Goleta Valley Voice... New and Improved!?
When you wander down the driveway in the morning, and pick up your copy of the Goleta Valley Voice, you'll notice an "Extra! Coming next Friday, April 13 the all new and improved Goleta Valley Voice" flyer.
The flyer goes on to state:
"Your news for & about the Goleta good land!"
And the coming soon part:
- Goleta Neighborhood Forum
- Goleta School News Briefs
- Goleta Volunteer Close-ups
And there is even a "celebration" planned... you can meet the staff of the Valley Voice, pick up your copy of the "all NEW Valley Voice" and have coffee and donuts. At the bottom of the flyer, you'll notice a large space taken with "To advertise in the Valley Voice..."
One has to wonder, in light of the recent (lack of) local coverage by the SB News-Press (owned by Ampersand Publishing, LLC, which also owns the Goleta Valley Voice), if they will actually be able to accomplish local coverage of the Goleta Valley. Have they tapped out all the advertising dollars in Santa Barbara?
The 'news' they report on is no longer news when it hits the driveway, as other local media outlets have long since covered the Monday Council meetings, Tuesday Planning Agency meetings, etc.
Wonder what spurred this move...
Thoughts? Comments?
5 comments:
Thanks for taking the time to mention the Voice. I'm its managing editor, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the paper.
Yes, we're rolling out our redesign Friday, and I think it's a nice little upgrade. The cover will surely be a improvement. Inside we've tried to clean it up, make it more reader-friendly. We think it's time to bring the Voice into the 21st century.
As for "news" and the Voice, here's our philosophy: As a weekly we know we're no match for the daily outlets in covering breaking events. What we try to do is look ahead, to focus on letting people know what coming up and how it affects them. We even try to anticipate what's gonna be news, what people need to know. Not easy, no, but fun.
It makes little sense, as you suggest, to regurgitate stuff that happened a week ago. Yeah, we do report on City Council meetings and such, but we also try to put things in perspective, and to see what's next. Do we succeed every time? Again, no, but we're giving it our best.
I hope you'll give the new Voice a look. We're always happy to listen comments and suggestions. Newspapers are all about communication, yes?
Jim -- Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I certainly am looking forward to seeing the revamped Valley Voice.
I just have to wonder about the readership... as I walk through my neighborhood, I see weeks of Valley Voice issues piled up in a person's driveway... I can understand one or two driveways, but the other night, there were about 10 driveways that had two issues laying there.
Lets hope that next Friday, the 13th, isn't an unlucky day...
Readership -- heck, just getting people to pick up the paper and take a look -- is one of our longstanding challenges. It's been that way for every Goleta paper for decades.
I actually delivered the Goleta Valley Today back in the 70s. It was kind of a nightmare. I had no list of subscribers; somebody just dropped off a bundle of papers and I delivered to all the houses on my route. It was about 95 homes.
After a month or so of that I went to every house and told them I was collecting for the Today; whoever gave me money was a subscriber. I believe the most paid subscribers I ever had was around 20, but I averaged about a dozen. My friends who had News-Press routes had around 90.
For me, that's one of the biggest reasons to redesign the Voice. We want people to pick it up and see that it's different, that it's a paper that's covering their town.
That's my hope anyway. With any luck you'll see fewer Voices littering your neighborhood.
Well its not 'littering' I'm concerned about... its the fact that people actually pick it up and read what's happening in their town, rather than listening to the bellyaching after the Council makes a decision they didn't necessarily agree with, and hearing them complain they didn't get their say.
I look forward to seeing the redesign, and hope that more people take an interest in the things that are happening in their back yard.
Hopefully that will be able to be accomplished between 'new media' (blogs, etc.) and traditional media (good old fashioned print).
Best of luck!
Hooray for Jim Logan.
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