Newscoma

We are changing in news. The bottom line has always been the same though. It comes down to money. There are some of us who still like putting on the symbolic invisible fedora and talking to the people over a coffee or a beer about what they think is important. I take it back, news hasn’t changed really. News is about emotion and passion. It’s about being informed. In many ways, it’s about life.

If you follow me on Twitter, I put an A.P.B. out today looking for new employment. Mine is shaky at the moment and that’s why I’ve been on edge even here at this blog for several months now. I don’t know where I’m headed but I have come to the conclusion that I can’t sacrifice my health and my spirit anymore. Salaries, including mine, have been cut to the point that when your quality of life is in jeopardy, you have to know when to move on. As I’ve said before, my ideas have been dismissed. I guess that’s why I blog.

And I read this post this morning and I have to tell you, I cried. Cried like a baby. Tears rolled down my cheeks mainly for the reason that I knew for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t alone. Howard Weaver hit so many things on the head that I can’t even begin to give his lovely post justice.

There’s no denying we have been gravely wounded by the end of our industry’s monopoly advantages, and those wounds are deeper still on account of the devastating condition of the national economy today. I certainly have not always reacted correctly or with due speed to the nature of the changes, and our whole industry has – to varying degrees – been overtaken by the speed and scope of changing consumer habits; we need to move faster in reshaping some of what we do.

And while it’s true that ensuring our future requires sophisticated selling, steadfast, adaptive management and steely resolve, the future is really all about the newsrooms.
Nothing else we do as a company means much if we fail to sustain our public service journalism. The McClatchy family has not persevered into the seventh generation in order to publish successful brides magazines, or websites with comprehensive nightclub listings. We labor not to ensure we can create new blogs for pet owners, or rich vertical online sites devoted to vacation properties. All of these and much more are essential, of course, because public service journalism is an expensive proposition, but we must not take for granted the capacity or elasticity of our newsrooms.

Let me close and say farewell in gratitude.

You see, you really can’t have news without your newsroom. You can’t overtax your reporters to where they hate coming to work. That one line: ” … we must not take for granted the capacity or elasticity of our newsrooms.”

My job search has gone public today although it’s been going on for several months. Resumes have been put online. I do not know what the future holds for me but I also am going to walk into the fear of the unknown. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to plow through it like I do everything else. I don’t know if it will be in news. I also know that it most likely won’t be in Hoots, which is also sad.

Farewell Howard. You aren’t alone.

This was sent to me and I have to say, it’s really refreshing seeing news organizations making the required adjustments in how the present the news.

With that said, I also want to add that the largest challenge for some, not all, independently-owned newspapers has been that they focus on cutting staff instead of allowing the folks on staff who are “internet evangelists” to be taken seriously, which is a huge mistake.

Has that been a challenge for the smaller papers?

Carroll: We have 40 smaller newspapers that are part of our Digital Production Center Network, which means we handle their production for them so they can operate 24/7 websites and can turn around the content. Our test site for moving to a continous news operation was in Wilmington, Del. When we launched and they restructured their operation to do that, in the first month they had an increase of 2 million page views. So we realized that a news site needs to be a news site and be constantly updated.

We had to adjust some staffing and got really good at rapid fire updates. It’s a news wire or AP model, and we had to realize that a fender bender is just as important as a five-car crash. The larger papers have the production staff to do their own websites and the smaller papers do not. They are still in charge of doing their content, but we just do the production for them.

The article focuses on niche publications and how to engage the community to be a part of the online operation.

The independently owned newspapers who will allow themselves to not consistently think about their deadwood product (which in all honesty is still the money maker) and readjust their efforts on creating a balance will get through the newspaper crisis.

News is news for journalists. Whether it’s on paper or online, it still doesn’t change and that’s what journalists need to remember who don’t have the access to forward thinking of publishers and owners who have put their head in the sand.

In the midst of sounding like the navel-gazing blogger that I can be at times, today I want to talk about small town newspapers. There are things that I notice that some people don’t understand unless they live in rural America.

Everyone knows everyone else here. This county has roughly 31,000 inhabitants and that includes a branch of the University of Tennessee. Any time anyone has an issue, the whole community knows. There are five incorporated towns here. At one period of time, unincorporated communities had there own schools which numbered about two dozen if memory serves me right. Now, there are four and in the early 90s for one solid year I covered a bitter battle regarding the consolidation of six schools into two. Four was the compromise but that small fact alone reinvented the political landscape here. The County Mayor’s office (which used to be County Executive) was depowered to a large degree. This story means nothing to anyone except the people that live here.

When a prominent person is arrested, everyone knows but they still talk to him/her in the post office. When there is a scandal with a local leaders, it’s someone everyone knows.

For people in the local news business, we work with these folks all the time. And, due to the nature of small towns, we work with folks that sometime get in trouble. There isn’t time, staffing or money to recuse ourselves from covering the story. Several months ago, I covered the arrest, trial and plea of a man who was one of my mother’s best friends from high school. I looked him in the face and although he didn’t want me to put his mug shot on the front page, I did, because I wasn’t going to treat him any differently than anyone else. Recently there has been some local bickering amongst local leaders. The two men involved are people I’ve worked with in the area for years. I looked them both in the eyes before it ran. No one sees a story before it runs

There is a huge difference between working with a staff of, let’s say, 15 reporters with different beats and working in an environment that has three writers including the sports department. There is no Associated Press to use, no wire whatsoever. It’s a small paper but it is also the only source of localized news that the community has.

We have a job to do and we do it. I have gotten some hate mail that would curl your toes and on a few occasions, have had to contact law enforcement to make sure my staff, and myself, would be safe coming into our offices on a few occasions. When I’m not covering news, which I don’t do as much anymore now that I’m in management, I’m dealing with a budget, maintenance of the building, working with IT people as new media becomes more prominent or even playing arm-chair architect recently when the awning on the building started to collapse. The paper is in an old bank and is roughly 60 years old. There are basic and expected housekeeping things that must be done. When I’m not at the paper, I talk to people and I listen. It is more than satisfying. Last night I heard an old-timer talking about the hat on his head, which I teased him that I would give him $5 for. He related the tale about how Fats Everett had given it to him 40 years ago and he wouldn’t take $5000 for it. Then I heard the tale about his friendship with the legendary politician from Obion County who died when I was four years old.

It was a great story.

I’m affectionate toward this life I have. I find that many people don’t understand the dynamics of rural living. There are stereotypes everywhere. Seriously, it is everywhere.

And here is my Sunday morning offering into a glimpse of a world you wouldn’t possibly know anything about other than the stereotypes. Diversity goes in many directions.

I even wear shoes. I know, shocking.

Dan and I have similar experiences about the newspaper business. His candid advice is priceless in this post about five lessons about newspaper contests. His post goes into detail about these contests that we as journalists know about and have all entered. Dan says he’s done with them.

True innovation will never win awards, because there’s no contest category for something that nobody else is doing. And if you foster a culture in which awards lead to promotions and financial rewards, then asking your talented people to invest themselves in anything new is going to look like a bad deal.

And, if you were wondering, Dan got a Journalist of the Year award a couple of years back in South Carolina. He knows of what he speaks. Dan, I didn’t enter anything this year. I was too busy trying to figure out how to edit video, social media networking services and getting some sleep.

The best award I ever won was for Volunteer of the Year through the Tennessee Association of Community Action Agencies. I must say, it’s one of my favorite things ever. It had nothing to do with the day job, and for some reason that pleased me. I didn’t know I had been nominated. It was more than groovy and I was so honored I think I bawled.

Yeah, I’m a big baby although I bawled at home. Shut up.

Tabloid Boy talks about the recent story out of Knoxville about the marital issues of Knox County Mayor Mike and Claudia Ragsdale.

The news that Claudia Ragsdale filed for divorce earlier today citing “inappropriate marital conduct” did not come as a surprise. Every journalist in this town has been sitting on this “developing story” for months. In the case of our newspaper, we had what could only be termed unimpeachable testimony weeks ago from a source close to Mrs. Ragsdale who confirmed the growing chorus of rumors. Despite this, our publisher chose not to print what we knew.

I believe that was the right decision, but this story raises some interesting ethical questions for journalists.

I’m different I guess. I work at a very small newspaper. I don’t see any real reason to print these kind of stories but then again, newspapers are a business and a private business at that which follows the conversation of communities. What sells newspapers? Well, to be old school and state the obvious, “If it bleeds it leads.” Sad but true. Ask anyone in the news biz, the public record pages are highly read. And newspapers are about what a community is talking about, so you have to take that into consideration.

With that said, I wouldn’t have run it either UNLESS there was some sort of issue that concerns the public such as Larry Craig’s wide-stance story (he battered the GLBT community and then plead guilty to bathroom shenanigans) or Eliot Spitzer, who is being investigated for using tax-payers monies for his own sexual ego.

I’ve been reading about the Ragsdales. People get divorced all the time. I agree with Rich Hailey on this one.

With all of that said, I wouldn’t have run the story but once the official documentation comes in, then that does change things. A recent story we had on a lawyer, who plead guilty mind you, to embezzling millions of dollars had rumors flying for months but we didn’t run it until the official paperwork was filed. I took a hammering on it but it was news because this man was well-liked. Hell, I liked him. There is a line between these things but I also trust that more is going to be revealed. In a world of transparency, Ragsdale, and other politicians and community leaders, are being watched.

I feel like there is probably more out there although I don’t have proof of it.

From what I’ve read in the contents at Knoxviews, Ragsdale isn’t the most well-liked camper. I don’t know. I’m six hours away.

Watch and see, campers. Watch and see.

With that said, I wonder what CNN is reporting about Britney Spears today.

We live in a new world order.

Demarcationville gets it. Some of the things I’ve been talking about for the last five years, she has managed to put in one post.

And if news sites and blogs aren’t real news, what are they then? Speculation? Pretend? The Dark Side? A passing fancy? Holy shit, someone should alert all major markets because most have invested loads of money in developing a user-friendly, multi-media formats.

They obviously have no clue this is all an illusion!

Can I just say I find this attitude incredibly frustrating? I am losing my ability to feel sympathetic here.

These changes in the market were NOT sudden. This wasn’t something unforeseen or unpredictable. The consumer shift from traditional media to online outlets has been occurring gradually for years now.

We’ve talked about this many, many times.

I’ve pulled my Paul Revere of the Press: “The Internet is Coming. The Internet is coming. We must develop a plan!”

The standard reply has been: (scoff) “We are a reputable newspaper. We are not in the business (shudder, snort) of running a website. That is not what we do. That is not our primary focus.”

Well, la-di-da.

And how is that working out for ya? Since online news is no longer popular as much as it is commonplace – have we arrived at a point yet where we accept newspapers either get with the program(ing) or try not to let the door hit em in their reputable asses on the way out?

I’ve been preaching this for years. For YEARS. I recently did an informal study of the local college in the area and there were more kids on Facebook and MySpace then I could keep count of. That, my friends, is the generation that will be buying advertising in five to ten years.

When folks have video on their cell phone and $100 cameras, anyone can break a story. It’s not a fly-by-night thing, it the way of the world now.

But alas, one can only be a preacher for so long without a local congregation.

Change is hard. Some of us know, however, and if/when it hits the pocketbook, then I think we will start seeing proactive maneuvering. Old School still clashes with the realities of technology and communication tools changing daily.

It’s not a new school, it’s just the way that it is.

Here’s the thing, it can’t be just done in a reporter’s spare time now or a secretary uploading content. Positions in the newsroom are evolving. I shoot video now but I’m having to train myself how to edit just like I did when radio through out the vinyl and reel-to-reels. I’ve destroyed a ton of content during the learning process but I’m trying to learn it nonetheless. It has to be it’s own entity. Larger newspapers know this. Smaller newspapers will have to recognize it soon and some of them are.

I’m 42 years old and I’ve seen a ton of changes in the past 24 years. Ever use wax and paste. I have. Even know what that is other than something spoke of fondly in Journalism 101 classes? Angela and John do.

Angela also says this which I agree with. Her post was incredible and you need to go read it all and she makes a good point here.

I believe there’s a way for the markets to not only coexist – but complement each other. In fact, I think they must.

I don’t think newspapers are dead by a long shot. But I do think they are going to have to quit living in denial. Als0, Put Demarcationville in your RSS feeds immediately.

Here is an example of how fast news spreads. Yesterday, Killa told me of a lockdown due to a bomb threat at MTSU that she had heard about on her RSS. I put it on Twitter, Rachel Walden at Women’s Health News sent me a link to a message alert she had and within fifteen minutes, Christian Grantham picked it up and was making phone calls about it. Lissa Kay also talked to us from East Tennessee about it on Twitter. Here is the story at WKRN.

Newspapers, this is the new world of communication and how news is evolving.

Ferris Bueller