The editor of a local newspaper sent the following memo to the managing editor of the paper:“Three years ago when we surveyed our subscribers, they complained about the quality of the reporting and writing in the paper. Since that time, we have made a con

The editor of a local newspaper is proposing to the managing editor that they need to remove young and less experienced reporters and hire experienced journalists. Editor pointed out that in accordance with the survey taken from the subscribers three years back, they hired some older experienced journalist and the editor thinks, that is the reason for 13% growth in subscribers. We can cite many flaws and groundless assumptions are made in this report. And the data provided by reporter is not enough to make a concrete decision.
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Editor mentioned that their subscriber base is grown by 13%, and this growth happened in a span of three years. Editor should have mentioned the growth rate of their newspaper before hiring experienced reporters and should have highlighted the difference in the growth. There can be any other reason for the readers growth, it is not mandate that it happened only because of getting old experienced reporters. We can also make a point that in the past 3 years their competitors quality of work gradually worsen than theirs, or the city has grown so faster that population in the city has increased. The data provided by the editor is not misleading.

There is no mention in the report that sole reason for getting higher rating is because of the newly hired experienced journalist. It can be that the neophyte editors could have improved their writing skills. And those writers are the real reason behind the good rating from the readers. If managing editor acts according to editors report, they will lose many good young editors and their newspaper growth will face declivity.

Rather hiring new experienced journalist and spending so much money for that process they can provide sufficient training to their young hiers and less experienced reporters. Doing so they can improve their quality of reporting and writing and there by newspapers standard will also increase gradually leading to a bigger subscriber growth. The editors main intent of that report is to increase the count of readers. Editor did not consider other different ways to achieve this. Firing the young reporters is not the only option. Even more to that, firing people will cause a lot disturbance among the jounalists and thus it will indirectly affect their quality of work. Editor should elicit all the possible ways in which the newspaper standard and the readers count can be increased and also provide pros and cons for each of them.

To conclude, the editors report contains lot of gaps which arises lot of questions. Author must provide more valid points and facts to bolster his argument. Surrogate ways should also be taken into account before jumping into a conclusion that is to fire young editors. With more precise data and support to the argument the report would have been more convincing.