An editor who recently took up his post on a city daily held a ‘Call the Editor’ session to discover what readers thought of his paper and website.

The Coventry Telegraph’s Darren Parkin opened up the phone lines for fives hours and received 112 calls from punters.

Darren, who took over the role in November following recent changes at parent company Trinity Mirror Midlands, was so pleased with the response he is planning to host a similar event next month.

He told HTFP that there were some recurring, yet unexpected, themes among the calls.

“General features that we might have had in the past, stuff from the 1970s, people want them back such as spot the ball and grass roots community news from, say, the WI cake stall,” Darren said.

“If people are asking for it in numbers then we’ve got to pay attention to that.

“I’m going to do it again in April and this month we’ll be doing the same about the paper and website but as a live chat online.”

He added: “I did it about 12 years ago when I was editor of the Solihull News.

“It’s just a desire to get in touch with readers. If an editor can make themselves available, readers think it’s OK to ring in for a chat.

“We had 112 calls and I was not expecting it to be so relentless, I thought we’d get about 30, and we’re still digesting the information.”

Other comments from readers included the changing position of death notices in the paper on different days, a possible redesign of the Telegraph’s index panel on page two and publishing more nostalgia, junior football and court reports.

Comments

Thus Spake Zarathustra (02/03/2010 10:30:37)
“Spot the ball” was a popular feature on a paper I once worked on.
One day the photograph was printed with the ball still in it …

Ajinexile (02/03/2010 11:15:42)
@Spake Zarathustra — but did they move the goalposts