Steve Lovelady, an ex-Inquirer editor, once made the memorable remark that newspaper’s biggest threat wasn’t TV news, but TV dramas like L.A. Law. The ability of TV to captivate is a big reason Americans have less time to read. So meet the challenge by embracing dramatic storytelling. Instead of inching multiple crime stories along day by day, adding this ID and that blind investigative alley, patiently flesh out the full story until it can recreated in full, suspenseful narrative fashion. Make it a must-read, like must-see TV. And schedule such stories regularly. Perhaps even do reruns. (Book collections of such cases?) Document the day-to-day details online, to stay competitive with radio and TV, but reserve the dramatic epic exclusively for print.
Book-related ideas
A Gossip Column About Our Fictional Celebrities
Gossip columns are popular, and so are TV series. Doesn’t it seem sometimes that people are almost as interested in TV characters as they are in real people? Aha! Do a newspaper column called “Character References” that’s “gossip” about what happened last night on TV. Write it up in chatty mock-shock-schlocky style. Boldface the unreal names. Only the wildest, wickedest, newsiest fictional events make the cut. Could broaden it to include famous characters from books and movies, too.