not just what they said they wanted to read in the paper. Newspapers would get calls or letters from people saying what they liked or didn’t like in the paper. That would give newspaper folks an inkling about what people were reading.

Sometimes papers would do focus studies by bringing together a group of people from the community to talk about what was in the paper. They’d ask all kinds of questions: What did they read? When did they read it? Did the headline draw them into the story? How long did they stay with an article once they began reading? What kinds of stories would they like to see in the paper?

Also, eye-tracking devices have been used to precisely track what people were reading and answered most all those questions above.

These studies and devices helped editors decide what they should focus on and where they should put their resources.

Well, folks, it’s a different world today.

Nearly all stories are put on our website at www.macon.com and put on our Facebook page. They are shared, copied and shared again. Sometimes people post links to stories on their own website or Facebook page.

Some people still read our stories in the physical paper, but more and more folks use their cellphone, a tablet or their computer.

Therefore, we know what you are reading in our paper, what device you are using to read it, when you are reading it and how long you stay with each story.

Guess what? You are not reading the good news stories.

For example, our education reporter, Andrea Honaker, wrote a story that was put online March 21 about a Houston County High School student who had been named “the region’s best and brightest student of 2017.”

That’s a good news story for sure, right?

On March 22, her story was not in the top-stories report we get each day. It doesn’t show the total number of hits a story gets, but it’s a snapshot at the time. The top stories went from No. 9 about the apparent suicide of a Pulaski State Prison guard with about 2,000 hits to a story about a man who had reported that someone stole $40,000 he left in a motel room, which had more than 11,000 hits already.

In between, there were stories about a school bus driver who had been arrested on a DUI charge, the indictment of a woman accused of shooting teens who allegedly were throwing rocks at her home and vehicles, and a story about a bleeding woman who apparently cut herself after claiming someone else did it.

You want good news stories? Prove it.

This story was originally published March 29, 2017 at 3:58 PM with the headline "People say they want good news stories, but the numbers show otherwise."