Difference Between Local and National Newspapers

Based on the nine newspaper articles gathered from the Tallahassee Democrat on three randomly selected days, I was able to identify several trends regarding the nature of the stories typically published. As can be expected, the most prominent trend established through the analysis of these articles was that they predominantly covered local news; thus, the piece provided information regarding the city of Tallahassee. In fact, six of the nine chosen articles directly pertained to Tallahassee with two articles discussing statewide issues and only one story reporting national affairs.

Another distinguishable trend uncovered was the tendency for the news pieces to publish soft news, “sensational stories that do not serve the democratic function of journalism,” as opposed to hard news (Baran, 2019, p. 91). More specifically, a pattern seemed to develop in which out of the three top news stories of the day, two of them would be categorized as soft news and one as hard news – thereby providing a total of six soft articles out of the selected nine.

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In reference to topics covered within the chosen articles, there was no subject matter that was significantly reported on more than others. Although the issue of politics was the field of discussion for three of the news articles, for the most part, the genres reported on by the Tallahassee Democrat appeared to be broader – covering a wider range of material for the audience.

The New York Times newspaper, however, presented an array of different trends that largely contradicted those developed by the Tallahassee Democrat.

For instance, The New York Times primarily covered national news, with seven of the nine chosen articles reporting on domestic issues and two articles detailing international matters. Furthermore, the Times typically published hard news pieces, with five sampled articles covering stories intended to “help citizens make intelligent decisions and keep up with important issues of the day” (Baran, 2019, p. 91). Additionally, unlike the Tallahassee Democrat which displayed no consistent pattern of the topics being published, the majority of the pieces reported by the Times covered the issue of politics. Therefore, the overall trend established by The New York Times – based upon the analysis of nine articles over three news days – was that the paper tended to publish hard news articles typically regarding national politics.

As briefly discussed in the prior section, the analysis of the Tallahassee Democrat and The New York Times revealed distinct disparities between their trends. To begin with, the Democrat predominantly covered local news, whereas the Times primarily reported on national matters. Furthermore, while the Democrat consistently published more soft news pieces, the Times principally reported hard news. In reference to the subject matter, the Democrats seemed to cover a more expansive variety of topics, while the Times had a noticeably higher percentage of articles concerning politics. However, although the Democrat had a greater range of material, the genre that was reported on the most was politics. Thus, it is a common trend among both news corporations that politics is the most covered topic. In addition to this similarity, it must be acknowledged that both papers largely remained within their target domain. For instance, due to the Tallahassee Democrat’s status as a local newspaper, the news published by this organization primarily concerned the affairs of Tallahassee (and occasionally the state of Florida) in order to curate the news to fit the needs and desires of the target audience: citizens of Tallahassee. Similar to this, The New York Times, a national newspaper corporation, published news stories that pertained mostly to domestic affairs – with the occasional exception of international news. Therefore, both news organizations produce articles for their target audience and unofficial geographical sector.

In regard to the Tallahassee Democrat, it was established that the news organization primarily publishes articles that reference local events. Although this trend may be rather obvious given the corporation’s position as a local newspaper, there are several additional explanations to justify the Democrat’s tendency to publish articles detailing local affairs. For instance, one of the known criteria of newsworthiness in journalism is proximity. Meaning, the closer the occurrences covered in a news story are to the citizens reading the article, the more those citizens will pay attention to the article. This principle is based upon the idea that as proximity increases, the impact an issue can have upon an individual increase; thus, the more relevant the issue becomes. Therefore, the Tallahassee Democrat predominantly publishes articles reporting on local news events not only to inform the public on recent affairs, activities, and actions but to meet the demand from citizens to receive updates on matters that can directly concern them. The Democrat also tends to publish soft news stories.

Although soft news stories do not provide the information necessary to make educated decisions regarding current issues, they do tend to be more appealing to readers, and, at a time where newspaper readership is at an all-time low, it is critical for news organizations to publish stories that they know will attract an audience. Thus, the Tallahassee Democrat is distributing more soft news to increase their online article viewership by providing their specific audience with what they prefer – news that is more entertaining than educating. Finally, the Democrats demonstrated a trend of reporting on a variety of topics rather than consistently covering one subject matter significantly more than the others. Though this may be a mere coincidence, for my analysis had a relatively small sample size, it could also indicate another attempt from this news organization to appeal to the masses and sell more content by providing an array of article options that cover different interests and issues. For example, the top news stories for the Tallahassee Democrat one day concerned the topics of sports, entertainment, and politics. While these are all popular subjects to readers, they do provide notably different content; thereby suggesting that the Democrat is intentionally trying to appeal to more consumers to turn a larger profit.

The New York Times, on the other hand, has taken an entirely different approach for attracting its target audience. The Times, which is categorized as a national newspaper organization, is more likely to cover issues regarding nationwide affairs (as opposed to local or international) to provide citizens of the United States with a reliable source for information and news that will not only impact them but the country as a whole. As will be further discussed in the following paragraph, the Times tends to cover more national than international issues to better fit the newsworthiness criteria of proximity. The Times has also developed a tendency to produce more hard news stories. This can be interpreted as a means to portray their organization as more credible and objective – provided that hard news covers more serious issues and includes more factual information compared to soft news stories. In addition, this type of news may be preferred from a national news source; for example, to inform citizens on the stances and actions of presidential candidates to help them make a more educated vote in an upcoming election. Therefore, the Times may be publishing more hard news articles in order to meet the consumer demand for a credible and informative news source that reports on national issues. This is also the likely reason behind the Times having the majority of their articles covering the topic of politics: it is highly demanded and desired by consumers to aid their intellectual and democratic decisions. Thus, the decision to publish more political pieces is intended to result in higher readership.

In reference to the differences between the Tallahassee Democrats and The New York Times and why they value certain journalistic trends and styles over others, it essentially comes down to one basic question: what will result in the most profit for their organization? This critical question requires these news corporations to determine what type of news their target audience wants. For the local newspaper, it can be inferred that the audience preferred to read about interesting local events rather than more serious and information-based articles. This contradicts the national newspaper approach, where the articles primarily covered nationwide political issues and were often categorized as hard news pieces. As stated previously, the main reason the Democrat primarily publishes local affairs and the Times mainly reports on national affairs is that readers tend to pay closer attention to stories that are in closer proximity and thus play a larger role in their lives.

With this being said, when a consumer purchases or views a national newspaper, such as The New York Times, they are most likely doing so to obtain new information regarding their domestic affairs – not the latest update on Canada or China (and the same goes for local newspapers). Therefore, these news organizations routinely stick to either local or national matters in an attempt to better appeal to their reader’s preferences. This drive to please the demands of consumers also serves as the explanation for why the Democrat publishes soft news and the Times distributes hard news. National news corporations like the Times carry a stronger reputation of credibility and seriousness than do local newspapers. This leads readers to expect different styles of news from the two different sources; thereby creating the demand for soft news from the Democrat and hard news from the Times. Furthermore, national politics have been statistically proven to generate more interest from citizens than local politics and elections. This demonstrates why the issue of politics is covered more by the Times than it is by the Democrat – which reports on a wider range of topics in an attempt to attract a larger audience by playing off of different interests.

Ultimately, the analysis between these two papers has revealed that the differences in journalistic trends between national and local newspapers are created in response to the different expectations developed by consumers regarding the two news sources. Therefore, the Democrat and the Times have developed these trends to meet the demands of each of their target audiences and generate more profit.