Categories
News coverage

For community newspapers, getting it right outweighs getting it first

Randy Mankin is a friend of mine. He is the owner and publisher of the The Eldorado Success  and Big Lake Wildcat, both award-winning weekly newspapers in West Texas. Eldorado, you may remember, was the site of the YFZ ranch, a religious compound headed by a man named Warren Jeffs.

Jeffs is a self-appointed prophet in a very extreme group on the far fringe of Fundamental Mormonism. His compound in Eldorado housed hundreds of people who were members of polygamist families. Randy’s work at the Success was instrumental in aiding the FBI investigation that ended in a raid on the FFZ Ranch.

Randy was featured in the recent Showtime documentary “Prophet’s Prey,” which recounts the story of the experience in Eldorado.

When the raid initially occurred, the national media descended on Eldorado. At first, he said, he was inviting to the national correspondents. He opened the back of his office to them and offered internet connections. He felt like he had entered the big leagues of national journalism.

Soon, though, Randy became disenchanted. He said the visiting correspondents were stealing his sources and, even worse, getting the story wrong.

He said what they offered as news nowhere near reflected the true facts in the case. Randy said a reporter from CNN was sitting in his office — he won’t say what his name was, but he assured me it is a household name.

The correspondent told him: “Randy, you’ve got it good. You are a weekly newspaper. You have the luxury of getting the story right. We have to get it first.”

Sadly, the internet (and now social media) has turned the 24-hour news cycle into a 10-minute news cycle.

As a result, the race to get the story first has negated the need to get it correct. A senior editor and writing coach at the a major-market daily in Texas admitted to me that they are posting breaking news to their website written by rookie reporters – stories that have not been read by an editor beforehand.

“But the flip side,” he said, “is you can always correct the story in real time once it’s been posted online.”

This is where social media has taken journalism.

The news has become entertainment and the facts have suffered. I am amazed every time I hear someone complain about “fake news” — it exists because there is a market for it.

Social media has conditioned folks to require news immediately, but they then complain when it is not accurate.

It seems as if people don’t care to be informed. They want to be entertained. If folks really wanted to be informed, donations to public radio and daily newspaper subscriptions would both be increasing. Sadly, they are not — but I digress.

I had to make a judgment call concerning rushing a story to digital media once as the publisher of a county seat weekly in Northeast Texas.

Early one evening, in late summer, a boy was accidentally shot and killed near downtown. It was an accidental shooting where three high school boys were driving a local man’s truck, with permission. The man who owned the truck was well known and served on some local boards.

One of the boys discovered a pistol in the man’s console and started waving it around.

He fired it accidentally and killed his friend.

The young man who died was African-American. The two others were white. They were all three members of the high school football team who, according to all the polls, were destined for great success that upcoming fall.

The season was to open in two weeks and the dead boy was one of their stars.

Those are the facts of the case, but we didn’t know all of the facts when our editor called me that night. I did not live in the community, but he did and he was on the ground.

Out-of-town television trucks were arriving and gossip was swirling.

Our editor was out of breath on the phone. In about 30 seconds he explained a kid was dead and one of his teammates did it. The scene was roped off and the gun that killed him belonged to an upstanding citizen.

“I just wanted to let you know before I break it on the website,” he said. 

“Have you talked to the chief of police?” I asked. 

“No, he is busy right now with the investigation,” he said.

“Then how do you know what you just told me?”

“It’s just what folks are saying, you know? On the street.”

“So you have not verified any of what you just told me with credible sources?”

“No.” 

“Have you seen a dead body? Did you hear a gunshot? Have you seen the J.P. on the scene?”

“No.” 

“Then what are you going to post on the website?” 

“Everything I’ve heard.” 

“From whom?” 

“Around town.” 

“OK. Slow down,” I said. “What do we know? Really know? What do we know that we can verify with 100 percent accuracy?” 

“Well,” he said slowly, “we know the local police are investigating an incident in downtown. We know that traffic is being diverted around the area and emergency vehicles from multiple agencies have been dispatched to the incident to assist.”

“Then post that on Facebook and wait until we know more,” I said. 

“What? Just that?” he said. “There is more to it.”

“How do you know?” 

“I heard.”

“From whom?” 

“OK, I get your point. But there is a story here and it is in our town and the TV trucks are setting up and we need to beat them to the punch.”

“I know,” I responded. “It sounds like you do have a story there, and I am sure everything you’ve heard so far is close to accurate. If it is, we have a boy dead, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And we have a family in shambles, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And a community that is going to grieving for a long time, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And all we know is what you told me? What we have heard has not been verified?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well,” I said, “after the TV trucks leave and the scene is cleaned up, we are still going to be here. The newspaper has been serving this town a whole lot longer than the out-of-state TV station. The TV station is not going to run this kid’s obituary. The TV station is not going to make its lead story next week the candlelight vigil in this kid’s memory. And the TV station is not going to brave the elements with the football team for the next 10 to 15 Friday nights as they dedicate game after game to this kid’s memory, are they?” 

“Well, no.” 

“Then do our community the service of telling them what we know and follow up later. We will tell the story, in its entirety, just not right now. Not this minute. Go on Facebook and tell them what we know and tell them we are not going to speculate further until we know more.” 

He accepted my advice and posted something like the following on Facebook:

“Local police are currently working an emergency situation in the downtown area. Little has been confirmed about the nature of the incident at this moment, but traffic is slow in the area. Out of respect to those involved, and their families, we will refrain from any speculative reports about the incident until we can verify the entirety of the story. Please see next week’s edition for more information.”

We gained much respect in the community for handling the post in that manner. The accolades were many and the criticism was almost non-existent.

The boy was still dead and the community took time to grieve. We were there the entire way.

We could have aired out what we thought we knew. But we couldn’t verify any of it. And as it turns out, we would have had to issue some painful corrections if we had.

The point is this: Media is people serving people by telling stories about people and being funded to so do by a whole other group of people. Media is a business, and business is relational. Relationships involve people and people are humans.

People are served best, and relationships are nurtured, when they are told the truth and not lied to — no matter whether the lie was intentional or not. Fake news produced due to ignorance is still fake news.

Ethicist Mark Putnam said: “In many cases ignorance can land you in just as much trouble as if you intentionally did something wrong. Sure, you can’t know everything, but the fact that you can know something puts the ball in your court.”

Knowing when to hold a story is just as great a skill as knowing how to effectively get the scoop. Becoming familiar with each is at the core of the responsibilities we bear to our communities.

Categories
Disaster Coverage

When tornadoes strike: Newspapers need a coverage plan

The tornadoes in Van Zandt County last weekend are a reminder of a sobering fact of life for Texas newspapers: When it comes to covering tornadoes, it’s more a matter of when than if.

An average of 1,224 tornadoes touch down every year in the United States, according to a tornado tracking study that reflects the years 1991 through 2015. Texas leads the nation with an average of 146.7. Kansas is next with 92.4, and our Tornado Alley neighbor Oklahoma has 65.4.

May is the peak month for Texas tornadoes – we average 44 during this month alone.

And obviously, when a tornado has just stuck your community or county, it’s too late to figure out how best to mobilize your coverage.

So here’s a guide for your newsroom, to help you plan for when tornadoes strike:

The first thing to do is to talk out the coverage. Everyone should sit down and talk about what you would do and who would do it. And if this is all you do, you’re already ahead of the game. Make a list of what you want to do, and who will do it.

Your tornado coverage team should include everyone. When a tornado hits, there should be no division between advertising and editorial – it’s all hands on deck.

Staff members should also talk with their families to explain that they will have to leave and cover the aftermath, assuming everyone in the family is safe. All staff members should think through what their families will do following a tornado — and make sure they know that this is a major news story that has to be covered.

Maybe you already have a plan – but this is the time to dust it off and go through it with everyone. If you didn’t do the plan within the past three months, it probably needs updating, and every individual staff member needs to know what everyone else is doing.

Next, you have to decide what your coverage philosophy will be. During a tornado, everyone is desperate for information, and your newspaper can become the go-to source for that information.

The first thing you have to do is to decide that you may be a weekly in print, but during this crisis you must go where the people are – and never ask them to wait for information. If you got it, share it.

If you’re going where people are, you’re going be on social media, probably Facebook. Remember: Absolutely nobody – not one single individual in your community – is saying “I can’t wait till the paper comes out on Thursday so I can find out what really happened.”

When the tornado is bearing down on your town, people are on radio and TV. Once it hits, they will be looking to social media to find out what happened. As soon as it’s safe, your staff should be out taking pictures and filing social media updates.

It won’t take long for your photos and information to be shared, and you should see your Facebook Likes spike immediately. If the local Methodist church has opened its fellowship hall for people who are out of their houses, share that on Facebook, along with a picture. If the police chief has announced a curfew, video that announcement and share it. You might even want to use the Facebook Live feature to interview local businesses who are cleaning up.

Some publishers will balk at “giving away” all those photos and information on the tornado. But remember, people don’t care about this stuff several days later, when your paper comes out. What can happen is that readers come to see your newspaper as the one indispensable local information source, and that should carry over to print circulation. If all you do is to collect information and photos for your publication day, people see your entire paper as irrelevant because there’s no new information and no photos they haven’t seen many times on Facebook.

But you also have to be thinking about what you’ll put in that print edition. You may run a roundup story where you summarize the news of the tornado, but your print edition should be mainly follow stories that give additional information that hasn’t been shared on social media.

These follow stories should tell about rebuilding efforts and especially tell the human stories of victims and the first-responder heroes who helped them. Your staff covering the storm should always have, in the back of their minds, the need for these follow stories – so have a board in the office or a place online where ideas for these stories can be shared. And not just reporters – your ad reps may have a great idea on a business that’s rebuilding.

And as these follow stories start coming together, of course, tell your social media audience what’s coming. You can build anticipation for the depth information, the photo stories and the features that your regular print edition will include.

Also following a tornado, keep on the lookout for investigative angles that involve emergency preparedness or even building codes. Here’s a story about construction flaws in Moore, Oklahoma, schools that ran after the Moore tornadoes in 2013.

During times of emergency like this, people see the reality of what we’ve been telling them for years – that our newspaper, in print, online and in social media, is the best source of local news. One reporter who covered a tornado for a community newspaper in Alabama put it this way: “In a crisis like this, people did learn that we were the first place to go for news. We were told that by members of the National Guard that they were following our tweets to figure out where they needed to deploy.”

Unfortunately, much of your coverage will involve people who have experienced significant loss. The managing editor of The Oklahoman, which has had a lot of unfortunate experience in covering tornadoes, offers this advice about interviewing disaster victims:

*Teach your reporters and editors about how to approach and interview victims. Remind them during the coverage.\Emphasize that victims must be treated with dignity and respect.

*Victims should be approached but allowed to say no. If the answer is no, the reporter should leave a card or number so victims can call back later. Oftentimes, the best stories come this way.

*Each victim is an individual and must be treated that way, not just as part of an overall number.

*Little things count. Call victims back to verify facts and quotes. Return photos (if possible, hire runners to get and return photos). Emphasize writing “Profiles of Life” about the victims, instead of the usual stories about how they died.

*Try calling funeral homes or representatives first to connect with a family member. In most cases, victims’ relatives wanted to talk when they realized that the reporter was writing a “Profile of Life.” Some of these led to bigger stories, too. Establish policies that affect your coverage.

*The Oklahoman reporters covered public memorial services for the victims of the bombing and tornado, but not private funerals.

*Don’t re-run the bloody images on anniversaries and key dates. However, consider showing comparison pictures of destruction with current ones on the recovery’s success.

There are a lot of resources to which you can turn to beef up your coverage. Of course, after the disaster hits, it’s too late to familiarize yourself with these. So look them over now, and discuss them when you have your staff meeting to plan for coverage.

After the initial safety concerns, people’s next questions are typically about insurance. The Insurance Information Institute can answer your questions and provide subject matter experts and resources to explain the insurance and economic implications the tornado.

Phone numbers may well be dispersed among reporters. Be sure there is a master list available on your computer system, a list that includes police, fire department, county law enforcement, hospitals, power companies, water office, animal control, towing companies, funeral homes and the county coroner, churches and other relief centers, and the like.

The Journalist’s Toolbox weather page offers lots of links and resources to storms, assistance programs and even apps that can help in your coverage.

One more thing: If a major storm hits your city, you will be getting requests from outside media for interviews with your reporters, for photos, and for information on what’s happening. Decide in advance what your policy will be, and designate someone to field these requests.

Much of the preparation you do for tornadoes can also come in handy for major fires, floods and other disasters. Plan now, and hope you never have to put those plans into motion.

Categories
Opinion writing

Local editorials are the franchise of local newspapers

What’s the first word you associate with editorials? Editorials can serve a variety of roles.

They educate. What are the current rental codes and how would they be strengthened under a proposed ordinance before the city council? What’s the process, and the pros/cons, for annexing land to a city?

They enlighten. Newspapers might feel an obligation to write something about the annual city festival. What not write about the opportunity for the community to display itself to visitors and speak the impact of tourism on the local economy?

They entertain. An editorial might spin an April Fool’s yarn or something light-hearted for Valentine’s Day.

They challenge your personal beliefs, forcing you out of your comfort zone.

They reinforce your positions, leaving you saying, “Now that editorial makes sense.”

They frustrate. They anger. They might prompt laughter or tears.

A common element to the most effective editorials, however, is that they leave an impression or prompt a reaction. In contrast, nondescript editorials are easily forgotten.

Above all, however, editorials should be held to the highest standards of journalism. They must be accurate. They must be accountable.

And, I argue, especially in community journalism – those standards are ratcheted up another notch. For 22 years, I wrote editorials five days a week – the vast majority focusing on local issues.

Local news is the franchise of local newspapers. In similar vein, local editorials are the franchise of local newspapers. That often means offering commentary on topics that necessarily involve friends, neighbors and associates – individuals you see and do things with on a regular basis.

It’s straightforward to report on a proposal by the high school baseball coach to take his team on a spring training trip to warmer climes. It’s more challenging – and I submit more gratifying – to write an editorial that suggests an overemphasis on sports and the need for the school to stick to its core academic mission.

I don’t suggest the editorial won’t generate reaction from readers or prompt some friends to avoid you for a while. As difficult as it is, however, you must focus on the facts despite your closeness to the circumstances or the individuals involved.

I fondly remember my wife – always a staunch supporter of the newspaper’s right and responsibility to weigh in on the editorial page. I’d often use her as a sounding board for ideas and to preview an editorial. She’d also admit, on occasion, that it could be uncomfortable among our circle of friends.

I recall the time we were walking downtown about to cross paths with a local official who we had taken to task in our coverage. I could almost imagine her saying, “Can we turn around?”

But, as I would remind her, the subjects of our editorials ran the gamut. Democrats and Republicans, downtown and strip mall merchants, business and labor leaders, school administrators and coaches – they all received their editorial due. We’d never leave the house if we wanted to shy away from potential confrontations.

She recognized that, too, and was my biggest booster. She admired and respected the fact that we took strong stances on local issues as an institution in the community. She’d suggest ideas, too. As you sit down to write an editorial, keep that at the forefront: Strive for the same admiration and respect from your community, and you’ll have the foundation for a strong editorial.

 

Categories
The language of journalism

Grammar changes can erode meaning

International visitors are often amazed with the number of cereals available in American supermarkets.   Wikipedia lists almost 400 brands – and that’s counting Cheerios, for instance, as one brand, not the 20 different Cheerios varieties you can buy.

Do you really need to be able to choose types of Cheerios that range from oat cluster to apple cinnamon to banana nut to yogurt burst? Probably not, but each brings a little different taste.  We would lose something by doing away with all the different flavors and returning to just plain ol’ Cheerios.  Who’d want to lose all that taste nuance?

But what we wouldn’t do with flavors, we do with language.  The trend now is to level everything out.  Brank Bruni of The New York Times pointed out the latest casualty this week:  who.

Now you hear TV talking heads talking about the Alabama governor that resigned and the passenger that United removed from its flight.  We’ve forgotten the pronoun that acknowledges us as people, as human beings.

Bruni laments this trend in his column, and then offers an explanation that goes far beyond grammar:

How did we get here? Why is “who” on the ropes? One of my theories is that in this hypercasual culture of ours, we’re so petrified of sounding overly fussy that we’ve swerved all the way to overly crass.

And my fear is that there’s a metaphor here: something about the age of automation, about the disappearing line between humans and machines. The robots are coming. Maybe we’re killing off “who” to avoid the pain of having them demand — and get — it.

Whether or not that’s the reason, we are certainly watching our language change. And for those of us who object, we’re labeled with the ultimate pejorative:  prescriptivists.

We evil prescriptivists believe that language standards mean something.  For that, we’re labeled as linguistic purists. Or worse:  old-fashioned, traditionalist, grammar geeks and fuddy-duddies.

And how did we earn this scorn?  By saying that words mean things.  By holding that they is plural and should not refer to a singular noun. By rejecting dangling modifiers as the norm, with no concern for the reader. By standing firm against inserting – or leaving out – commas willy-nilly, disregarding the effect on a sentence’s meaning (it’s the Let’s eat Grandma vs. the Let’s eat, Grandma question).

We criticize the president for his misstatements of fact.  That’s because we believe that presidential statements should accurately reflect reality.  But grammar is not a dilettante’s playground – it’s a verbal representation of reality; when we drop time-honored standards, we’re saying that our language does not need to line up with the reality it represents.

We’d never want just one flavor of Cheerios.  They are different for a reason.  Just like who and that, and they and he or she.

Categories
Community Journalism Credibility

Distrust of national media may affect the credibility of local newspapers

Trust in “the mass media, such as newspapers, TV and radio” in polls taken by the Gallup Organization was at 32 percent last year, the lowest ever – and was significantly lower than the 40 percent recorded in 2015.

Rural newspapers have often presumed that such trends don’t affect them, because they’re in closer touch with smaller communities, where readers know the people at the paper. That is not as safe an assumption as it once was, based on some events, trends and issues we’ve reported lately in The Rural Blog.

For example, a Feb. 5-6 Emerson College poll of registered voters, weighted to reflect turnout in the 2016 election, found them evenly divided about the Trump administration’s truthfulness, but by 53 to 39 percent, they considered the news media untruthful.

The Pew Research Center found in early 2016 that there was little difference in the trust of local and national news outlets. About 22 percent of Americans said they trust local news outlets a lot, and 18 percent said that of national news sources. Recently, rural and community journalists have voiced concern that the attacks on “big media” are hurting “little media,” too.

One is Mark Smith, editor of the Davenport Times in Lincoln County, Washington, just west of Spokane, who was a minister for 14 years. He told columnist Sue Lani Madsen of The Spokesman-Review that the current atmosphere reminds him of the 1980s scandals involving televangelists, which “forced him to defend his profession at a local level,” Madsen wrote, quoting him: “There is the same sense now that if one media source is bad, they all are.”

Madsen wrote, “He believes he’ll weather the fake news and biased-media storm because he’s built relationships in the community to establish trust and credibility. . . . It’s tougher to build trust and credibility, to make that human connection, as the circle gets larger.” You can read the rest of our story on The Rural Blog at http://bit.ly/2nYe9y2.

At the state level, local newspapers still have influence, but in some states the anti-media political atmosphere is threatening them. Tom Larimer, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association, wrote that he believed a rash of bills to limit government transparency was fueled by “anti-media sentiment in Washington, D.C.” Our blog item is at http://bit.ly/2n2n8yS.

 Attacks on traditional news media and the new dominance of sola media have left people in rural areas disconnected from the facts about national issues, the president of the Kentucky Press Association said at a Society of Professional Journalists forum in Lexington Feb. 23.

“You have people who do not trust anything outside of their own bubble, their own county, their own city,” said Ryan Craig, publisher of the Todd County Standard in Elkton, for nine years the state’s top small weekly.

Craig said he occasionally posts national news stories on Facebook and is asked how he knows they are true.

“I have to tell them … ‘You live in this very rural bubble, and the algorithms for Facebook that you keep popping on all the time have pretty well rules out what I consider balanced journalism that comes into your life.’ The only balanced journalism … they may get is a regional or statewide newspaper, or a local newspaper, and maybe something off the Nashville television stations.”

Craig said he hears people say they read his newspaper, President Trump’s Twitter feed and the Facebook pages of their Republican governor and congressman. “They consider that their news source,” he said. “The problem is, nobody’s asking the source if what they’re saying is even so.” The rest of our blog item about the event is at http://bit.ly/2nYf2qu.

Social media limit our exposure to different viewpoints and hurt democracy and journalism, Harvard University law professor and author Cass Sunstein says in his new book, #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. You’ll hear more about the book; you can read our blog item about it at http://bit.ly/2nMhWiG.

Social media’s focus on national news has hurt mid-major newspapers. “There is so much more national and international news available to people, it has changed what people are interested in,” Tom Rosenstiel, director of the American Press Institute, told The Guardian. During the election, “I saw clear and distinct evidence that people were consuming more national news and less local.” We picked up the story at http://bit.ly/2nEEYv4.

In a speech at the University of Kentucky, Rosenstiel said news media need to adjust to the age of social media, but can do so without compromising their principles. The co-author of The Elements of Journalism showed how each element has been affected by the new environment and how journalists and their audiences can adapt. You can read our write-up at http://bit.ly/2nMphPf.

One essential element of journalism is what Rosenstiel and co-author Bill Kovach call “the discipline of verification,” which social media lack. Traditional media can reinforce their journalistic brand and the public trust by explaining that, and showing audience how to spot “fake news” and discern facts from “alternative facts,” Danielle Ray of our staff wrote on The Rural Blog, at http://irjci.blogspot.com. Read her informative blog item at http://bit.ly/2mnohnJ.

If you do or see stories that are relevant across rural areas, please send them to me at [email protected].

 

Categories
Ask an Expert Questions and Answers

The cost of Texas court records

Question: Are courts (criminal/civil/etc) bound by law to charge newspapers for printed copies of court documents? Our district court clerk says everyone–even the media–must pay a $1 per page for any  material printed for us. Is there a way around this?

Answer: Copying costs are set by statute, and they are more expensive for court records than for records of other government agencies.

Section 106.0611 of the Texas Government Code outlines the fees for copies of state district courts. For non-certified copies, the courts may collect “no more than $1” for each “page or part of a page.” (Tex. Gov’t Code Sec. 106.0611(15)).

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/SOTWDocs/GV/htm/GV.101.htm

You can ask the court to waive the fee, but you can also ask to look at the court record and take photos of the page with your phone. That’s free.

The court records fee structure is different than “government agencies” that are subject to the Public Information Act. Under that fee structure, set out in Rule 70.3 of the Administrative Code, standard copy fees are set at 10 cents per page. 

http://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p_dir=&p_rloc=&p_tloc=&p_ploc=&pg=1&p_tac=&ti=1&pt=3&ch=70&rl=3

 

Categories
Ask an Expert Questions and Answers

Fannin is lone Texas county excepted from public notice requirement

Question: On 7-13-16 Austin Lewter published a blog about public notices and the definition of general circulation newspapers, and stated that there was an exception for one Texas county.  I am wondering if that county is Fannin and how that exception was granted.

Answer: Thanks for talking the time with my blog about Newspapers of General Circulation. It is a term we throw around quite a bit, but it is important to break it down to truly understand all the implications.

The short answer is, “yes,” Fannin County is exempt from certain parts of the state mandates for public notices. And, yes, it is the only county in the state with such exemptions. The key is they are only exempt from certain requirements. The reasons are quite interesting.

Fannin County serves as the gateway to the Northeast Texas Piney Woods. Its northernmost border is the Red River and, as such, Oklahoma. It is dissected by U.S. Highways 82 and 69 as well as State Highways 121, 78 and 56, all of which make their ways to Interstates well beyond the county line.

Fannin County shares boundaries with six other counties in all directions. The county population was 38,915 in 2010. Of that, 10,127 people reside in the county seat of Bonham. The county saw its peak population of 51,793 in 1900. In addition to Bonham, Fannin County includes eight other cites, four towns and nine incorporated communities.

Like any other bustling frontier county, Fannin has a storied history of newspapers. According to the Texas Historical Commission, numerous newspapers were started during the early years of the county. The Bonham Sentinel, the first to be published, began in July 1846. The Northern Standard was published in Bonham from a month later until April 1847. Other early papers included the Western Argus (1847), the Bonham Advertiser (1849), the Western Star (1853), the Bonham Independent (1858) and the Bonham Era (1859).

After the Civil War, new newspapers included the Bonham News (1866), Honey Grove Independent (1873), Dodd City Spectator (1886), Bonham Review (1884) and Honey Grove Simoon (1884). The Weekly Fannin Favorite was established in Bonham in 1887. It expanded frequency in 1892 and became the Bonham Daily Favorite. The Daily Favorite is no longer publishing. After more than a century, the Favorite shuttered its doors some time ago.

The closing left a decent-sized town (Bonham) without a Newspaper of General Circulation. There are two weekly paid newspapers left in Fannin County. The Leonard Graphic serves the small town of Leonard in far southern Fannin County with a paid circulation of 710 and the Trenton Tribune serves the even smaller town of Trenton with a paid circulation of 772. Trenton, likewise, is in the extreme southern part of the county and has some property across the line in Grayson County.

The absence of the Favorite led to opportunity for a TMC product already in existence in Bonham called the Fannin County Leader. It is a 32-page tabloid mailed with a circulation of 15,500. It offices in Bonham and has been established for more than 40 years. Unlike, other shoppers, it does contain some news and editorial copy; but (like all shoppers) it is mailed free to readers with a Third Class Mailing Permit. Therefore it has no paid circulation. But it is a 32 page product full of ads and some news that is, by all accounts, heavily read in Fannin County… especially without a paid circulation newspaper in the county seat.

You’ll remember, to be a Newspaper of General Circulation, a paper must:

  1. 1. devote not less than 25 percent of its total column lineage to general interest items;
  2. 2. publish once each week;
  3. 3. enter as second-class postal matter in the county where published; and
  4. 4. have been published regularly and continuously much longer than 12 months.

The 25 percent requirement for general interest items is the difference between a newspaper and not an ad circular. To receive a 2nd Class Postage Permit, you must have at least 25 percent news in your product. Otherwise, you file a 3rd Class Permit and are therefore, by most definitions, a shopper. Third class postage is direct mail sent for free to zoned zip codes as ordered by the publisher. As long as you are covering at least 75 percent of the addresses in a ZIP code, you are considered a “Total Market Coverage” (TMC) product. The Fannin County Leader is a free TMC product, not a paid newspaper. But TMC products are audited as well and one that honestly has a circulation of near 50 percent of the total population of the county is doing something right. On the flip side, though, free TMC products don’t have to play by the same rules as paid newspapers. They can print all ads and no news, if they wish. They are not required to print any news or general interest stories.

After the closing of the Favorite, it became evident that more people in Fannin County were reading the Leader than the Leonard Graphic or the Trenton Tribune. This seems evident, as well, based upon the latter two’s self-reported circulation numbers. In 2003, a young lawyer named Larry Phillips won a special election to represent Fannin County in the Legislature. His predecessor, Ron Clark, had been appointed to a federal judgeship by President George W. Bush.

I know Larry Phillips and once discussed the Fannin County matter with him on a sidewalk bench outside of my office in Whitesboro. He is my state representative as well. Phillips said a group of citizens came to him from Fannin County asking if there was any way they could publish their public notices in the Leader as opposed to either one of the weeklies. “To me, it made sense,” Phillips said. “More people read the Leader so the seemed to reason that public notices should be published there… but, I admit, I was a rookie representative and, beyond that [even though he is an attorney], I had no idea what the legal requirements of a Newspaper of General Circulation really were.”

He soon found out, though. After protests from the Texas Press Association and the two weekly newspapers in Fannin County, the Texas House passed Phillips’ bill reverting public notices in Fannin County back to the Fannin County Leader. To be specific though, the law does not mention any publication by name. It simply exempts Fannin County from the requirement to post notices in a publication with a Second Class Mailing Permit. In another words, Fannin County still must publish all of the same notices as everyone else in the state; the county is just allowed to publish those notices in a free publication as opposed to a paid newspaper. The exemption only applies to Fannin County. Right or wrong, the whole narrative has great implications for the public’s right to know and the government’s requirement to publish. What happens when a county seat does not have a newspaper? I hope it’s not a question other counties have to answer in the future.

Categories
Newspaper management

The importance of an editorial calendar

It’s standard procedure at newspapers to chronicle the year. Headlines typically include the passing of noteworthy individuals; the success, or maybe failure, of a civic project; milestones in sports achievements, election results or key community benchmarks.

Convene a brainstorming session with your newsroom – better yet, with a cross-section of employees from your entire “newspaper family” – and you’ll quickly have a list of noteworthy headlines. You may well be surprised at the scope of stories.

That prompts the question: Are you ready for 2017? All newsrooms should prepare an editorial calendar and review it regularly. Many of the things you cover are the same year in and year out. Use the opportunity to explore new approaches for coverage.

Think across the spectrum of your community. Here are three areas.

Public affairs always demands attention. There are the regular meetings of city councils, county boards and school boards plus the numerous commissions and task forces. Do you preview the important agenda items? Do you go beyond the votes and report the impact of the actions in real and understandable terms? Think beyond the meetings as you examine how to broaden your coverage. The mayor presents a state of the city speech. Government bodies spend weeks, even months, reviewing and adopting budgets. Capital improvement projects are previewed.

Also, brainstorm stories that may warrant special coverage. Has a longtime elected official announced that this will be his or her last term of service? Are single issues dominating a government body? Did the election produce new voting blocs?

Sports present a regular staple of stories: the preview, the rigors of the regular season, the playoffs. Team performance can present challenges and opportunities. How do you keep readers interested if a team suffers through a losing season, possibly not even winning a game? In contrast, what kinds of stories can be pursued if a team is headed for a championship season, maybe even going undefeated?

Also, brainstorm stories that may warrant special coverage. Is an athlete on the verge of achieving a scoring milestone? Might a coach notch a noteworthy victory? Is this the last season for a school in a sports conference due to league realignment?

Civic clubs are the fabric of communities. The number of groups and their range of contributions mean editors are routinely approached with requests for coverage. The “asks” range from the Lions Club annual brat feed fund-raiser to volunteer of the year recognition to a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters. It’s impossible to produce a story and photo for each event. Communicate with organizations early and discuss the two elements of publicity – promotion and actual coverage. An even better idea is to produce a simple set of guidelines that can be distributed to publicity chairs.

Also, brainstorm stories that may warrant special coverage. Is a club celebrating a significant anniversary? Is a local club officer rising through the ranks in the affiliated state or national organization? Is there a special fund-raiser or other project planned that has extra significance to the community?

Planning a calendar can be overwhelming. These are but three areas in your entire range of news. So take a slow approach. Explore and outline your editorial calendar for the tried and true elements of news.

Then identify one new area where you’d like to bolster coverage. Announce it in a column, and set up a process for soliciting feedback from your community. Lay out a plan of action and present it to readers.

Every newsroom is stretched for time and resources as you strive to produce stories that people like to read and stories that people should read. Any additional time you give to planning your calendar is a win-win-win scenario for your newspaper, your readers and your community.

Categories
Localizing the news

Localizing the bathroom bill: Don’t cede talk-topics to Facebook

A Texas editor called to ask for help with localizing the bathroom bill now in the Legislature.  Localization is an issue for all newspapers, so let’s review the technique.

Localization opens a whole new world of content for any community newspaper. It means you are not limited to what’s happening in your community – you can look at how state, national and international events affect your readers.

And they do, you know.  Look at Facebook pages in your town.  Is there more discussion of your mayor or school superintendent … or Donald Trump?  Unless your local pols are involved in a big scandal, more people are probably talking about Trump.

So why cede that topic to Facebook just because it happens outside your city limits?  People care about what’s happening.  They read about it and they talk about it – and it affects them.

So how do you localize an outside-your-community story?

Let’s begin with an issue facing Texas right now – the “bathroom bill” now in the Legislature.  Here’s now to localize that issue, or any other.  Begin with these questions:

What exactly is the issue?  Before you begin reporting or writing, do an internet search.  Read some articles about the bill and what people on all sides have said.  Be sure you fully understand what the bill is calling for. Start by searching for “Texas bathroom bill.” We recommend you search both in Google and in Google News (Google News aggregates news stories on a topic). Also, check out the Texas Legislature Online, where you can track bills.  It’s very user-friendly – find the search box in the middle of the page and type in “bathroom bill.”

The more time you spend reading about issues, the better the questions you can ask.  And often you will see stories that have already done exactly what you are seeking to do – localize the topic.  When you take “Texas bathroom bill” to Google News, for instance, you will see a story about how the bill could cost Austin tourism $109 million.  That’s an example of localization.

How does this affect my community?  If you research the bill, you will probably already have some ideas. An immediate impact will be on schools, public buildings and public universities. Check out the Texas Tribune’s explanation and annotation of the bill to get a better idea of how it may affect your community. Make a list of places that will be affected and begin making calls.

Who can help my readers understand this issue? Look for local experts and activists.  Professors are good explainers – and even if there is no college in your community, there’s one nearby.  In this case, you may call a political science professor.  If you don’t know where to start, call the college’s news service and tell them what you’re working on and ask them to find you a source.  That’s their job and they are happy to get their faculty in the news.

After the explainers, look for the activists – people who have a position on the issue.  Local pastors and religious leaders, members of LGBT organizations, parents of any transgendered students, Democratic or Republican leaders, and the like.

What are the long-term local implications?  On the bathroom bill, we know that there have been threats to remove NCAA and NFL events in the future if the bill passes.  But a Super Bowl or March Madness is probably not coming to your town, so what are the lasting implications for your readers?  Check with schools.  Check with a local convention center or the Chamber of Commerce to see if they think business may be affected. Ask religious leaders how they think the moral fiber of the community will be affected – and don’t just talk with evangelicals about why they condemn the bill.  More liberal mainline churches may say that discriminating against transgendered people may itself ruin the moral fiber of the community.

And of course, don’t forget to talk with local legislators about their position on the bill.

Once you’ve done your localization, keep following the issue.  The fight over the bill may bring up follow stories for future localizations.

When you get into the habit of looking for stories to localize, you will discover that readers really do want to see how the major stories they see on TV affect your local community.

Categories
Newswriting Readability

Four quick fixes any newspaper can use to improve writing

Community newspapers are always looking for ways to improve the reader’s experience.

We’ve improved design and photography and even experimented with larger point sizes and more readable fonts (And somewhere, Ed Henninger is smiling). But nothing improves the reader experience more than readable writing.

Some editors just glaze over when they start thinking about making writing more readable. Just too challenging a task, they assume.

But maybe not.

Let’s say you were getting your house ready for sale. Now in an ideal world you’d bring in Chip and Joanna Gaines and give them $30,000 to work with. Chip would knock out some walls and Joanna would line your den with shiplap. You wouldn’t even recognize the place.

But if you don’t have $30k, you can still make significant changes that’ll help your house sell. Throw out junk or put it in storage. Plant new flowers. Wash down the siding. Paint a few rooms. Steam clean the carpets. For less than $1,000 you can make a real difference in the curb appeal of your home.

And the same goes for your newspaper. Yeah, you really would like to bring in Roy Peter Clark for a week of in-house coaching or send everyone back to take some journalism courses (at TCU, of course). But get real. Nobody in today’s newspaper world has the money for the writing equivalent of a Chip-and-Joanna makeover.

The good news is that there are somethings you can do to improve writing, no matter what your resources or the expertise of your reporters. Now bear in mind, we would all like to do so much more, but here’s a place to begin, something that any newspaper can do, beginning today.

Quick fix #1: Many Texas newspapers are using choke-a-horse paragraphs. Long paragraphs are forbidding to readers. They think the story will be hard-reading before they ever start.

Paragraphs are one of the areas where size really does matter. And smaller is always better. And remember: You were taught in high school that paragraphs are a unit of thought – but in newspapers, they are a unit of typography.

There’s nothing wrong with one-sentence grafs. And can you occasionally throw in a one-word graf in features?

Absolutely.

Depending on your line length, most newspaper grafs should not go over about four lines. And when you’re quoting someone, always start a new, full sentence of quote at the beginning of a new graf.

The best rule is that if you’re uncertain about whether to start a new graf, just do it. Your local English teacher may complain, but your readers will love it.

Quick fix #2: Leads should get to the point. If you are talking to a writer working on a story, tell him or her that he has 30 seconds to tell you what the story is about. Whatever that writer says, should be in the lead.

Often, when we are coaching writers, we look immediately to the words on the screen. Stop trying to work with, edit or improve words. Instead, work with ideas. And frame the 30-second query in different ways:

“Joe Bob, let’s assume somebody read that story you’re working on, and somebody else said, ‘Hey, what’s that about?’ What would he say?” The answer to that question should probably be in the lead.

Sometimes, when we are coaching writers at the university, and they are having a hard time with the story, we’ll just turn off the screen and say, “Stop writing and tell me what the story is about.”

Even veteran reporters begin writing without ever figuring out what the story is about and what the reader needs to know first. That gives you stories that bury the lead. Oh sure, it may be in there someplace, but today’s readers are less and less likely to wade into the swamp to find it.

Quick fix #3: Start sentences with subjects, not clauses or prepositional phrases. After all, that’s the way we talk. Let’s say you see somebody running down the street in your neighborhood, calling out the name of her dog. You ask what’s up. Would she say this: “Having distracted myself with helping my son with his homework and neglecting to shut the gate to the back yard, I missed Fido, called out to him, and discovered that he had escaped out that open gate.”

Or would she more likely say, “My dog got out!”

So why do we back into leads? See quick fix #2 – because we haven’t taken the time to figure out what the story is about. And we end up with something like this:

Although city attorney Billy Bob Beasley and city personnel director Hilda Rae Smith said they could not comment on an incident earlier this week in which a Jonesville police officer was said to have stolen drugs from the police property room, Chief Joe Fred Gonzalez said Monday that the officer was being suspended.

Why not get to the point?

A Jonesville police officer accused of stealing drugs from the department’s property room was suspended Monday by Chief Joe Fred Gonzalez.

Quick fix #4: Start your sentences with subjects. And follow them with a verb. Here’s a New York Times story that backs into the lead and makes it hard to connect the subject and verb:

Asked at a confirmation hearing two weeks ago if he was working with President Trump on a secret plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, smiled broadly and answered: “It’s true that he said that, yes.”

There are 49 words in that lead. The subject of the sentence (Rep. Tom Price) is 26 words in, and you don’t get to the compound verbs until 39 and 42 words in, respectively.

One of the best exercises for writers is to take a story and highlight the subjects in one color and the verbs in another. Then ask: Do the subjects come close to the beginning of sentences? Are the verbs right after the subjects?

These four quick fixes are only the beginning, but some newspapers can get a significant boost in reader-friendliness if they put them into effect.

(This blogpost grades out at the fifth grade reading level. It has an average of less than 8 percent complex words and under 14 words a sentence.)