Osam bin-WHO?

I felt sick this morning.

Sick from dissatisfaction of what was expected of me - due in part of what some people think our readers expect from us.

Less than 24 hours ago, President Barack Obama announced Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces. Bin Laden was allegedly the mastermind behind (among many terrorist acts) the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that collapsed the two World Trade Center towers, put a hole in one side of the Pentagon and downed a plane full of passengers in a rural Pennsylvania field. The incidents that day forever changed our world.

Today, in the aftermath of this man's death, many are buzzing about bin Laden's death. This is a man who organized al-Queda, but has been hands off for about two years. Most agree that his death is not the end of our nation's war against terror. Perhaps it is the beginning of the end, but there is certainly still a long journey ahead.

His death has not changed our world, though. Not near the way so many things have changed our world. There were no U.S. casualties in the battle that took bin Laden's life.

Yet, on the dawn of bin Laden's death, my publisher (who is a rarity in that he came up on the editorial side to the publisher position), energetically insisted that all of our weekly newspapers come up with "local" coverage of this. He even went so far as to post breaking news to solicit comments and locate sources.

We've compiled the slew of elected officials' statements. Now we're to seek out local sources - local reaction.

I just do not feel this is our role as hyper-local, weekly, community newspapers. The announcement of bin Laden's death came late Sunday night. Our papers go to press Tuesday night. For me, my newspaper hits the stands late Wednesday afternoon and is delivered via U.S. Postal Service to subscribers on Thursday.

My prediction: by Friday talk of bin Laden's death will have dwindled significantly and by this time next week it will be just a fleeting thought. Within two weeks from now, it won't be talked about at all.

I agree with localized coverage on Sept. 11, 2001. It changed our thinking, it changed our lifestyles. It disrupted that day in everyone's life whether they were on the East Coast or Midwest.

This man's death does not disrupt our lifestyle. Troops are not being immediately withdrawn as a result. Almost nothing changes except a moral victory for the United States.

In some places, celebration erupted in the streets. A crowd gathered outside the White House. Impromptu rallies formed in Lawrence, Kan., and Columbia, Mo., where there are large populations of college students. In some places, people have pulled their American flags out the closet and hung them proudly. Others have put up banners declaring the victory.

But here, in the community my newspaper serves, little seems changed. I cannot find any more American flags than usual. I do not see any special signs or banners. This is the same town that has held half a dozen Tea Party rallies in the past three years. This town's patriotism is not in question. But like many small communities, it was exciting news last night. By noon Monday people had moved on with their lives. By Thursday, I doubt many here will care much anymore.

Had a group staged a rally, had people displayed extra patriotism or had more people been willing to talk about when I tried to do man-on-the-street interviews; I would gladly splash this on the front page.

One of our reporters said that newspapers are "a rough draft of history." True. But the draft is very rough if it's some redneck's uneducated opinion. Meanwhile, here, I have a full list of local issues that weigh readers' minds: pit bull bans, flooding issues and cost increases for curbside recycling among other things.

As a small town, community newspaper, we need to focus on documenting this town's history; not wasting time and space for something nobody seems willing to talk about. We are the rough draft of history for this community, not for the nation.

Sure, there are plenty of other angles to consider. I'm tracking down military service members from our community who will be headed to Afghanistan soon. Ideally I would find the family of someone who was currently over there. But with our deadlines, producing something worthwhile is going to be difficult as I'm already having a hard time getting known sources to call me back.

I digress.

Whatever this community wants to make a big deal of, I'm willing to print in the newspaper. Anything else just seems forced.

It's a bird, it's a plane....

Jackie Cooper's voice echoed in my head this morning.

Many may remember Cooper's role as The Daily Planet Editor Perry White in the Superman movies with Christove Reeve.

Following the dramatic opening and credits to Superman III, we cut to The Daily Planet newsroom.
Perry White: I don't understand you Olsen. A boring banquet and you bring me three thousand boring pictures. Yet Superman saves a man from drowning on 3rd Avenue this morning while you stand there watching the whole thing and you don't even bring me one picture.
Jimmy Olsen: Chief, I didn't have my camera with me.
Perry White: A photographer eats with his camera. A photographer sleeps with his camera.
Lois Lane: I'm glad I'm a writer.


In small town community journalism, there is no luxury of being just a writer.

I've blogged about the need for a journalist to carry a camera at all times, this is one of those blogs. It's also about the advantage of being the "little guy."

On my way to work this morning I saw a metro area TV news station's van. Naturally, I followed, dreading what story they would blow out of proportion leaving me to play clean up with a story in next week's paper.

As we headed north of town, I was becoming even more curious about what story they were chasing. Then I saw the helicopter hovering near the neighboring town that is in our school district. This couldn't be an average accident. It wasn't. There was a school bus in the ditch. The accident happened about an hour earlier.

While everyone else shot video, I whipped out my 5-megapixel cell phone camera. The distance from the accident and the sun rising in the background left me with nothing but sun bursts and hazy images.

This is the best one I took.

My digital SLR was in the office on my desk. Had I known I was going to a school bus accident, I would have stopped at the office (on the way) to grab the camera. By the time I got to the accident and figured out what was going on, called in to get a web update and evaluated the situation, they were towing the bus out of the ditch. I didn't have time to go to the office and get back with a camera before the bus was gone.

But being this was my backyard, so to speak, I still had some advantages. The police officer director traffic said he didn't know anything to tell the TV news reporter. They were just working traffic, the state highway patrol was in charge of the scene. She walked away discouraged.

Then I approached.

"How are you liking your new digs, Tom?" I asked, knowing the police just moved into a new building.

We chatted about them still getting settled in, yadda, yadda.

"So what time did you get called to this?" I asked.

"I got on at 7 and was immediately sent here, it had just happened," he replied.

We still had no idea about injuries and I knew he wouldn't know.

"How many ambulances were there when you got here?" I asked.

He talked about ambulances from at least three different areas, so I was able to surmise there were enough injuries to warrant at least half a dozen ambulances.

That's all I could get out of him, but it's more than the TV reporter got. I think I had the advantage in knowing the officer by name and being able to come up with chit-chat to lead into some questions that gave me more background on the incident.

Next, a man, looking very casual, in a jacket and ball cap comes walking from the accident to get in a pickup truck. The TV reporter has no idea this is the assistant superintendent in charge of transportation. I however, again have the advantage.

"Morning, Randy, what happened?" I lead off with.

He clearly didn't want to talk to the media. But between her badgering questions he'd rather ignore, I was able to remove the sensationalism out of the impromptu press conference from his pickup truck cab as he is saying he doesn't have time to talk.

"What can we put on our website that parents need to know?"

He then proceeds to tell me that parents have been contacted and what they were told.

The assistant superintendent drove off, but now we've got a handle on injury types (non serious), how many students, what grade level, etc.

The TV reporter at this point is confused about which schools the students may have been going to and the assistant superintendent has left. I, however, have no need to look up this information.

So I don't have any good photos. I was probably the third news organization to report via the web the fact there was a school bus accident. But in the end, I was able to gather enough information in a short amount of time to get something more substantial online before having to wait for the highway patrol to call me back.

So score one for the small town local guys.

Take that back. I just completed this blog and went to grab my cell-phone photo out of my e-mail to put in the blog when I saw an e-mail from the city manager to many people in the community alerting them of the accident. In that e-mail, he posted a link to a TV news station's website.

So much for hometown.

This one's on me

There are some days you've just got to love this job.

This morning I started out touring the mayor's new business - in another city. I agree that he couldn't find the building to fit the need for this wine club he started, but I'm sure he is going to receive some backlash from the community for not investing in the hometown.

That will be humorous.

That same mayor, 20 years ago, pushed for an ordinance that restricts signage for beer or liquor at gas stations. After learning about this obscure law and noticing several gas stations in town in violation, I admittedly stirred the pot by asking too many questions. City officials realized they had not enforced this ordinance so cracked down on it and I wrote a story on this 20-year-old, obscure law that had gone the wayside until the newspaper brought it up.

The newspaper came out yesterday and our website was updated this morning, including this story. Today, a local TV station contacted city officials about interviewing them for a story about this. The city official who drew the short straw to talk to the TV station called me and said, "You owe me one." Not because of doing the story or because anything was inaccurate. He just doesn't want to be on TV and blames me. Technically, it's the city's own fault for not keeping up with its own laws.

Why isn't the mayor speaking to the TV station about his alcohol advertising restriction law? He's too busy getting his new wine store ready in the metro.

Sit... Stay... Good Boy.

Forced to sleep on a twin bed at my parent's house for the holidays, I was able to convince my dog to sleep on a couch instead of on the bed with me. Ah, leg room.

We often talk about "training" our sources and readers/listeners/viewers in the news biz. It sounds like we want Fido to do a new trick, or at least be obediant when guests are visiting.

It can be difficult to train sources and readers. Like a dog, it requires patience and persistence. Again, like a dog, it pays off.

You know when you've got that feeling the dog may be getting the command or trick, but it's not quite where you want it to be. That's how I'm starting to feel. After more than a year and a half at this newspapers and I have confidence that some of my sources and readers are on the brink of being "trained."

Yesterday, the city manager called my cell phone at 10 p.m. to tell me about a boil order, thinking I may want to put it on the Web. I did. By 9 a.m. the next morning (less than 12 hours since the post) the story had nearly 150 hits.

Even just six months ago I don't think the city manager would have thought to call my cell phone to tell me something like that. And just six months ago, even if we had the boil order up promptly, I doubt we would have seen 150 hits - especially overnight like that.

It just goes to show what, like a dog, constant reinforcement can do. It goes beyond the teases to the Web in the print product. I tell people all the time that we had that on our Web site, or that we'll get that on the Web soon if it's urgent. As a weekly, the Web becomes a resource to make the newspaper a nearly daily product (just weekdays unless there's breaking news, of course).

You don't have to have a full list of stories everyday on the Web, just one update a day and telling people about it drives traffic over time.

Alright, time to end the blog, I think my dog needs to go outside... where did I put that leash?

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.

The lighter side

How about something refreshing?


At the risk of sounding like the readers, how about some good news for a change? I know, if it bleeds it leads; and there is plenty of "good news," you're just not looking for it.

Well, it's time for one of those feel-good stories.

I was at the homecoming parade today. I don't think I've ever been as connected to a community I cover as this one. While I've seen many people I recognized or knew from my beat and reporting at events in the past, it wasn't until this homecoming parade that I could look around see so many familiar faces in one place. That probably has a lot to do with it being a small town. The part that makes me feel old is seeing the students in the parade and thinking, "That's so-and-so's kid" or "They look just like their parents."

Keep in mind, I'm making these comments after being here less than a year and a half. I think there are more connections in a smaller town. If Joe Schmo is a regular on my beat, in a smaller town it's more likely that his child will be the one involved in school. It's also more likely that you'll cross someone's path more than once in small town.

I grew up in a similar-size town. I knew a guy in high school there that had a theory: you never see any person only once. He believed that everybody would cross paths with everybody multiple times in life. Never a one-time deal. Poor guy. He had no idea how big the world is outside that small town.

But when you're here in Smalltown, USA, that's the way it can feel at times.

So that's your feel-good moment of the day. Now I've got to go make some calls to find out why some guy was found dead in the truck stop shower.