Copies of The Charlotte Observer, Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Idaho Statesman that arrived on doorsteps Thursday all had a story about Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s testimony at the top of their front pages.
Yet if you clicked onto each newspaper’s website mid-morning, you’d see a different lead story. In Indianapolis, it was about racist tweets by an Indiana University professor. Idaho readers learned Boise was a finalist, but a loser, in the competition for a Nike plant. St. Louis reported on testimony in the trial of an elderly mother who killed her disabled daughter.
The impeachment hearings weren’t mentioned on The Charlotte Observer’s home page. In St. Louis and Idaho, the references were limited to links about editorial cartoons. The online IndyStar stressed a local angle: what Sondland said about Vice President Mike Pence, the former Indiana governor.
It’s a stark reflection of how the news business is changing.
Editors say their print and digital editions are completely different products. The online edition is built with business, not necessarily news, top of mind.
“We’re not anti-national news,” said Ronnie Ramos, executive editor in Indianapolis. But readers tell the newspaper — and the clicks each article gets — confirm that local stories are the most popular for online readers.
Regional newspaper websites across the country stick strongly to that local-first approach.
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