After doing an admirable job in covering the passing of Attorney General Beau Biden, the News Journal and its DelawareOnline.com website may have stumbled a bit when it came to the Firefly Music Festival.
Earlier, the News Journal hit a lot of the right notes in covering those difficult days for Delaware, with a blend of respectful conventional print coverage and social media posts.
The strategy in both the case of Biden’s funeral and Firefly was to put a lot of reporters to work. That led to comprehensive coverage of both events, perhaps too much for many of the older readers of the News Journal when it came to Firefly.
The other issue is whether the all hands on deck approach affected future coverage for a staff that has seen continued downsizings.
Covering events, like Firefly is essential to the future of the News Journal and newspapers in general, since the event attracts sought after millennials and generation Xers who have deserted print.
The stumble may have taken place when it came to a sudden round of intense storms that hit the Firefly Woodlands grounds on the Dover International Speedway Saturday night.
DelawareOnline.com and other media quickly posted news of the order to leave the site, but left people hanging by waiting until the next day for an update.
It was a puzzling situation, given the fact that Gannett papers and website are evaluating staff work based on social media engagement. Firefly itself did a slightly better job, via Twitter, of keeping patrons updated, although it took time to sort out the situation.
For the NJ, It appears to be missed opportunity in reaching millennials who live on their mobile devices.
There was no outrage about the coverage gap among younger people who simply turned to other sources of information and probably knew little about the News Journal in the first place.
It was a yet another chapter in the struggle that newsrooms face in the digital age in throwing off the habits and culture of the past.
New Publisher for Gatehouse Delaware
The Delaware operations of Gatehouse (Dover Post, Hockessin Community News, etc.) have their third publisher since late 2013.. Amy Dotson-Newton succeeds Kevin Todd, who in turn succeeded Clarissa Williams. Williams took the helm in late 2012.
Dotson had been a regional advertising director for the Philadelphia market of Digital First Media, publisher of the Daily Local and other newspapers in the metro area.
Gatehouse, which purchased a half-dozen weekly Dover Post Co. newspapers in 2008, has struggled with a heavy debt load and staff cuts that left many of its weeklies short-staffed on the news side at least when compared to the Dover Post days.
Gatehouse underwent a “prepackaged” Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in 2013 that resulted in a friendly buyout deal, with New Media Investment Group controlling the company.
New Media has been acquiring newspapers, the most recent being the Columbus Dispatch, a mid-sized metro daily in Ohio. New Media reported a small loss in the first quarter, but showed an improvement in cash flow. – Doug Rainey
