Out of Reach   

Fewer and fewer papers are distributed to a high percentage of local homes.

The time was, say 30 years ago, it was not unusual for a local daily newspaper to be delivered to 80 percent to 90 percent or even more of the homes within its local market.

A lot has happened since then--continued growth of TV and radio stations, cable systems, free weekly papers and, most recently, the Internet. All of these have chipped away at newspapers' circulation coverage to the point where it is a lucky newspaper indeed that has managed to hang on to 50 percent of the homes in its market, and many have fallen well below that.

By my count of the data in the last FAS-FAX report of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, only 71 of the 937 dailies measured had household coverage of their local markets of 70 percent or better. That's down from 667 dailies in 1971, again by my count.

As discouraging as these facts are--they show better than anything else the decline of the newspaper industry--there are a few exceptions to the national trend that are worth examining.

As I wrote in last month's column, the newspaper industry is battling a perhaps inevitable circulation decline because research has shown that a newspaper-reading habit tends to be passed from parent to child. Fewer young people in recent decades have taken up newspaper-reading compared with earlier times. As these young people age and have children, the newspaper-reading habit will be inherited by fewer and fewer children.

A central question, of course, is why young people have been inclined to eschew reading newspapers. Also, what have those few newspapers that have been exceptions to the national trend done to keep young people in their communities as readers? Clearly if they had not been successful at that, their household coverage would not have remained high.

A famous example of a newspaper that has succeeded--famous because its success was the subject of a lengthy front-page article in the Wall Street Journal last year--is the Daily Record of Dunn, North Carolina, circulation 10,018. The Daily Record actually sells more newspapers in its primary market than there are homes, for a penetration of 117 percent (up from 112 percent when the Journal did its story).

There is one other daily, Marianna, Florida's Jackson County Floridan, circulation 5,663, that also surpassed 100 percent, with 108 percent. And by my count there were nine dailies in the country that reached 90 percent penetration or better and 32 at 80 percent or better.

It is true that most of the high-penetration dailies are small--circulations range from 3,100 to 23,400. Yet some larger papers scored high--Colorado's Pueblo Chieftain, circulation 51,267, had 74 percent penetration. Three other mid-size dailies with circulations from 33,000 to 38,000 and penetrations of more than 70 percent are published in Glens Falls, New York; Washington, Pennsylvania; and Wheeling, West Virginia.

Now, I have not been able to examine closely the 71 dailies that scored 70 percent or better in penetration, but I suspect all of them lean heavily on the same things that the Daily Record has. The paper's management told the Journal that it emphasizes local news above all else. An example: When a commuter airline crashed near Raleigh, 35 miles to the north, killing 15 people, the story, which had already been on television, was published on the front page below a story about a local man who ran into a bear while driving to work. The headline: "It Was the First One I Ever Seen and It Got Me."

The paper's managing editor, Lisa Farmer, said, "Nowhere else are they going to see a story about a bear being hit by a guy driving to Kelly-Springfield Tire." Other touches: The paper covers children's birthday parties and regularly publishes commentary from readers. Moreover, in a heavily integrated market, the Daily Record's integrated staff represents the community.

This might seem to be really small-town stuff to some journalists, but it is the kind of stuff that connects people to the local newspaper. And it is the lack of such connection that has hurt circulation everywhere, at papers small and large.

Too many newspapers, I fear, have lost sight of what it takes to make readers want to read the paper. An example of this is the growing trend for newspapers to charge for obituaries (see "The Death of the Free Obit," April 1999). Selling agate space to families mourning a loved one is fine, but too often a newspaper's obituary effort stops there except for prominent people.

Yet every life lived, especially in a small town, can yield an interesting story if care is devoted to it. It will be widely read because a local life connects readers to one another, and to the newspaper.