Categories
Newswriting Reporting

20 tips on covering speeches and meetings

You are the eyes, ears and brains for your audience when you cover a City Council, County Commissioners or a school board meeting. The following 20 tips help you produce an accurate, informative news story on deadline.  These tips also work for speeches and panels.

Use a smartphone and a notebook

Take a photo of the council or commissioners with their name plates. Take photos of people you interview so you can better remember them.

Take notes by hand to be safe but record the meeting. DON’T leave your phone unattended; someone could take it. The other reason to stay by your phone is you can write down the time someone says something interesting. Then you don’t have to listen to the entire recording to find the quote.

At the start of any interview, record people spelling their names, hometowns, addresses. You can also let people print their names on your notebook. Always get contact information.

Before the meeting

Read at least a previous month’s worth of stories about the entity you’re covering. You’ll know what’s new and old business. Know who runs the meeting.

Read the minutes (official notes) from the last meeting. Some bodies also videotape their meetings. Watch the most recent ones.

Get a copy of the meeting agenda and go over it. Government bodies that hold meetings have to publish an agenda 72 hours before the meeting begins. Get familiar with any ordinances or laws, streets or neighborhoods mentioned on the agenda.

Right before the meeting

Sit where you can see all the actors – the council, commission or school board members, plus government officials (like lawyers and city managers) and citizens who speak during the meeting. Also sit where you can best record the meeting.

During the meeting

Use the copy of the agenda to take notes on who’s speaking about what. Write down any quotes that provide color – quotes that have passion, pointed opinion, humor, etc.

Note people who speak from the audience and record their best quotes.  They’re already passionate about a subject or they wouldn’t be there. Be sure to understand why they are stakeholders in an issue.

Right after the meeting

Ask council or board members follow-up questions, especially for clarification or any comment or vote that may be misinterpreted. Also get reactions from citizens who attended the meeting. Also get contact information (phone and email), if not for this story then for possible follow-ups.

If there’s time, interview in person or by phone residents who didn’t attend the meeting but are likely to be affected by what happened. In all of the above circumstances, identify yourself as a reporter covering the meeting for your publication.

Writing a meeting story

Don’t write in chronological order. Tell readers the most important action that happened and its implications, then the second-most important thing that happened, etc. Ask your editor if you should use bullet points for minor news the entity also discussed.

Your first sentence – the “lead” – should tell readers the newsiest event of the meeting. Don’t begin “The council met” or “A meeting was held.” You and your readers already knew that. Start with a key vote or action: “The council voted last night to widen Elm Street.” “The council delayed voting last night on widening Elm Street after residents who lived on the street complained.”

Next tell the readers the implication of key votes or the government body’s action or inaction. Explain why what happened is important.  What does this action or inaction mean to the entire community, or to a neighborhood? Are they winners and losers because of the action (not just the politicians involved)?

If a vote isn’t unanimous, tell readers who voted for or against a measure and who spoke for or against the measure during the meeting.

Include the next steps – for the city, school district, county, etc. Include when the next meeting takes place.

Make numbers real for readers. After reporting the council passed a $5 million bond, write how much each taxpayer or household now must pay.

Use quotes like sprinkles on ice cream. They should be interesting and flavor to your story. A weak quote: “The final vote was 5 to 4,” the mayor said. A better quote: “With this vote, we can make Elm Street the showcase it should be,” the mayor said.

Make sure every name is spelled correctly and every dollar figure is correct. Check and recheck your math. Don’t be afraid to use a dictionary or recheck information.

If you have time, print your story to proofread. Also try reading it out loud to identity awkward phrases.

Categories
the future of community journalism

Looking at the future of community newspapers

Editor’s Note:  This blogpost was a speech given by Al Cross at a meeting of the Texas Press Association in January 2018 in Galveston.

. . . First time I’ve been to Galveston, but have been to Texas many times, and always feel at home here; maybe it’s because your state was settled mainly by people from Tennessee, my native state, and Kentucky, my home state.

Y’know, we share a lot of the same sayings: all hat and no cattle (my states are the biggest cattle states in the East), hot as a two-dollar pistol; old as dirt, rough as a cob, cold as a well-digger’s knee (or a certain larger body part). Close enough for government work; handy as a pocket on a shirt; I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck; and he’s one brick shy of a load. Some of my favorites involve animals: rode hard and put up wet; like a duck on a June bug; that dog won’t hunt; fine as frog hair; as independent as a hog on ice; look what the cat drug in; crooked as a dog’s hind leg; if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas; even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then; and: there’s more than one way to break a dog from sucking eggs.

I have never figured out what that last one really means, except there’s more than one way to do some things, and different approaches may be needed. And that’s what I want to talk with you about tonight.

When Ed Sterling called to invite me to speak to you, he asked what I would like to talk about, and I immediately replied, “The future of community journalism” – I guess because I wonder about it a good bit, and I’ll bet many of you do, too. Not much is clear, the major exception being that different approaches are needed. Every market, every newspaper, is at least a little bit different, so you must write your own future.

You can’t talk about the future of community journalism without discussing the future of journalism. I think it’s important to remember that we will always have journalism, because we will always need storytellers.

So many times when people say they’re talking about journalism, what they’re really talking about is the news business, which pays for journalism. And the news business is in trouble, because its economic model – mass circulation that drew advertising, which paid 75 to 80 percent of the bills – has been crumbling for more than a decade. Perhaps the best example in the weekly newspaper trade is that if you see a grocery ad in a paper, it’s probably an insert, and those are becoming less common as grocers find other ways to reach customers.

From what I can tell n my own research and discussions around the country, weekly newspapers’ circulation and household penetration, generally speaking, are declining 2 to 5 percent a year, and that trend is not sustainable.

Increasingly, the response to these existential threats has been to live with less revenue but get a bigger share of it from the audience. That’s why paywalls have become common, as newspapers finally discovered that enough people were willing to pay for access. Some community newspaper companies say they want to get 50 percent of their revenue from the audience. They think it can work because there are enough people willing to pay for unlimited access and special benefits for subscribers. It might work in some markets, but I have my doubts when it comes to the smaller, less-well-off markets that community newspapers typically serve.

he idea of getting more revenue from the audience has come more slowly to community journalism, which has been the healthiest part of the traditional news business because it usually doesn’t have competition. You are probably the only reliable, consistent, professional, comprehensive source of news and information for your locality. You probably don’t compete with a television station, and radio news in most places is a ghost of what it once was.

But you are still in competition, with every other source of news and information, for people’s time and attention. There is only so much time the audience can spend with media. It’s more time than it once was, because of smartphones, but those devices are used mainly for social media, not news media.

So you are, for the first time, in a battle with competitors you don’t know or see. And some you may not have even imagined, because local news is becoming less important to some people.

That’s partly because people are paying more attention to national news than they once did, thanks to last year’s unusual presidential election and our very unusual president. One community newspaper chain even put a President Trump button on all its home pages to drive traffic.

A bigger factor, I think, is that people now spend time online, in virtual communities, that they once spent engaging with their geographic communities, like those you serve. That probably makes them less interested in local news.

And another factor, in rural areas, is that your readers – or your former readers – increasingly commute to jobs in more urbanized places. We’ve some research in rural Kentucky and found that the longer someone’s commute to work, the less likely they are to subscribe to, or regularly buy, their local paper.

And these folks are commuting because of a lack of jobs, or good jobs, in the communities where they live. One big reason Donald Trump won the election was a sense in many rural communities they are being left behind. And in many places, they are. They see the shuttered factories, the vacant storefronts and the high-school commencement exercises that amount to a mass farewell to what could have been a big part of a community’s future. That is not good for local businesses, including the newspaper.

So, if we were doing a SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, those would be among the weaknesses and threats. We would also have to include the growing impact of social media, which usually give people notice of a news event but not a real news story, unless the post includes a link to one and they click on it.

I think one of our weaknesses is that we have not done a very good job of helping our readers understand better what real journalism is, and the difference in the three types of media: Strategic media, which could also be called message media: essentially, public relations, advertising and marketing; News media: that’s us, who practice journalism, the essence of which is a discipline of verification; we’re mainly about facts; and social media, which have little of any discipline, and certainly no discipline of verification.

Too often, we just say “media” when we mean “news media.” We need to use the phrase, not the word, to remind people that journalism is different – we have a discipline and a mission: searching for truth to serve the public.

Beyond that broad mission, every news outlet has its own priorities, but they are rarely shared with the audience. I wish every newspaper regularly published a statement of principles – what it stands for – and asked readers to hold it to account if they think it hasn’t lived up to them.

We need to explain these things to our readers, and to former readers and prospective readers, using social media and other platforms. We need to explain how we go about our work, and invite readers’ involvement and feedback. Ask them what they want to read about, and what they think of your work.

Here’s an example, from the Sunbury Daily Item in central Pennsylvania. The editor is Dennis Lyons, who took a buyout as managing editor of USA Today but came out of retirement to edit this small daily. He has a Community Advisory Board that generates good story ideas and sources, and he holds roundtable discussions with community stakeholders before starting to report major enterprise stories, to point the projects in the right direction and identify sources. These things are not wastes of time; they save time, because they are in effect the beginning of the reporting process.

Dennis Lyons talked about his work on a trip he and I made to China a few months ago, to talk about community journalism. That country has a very different political system, but its newspapers have many of the same concerns we have here – an audience that is going elsewhere for information. That shows the depth and breadth of the changes in the news and information business. It’s one of the greatest changes in the history of the world, not too far behind the invention of the printing press.

At the same time the world has changed, and journalism is under attack, most notably by the president of the United States. You might think that has nothing to do with your journalism, but I have heard editors all over the country say it is casting a shadow on their work.           They have begun to feel the sting of the anti-journalism message – yes, it really is a message against journalism as it should be practiced – and they have begun to realize that in a larger sense, we are all in the same boat; that they have an important role to play in restoring, building and maintaining the reputation of, and belief in, journalism.

And this has serious implications beyond our business; this week the RAND Corporation issued a 324-page report about the decay of truth in our society, the lack of agreement on basic facts – partly because people don’t understand what sources are valid, but also because news media have blurred the lines between fact and opinion. Strategic media, or message media, are using social media to trump (no pun intended) the news media.

As you defend journalism, you don’t have to defend the networks or the big papers; you can use some of their failings to explain what journalism is supposed to be. But you are journalists, or employers of journalists, so I think it is in your interest to defend journalism – and to help people understand that it has standards and principles, and that it is to be held accountable, just as it holds others accountable.

But the most important thing you can do for journalism, and the news business that pays for it, is to show its value to your community. That means you must produce journalism that helps set the public agenda for your community; that holds public officials and institutions accountable; that provides a fair forum for debate; and that acts as a leader in the community.

These are not easy things. And, I’m sad to say, a lot of community newspapers fall short. Editorial timidity is a common characteristic in community journalism, and it’s understandable. I teach my students that the fundamental conflict in community journalism is between the personal and the professional – the desire to fit comfortably into a community, and the responsibility to sometimes make others uncomfortable.

One way to successfully manage this conflict is to have a set of clear principles that not only guide your work but let the public know how you think you are supposed to do that work, and invite them into the discussion.

So, in our SWOT analysis, those are some opportunities – most of which, as they often do, are responses to threats. What about the strengths of community newspapers?

The biggest is that in most markets, you have a local-news franchise that no one has really invaded. Now, don’t take it for granted; a newspaper I once helped edit got bought by a chain, its staff gradually lost the local people, and a former editor started an online site that wasn’t really about hard news, but mainly local features and sports. But those are things people wanted to read about, and they had a personal acquaintance with the publisher, so his site took off – and the local paper, once one of the best in the state, now has one of the lowest household penetrations in the state, about 30 percent.

In that story, of course, there’s a reference to another strength of most community newspapers: community connections. They help you understand your community, its needs, its wants, and its preferences. But they may also restrain your journalism, and you have to be careful about that. Always remember you are a public servant.

And in the age of social media, where many community conversations occur, you need to be part of those conversations, and your paper needs to have a presence. You must be where your audience is. They can provide story ideas and sources. And if they are participating in the news, that can make them advocates for your paper.

This doesn’t have to be all that complicated, especially at small newspapers, where many of you are surely doing these things already. But I think it needs to be part of your fundamental approach to our journalism.

And more than ever, that journalism needs to be good.

Just about every manager in journalism or the news business realizes the importance of unique local content. That is nothing new to this crowd; unique local content is the main reason community journalism has been the healthiest part of the traditional news business. But now that you are in competition with every other information source, that content has to be quality content.

Newspapers need to step up their game and prove their value to their communities. That means fresh and helpful enterprise stories, with good storytelling that gives readers information an perspectives new to them. It means real watchdog journalism, which send the message: “We’re important to you because we’re looking out for your interests.”

You’ve got to take on the local bullies. Here’s just one example, from Texas: The Weatherford Democrat found that the county judge had hired his mistress, first as an office manager and assistant, though she was unqualified (no high-school diploma, and lied about it on the application), then gave her a raise and made her head of the emergency medical service.

Bill Ketter, the news vice president for CNHI, which owns the paper, shared with me a note from editor James Walker, who told him, “Circulation folks just told me that we had a guy renew his subscription this morning and urged us to “please, please keep covering our crooked judge.”

Quality journalism also means being careful, ethical, fair and respectful, especially on social media. You may not have any substantial competition for local news, but increasingly there are blogs and sites, groups and individuals, who have it in for you, or at least want to hold YOU accountable.

So, back to that old saying: There’s more than one way to do things. Each market is at least a little but different, but I think I’ve laid out a few principles, strategies and tactics to follow to make sure your community journalism has a bright future: Keep public service at the top of your mind, engage with your audience, defend journalism, prove your value by giving your neighbors coverage they can get nowhere else, and make sure that is quality coverage.

It’s a pleasure to be with you this evening. If I can help you, let me know. My short job description is “extension agent for rural journalists.” Good luck in your work!

 

 

Categories
Newswriting writing improvement

Stick to the basics: Present all sides of a story

Most reporters can likely relate to this scenario. Someone speaks up at a public meeting to unleash criticism about an individual or organization. Reporters have little difficulty presenting a balanced report – recording all sides of the story – if the accused is at the meeting.

But what happens if the individual is not present? And what if deadlines do not permit time to get the other side of the argument?

It’s the classic case of a “single source” story. These types of stories are no doubt the easiest to write, and they are the most likely to prompt calls of “foul play” from readers – for good reason.

Consider this editor’s note which prefaced a story.

Note: The following article pertains to a presentation which represented one side of a highly controversial topic. Representatives for the alternative position were not available to contest or counter statements made and statistics shared. As such, that perspective is not a component of this report.

Give the newspaper credit for acknowledging the shortcomings in its report, but say what?

The editor’s note – the newspaper’s lack of initiative in pursuing and presenting the other side of the story – is rather remarkable in today’s 24/7 communications landscape. Multiple avenues are available to get the opposing view from picking up the telephone to sending an email to checking out organization websites.

Blind-sided attacks are a common occurrence in reporting the news. Newsrooms, as the clearinghouse of information in your communities, are often in perfect position to anticipate the circumstances and double down your efforts to present all sides of a story.

A simple brainstorming session at a staff meeting can reveal additional opportunities for broader coverage. The more voices in a story, the more balanced a report. Coverage of public affairs affords ample opportunities for including multiple voices.

A school board is prepared to act on a recommendation to switch from half-day to all-day kindergarten; the packet of materials accompanying the agenda details the reasons. A preview of the meeting is a chance to provide “pro” and “con” arguments including interviews with a variety of individuals. Follow-up reports on a variety of board actions present similar opportunities.

Review other everyday coverage in your newspapers.

A community’s selection of a “citizen of the year” is an automatic feature story – usually a one-on-one sit-down with the honoree. Inject some flavor to the story by including comments from other individuals.

A big-box retailer comes into a town with great fanfare. A sidebar is appropriate to capture the sentiments of those who believe existing local retailers will be helped or hindered.

Most items in police blotters are sufficiently summarized in a few sentences. On occasion, take the time to quiz police on some incidents, and the circumstances can lead to an interesting story.

Tracking down all the voices – all the perspectives – of a story is just the first step, however. Two other points are important in the spirit of fairness.

No. 1, give the opposing voices equal prominence. Court proceedings are a great example. In other words, don’t put the prosecutor’s arguments on page one and bury the defense’s rebuttal on jump page. Readers’ attention is limited on the web, too; present the opposing viewpoints in the first few paragraphs.

No. 2, don’t be afraid to hold a story if it means delivering a more complete – and more fair – report. That’s especially the case with nondaily newspapers where it can be a few days to a week before readers receive the “other side.” In these cases, the web is a great friend. Newspapers can wait a few hours to pursue all the voices and still deliver a timely report.

Seeking and incorporating the many varied – yet pertinent – voices in a story is not always easy. It can take time and hard work – solid journalism that benefits the newspaper and readers alike.

Categories
writing improvement

If your new year’s resolution is to improve your writing, here’s a good place to start

If your new year’s resolution involves improving your writing, here’s a good place to start – an idea you may not have considered:

It sounds almost counterintuitive.

Reporters who want to become better writers often think in terms of classes or workshops or coaching by veteran writers.  And all of those are good things. But maybe one of the best ways to improve your writing is just to read.

But don’t all journalists read a lot?  Actually, no.  We do read reports and meeting minutes and the results of Google searches.  And of course, our own newspaper.

That’s a start.  But are you reading some of the nation’s top journalists and other really good writers?  How often do you read something and say, “Wow.  That’s really good.  I wish I could write like that.”

It has never been as easy as today for writers everywhere to read the best journalism produced in the world.  So let’s spend a few minutes looking at why this is so important and how you can improve your writing, just by reading.

The first step is expanding the amount of great writing you are exposed to every day.  The best way to do that is through social media. On Facebook, follow The New York Times and The Washington Post.  On email, sign up for newsletters from these papers that will deliver a sampling of great writing to your inbox every day.  And on social media, follow some important news feeds for community journalists.  TCCJ has compiled a list for you here. Click on several of these that look interesting.  In a few minutes on email and social media, you can have an exciting sampling of great writing coming to your computer every day.  Often, you’ll just skim through without reading anything – but if you read three or four great news stories or feature stories or depth journalism pieces a week, your writing will definitely improve over the next few months.

Just by reading. Nothing else.

Of course, you can maximize the experience by collecting great sentences or great leads or passages of description you admire.  Within a few months, you would have, say, a collection of maybe 20 leads you love.

Then, when you’re stuck, go back and read through that list.  Find something you can model your own lead on.

That isn’t plagiarism, unless you copy word for word.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, schools taught writing by what they called “copywork.” Students just copied from books acknowledged to be great writing.  It considered an effective way to teach students handwriting as well as grammar, punctuation and syntax.  Good writing is more than copying, but it can be a great first step toward improving your style – sort of like using training wheels when you are learning to ride your bike. Copywork meant that students had to read good writing and then copy it – and perhaps absorb the style and feel of well-written prose.

You’re not going to copy great writing, but you should at least be reading it.

When you read good journalism – not necessarily study it, but just consume it as a reader, you’ll get a better feel for what to write about.  One of the best places to get story ideas is from great stories.  You’ll see all kinds of articles you can localize for your paper.  Or at least the article you read will spark an idea that you can develop for one of your own.

How can you ever write great prose unless you read it?  Sports psychologists have urged basketball players to practice free throws in their heads, imaging themselves with perfect form, launching a shot that swished the net.  And those who practiced in their minds were as successful as those who practiced in the gym. The pictures in our heads help to determine our performance – so we need to get lots of “pictures” of good writing into our minds.

And while you should read great journalism, you shouldn’t limit yourself to journalism.  Read novels and non-fiction, too. You can learn a lot about descriptive writing and dialogue from a well-crafted novel.

The novelist William Faulkner came to the same conclusion about the value of reading:  “Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”

Also consider poetry.  There’s no better way to develop a feel for language and meter and word-choice than poetry. Go to a used book store, where you can find a poetry anthology that some poor undergraduate probably paid more than $100 for.  You can probably get it for less than $5.  Then try to read a couple of poems a week – maybe even memorize some lines that you especially like.

Novelist Stephen King has said that “the real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing.” He’s right. Journalists tend to be of a practical turn of mind, so we think of writing improvement in terms of workshops and classes.  But don’t overlook settling back with a good magazine article or a well-written news story or a novel – even a poem – as a way of improving your journalistic writing style.

Categories
the future of community journalism

New research study on issues facing community newspapers is worth reading

This column is usually about issues that rural newspapers can and should cover, but if you’re a rural editor or publisher, you have an issue of your own: adapting to the digital age.

The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism is exploring how technology is changing journalism and the news business, and recently interviewed more than 50 “experts from across the publishing industry, academia, and foundations” (I was one) to answer the question: How are small-market newspapers responding to digital disruption?

The first step in answering that query should be understanding that the conventional industry definition of “small market” – circulation under 50,000 – is a blunt instrument that avoids the distinctions among dailies, many of which have circulations under 10,000; weeklies, some of which exceed 10,000; and the diversity of rural America. To their credit, that is essentially the first finding listed by researchers Christopher Ali and Damian Radcliffe in their Nov. 15 report.

“We need to talk about the experience of local newspapers in a more nuanced manner,” they write. “There is a plurality of experience across the newspaper industry, not to mention across small-market newspapers operating in different towns across the United States. Overgeneralization about the newspaper sector loses important perspectives from smaller outlets.”

One pitfall of that overgeneralization is the widespread notion that newspapers are dying, and the researchers say “The newspaper industry needs to change the ‘doom and gloom’ narrative that surrounds it. . . . Outlets need to be honest with their audiences about the challenges they face, but they can also do more to highlight their unique successes, continued community impact, and important news value.”

I think community newspapers can reasonably assert that they are essential to local democracy and fostering a sense of community, and are the strongest part of the traditional news business, retaining a much larger share of their audience than metropolitan papers have in the last decade. The researchers don’t go that far, writing, “Local newspapers may be in a stronger position than their metro cousins.” (Emphasis added.)

The distinction may lie in the differences among communities, and between dailies and weeklies. Small dailies seem to have had a tougher time competing lately for several reasons; for example, many are close to larger dailies and serve communities that are covered by television stations, and many are owned by publicly held corporations or venture-capital firms that are more likely to put shareholders ahead of community service than local, independent owners.

Such ownership is less common among weeklies, few of which have TV competition and enjoy a local-news franchise that digital operations have not greatly invaded (though I do cite one example in the article, at http://bit.ly/2jteYSq). As the researchers note, community newspapers “experienced notable resilience thanks in part to exclusive content not offered elsewhere, the dynamics of ultra-local advertising markets, and an ability to leverage a physical closeness to their audience.”

But the health of a newspaper also depends on the health of its community, and almost half of America’s rural counties are losing population, as we reported on The Rural Blog at http://bit.ly/2AZ5KB3. That phenomenon is undermining many rural papers, and even in places where population is holding steady or growing, papers face challenges of change in local advertising markets.

The researchers write: “Although local businesses may be more likely to retain traditional analog advertising habits, the increasing homogeneity of our consumer experience (manifest, for example, in the rise of Amazon and Walmart) is reshaping local advertising markets. As local businesses are replaced by larger national chains with national advertising budgets, this reduces local newspapers’ advertising pools.” Walmart is infamous among newspapers for spending very little of its ad budget with them.

One point Ali and Radcliffe don’t mention is that many rural counties are becoming bedroom communities, which undermines commuters’ local connections. My research has found that the longer the commute, the less likely rural Kentucky residents are to subscribe to the newspaper where they live.

Like their metropolitan counterparts, “Small-market newspapers are experimenting with multiple means for generating revenue, including paywalls, increasing the cost of print subscriptions, the creation of spin-off media service companies, sponsored content, membership programs, and live events,” the researchers write. And they report that more papers are charging for obituaries.

Many such experiments are driven by corporate owners, but “There is no cookie-cutter model for success in local journalism,” the researchers write. “Each outlet needs to define the right financial and content mix for itself. This may seem obvious, but during our interviews some editors whose papers are part of larger groups were critical of corporate attempts to create templates—and standardize approaches—that remove opportunities for local flexibility.”

The report notes my concern that too many rural newspapers depend on single-copy sales rather than subscriptions, which may lead to sensationalizing front pages to generate sales and leave the papers more vulnerable to upstart competition, perhaps making them more editorially timid when it comes to local issues.

The comprehensive report deals with social media and other digital details, the changing nature of journalists’ jobs and their craft, and how small-market newspapers can prepare for the future. It’s a highly valuable report that should be read not only by publishers and editors, but by their staffs.

Any good piece of research recommends further research. Ali and Radcliffe note the lack of “a regular detailed census of local newspapers, split into different sub-markets, to understand and map a more holistic picture of the U.S. newspaper industry. Unfortunately, many existing surveys are being rolled back, meaning that our knowledge of this space will diminish unless others step in.”

Our Rural Blog item on the study, with links to it and a sidebar study, is at http://bit.ly/2AiSnQ0. If you do or see stories that belong on The Rural Blog, email me at [email protected].

Categories
community issues rural journalism

Community newspapers needed to provide a voice for rural America

A year ago this month, Donald J. Trump surprised most of the world and probably himself by winning the presidential election. He couldn’t have done it without rural America.

The numbers in the exit polls were clear.  Trump won 62 percent of the rural vote, more than any modern president.  And here’s the statistic that shows just how rural his victory was: If you divide up the vote by the rural continuum of the Department of Agriculture – which has nine steps, from most rural to most urban – the smaller a place’s population, the stronger its vote for Trump, with one very small exception inside the error margin.

Trump’s percentage continued a recent trend of Republicans winning more and more of the rural vote. The biggest gain was actually made when Mitt Romney ran, but rural turnout was down significantly in 2012, especially among Democrats, so that boosted Romney’s percentage. But there was a better rural turnout in 2016 – and that was a key to Trump’s victory in the big swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

That surge in turnout, and rural America’s choice of a man who is probably our most urban president ever, suggest that some big and bad things have been going on in our rural communities – some things that made them vote for him.

There are many was to measure those things, but the most important may be the simplest: Each year from 2012 through 2016, fewer people lived in rural America than the year before. Those losses were pretty small, but there had never been a decline in the total number of rural people, just in the rural percentage of the U.S. population.

Rural America is losing population mainly because it lost, during the Great Recession, jobs and businesses that have not come back. One year ago, employment in metropolitan areas was almost 5 percent higher than in the first quarter of 2008, the official start of the recession. But outside metro areas, employment was about two and a half percent less.

We have seen that decline all over rural America, in closed factories, vacant storefronts and streams of workers commuting to more urbanized places. In many places, there is also a social and cultural decline, indicated by above-average drug use and divorces, poor health, increasing mortality rates among middle-aged whites, and a workforce that shrinks as disability payments expand. The Wall Street Journal did a good job documenting this several months ago in a package that said the statistics of rural America resemble those of inner cities 30 years ago.

This isn’t just about statistics.  It’s about feelings, which are usually more influential in an election.  In rural America, there is a documented resentment of urban elites, including the news media — reflecting a feeling that rural areas aren’t getting a fair shake from government and its trade deals, and are looked down upon.

So, onto this landscape strode a brash billionaire whose TV reality show and business career had made him a household name, offering few specifics but promising to “make America great again” and acting as a tribune for disaffected people who were hungry for a politician who would improve their daily lives. In more than 40 years of covering politics, I have never seen a candidate who generated the reaction, depth of support and enthusiasm as Donald Trump, especially in rural areas.

There were half a million more rural votes last year than in 2012. In urban areas, there were two and a half million fewer votes. That second number illustrates the low enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton.

Some have also argued that Trump’s victory had a lot to do with race and ethnicity, and there was evidence of that in rural areas, mainly dealing with immigration.

Rural Midwestern towns that have attracted many more immigrants—particularly Latinos—were Trump strongholds in the primaries and caucuses.  Just before the general election, Gallup polls showed Trump doing well in racially isolated white communities, and the pollsters concluded that Trump voters in those places appeared to be less motivated by economic concerns than by issues of race, ethnicity and immigration. Other researchers before and after the election came to the same conclusion about the national vote.

One thing last year’s election did was wake up a lot of national journalists to the problems of rural America. The Wall Street Journal is not the only national news outlet that’s paying more attention to rural places and their problems. My friend Chuck Todd of NBC said on election night, as Trump began to win, “Rural America is basically screaming at us, ‘Stop overlooking us!’”

So, rural issues should get more attention, especially with a president who owes his victory partly to rural America. But politicians sometimes have to be reminded who they owe, and I think that is the case with rural America, because it is so diverse – too diverse to have a strong lobby that speaks for it.

Agriculture interests can help, but they can also hurt, by focusing more on increasing farmers’ wealth and just paying lip service to the needs of rural communities. There is a bipartisan Congressional Rural Caucus, but it has only 43 members – almost exactly 10 percent of the House of Representatives. Rural America is 15 percent of the population, and it needs a stronger voice. Rural newspapers could help provide it.

 

Categories
Social media Sports coverage

Playoffs are around the corner: Here are some ideas for improving your sports coverage

With the high school football playoffs almost on us and prep basketball about to tip off, now is about as good a time as any to consider again about how to beef up your online sports readership.

And while it may seem sometimes you’re having to rob Peter to pay Paul when it comes to developing your online presence or preserving your established print product, here are some digital strategies that with the resources you probably already have can help you make inroads to both. Think of it as having your cake and eating it, too.

Reinvent your game coverage

First thing, consider using your social media coverage as your mainstay on game night. Weeknights or weekends, your readers are going to be coming and going, and whether they’re at the game, on the road, or partying down, you can keep them engaged with your social media coverage of the games. Some suggestions:

  • ●Don’t do play by play. If they’re at the game, they saw it. If they’re at home, they may be listening to radio. If they’re partying or waiting on their spouse to finish paying the tab somewhere, PxP may not grab their attention.
  • ●Do think analysis and context: Give them what they can’t always get from watching live or listening, much less waiting in line somewhere. Make your observations significant. Think of your role as that of a radio analyst, and give them what your competitor may not be able to: if the girls’ point guard just made a nifty pass for an assist, or the receiver had to outleap a defender to snag a pass, tell your reader “Lindsay Baskins’ threads a pass to Ashley Robbins for a layup. Lady Tartars up 42-30 at 2:13 in the 1st QTR,” or “’Dillas’ Ray Renfro outleaps a defender for a 15-yard gain to the Wampus Cat 10-yd line, ‘Dillas up 10-7 late in the third.” Or tell us the coach is getting heated, stamping her foot or throwing his towel after having to bench a player for foul trouble or a holding penalty negates a gain. That’s detail the broadcast may miss, and it’s stuff many radio competitors won’t or can’t deliver anyway in a stream. Make it worthwhile for your reader to follow.
  • ●Do get the greatest saturation by combining some social media platforms. Most of your readers have Facebook; fewer use Twitter, but those that do will likely rely more on it that Facebook. And you can do both simultaneously by combining your accounts so that what you post to Twitter pops up in your Facebook posts. A tip: choose the Twitter-dominant route so that your posts will be short and sweet, and there are likely other social media combinations you can explore. Here’s a how-to link for posting Twitter to Facebook: https://support.twitter.com/articles/31113
  • ●Do have the final score ready immediately at game’s end, along with some context – “The ‘Dillas 27-24 win over Itasca puts them at 10-1 and headed to the first round of playoffs against Cairo or Attapulgus on Nov. 12.” You might even mention – briefly- who the star player was, but that’s all you need. Click “send,” head for sidelines or locker room for post-game interviews, and then head to the house to cool your heels. Yes, take a break. Here’s why:
  • ●Don’t worry about publishing a late-night or next-day story online. Readers who haven’t listened can go online and find the score, your summary, and the important stuff in your social media thread. And tell them to be looking for additional coverage

The game story: Out with the old, in with the new

For most weekly, twice-weekly or bi-weekly newspapers, your publication cycle won’t dovetail smoothly with traditional game story coverage.  Worst case scenario, your paper hits the news racks or the front lawn smack dab in the middle and you’re faced with the prospect of publishing an account that’s days old when its hot off the presses. That’s still a must read for parents and grandparents but the interest from many of your readers will be fading. So what’s a body to do? Ask a staff that’s already stretched thin to write multiple accounts? That doesn’t go over so well, so here’s a modest proposal:

  • ●Take a features approach to your published game story, and hold its posting until the evening before or the day of distribution. After you post the social media accounts, let them stand as your first-day coverage for those catching up.
  • ●Focus your print coverage on a features approach that includes players’ and coaches’ reactions, how they’ll incorporate what they did or didn’t accomplish into the next contest, or, if the season’s over, how they reflect on how it’s all come down.
  • ●Do think features, not news, with alternative ledes that tease the reader and play down the time lag between the timing of the event and your coverage of it.
  • ●Use your previous social media coverage as a tool in constructing your story. In it you’ve already got a timeline of sorts. Once you work the most significant pics or stats from the previous game into developing story, you’ve summarized what happened a few days ago and also offered readers a fresh slant. If you’re fortunate, you’ll have the opportunity to use that approach for a great advance story for the upcoming contest.
  • ●Make that story your sports centerpiece and post it online to coincide with the print edition. You can generate additional buzz by posting it the evening before distribution.
  • ●Do make sure you continue to promote that coverage through your social media and house ads in the paper.

Old news can be good news

If you’ve got a digital whiz in your shop, you can use your old digital files to your advantage by hyperlinking to previous coverage that allows readers to pursue their interests and beef up your readership.

  • ●If you’re telling a story about the season’s highs and lows, provide hyperlinks that allow readers who missed the earlier stories to pursue them.
  • ●If the ‘Dillas’ Renfro, who earlier outleaped that defender for the 15-yard gain, has been highlighted in previous games, give digital readers a link to that story and embed the link in his name, which should be highlighted: “Renfro outleaped a defender for a 15-yeard gain late in the third to keep the Dillas’ drive alive.” If you’re talking playoff prospects, and the ‘Dillas have already played Attapulgus, give readers their rein to revisit that game: “The ‘Dillas 27-24 win over Itasca puts them at 10-1 and headed to the first round of playoffs against Cairo or Attapulgus, which they defeated earlier in the season, on Nov. 12.”
  • ●Be sure, if their opponent has been determined by press time, to update the story, but that extra reporting should be minimal.

In the end, you’ve got limited resources but greater expectations by contemporary readers, particularly younger ones you want to engage for the long haul, and many of whom expect or will appreciate timely and convenient coverage. These strategies will require some newspapers to re-think and alter their traditional approaches, and one size definitely doesn’t fit all. But these are steps that can help you attract emerging audiences with the resources you already have on hand.

 

 

Categories
Newspaper Advertising

We need to be ready to prove that print ads work

When it comes to advertising sales, we’re still stuck in the 1980s.

How do we know? Because we’re still trying to sell space for ads in the newspaper – and we’re trying to sell to folk who don’t necessarily believe that print ads are effective.

So that means your ad sales team will often need to convince clients that newspapers can be effective for getting their message out.

So is this really a problem for newspapers? You bet.

A recent Borrell study asked marketers what types of media were most effective. The responses were social media, broadcast TV, search, email marketing, cable TV – newspapers are way down the list.

The Borrell study says that local advertising will increase next year, but the increases will go to online, local TV, outdoor and telemarketing. The study predicts a 10 percent drop for newspaper ads.

That’s at least partly because we are not evangelists for the power or print ads to actually sell people stuff.

So do your ad reps know – and share – information like this?

  • ●There’s a direct correlation between non-subscribers receiving a newspaper and how much they spend. When non-subscribers get a newspaper, they make more purchases and spend more money.
  • ●Newspapers are trusted. Consumers consider an ad in a newspaper to be more believable – 36 percent of adults surveyed found newspapers ads trustworthy, as opposed to 8 percent for TV and 15 percent for internet.
  • ●Consumers are more likely to act on information in newspapers and their websites regarding products and services.
  • ●People actually pay more attention to newspaper ads. You don’t tune them out or go to the bathroom while they are on or fast forward through them like you do with TV.
  • ●Other ads, like in social media or TV or radio, are intrusive. Shoppers today want to seek out ads on their own.
  • ●Your ad placement in a newspaper lets you target your intended audience.
  • ●Newspapers are the best at reaching seniors, retirees and middle-income households – often the customers most sought after by many businesses.
  • ●And it’s not just that people read your ads, but the people you want to read your ads are reading them – the influencers in your community. Influencers are the “information hounds” who are more heavily represented in the audiences of print and online newspapers than in the audiences of social media and TV. What these folk say, matters. And they are reading newspapers and their ads.
  • ●Newspaper ads work, and that’s what advertisers want. You can say what you want about overall circulation, but the fact is that 79 percent of newspaper readers take action on an ad sometime during the month.

Especially with younger ad clients, we have to convince them that advertising in print really does work. A good way to do that is to put together an effective advertising pitchbook, which includes information about your newspaper, your rate card, information like that above on the effectiveness of print, and testimonials (with pictures) of satisfied advertising clients. For an overview of successful pitchbooks, see this presentation by TCCJ’s Chuck Nau.

 

Categories
Branding Newspaper management

Newspaper mottoes and slogans: Helping to brand your editorial product

Does your newspaper have a motto? Or a slogan? Do you know the difference?

Mottoes, slogans and marketing pitches were common in the days when most big newspapers had competition, as they tried to give themselves a distinguishing character. As the big newspaper markets became monopolized, there was less need for them, but now, when every information source competes for audience with every other source, even in small towns, slogans and mottoes are worth reviving, and some papers are doing it.

The Washington Post’s nameplate got an underline on Feb.: the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” That’s the most prominent example of newspapers adding a promotional explanation of what they do or what they stand for. Two papers from Warren Buffett’s BH Media Group have similar slogans: The Bristol Herald Courier says it offers “Truth. Accuracy. Fairness” and the Omaha World-Herald says it is “Real. Fair. Accurate.”

Such slogans or mottoes are needed at a time when the very idea of independent, professional journalism is under attack from the highest levels of government and partisan media. Print circulation is down, but newspapers still have broad audiences and provide most of the accountability journalism that the writers of the First Amendment had in mind. Slogans and mottoes can not only remind the public of newspapers’ importance, but remind newspaper staff of ideals and principles they should follow.

Executive Editor Marty Baron’s “first principle” for the Post staff is “Tell the truth as nearly as it may be ascertained.” He said the paper started working on a slogan before the last election, “trying to come up with some words that would capture the essence of our mission in a way that you might even put it on a T-shirt. We had a lot of ideas and it was all over the place.” The choice was made by new owner Jeff Bezos; Baron told me he thought the line was “a little dark.” Yes, but it displays nicely in the reverse type the Post uses on its mobile site. The line had been used by Bob Woodward, the Post associate editor who as a reporter with Carl Bernstein broke open the Watergate scandal.

What’s the difference?  The Post’s slogan brought to mind other newspaper mottoes or slogans, many at rural or community newspapers, and I wrote about it on The Rural Blog recently. The blog post is at http://bit.ly/2f1cWqs. It linked to an explanation of the difference between a motto and a slogan; here’s a capsule version:

A motto contains a belief or an ideal that can serve as a guiding principle and the identity of a newspaper. The Amarillo Globe-News still uses a saying coined by publisher Gene Howe, who died in 1952: “A newspaper may be forgiven for lack of wisdom, but never for lack of courage.”

Slogans can serve the same purpose, but tend to be simpler and catchier, and used more as marketing tools. The best are those that serve not only as a slogan for the public, but a motto, perhaps implicit, for the staff. One of my favorites is used by The Blackshear Times, a Georgia weekly: “Liked by many, cussed by some, read by them all.”

Some slogans or mottoes are implicit, as in the simple warning of hard-nosed editorial policy at the Aspen (Colo.) Daily News: “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen.”

Whether you call it a motto or a slogan matters less than having a line that accurately describes your newspaper. The most common slogans for rural papers are like the one used by the Mason Valley News in Nevada: “The only newspaper in the world that gives a damn about Yerington.” It’s a natural; most newspapers’ reason for existence is to publish news of their locality, and in most cases they own that franchise. The Greene County Democrat in Alabama, which competes with the Greene County Independent, puts it more subtly: “Serving Greene County Like No Other Newspaper.”

Some mottoes are blunt and simple, like that of The Star in Johannesburg, South Africa: “Tell it like it is.” Another conveys the same principle, but in more friendly, flowery fashion. It was written by British poet and politician Lord Byron (1788-1824): “Without or with offense to friends or foes, we sketch your world exactly as it goes.” Andrew Jackson Norfleet adopted it when he founded The Times Journal in Russell Springs, Ky., in 1949. The weekly still posts it on its editorial page.

Another idea: Speaking of editorial pages, that’s where newspapers can best explain who they are, even if they don’t have regular editorials.

If I were a newspaper editor again, my paper’s home page would have a button called “How We Work,” taking readers to a policy statement on the editorial page, explaining our editorial philosophy, policies such as correcting errors and separating news from opinion, a call for readers to let us know when we fall short, and a link to The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, with a few examples, such as:

Our first obligation is to the truth, not in an absolute, philosophical or scientific sense, but “the truths by which we can operate on a day-to-day basis;” and the essence of journalism is a discipline of verification, using an objective method. The authors explain: “Being impartial or neutral is not a core principle of journalism. Because the journalist must make decisions, he or she is not and cannot be objective. But journalistic methods are objective.” I doubt most readers understand those important distinctions, so we need to explain them at every opportunity. They need to know we’re on their side, and how we work.

Categories
community issues

Saying goodbye to Dixie

I grew up whistling Dixie. Literally. It was one of the first songs my daddy taught me, and I liked it. A third-culture kid growing up in British Commonwealth countries, it gave me a connection to my home state of Louisiana. It evoked images of grand plantation homes like Tara in Gone with the Wind, as well as more humble memories of my grandparents’ farm in the rural South. More than anything, though, I just liked the tune.

While many of my ancestors fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, I never thought they were fighting for slavery. Most of my people were country folk, and while segregation was common, we weren’t taught to hate colored people. In fact, my dad told stories of earning some pocket money as a kid by picking cotton alongside African-Americans. He never claimed to be better than they were. There was social separation, yes, but overt racism, no.

Fast forward to my college years, after my return to the United States, and I began to see things differently. We were told to lock our car doors if we were going through the “dark” side of town. When an African-American (male) friend gave me a ride back to Houston late one night, someone told me that I could have put myself in danger by riding with a black man because someone might see that and I “might get shot.” I couldn’t believe it.

At the same time as I was coming to grasp with the reality of racism in the U.S., however, I also saw groups of black college students congregating together on the steps of the student center, without any white students. I pondered this, wondering why African-Americans would fight so hard for desegregation and then separate themselves out.

Later, I figured out that “social separation” was not always forced, but just a matter of cultural differences; or it was easier for some people to do than the hard work of trying to build bridges. I was fortunate to have friends of many races, cultures and backgrounds, but that wasn’t the case for most people. Most people, I learned, gravitate toward others who are most like themselves.

Over the years, I have learned a lot about the differences between North and South, especially with regards to race relations. I can speak with more authority now that I have spent time in cities across the country, and have a child who is of a different race. Up until this year, she has been in Title 1 schools where Caucasians were a small minority. That has given me perspective as well.

While cities across the South are tearing down their Confederate monuments, the truth of the matter is that racism is not a Southern thing (nor just an American thing, for that matter). It is alive and well in the North, even if it’s not out in the open. Some of the most virulent racists I have ever met have been from Northern states. “Social separation” doesn’t begin to describe the hatred for minorities that filled their hearts.

To white people who would say that prejudice works both ways, yes it does. When my daughter is ridiculed at school for having a white mom, I feel it. And yet, when I make the effort to break down those barriers, and those kids and their parents realize that I’m okay with their ethnicity, any tension that might have been there is immediately erased.

Most African Americans sporting Black Lives Matter t-shirts aren’t violent BLM activists. After decades of incidents like the beating of Rodney King, and statistics showing that blacks are more likely to be killed by police, they are genuinely afraid of white people in authority. Just like Rosa Parks determined that she had a right to a public bus seat, many minorities feel they must continue to speak up for their rights to have a place in American society. Just as white people are frequently told to stay out of black neighborhoods, for fear of violent acts towards them, so black people and other minorities are told to be cautious when passing through all-white communities.

It is a sad statement on American society that we live in so much fear of one another. It is also sad, however, that we feel the need to erase the past in order to move beyond it. The violent protest by white supremacist groups over the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, shows that historical monuments hold significance for some groups.

The very fact that those monuments are now creating a rallying point for hate groups may be a good reason to take them down…or not. I think it’s up to each local community to decide which monuments to keep and which to remove. Yet, I hope that any tearing down can be done peacefully and respectfully; for only when we respect our history can we learn from it. After all, the bigger issue is not really about the statues themselves, is it? It’s about who we are and what we stand for, and that is a lot more evident in our everyday lives than in monuments of people from the past.

I will always be from the Land of Cotton and have no regrets about my Confederate heritage. Out of it has come a tradition of Southern hospitality and respect for others, including those of color. But today, I will say a virtual goodbye to Dixie and hope that the Confederate flag will wave only in museums, rather than being waved by people whose mission it is to hate. Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.