Everyone’s 15 Minutes: Local News

Meg Omecene

@megomecene

Everyone’s 15 Minutes: Local News

Like clockwork, the week before a play opened at my high school, there would be a buzz in the auditorium. Bethany was inside. Had she brought a photographer? 

Bethany was not some reporter from People Magazine or US Weekly. No, of course not. Rather, she was the local from the Pine-Creek Journal, there to create a hard-hitting piece about whatever was the unique quality of this season’s production.

The following Wednesday, some lucky junior or senior would grace the cover of the Pine-Creek Journal. His or her face, caked in makeup and marred by a microphone, would smile at the entire community for the ensuing week. From Panera to the gym to the library, everyone knew the star of the cover.

Of course, the thrill of the high school thespians is just one aspect of local journalism, and I feel like I know this niche well.

Photos like the above appear frequently in community journalism- and these students had a thrill to see their face in print. (Photo courtesy Pine-Creek Journalism)

I think that the “Hyperlocal Heroes” has a bias that discredits it. The person who wrote the piece seemed to have an overly critical view of small-town journalism, but I think that is flawed.

He says that the stories are good if you need to talk about something at dinner, but what is wrong with that? In a small community (and therefore small market), people generally genuinely care more about their neighbors.  

While a story about a senior’s Eagle Scout project is probably not the most exciting thing to write about, the people or the community that the project services do care to hear about it. They want to know about those around them; why not choose to write about it?

However, sometimes I do not think that Miss Bethany The Reporter was always a true journalist. 

Sometimes, I think that people who write local news behave more as public relations personnel than as reporters. While an Eagle Scout project would have a large article about it, showcasing how great the students of my community are, it was not as if the community was lily-white and sinless.

When the athletic director at my school was charged with a repeat DUI offense, there was not a word printed in the paper. When the class president blew a .25 on a breathalizer at a party, that was passed over. When there was outrage over the athletics department receiving money that had been intended for academic use, there was no story.

Although those events are all newsworthy -- especially for a small market -- they would never be written about in the paper. Our local news acted purely as something that could be shown to people considering moving to the area. “Look how great we are here!” The paper cannot afford to lose the support of the community by exposing less-than perfect aspects of the community. 

I think I would have a really hard time acting as a small-town journalist. It would be so hard to set aside loyalties to show what is really going on in a community -- as dirty as it can be. Public relations is where my strengths lie.

Going the Distance for Diversity

Meredith McNelis

mm132010@ohio.edu

We have become all too comfortable with taking the easy way out. In a place where libraries were the main source of knowledge, Google now reigns supreme. Journalists should not cover what is convenient to them; they should cover what is suitable for their audience. Diversity is lacking from many news outlets because many are taking the easy way out. They have to get up from their desks, step away from their computer screens and dive into reality. They must step back and include everyone in their community and audience.

Step Outside the Box

Most of the time, when students are assigned with a research project that involves interviewing fellow students, they turn directly to their neighbor that lives down the hall or a friend. In doing so, their friends may not answer the questions in an appropriate manner. They might just answer them in a way that they know the interview wants to hear. This creates a sort of bias in the reporting. Going to an outside source or someone you do not know as well, allows the interviewer to gain a different perspective. If the interviewee does not know them that well, it allows them to be more candid with their answers.

This creates a sort of lazy foundation that could be carried on to an aspiring journalist in the professional world. While it does not seem as big of a deal from a high school or college perspective, continuing on this sentiment in a newsroom is detrimental.  For example, how can a community, or even the nation, gain a solid insight to an election if they only have a select demographic reporting and gathering information on it? The infographic below displays just this problem.

The Atlantic

Most newsrooms that lack diversity, lack diverse reporting. Because of this, news stations may internalize worldwide issues and only report on them from their own perspectives. Why is this so? Because it is convenient. If a newsroom is run by predominantly Whites, their reporting directly reflects that because they often do not seek views outside their own. It is easy to report what you personally believe in and to interview people with similar view as your own, but it takes a determined and principled journalist to seek out other conflicting viewpoints. It should be second nature to do so, but for many it takes a conscious decision to step outside of the box.

Community Journalism as a Model for Success

Perhaps, major news stations should take a step back and look at community journalism. Yes, they do cover a smaller portion of the United States but what they do cover is all-inclusive. Smaller news publications and newsrooms look at their community under a microscope; they see everything that goes on, are involved in everything that goes on and feel that everything that goes on is important, vital information. The Tampa radio station WMNF does a great job in including their community in their news stories. They take people directly from their community and allow them to host shows about all different races, demographics and ethnicities. This creates such rich diversity in their broadcasts because they are allowing novice reporters to come in and talk on a more personal level.      

To report on an all inclusive, unbiased nature, journalists must create further diversity in their news coverage. Whether it is making a conscious decision to put personal ideals aside and incorporate a diverse range of information or including people directly from your community, diversity must be present. Without it, how can people paint a clear picture of the differences in a society?