Columnists: Telling Stories of Business, Politics and Everyday Life

MODERATOR

Sue Markgraf, Partner
GreenMark PR

PANELISTS

Julie Deardorff, Health & Fitness Columnist and Blogger
Chicago Tribune

Lewis Lazare, Advertising Industry Columnist, "Media Mix"
Chicago Sun-Times

PROGRAM SUMMARY

Sue Markgraf (from left), Julie Deardorff, and Lewis Lazare. Photo by Ted Lacey.

By Sue Masaracchia-Roberts

At the February meeting of the Publicity Club of Chicago, daily newspaper columnists Julie Deardorff from the Chicago Tribune and Lewis Lazare from the Chicago Sun-Times, held a lively discussion about the evolution of print news and the future of daily newspapers. Moderator Sue Markgraf from GreenMark PR led the discussion.

Sue Markgraf

Sue Markgraf, a partner in GreenMark Public Relations, is an award-winning print reporter, editor and media relations practitioner with more than 26 years in the communications field. Before creating her own firm, she served as the manager of public relations at the Chicago Botanic Garden, building an award-winning team. She also founded the Chicago Parks and Gardens, a network of PR professionals dedicated to increasing national awareness of Chicago as a "green tourism” destination.

Markgraf began the conversation by asking the panelists for advice on how PR practitioners can successfully navigate the changes taking place in media, including questions regarding the impact of the Internet, the research behind stories found online and the changing tastes of the media audience. Both writers concurred that it would be a tragedy for Chicago news if the financial troubles plaguing both papers resulted in only one major daily paper in town.

Julie Deardorff

Currently a health and fitness reporter, Julie Deardorff began at the Chicago Tribune as a sports writer in 1991 and began covering local and national issues starting in 1996. A marathon runner and vegetarian, she moved to writing about environmental issues before becoming the health and fitness writer for the Tribune in 2003. In March 2007 she began a health and fitness blog she calls “Julie’s Health Club.” The blog joins alternative with mainstream health and allows her to create her own deadlines and use material that otherwise would not find a home. Her blog reacts to breaking news and covers issues overlooked by the Tribune and other mainstream papers.

Deardorff acknowledged that the Tribune got into the Internet late in the game, and new owner, Sam Zell, has made a revamped Tribune news site a priority. Compared to other major dailies, the paper has a very modest Web staff, although all the breaking stories first goes online before it goes into the paper.

Her blog is a great vehicle to pitch, as it allows her to write about anything health and fitness related in a much faster, less edited manner. Deardorff loves receiving information from physicians doing studies, where she can create a link to the doctor or hospital and include JPG photos and post them right away. She finds she can receive a great deal of “hits” when a celebrity disease is discussed elsewhere in the media, with people wanting to find out more about it.

However, she perceives the blog as a black hole that demands attention, which with current deadlines, provides little time to engage in what she terms “deep thinking.” She also finds video becoming even more important than photos for use on her blog.

“Print is still the backbone of the Tribune," she said, "but in terms of time, we are torn between print and the Internet. Reporters are stressed for time in this climate of needing to do more than one job.” Instead of beefing up staff, it is being cut. “Newspapers today are working to figure out their identity, especially since the Internet allows the paper to be posted online before it appears in print.”

She also finds that “PR people are doing a lot of reporting these days, going beyond the call of duty."

Although like many reporters, she receives numerous pitches that are inappropriate for her needs, the majority of these come from PR people on the East coast and not from the Chicago market. She beseeches PR professionals to read her columns and blog, becoming familiar with them, before pitching her. Send her a personalized, brief story suggestion. If she is interested, she will get in contact with the sender. She urges practitioners not to call.

Typically, she will respond quickly to e-mails but tends not to answer her phone. She also tends to respond more quickly to those with local connections and people that she knows.

“I don’t shy away from things that seem ridiculous,” she said, adding “Silly stories get the most coverage.” Quotes that are germane and stand out are great. “The person pitching can always add, if you want to talk further, experts to comment on [XYZ topic] can be contacted by calling . . . That’s GREAT and helps a lot!” she added.

As for deadlines, the Sunday Q section of the Tribune deadline is at least nine days before. Deardorff is very receptive to receiving information well in advance for that. For her blog, she reports it “as it happens,” however she maintains it on the understanding that “if a blog doesn’t get a lot of traffic, it gets cut. It takes a lot away from print, and the Internet news site does not generate adequate ad revenues,” the source of much of the newspaper’s income.

Upon the creation of the Red Eye and Red Streak editions of the Tribune and Sun-Times (which resulted from research and feedback provided by focus groups), the papers “used these as a stepping stone to the main papers, hoping that people who just aren’t reading the news, will read these. They are more celebrity-focused.”

The style of writing in the Tribune also has changed, also. Whereas “we never used second person -- like using you and we, now, instead of writing objectively in the third person, we use second person all the time.”

Although Deardorff never writes about products, she welcomes tips that are appropriate for her beat. She can be reached at jdeardorff@tribune.com.

Lewis Lazare

A former staff writer for the Chicago Reader and an associate editor for Crain’s Chicago Business, Lewis Lazar has written the “Media Mix” column for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than five years. With degrees from Dartmouth College and Northwestern University, his career focus has largely been on writing business and advertising stories.

Lewis Lazare writes between four and five days a week, with deadlines arriving between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m., allowing little time to blog. Except for one created for the Super Bowl, he does not blog.

“I decide what to write about, then collect all possible data and the art work, making most days very energy draining,” said Lazare. “Time is a major concern so there is not a lot of time to tell anyone else what does and does not work.”

Lazare writes about the business of marketing and advertising, about campaigns and how advertising works, rather than a trade column. His hope is to receive phone calls or e-mails that concern information of interest to the general readership. He is most annoyed by pitches that are inappropriate for his needs he says come mainly from New York. Out of the “scores that stream into” his mail box, only five or six out of every 100 grab his attention.

Among the “little things that can make a good story, are being offbeat, colorful and catchy with a marketing hook,” he said. “Make it fascinating and, if you can provide artwork, that is even better.”

He also bemoaned that a good number of pitches lack a show of passion.

“Don’t read from a script,” he advised,” but indicate that you have a passion about what you are pitching. Calling me, especially without having any passion for the idea is an idiotic waste of time! If you don’t have any passion, how can you expect us to passionately write about it? Make an effort!”

For breaking stories, 24 to 48 hours is an adequate amount of time for him to get a story written, “but I need at least a few hours once I get an idea presented in a coherent, passionate fashion,” he added.

The Internet is a priority for the Sun-Times, so they are getting information and building a collection of work relevant to readers around the clock. The managing editors did a lot of research and were so impressed by the online presence of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, they have been using that as their model for the Sun-Times. Internet content needs have no length requirements and can range anywhere from a few sentences or a paragraph to a longer piece. However, they are also dedicated to the print publication.

There has been a lot of rearranging of departments at the Sun-Times, however Lazare said that newspapers are a resilient industry that expects waves of reductions. Even though the rumor of the publication being sold is a big question mark, everyone is adjusting and the paper is still getting produced.

His greatest concern is that “young people today do not understand or appreciate the concept of newspapers you can hold in your hand. I question the insights they get, especially since what they consider to be news is based on what they can receive from Access Hollywood or from their iPods and Blackberries,” he said, adding, Today’s youth is very self-absorbed.” He does believe that video belongs in a news venue.

From his perspective, newspapers are not just about what is breaking but provide a larger picture, a greater view of the city as a whole.

Lazare can be reached at llazare@suntimes.com.

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