Mission statement dissection

For this weeks blog I’m going to take a closer look at the Lincolnites mission statement and add in a little theory to see how it fits in with professional journalism practices.

So to kick things off here is the Lincolnites mission statement, which acts as an explanation of the target audience for the website:

Mission statement

The Lincolnite aims to deliver timely, accurate and relevant information to everyone living, working or studying in Lincoln.

The one thing I noticed that was missing from this statement was any reference to social classification. However making an educated guess and looking again at the platforms they offer their stories upon. The website is available as an Iphone app and also has functions which allow stories to shared through social media, one which go further to identify the class of reader is the ability to share stories on career website Linkedin. According the NRS social model the readers of the website could be placed in the C1 category above. What has lead me to this conclusion is that everyone in this category and above are ‘administrative professionals’. Commonly these kind of jobs require high end technology and technical expertise like having an Iphone and using a computer. So since the website offers an Iphone app and is available only in the internet lead me to this conclusion.

Looking further in the realms of theory Chris Frost writes that ‘Most national newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets these days have very clear ideas about exactly who their publication is aimed at. This is little more difficult on the local scene, where the temptation is to aim at everybody in the geographic area.’

Though the Lincolnite may have done this in they’re new statement they do adhere to a more specific audience through their stories in the method of a local newspaper would, again Chris Frost writes ‘Newspapers need to attract on the new-stand and so will attempt a unique selling point if possible.’, the Lincolnite achieves this by having reporters cover unique stories like local card game tournaments (http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2010/12/lincoln-teens-frenzy-card-swapping-hobby/), which may not necessarily appeal to C1 and above but serves a USP because no one else covered it at the time.

When looking at rival print product The Lincolnshire Echo which covers national news like the 9/11 terror attacks places caters to all the NRS categories.