Chronicle Managing Editor Jerry Roberts Responds
Grade the News: Have you written front page and business front stories on the same day for other retailers?
Roberts: First off, we didn't do stories FOR Ikea, as your question states, but for readers, about Ikea. Without doing exhaustive clip check, I would say that we do joint consumer-business stories occasionally, when situation warrants because of our perception that there's a lot of interest in the company and its products among readers. Most recent example that comes to mind was Apple launch of Imacs, when we ran major p1 story from consumer angle on p1 and related business stuff in the section.
Grade the News: Were you in touch with the advertising office at the Chron about this story?
Roberts: Absolutely not.
Grade the News: Do you feel the reports were objective?
Roberts: Yes.
Grade the News: Would you please make the case for such intense coverage being newsworthy.
Roberts: The bottom line: we saw the Ikea story, both as interesting from a retail/business perspective about a major new company moving into our circulation area and as one a likely "talker" among many of our readers because of strong consumer interest in their products, and expectation that store launch would be accompanied by buzz, shopper rush, traffic crush, based on experience in other cities. Beyond that, Ikea is also a symbol of big changes in face of Emeryville itself, and by that measure an important economic and urban planning story for us, as well. Within that context, Carol [Emert, the reporter who wrote the story] did a good job of examining it from several different perspectives. ...subsequent to our report, other local papers have also done takeouts on this.
