The Mast-Head: Rethinking the Methods

“You can’t make them read it,” or some variant thereof, has been an occasional phrase around The Star newsroom over the years. What it signifies is that even though reporters might have covered nearly every twitch of something that is happening, a portion of the local population is always going to be surprised when it finally gets their attention.

There is a tendency among writers and editors to get defensive, as some of us did in the past week or so as the Army Corps began its Montauk project and as objections spread, largely thanks to Instagram and Facebook.

Looking at it one way, we failed as a news organization to get to people where they spend much of their time — on online social media. Of course, this also is a matter of human nature: It is difficult to get upset enough to fight what you cannot actually see.

I like to think of this as more of an opportunity than a criticism of The Star’s massive and sustained coverage of the Army Corps’ plan. The lesson is that we must to the extent possible take our work directly to those not accustomed to reading a print newspaper or visiting its website. This means engaging people in a format, location, and at a time with which they are comfortable.

On Tuesday morning, I awoke to find a text message from a friend who asked how the Montauk hullabaloo (her word) came about in the first place. Had there been a hearing, she wondered, and how was it that such a huge project got underway without everyone knowing about it.

We went back and forth for a while and in the end, she wrote that it was “a real wake-up call to all of us to pay more attention.” I agree. But it’s also up to those of us who make it our jobs to get the word out to do a better job.