Is this where the little guys have it right?
As a journalist, I have many duties. Aside from the obvious - reporting the news - I believe it is my duty to keep up with what's going on in the journalism world.
And so I have been keeping up with the blogs of other journalists, the columns of seasoned journalists and the overall media outlook, in general. In summary, as my Magic 8 Ball used to say, outlook not so good. Newspapers are a dying breed. We know this.
It seems that layoffs are all the rage lately (that's a very cool interactive map), what with nearly 1,000 journalists now standing in the unemployment line. Copy editing jobs are being outsourced to India. Newsrooms are making changes as well, going hyperlocal and reorganizing departments.
The more I read, the more I believe the big dailies are becoming more like the community papers. Aside from outsourcing our copy editing, that is (we don't, and wouldn't, do that).
It's easy for a community paper likes ours to be overshadowed by a large paper. Our competition is a paper whose circulation is an estimated 150,652 daily, which is more than 24 times our circulation twice-weekly, and covers the entire Memphis metropolitan region. This large daily paper has a bureau that covers the town of Millington, which lies in northern Shelby County, and Tipton County. In theory, they kick our butts in circulation, so why wouldn't advertisers and the public flock to them?
At a recent meeting of the board of mayor and aldermen in one of my cities, residents were outraged because I reported an incorrect time for a public hearing for a controversial issue. But the blame shifted once the vice mayor told the crowd that the town had advertised the public hearing in the larger paper, stating that many of the town's residents are transplants from Memphis and the daily paper boasts bigger circulation numbers. (Additionally, the town administrator, when I spoke to him prior to the meeting, did not tell notify me that (1) a public hearing would be held and (2) it would start 45 minutes earlier than usual. He later apologized, however.) The residents, God love them, told the mayor and aldermen that they don't take the Memphis paper, they take the local paper.
And this is how it is all over the county. Many people subscribe to the daily (we are Sunday subscribers), but they still also subscribe to our paper. Why? Because we're community-oriented. Hyperlocal if you will. You can't read the daily and know what's going on in the county. The county's coverage for today's edition was about 10 inches of copy on a school board candidate and a photo page from the Independence Day celebration. (Granted, she's one reporter covering an entire county, I completely understand.)
With many dailies now going the local route, I have to sit back and be relieved that we're a step ahead of the game. Not purposely, this is just how we do things here, and it's how things will likely always be done. Coming from a county comprised of small communities - our largest city boasts a population of approximately 10,000 people - our readers want to know what's happening on the local level. As silly as it may seem to a large daily paper (and even me, since I come from a big city), our readers want to see the first cotton blooms of the season. They want to see the guest speaker at the Exchange Club. They want to see photos from their family reunions and birthday parties. They want to keep it local. And we have been committed to that since 1886.
The reorganization of newsrooms, such as at the Tampa Tribune, is also more on board with the way community journalists do things. We have an editorial staff that is comprised of three people - two reporters and a newsroom coordinator. We don't have a copy editor, nor an editor for that matter. When our former editor left in mid-November, I began covering hard news and our other reporter covers more features. We all cover board meetings. We don't have a sports writer on staff, rather we rely on news and photos from the community in addition to stories from our freelancer, a former staff member. We layout the paper. We take our own photos. We cover a wide variety of subjects - from business to sports to education and politics. We don't cover beats, we cover everything. We are overwhelmed, but we get it done.
I know that some are apprehensive of this new newsroom model, but I have faith that it can work. Not because I'm a wide-eyed optimist, but because I live this model every single day.
And it makes me smile that, in at least two ways, community journalism is seemingly ahead of the power curve.
And so I have been keeping up with the blogs of other journalists, the columns of seasoned journalists and the overall media outlook, in general. In summary, as my Magic 8 Ball used to say, outlook not so good. Newspapers are a dying breed. We know this.
It seems that layoffs are all the rage lately (that's a very cool interactive map), what with nearly 1,000 journalists now standing in the unemployment line. Copy editing jobs are being outsourced to India. Newsrooms are making changes as well, going hyperlocal and reorganizing departments.
The more I read, the more I believe the big dailies are becoming more like the community papers. Aside from outsourcing our copy editing, that is (we don't, and wouldn't, do that).
It's easy for a community paper likes ours to be overshadowed by a large paper. Our competition is a paper whose circulation is an estimated 150,652 daily, which is more than 24 times our circulation twice-weekly, and covers the entire Memphis metropolitan region. This large daily paper has a bureau that covers the town of Millington, which lies in northern Shelby County, and Tipton County. In theory, they kick our butts in circulation, so why wouldn't advertisers and the public flock to them?
At a recent meeting of the board of mayor and aldermen in one of my cities, residents were outraged because I reported an incorrect time for a public hearing for a controversial issue. But the blame shifted once the vice mayor told the crowd that the town had advertised the public hearing in the larger paper, stating that many of the town's residents are transplants from Memphis and the daily paper boasts bigger circulation numbers. (Additionally, the town administrator, when I spoke to him prior to the meeting, did not tell notify me that (1) a public hearing would be held and (2) it would start 45 minutes earlier than usual. He later apologized, however.) The residents, God love them, told the mayor and aldermen that they don't take the Memphis paper, they take the local paper.
And this is how it is all over the county. Many people subscribe to the daily (we are Sunday subscribers), but they still also subscribe to our paper. Why? Because we're community-oriented. Hyperlocal if you will. You can't read the daily and know what's going on in the county. The county's coverage for today's edition was about 10 inches of copy on a school board candidate and a photo page from the Independence Day celebration. (Granted, she's one reporter covering an entire county, I completely understand.)
With many dailies now going the local route, I have to sit back and be relieved that we're a step ahead of the game. Not purposely, this is just how we do things here, and it's how things will likely always be done. Coming from a county comprised of small communities - our largest city boasts a population of approximately 10,000 people - our readers want to know what's happening on the local level. As silly as it may seem to a large daily paper (and even me, since I come from a big city), our readers want to see the first cotton blooms of the season. They want to see the guest speaker at the Exchange Club. They want to see photos from their family reunions and birthday parties. They want to keep it local. And we have been committed to that since 1886.
The reorganization of newsrooms, such as at the Tampa Tribune, is also more on board with the way community journalists do things. We have an editorial staff that is comprised of three people - two reporters and a newsroom coordinator. We don't have a copy editor, nor an editor for that matter. When our former editor left in mid-November, I began covering hard news and our other reporter covers more features. We all cover board meetings. We don't have a sports writer on staff, rather we rely on news and photos from the community in addition to stories from our freelancer, a former staff member. We layout the paper. We take our own photos. We cover a wide variety of subjects - from business to sports to education and politics. We don't cover beats, we cover everything. We are overwhelmed, but we get it done.
I know that some are apprehensive of this new newsroom model, but I have faith that it can work. Not because I'm a wide-eyed optimist, but because I live this model every single day.
And it makes me smile that, in at least two ways, community journalism is seemingly ahead of the power curve.
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