Meatball journalism

Editor's note: I actually wrote this back in May. In the midst of writer's block this morning, I was looking through some of my google documents and found it. I'm not sure if its intended purpose was for THIS blog, but sort of fits this morning so here it is in all its glory:

I just remembered, this is not why I got into journalism.
Sitting in my cluttered office dumbfounded by writer's block with one goal for the morning: Churn out three feature stories about 300 words each that I gathered all the information for yesterday and write a 450-word summary from a meeting last night.
That's when I realized, I am I stuck here dreaming about all the things I could do with journalism, all the things I have done with journalism and barely making progress on Journalism 101 fluff pieces. I think I convinced myself community journalism "is where it's at," so to speak. It is. Community (hyper local) is the future of the journalism/newspaper industry. "Enterprise stories" and "niche publications" are yesterday's buzz phrases. Community journalism has a bit more sustainability than industry fads.

The definition of community journalism is deep and multi-faceted.
Among what I am doing is "intense" community journalism. On my slate to finish writing today: Board of Aldermen meeting coverage, story about a the kindness of strangers, students raising money for Haiti earthquake victims and preview an upcoming community event. On the back burner is a story I've been picking at a little each week. Not the greatest of stories - a look at the issue of dog nuisance, related ordinances and tips for owners and neighbors. Riveting stuff, isn't it? It's a weak reflection of what I prefer to be doing. I like to dig deep into a story. I would rather be working on one or two in-depth stories over the course of a week than being a paragraph factory of a dozen small stories to fill the pages. Wouldn't any journalist?
For a while I convinced myself this is what I want to be doing. It was like telling myself that I'm OK in a bad relationship, even though deep down I know I need to end it.

There are rewards to what I am doing. I'm filling a need in the community. I'm providing quasi-compelling content for local residents to read. There's no complaints there - on the reader's part and my part, for the most part. But this is not why I signed up.
In elementary school I was a big "Encyclopedia Brown" fan. For those unfamiliar with the book series, this child sleuth would solve neighborhood "crimes" or mysteries. Over time I realized he would use common knowledge, but for someone his age it was outstanding to figure these things out. As I grew older I never got into books like "The Hardy Boys" or "Nancy Drew." I cannot stand most cop shows like "Law and Order" or the "CSI" brand shows. I did always enjoy "Dragnet." Point being, I like to unravel a story by finding many facts.
Back on track, what I love doing is digging deep. I like taking a topic that has hazy details, finding as many sources as possible and finding the common denominator that must be the truth. I like to present a list of facts and statements in an entertaining form so the reader can determine what is right and wrong.

But what I am doing, for the most part, is what I equate to the term used on the "M*A*S*H" television series: "meatball surgery." They had to find the best way possible to take care of mass casualties with little resource. I've got to cover as many stories as possible, along with some photos and long-term planning with as little time, staff and equipment as possible. Community journalism, if you're not careful, can become "meatball journalism."

I didn't get into journalism to post opinion poll questions like, "How would you rate your prom experience this year?"

This is one of those days I'm about ready to give up. There are times you get this great adrenaline rush by getting the scoop on a big story or having people contact you about important things. Then there are times when you feel worthless. After nearly two years of cultivating sources, you find something in the nearby metro daily that you should have had in last week's edition. It's not breaking news. It's not big news. It's almost insignificant. It's a little slice of life for this community. That's exactly why I should have had it first. I'm just floored that my sources didn't let me know about it. Sometimes your sources let you know every time someone down the hall from them sneezes. And you try to show your gratitude and follow up on it because you want them to feel that openness when it's time to get what you want. But then they don't share the newsworthy stuff with you and you wonder why you're even here.

I used to dream of days when I would be a crusty, old news man or a retired journalist. Now I dream of days when I "was in the biz."

Updated: OK, I'm not sure what I meant by that last line when I apparently wrote it five months ago, but I decided to leave it in.

The sad thing is, nothing has really changed since I wrote that blog five months ago and for whatever reason never posted it. Today is not too different from that day. I have to make a few phone calls, see some people then hunker down to churn out four stories today..... gotta go now, incoming wounded. (That's the M*A*S*H reference tying the blog back to the lede.)

To join or not to join...

...that is the question.


We've had some slight "restructuring" in our division of the company recently.

The publisher for my newspaper was moved to another office to fill another role. In interest of the bottom line, the "publisher" position at this location will not be filled at this time. According to upper management, we're a pretty self-sufficient crew in this office and should be fine without a publisher.

I'd rather have a publisher here, but that's neither here nor there at this point.

Among the publisher's unofficial job roles, as is the same with me, was to be face for the newspaper in the community and enhance networking for the company. I do this by being a reporting editor and attend events, meetings, etc. The publisher did this by attending an occasional event, but mostly be joining groups. He was a member of Rotary and a local business networking group. He invited an ad rep to step into the business networking group role and she has done so (it provides good networking for ad sales).

The question left to me is do I want to join Rotary or another similar organization. Rotary is really the big one. There's Lion's Club, too.

Rotary is much more social. They meet for lunch once a week and typically have a presentation. They do some planning, usually a service project once every other month or so. Rotary is full of the younger- to middle-age business professionals int the community.

Lions Club meets monthly in the evening to plan their next service project or fundraiser. It's also a much older crowd.

Here's the problem: I am not a fan of the Rotary organization. I mean, I like what they do. They do some great service projects in the community and fundraising for some good local, national and international things. I just hate their meetings. And you get roped into doing so many things you don't have time to do or care to do.

I'm also worried about the conflict of interest. Both Rotary and Lions Club do several things throughout the year that are newsworthy including briefs, wild art and full-blown stories. This would all have to be taken on by the part-time writer. And it would be hard to make sure it wouldn't seem like things at Rotary or Lions Club would be covered on the editor's whim because he's a member.

The positives: it would be great PR for the paper, good networking opportunities and an avenue to find more story ideas or sources. It could also create some good fodder for columns.

Any suggestions?

All work and no play... ah, forget it, I need more coffee

In the spirit of this blog's title, let me address coffee for a moment. Apparently my roommate made a second pot of coffee yesterday and drank one cup. When I picked up the coffee pot this morning, it felt full so I assumed it was fresh. I poured it in my travel mug left for work. I typically don't drink coffee in the car on the way to work because I just brushed my teeth and I'm waiting for the toothpaste taste to settle. So I get to work, get some stuff done quickly then go for my first sip of coffee for the day. It's cold. Great way to start things off. Around 9:30 a.m. I mosey over to the coffee shop, pay for my coffee with a debit card then pull out my frequent-buyer card. I'm due a free one, but the card has already been swiped. I take that coffee to my office. It's now 10:35 a.m. I haven't been too busy to drink coffee, in fact I've done little of anything, and my coffee is already cold. That's pretty much a summary of the past couple weeks.

Let's get into the community journalist side of things now that we've got that anecdote out of the way. (One more side note, for some reason I've been saying "anecdote" lately when I mean to say "antidote." Anecdote = a humorous story. Antidote = medicine for poison. One of my favorite Ron White jokes is "My friend Billy would still be alive if I had known the difference between antidote and anecdote. He got bit by a snake and I kept reading him stories from 'Readers Digest.'")

OK, I digress, again. You've got to love a little word humor.

It's been a crazy few weeks around here. The football team won its state championship. We went all out. We had a four-page wrap around the sports section and made it the A-section. We bumped "A1" to "B1." We did a photo page in the double truck of the wrap and sold ads around it. We sold out. Overall, a pretty successful venture.

Of course, you've got cynical me ready to point out the problems.

1. We have a sticky note ad on the front page. I loathe sticky note ads. I abhor them so much that I did an informal study last year on various papers and front page ads. My results are another blog on another day. So, this sticky note ad. The only word above the fold (besides the flag) is "CHAMPS!" with a celebration photo spanning the front and back of the section (it folds out to be a poster). The sticky note is slightly off center, covering part of the only word on the front page. The word we put on the front page to sell the newspaper. As I look at the front page now, all I can think is it must say "CHUMPS!" or "CHIMPS!" under that ad.

2. There are many photos in the sports section, several side bars to the main story, stats, etc. Everything you'd want in a commemorative edition, right? Except a roster. Or maybe team photo. One parent complained, despite her son being in the celebration shot on the front, he was nowhere to be found inside. She said he flipped through the paper, put it down and said, "It's like I wasn't even there." I'm sure he was being over dramatic and I'm sure the mother amplified that drama, but it raises a good point.

3. I went to the game to work on a couple sidebars. I told our sports writer I was not driving across the state the day after Thanksgiving if we didn't need or have a good place for what I was going to do. He said if I wrote something, it would get in. I was sure it would. And it did. But we've got a mediocre crowd shot (compared to what I saw at the game) with a small story I wrote about fans making the trip to the game. And there's a petty column by me about the experience at the game. It's pushed back to A8 run alongside my fan story and on the same page as "other" sports news. We had two non-state-football stories: a baseball college signing and girls basketball season opener. I felt like my work just got shoved to the back. And I'm not complaining because it's "me." It's because we could have filled that space with something better and I could have lounged on the couch eating turkey instead of driving four hours, sitting through a three hour game then driving four hours home.

So those are my complaints. Would you like to hear what some in the community think? You betcha! Compliments were scarce. Criticism ruled. Especially from cross country parents. The girls cross country team won its first state title. We did a lot for it. We could have done more. But the cross country parents think they deserved a wrap. I disagree. I'm grappling with the best way to tell the following (in a polite and professional manner):

1. We are responding to what the public wants. We are not dictating what the public should read. Several of those cross country parents who are complaining are at the football games. Don't they look around? How many of those thousands do they see at their kids' cross country meets? Thousands turn out for the game. When the football team had a playoff game 2 1/2 hours away, the school sent a spirit bus and city chartered two fan buses. When the football team went to state, the school sent spirit buses and the city sold out of tickets for four 55-passenger buses within 24 hours. Thousands attended the game four hours away. Following the victory, the mayor made proclamation to declare it Bulldog Day and the school held a pep rally.
Cross country got none of this. While it is a great accomplishment, it's not what the readers want. It's not a spectator-friendly sport for many reasons. It doesn't impact as many people. In football, about 30 players on a 100-man roster are on the field for more than two snaps during each game. Think about how many parents, friends and relatives that affects. In cross country, you have five runners and an alternate compete in state. You don't have more than 10 on varsity running in a race. The impact is less.
It's not there fault. It's an admirable sport. It takes guts and endurance. I know. I ran cross country and track in middle school and high school. I've completed four marathons. I know about running. I empathize with runners.

2. It's not a money maker. We sold out of football state coverage sponsorship within a couple days: 30 spots at $35 a pop surrounding a photo page. Could we have sold that for cross country? I doubt it.

3. There's not that many diverse photo opportunities in cross country.

Those are the top three reasons. I'm sure I can think of more if I put my mind to it.

So that's just some of the issues we're facing.

The holiday season is upon us. That means everybody wants us to cover their holiday-related event in the next three weeks. If we say no, even if we ask them to submit photos, it's like we're Scrooge saying "Bah! Humbug!" to the holidays. A full-time writer/editor (that's me!), a part-time writer and a shared (with other weekly newspapers in the region) photo staff of two. Apparently as editor of a small-town newspaper, you are not allowed to have weekends off. Or weekdays. Or any time, really. You should be ready to go to any event that pops up at any time or write any feature story someone suggests and if you can't do it you should have a staff ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

By the way, many of these same people making these demands have cut back on their advertising, yet don't understand our budget woes.

As you can tell, I'm a little disgruntled, cynical and grumpy about everything that's going on in this town, at this publication (there's issues with staff disagreements that can be another blog), in this business (again, a whole other blog) and everything else around it in general.

I didn't even want to be at the city council meeting last night! I follow municipal government like some people follow sports. And they were talking TIF with upset residents. That's like the playoffs for me! But I just wanted to go home and crawl in bed.

Don't worry, the holidays are almost here! Yay! My family defines awkward holidays. We wrote the book on boring. So I'm not really looking forward to a few days off. It just means I have to get more than usual done in a shorter amount of time then play catch up when I get back. Ugh.

So there's my long, ranting blog. Glad I got it off my chest. I think I've got a ribbon cutting or something like that to go cover.

Variety show

One of the comments following a set of awards mentioned my newspaper had a good mix of content and it was relevant to the readers. I had more pride in those comments than the award.


And it continues. This week's front page: follow up on plea hearing for a crime, school board action for additional certification, community theater play and economic impact of a TIF plan. Other news: law enforcement sales tax on county ballot, new business feature, calendar of Halloween/fall related events, fundraiser Halloween event, fire safety week in schools and a nearby town mimicking our city's efforts for growth.

I'm writing this blog because I'm waiting on several people to call me back. Here are some stories I'm waiting on: more on the TIF plan front, mountain lion sightings, ghost hunters, tax collection, another new business feature, a business closing and a high school fundraiser.

You want variety, you've got it!

There have been times in my career when I wanted to cover a statehouse - and I still think it would be fun. I have spent time as a city reporter, being dedicated to just one beat for a daily has tremendous advantages. But the variety sure makes it fun.

Of course, I always like to tell the story of the time I was a city beat reporter and at 7 a.m. I was sitting next to the city manager at Rotary listening to a State Rep. speak and at 3:30 p.m. that same day I was getting peed on by a dog in a park. But I don't think I've ever covered economic development, wildlife and paranormal activity all in a day.

OK, I'm rambling now. I've got some ideas for other blog posts, just need time to work on them.