Give us some 'real news': OPINION

"WE ARE not seeking to trivialise the news, just give you more of what you want.”

What do you want to read about in The Northern Star, in print and online?

SOMEONE'S idea of what constitutes news is another person's lining for the budgie cage.

Yesterday, one of our Facebook readers chastised us for posting a story online about the sudden closure of a cafe in Goonellabah.

Nicole Hardy commented on FB: "The Northern Star is one the worst papers I seen go find some real news".

I took it from Nicole's rather clunky sentence structure that she didn't think a cafe closing was news.

And yet the (temporary) closure of Cognito cafe in Goonellabah was our most popular story online all day yesterday.

Perhaps the war of words between North Korea and the United States is more Nicole's cup of tea.

But a humble story about a cafe closing in Goonellabah is bigger news locally. Why? Because it's news you use. Anyone who has lived and worked in G-Bah knows cafes are few and far between.

Because of online analytics we know what stories our readers click on and that's why we have listed business and development as one of the paper's "passion topics".

Others include weather, roads, council news, real estate and property, courts and crime.

We are not seeking to trivialise the news, just give you more of what you want.

It used to be we had to wait a week for sales figures on our papers and then try and work out what worked among those front pages.

Now we are getting that feedback 24/7.