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?  

Give The People What They Want?

Ben Clos
bc494010@ohio.edu

Quality Over Ratings

A part of being a journalist is being ethical and delivering news that the people need to know. Another part of news is giving people information that they want to know. Then there is the part of journalism that focuses on what is going to get the most viewers. There seems to be a trend with the news giving people news that they are going to be interested in, rather than things that they should be learning about. Lately a topic of high discussion on national news is the heated debate of a little country called Syria. While many top news stations are taking a larger portion out of their day to discuss the U.S. government's involvement in Syria and other topics, many local news stations take a short 90-second segment to discuss the new situation and move on to stories about local fires and car crashes. A good question to ask is: Should local news stations give people more of what they should know or more of what they want to know?

Business is Business

Unfortunately in today's world, even the news is a business. Broadcast stations have to give people information on local news like car accidents, house fires, the weather and city council meetings. Without keeping lots of local information in local news segments, people would become disinterested and the networks would lose viewers. While people may be interested in hearing about Syria and the possible global impact that it could have, people are going to be more interested on a local news story about robberies in their area because it hits closer to home. But is this better for people? Global issues have a large impact on lives at home even though the issues could be thousands of miles away in foreign countries. This is where journalists face ethics. Should you go for the ratings or go for what the people need to know?

Good Journalism is Good Business

This is where local journalists could be missing a huge opportunity. There is a way to show people more of the harder hitting stories across the globe and keep the ratings that they need. This quote above means that when you have good journalism then it will become good business. Part of being a good, ethical journalist is to make a story relatable. If a journalist on a local news station tells about the situation in Syria and how this can affect average, everyday Americans, people are going to be a lot more interested: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102836/No-Such-Thing-as-Foreign-Anymore.aspx 

Hit Hard, Take Time, Prove Ethics

I think the bottom line is to take the time to figure out how the larger global stories are going to relate to the people of smaller towns. News needs to steer away from getting the most traffic as the top priority. The top priority is getting out the best journalism possible. Thinking of the quote, "If you build it, they will come" is another way of thinking about it. If you put out high impact and relatable stories, then people are going to continue to follow the news source because of its quality. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/magazine/15onlanguage.html?_r=0

Diversity in Journalism: A Conscious Effort

Lindsay Shirk

LH102407@ohio.edu

Diversity in Journalism: A Conscious Effort

Diversity and specifically the issue of race has and still is a controversial issue. We are constantly encouraged to embrace diversity in our workplaces, news stories, personal lives and more. We are also constantly reminded not to fall into the habit of racial and ethnic stereotypes that tend to come along with the conversation of diversity.

In the basic principles of journalism and spelled out clearly in the SPJ's Codes of Ethics, we are told to tell the stories of all the diverse and varying people in our world. SPJ says journalists should "Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly." Of course many think this is an easy task. But realistically, journalists fall into the habit of using sources, interviewees, and subjects that are "safe" and maybe less controversial. Some may not make an effort to use people of other races, cultures and ethnicities because they feel those people may not be as "appealing" to a wider audience. These practices are examples of falling into the negative habits that set foundation for race issues, prejudice and believing racial/ethnic stereotypes. I would like to address to two points on diversity after recognizing the importance of of this issue in journalism.

Diversity in the Subjects of our News Stories

It's very important to diversify the subjects of the news stories we are producing in the newsrooms, PR office or advertising agency we are working for. Subjects could be topics, featured people, interviewees and much more. Stacy Owen of KCRN-TV in San Francisco says "Covering diversity is like covering your neighborhood." We should strive to make the news representative of all the people living in our neighborhood, city or world.

Writing about other cultures, ethnicities and races not your own can broaden not only your own viewpoint, but can influence and broaden that of your readers. This may in turn make your story all the more appealing, interesting and creative. In Tim Porter's blog, he shines light on this point and says:

"Race is an uncomfortable subject and at times I, as a editor and as a person, felt discomfort being reminded of my own limited perceptions, but it challenged me and forced my way of thinking, that of my peers and that of those minority journalists to undergo scrutiny and debate. From that consideration came better decisions and, at times, better journalism."

Sharon O'Malley, in the reading "Covering Diversity," explains that we should look to people of minorities or diverse backgrounds more than when the topic at hand is specified towards their background. I agree that in making an effort to represent the diverse people that we live with, we should make a conscious effort to include all types of people in the everyday conversations and stories we are producing.

Diversity & Stereotypes

As we try to include diversity into our news stories, we need to be aware of stereotypes. Going off of what Martin Gilens wrote about in "Poor People in the News," the following could be topics of stereotyped stories:

Blacks--criminal, the poor

Whites-- govt officials, businessman

Hispanic--immigration, poverty

We need to keep ourselves aware of stereotypes because our audiences are typically broad and include varying people. We wouldn't be representing our diverse audience if all of our stories fell victim to racial or ethnic stereotypes.

This is true not only in news stories but in advertising as well. Duncan Hines found themselves using racial stereotypes in their advertising for one of their products. They depicted cupcakes in blackface and deemed them "hip hop cupcakes." This offended many viewers and Duncan Hines pulled the video.

When are Minorities, no Longer Minorities?

Melissa Pennington
mp215308@ohio.edu
It’s been roughly a half century since the Civil Rights Movement and the United States and its media are still struggling to include and relate to diverse or minority populations. At what point will we all agree that minorities are no longer minorities at all? What is the deciding factor that will prove to the US that discrimination is no longer an issue? Is this goal even possible?

It is the journalist’s responsibility to inform the public—which necessarily means that not every citizen is a journalist (because there would be few or none left to inform). That said, the journalist-to-individual ratio places a large responsibility on the journalist to report the news in a way that includes as many people as possible in the most diverse way he or she can. Does this require that minorities be left out simply because they, by definition, do not represent the majority perspective?

More importantly, should the news have a perspective?

Yes, because if news is not relevant or mildly interesting, it has little value to its audience. As many people as possible deserve to be adequately represented and heard in the news.

What if we have a false idea of who the majority is? In “Making the Business Case for Diversity,” the author cites a statistic stating that Blacks and Hispanics are more regular television viewers than whites, often considering a gathering around the television family entertainment. Still, a relatively recent article in from the Huffington Post reports that the ASNE has been noticing a decline in minority newsroom journalists from an already disappointingly low percentage.

Integrating more minority participants and journalists could only further a journalist’s goal of informing the public. Diverse ideas, perspectives and knowledge are necessary to keep anything from newspapers to tabloids alive.

Some organizations, such as New American Media, focus their efforts toward a goal of multiculturalism and diversity, hoping to gradually increase the levels of minority participation and content creation. Univerisities and classrooms have begun to study the different ways that different cultures and ethnicities interact with their news. Below is a video clip from a class at the University of Kentucky. In this class, the professor has her students research which minorities or groups tend to use social media platforms as news media and why.