Who is your focus?

The question often crosses my mind: Who are the people newspapers must ultimately please? Are they the advertisers? Are they the readers?

During my brief tenure at MacDonald, we have had only a few advertisers for whom we were accountable. Brainworks has advertised with us each month since I began in September 2004. Others have appeared only briefly, until we recently added Bluefin, Ranger Data and Print-It-All.com to our roster of advertisers.

My point of view about the ultimate focus of a publication, therefore, centers on the reader. What do they want to know? What are they looking for? How can we at MacDonald best help them? Admittedly, we are a business-to-business publication, so our focus will always remain on the readers. And, again, admittedly I work in editorial I do not sell the ads that you see in our publications, so my focus isn't advertiser-related.

When you create your classified product each day or week — and special sections, tabs or other publications or Web site pages — who do you create it for? Who is the section ultimately for? If they are for the readers, what decisions do you make that prove it? If they are for advertisers, what do you do to make the publications better for them?