Market research was the midwife that delivered the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Science page.
While other reporters are writing fast and short under daily deadline pressure, we sit in our small group deciding if we should write about a forensic entomologist, a 9,000-year-old city, or a new technique in heart surgery.
Every Wednesday morning, the Minneapolis Star Tribune publishes our efforts on its Science page (called "Scientia" on the Web). It is a single page, with color, located inside the A section. Most of the time the page works, with the pieces blending together and reflecting an overall tone. Occasionally the page doesn't work and reads like a collection of individual pieces, each with a different voice. We define success not just by the quality of the main story, but by the overall feel of the page after it is pieced together.
The unusual birth of the Science page did not arise from some editor's deep
love of the subject. Instead, Star Tribune editors approved the page as a product intended to meet a specific marketing need. In the parlance of market research journalism, the science page is what's known as a "segment one enhancement."
If someone reads a newspaper seven days a week, pays attention to national and
international news, and skips the gossip columns and shopping sections,
he or she is a segment one reader. If someone uses the paper as a shopping and
entertainment guide, he or she is a segment two reader. The Star Tribune had been spending a lot of time and money on segment two readers. Eventually, either collective guilt or shrewd marketing told senior editors they should appeal to people who actually read the articles. Thus began the quest for an intelligent feature.
The Star Tribune's Twin Cities coverage area is home to the
University of Minnesota and companies such as 3M, Medtronic, and Honeywell, so it seemed obvious that science-related features would be well received by our readers. While the newspaper has typically given science stories good play, science has remained a fringe beat.
The situation at the Star Tribune changed about two years ago with the call for a segment one enhancement. One day, a senior editor wandered by my desk and casually asked me to revive a science page proposal I had been submitting to him for ten years. He needed something to present to a meeting of about seven of the top editors, and he thought my old proposal might be it.
As it turned out, his timing was perfect. The paper had shifted to a team system a year or two earlier, and we now had a small group of reporters working together
as the science/medicine team.
Though many reporters dislike the team system, it is a good idea for science coverage. Instead of working alone, as a team member I was working with a veteran medical writer, who had been rescued from the variety section. The team also included two other reporters who were good at broad medical features. Another reporter who understood the medical business was assigned to the team, as was a copy editor who knew a great deal about science. We were one of the most prolific teams on the paper.
This teamwork enabled us to move reasonably quickly, considering that we were developing an entirely new page for the paper. Similar efforts typically take a year or more. In about three months' time we not only put together a proposal for a science page, but also devised a philosophy and two prototypes.
The basic weekly ingredients of the page came together painlessly. They included a main story, a column called the "Observatory," and a feature linked to the PBS-TV show Newton's Apple (produced in St. Paul). Another section, Home Planet, brought together an odd compilation of shorter science pieces.
The team set two key conditions for the page. Firstly, it would
contain no consumer health updates. Medical research was acceptable, but we
didn't want the scientific focus eroded by health news.
We also insisted on control of the page's design and layout. The Star Tribune is heavily formatted and uses huge graphics. We feared that if we conformed to that approach, our stories would be cut in length until they were meaningless. To avoid that problem, we salvaged an old design computer and put the
prototypes together on our own.
Our team accomplished much of this process before the page even had editorial approval, much less encouragement. Indeed, managers told us several times to stop working on the prototypes; they didn't want us to be disappointed if the
page wasn't approved. But we figured if we stopped, it would be easier
for management to turn us down, so we kept going. Our goal was to have a couple
of real pages - the prototypes - to put in front of them.
Meanwhile, our team consulted the newspaper's readership expert. Though no local surveys on science readership had been done, the national numbers showed 35 percent of newspaper readers pay close attention to science stories, while another 15 percent pay some attention to them. With all of their resources, sports sections only appeal to about 25 percent of the readership. In light of that, the science numbers were good enough.
Since we could only work on the developing science page in the downtime from our real jobs, the process took about three months. When the prototypes were done, our team called for a meeting with the senior editors. Most proposals are pitched in a small conference room with prototypes tacked to a bulletin board. This was for
the glory of science, however. We reserved the company's multimedia
center, and put together computerized images of rockets lifting off and
planets whirling through space, all for display on an overhead screen. We
queued up dramatic classical music, projected images of the prototypes onto
a display wall, and made liberal use of laser pointers. All we lacked was a
fog machine.
The editors approved the page. We were stunned. Then they gave us full
color and put the page right where we wanted it - inside the A section. We were shocked. But when they gave our team $10,000 to pay freelance writers, and another $7,000 to pay licensing fees to Newton's Apple, we were beyond shocked and stunned. All we had to do was produce the page
every week.
Thus far, the Science page has gone remarkably well. The page typically features one 25-inch story each week. The standard for the main article is simple: it must be interesting. If it's directly tied into a news event, that's fine, but still a secondary concern. Members of the team write most of the stories. And though we do use extensive graphics, we compress them so they don't eat up too much space.
Supplementing the main feature is the "Observatory" column, which gives scientists a direct voice to talk about
how they see the world. Mathematicians, astronomers, an astronaut, biologists, and experts in other sciences have all contributed their thoughts in this forum.
The "Newton's Apple" column explains in simple terms the scientific principles underlying the feature story. For example, if the main piece discusses Comet Hale-Bopp, the column focuses on the nature of comets - information such as what they are made of and where they come from. The team maintains a regular group of freelance columnists, most of whom are alumni of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
I was asked by a professor at a recent seminar at the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism if the newspaper has done a survey to
measure the success of the Science page. My answer was no, and we don't want one. If the page is
as well received as we believe it is, then we fear the newspaper's editors may somehow want to "make it even better". And if nobody likes it, we don't want to know that either, because we are having a such a good time. In either case, ignorance truly is bliss.
Jim Dawson covered cops, courts, education, politics, and most of the other
standard newspaper beats before moving into science writing for the
Minneapolis Star Tribune 10 years ago.
Send us your comments and ideas for future articles.
Every Wednesday morning, the Minneapolis Star Tribune publishes our efforts on its Science page (called "Scientia" on the Web). It is a single page, with color, located inside the A section. Most of the time the page works, with the pieces blending together and reflecting an overall tone. Occasionally the page doesn't work and reads like a collection of individual pieces, each with a different voice. We define success not just by the quality of the main story, but by the overall feel of the page after it is pieced together.
If someone reads a newspaper seven days a week, pays attention to national and
international news, and skips the gossip columns and shopping sections,
he or she is a segment one reader. If someone uses the paper as a shopping and
entertainment guide, he or she is a segment two reader. The Star Tribune had been spending a lot of time and money on segment two readers. Eventually, either collective guilt or shrewd marketing told senior editors they should appeal to people who actually read the articles. Thus began the quest for an intelligent feature.
Though many reporters dislike the team system, it is a good idea for science coverage. Instead of working alone, as a team member I was working with a veteran medical writer, who had been rescued from the variety section. The team also included two other reporters who were good at broad medical features. Another reporter who understood the medical business was assigned to the team, as was a copy editor who knew a great deal about science. We were one of the most prolific teams on the paper.
The team set two key conditions for the page. Firstly, it would
contain no consumer health updates. Medical research was acceptable, but we
didn't want the scientific focus eroded by health news.
Meanwhile, our team consulted the newspaper's readership expert. Though no local surveys on science readership had been done, the national numbers showed 35 percent of newspaper readers pay close attention to science stories, while another 15 percent pay some attention to them. With all of their resources, sports sections only appeal to about 25 percent of the readership. In light of that, the science numbers were good enough.
The editors approved the page. We were stunned. Then they gave us full
color and put the page right where we wanted it - inside the A section. We were shocked. But when they gave our team $10,000 to pay freelance writers, and another $7,000 to pay licensing fees to Newton's Apple, we were beyond shocked and stunned. All we had to do was produce the page
every week.
I was asked by a professor at a recent seminar at the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism if the newspaper has done a survey to
measure the success of the Science page. My answer was no, and we don't want one. If the page is
as well received as we believe it is, then we fear the newspaper's editors may somehow want to "make it even better". And if nobody likes it, we don't want to know that either, because we are having a such a good time. In either case, ignorance truly is bliss.
