The Madison newspaper community got a little bigger earlier this month with the introduction of Core Weekly. The Daily Cardinal sat down with Editor Nathan Comp to discuss the mission of the newspaper and issues surrounding the new project.
Do you have any opening things you want to say about your alternative magazine?
Well, I mean, first I wouldn't characterize us as being like an alternative weekly.
How would you characterize yourself?
I don't know. We're just a publication. We focus more on arts and culture. We're just a weekly paper.
There seems to be an increase in more weekly papers popping up around the nation. More specifically, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is starting a weekly paper in Milwaukee. Do you think there is a reason that the nation is demanding these alternatives to the typical daily newspaper that they're getting?
I don't know that the public's demanding them so much, then that the media conglomerates want to make money off of them.
In that vein, you're part of the Capitol Newspaper Inc. [The publisher of The Capitol Times, Wisconsin State Journal and The Onion.] How much influence do they have over the production and content of your paper?
So far, we've had complete autonomy to do what we want. We've never had anybody from CNI over here telling us what we can and can't do. We don't have to run anything by them. We have to run stuff by our publisher; but as far as the corporate suits over on Fish Hatchery, they've never been here.
Why does Madison need a Core Weekly?
Well, from an editorial standpoint, I don't think any community needs any huge abundance of newspapers. But I think Madison is a unique enough place, a diverse enough place. It's a place made up of interesting enough people that I think there's definite room for several publications. The dailies do what they do and they do it well. The Isthmus does what it does and it does it very well. And we're just young journalists trying to have a voice.
Speaking of young journalists, how young is your staff?
Our staff ranges from age 20 to 26. We're all young. Most of the staff is right out of college. For most of them, this is their first job.
Content-wise, just how do you differentiate yourself from the Isthmus or other weeklies?
I'm from Madison and I grew up reading the Isthmus and I still read the Isthmus and I respect everybody at the Isthmus. I think they do an incredible job at what they do.
[Separating ourselves] is one of the things we're still working on. We had two weeks to put out our first issue. You know, design it, get content, hire writers. So we're still trying to flush out some of the problems we have with it. I think it's just a matter of growth and finding our voice and finding who our audience is and trying to do the stuff that people want to read.
What seems to set Core Weekly apart from a lot of your competitors is that you have fun with the news. Especially, with things like \My piece of sh!t car"" or ""Wardrobe."" Can you talk about that nature of having fun within a serious newspaper?
We want to have fun; we're not trying to do the investigative journalism that Isthmus does. Madison has a Bill Leuders, they have a watch dog. I don't see anything wrong with trying to have fun and trying to inform people in a different way.
Do you feel the campus is your primary audience in Madison or do you want to reach out to a larger, more general audience?
Yeah, obviously we want to be read by as many people as possible. I personally don't buy into the demographic or that we're trying to target a market. People read what's available-you read what's convenient, you read what's available, you grab something to read in the bathroom. You know, whatever.
Is Core Weekly good for Madison?
It can be a good thing for Madison. I think that there's this debate that all journalism has to be serious and all has to be investigative and that we always have to keep government in check. But I think there's a lot of things that happen everyday outside of government that don't get covered, that are fun to read about, that are interesting. And that's what we are, we're interested in the people out there doing things.
One of the more interesting aspects of Core Weekly is the ""Coffee with..."" section. In past issues it had been political figures. In the most recent one you jumped to a local artist. Do you see it being more a free floating forum concerning all different issues or is it primary a political?
We want everybody. We did Ron Greer and then to be fair we did David Magnum and then the Howard Dean opportunity came along-so it was more of a glitch than anything planned. You know, anybody who is interesting or who has something to say. But ultimately we want to focus on people who are out there doing things and making things happen.
Do you actually have coffee with them?
Yeah, we always meet in the coffee shop-either Expresso Royale or Michaelangelo's.
Your graphic designers seem to like playing with the idea of negative space or gray space or white space-whatever you want to call it. How is that working for the newspaper? Have you guys gotten positive feedback?
It changes. Being a startup you don't have a lot of writers to work with. You don't have a lot of content to work with because you are trying to get organized. You don't have a lot of ads to fill space with. So we're definitely not trying to take a minimalist approach to page design. The more ads we get, the more writers we get, the more content we have, the more those pages will beef up.
: Do you feel that your newspaper is being picked up?
It depends on the location. Some locations do better than others. Part of the problem is getting people to become familiar with the publication and to recognize it and to identify with it. Some issues have gone faster than others. But overall, it seems each week the returns are less and less.
What is up with the full-page cover wrap?
Its just a nice dominant photo of a personality in the community, nobody special. Just a fun, nice, dynamic image.
I noticed all the photos have been horizontal since the first issue, any reason why?
That was bad judgement on our part. [People] were trying to open it vertically and its meant to be opened horizontally. Watching people struggle to open the first one and they open it like broadsheet and the guts fall out. It was like ""Christ, did we screw up or what?""
