Categories: OLD Media Moves

No 'dear idiot' letters in Rochester

Steve Sink, business editorÂ of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, writes Sunday that reader reaction to changes in its business section have been much nicer than when he led an overhaul of Newsday’s business section in 1994.

Sink wrote, “Last week, I didn’t get a single ‘Dear Idiot’ when we launched this brand-new BusinessLife section. If my four years at the Democrat and Chronicle have shown me anything about this community, it’s that there’s a level of civility here that is much harder to find in the New York City metropolitan area.

“We received an encouraging number of positive responses to our decision to focus BusinessLife on local people and local businesses. Among the comments:

‘You’re right on track in keeping with what a local newspaper should be providing its readers.’

‘Clearly a huge improvement and much more relevant.’

‘The inclusion of more local news is welcomed.’

“But the readers I really want to speak with today are those who were taken aback by the changes. Some aren’t going to be placated because their comments show that they’d like us to be less local, not more.”

Read more here.Â

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.