News-Record.com

What a weird coincidence. I just read the essay last night before going to bed and it's been bugging me all morning.

The entire time I was reading it I couldn't help but wonder if this was a generational thing or if I'm some kind of odd ball. I don't have aspirations of taking on Washington or winning a post in Vienna. I'd go to Iraq or Afghanistan to cover the wars in a heartbeat, however.

My thinking is, the corruption - and its antithesis - going on locally and at the state level have a much greater impact on our daily lives.

I was really surprised by Bunch's comments about how most journalists were bored by school board and city council meetings. That's political drama at its rawest, I think.

But I noticed that Bunch is a couple decades older than me and wondered if my differing opinions show a sea change between the generations.

I also read the essays by Ken Armstrong (The Seattle Times) and Brett Blackledge (The Birmingham News) about local investigative work. I have to say, I took offense to Blackledge's comments about small papers not having the "political cover" to do his piece on community college corruption.

Alright, done dorking out now.

Were I in journalism (and living in Greensboro) I would want to work at The Rhino - they seem to have some lead in their pencil and some bite in their bark -

John,

I couldn't agree more. Having spent my life in community newspapers (and never aspiring to the big boys), I've known very few journalists who were interested in The NYT or The Post. They enjoy local news reporting. They enjoy journalism that has an impact. And they enjoy an atmosphere that can be more supportive than the cutthroat environments they see and hear about at the giant national papers.

Bunch's comments are typical of the journalists who cannot recognize that good journalism exists outside Washington or New York.

And you're right about the Pulitzers. Leave 'em alone. We need to reinforce the good, local newsroom cultures we already have in place.

Steve Smith
Editor
The Spokesman-Review

This isn't an either/or issue. It's not necessarily the hyperlocal vs. the national or foreign posting.

After half a career in newspapers and half a career teaching, I've come to realize that there are different motivations for entering (and continuing in) newspaper journalism. I think it's made the industry stronger. Some people want to work in local news and community journalism forever. They become invested in their communities and feel they can do some good there. The Northwest, where I now live, is full of folks like that. That's great.

Others want to have the option of moving to larger papers (not necessarily the Times or the Post) and play in a different league, take on different challenges. I worked at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the '80s after working at a much-smaller paper. I enjoyed both stints. The Inquirer saw a steady stream of journalists looking for new opportunities because of the possibility, not the guarantee, that they would get a shot at something different. It could be long-form journalism--whether investigative, explanatory or narrative story telling (often about local issues, sometimes not) or perhaps one of the dozen national or international beats. The Inquirer gained a lot of recognition in the industry for this type of coverage (which certainly didn't hurt recruitment). But The Inquirer and other great (big) local papers, including the Daily News, have gotten battered badly in the last several years, and many of those opportunities to do something different have diminished along with the jobs.

I read Will Bunch's commentary as warning that if the industry loses the ability to motivate those folks who don't want to spend their entire career in community journalism, it could hurt in the long run. I think it's a serious problem too.

John Russial
University of Oregon

Thanks, Brian, Steven and John. I don't disagree with Will's point about motivation, but I think he misrepresents the thinking of an awful lot of journalists, and, in an off-hand way, disrespects them, although I don't believe he intended to.

I suppose lots of people are motivated by the possibility of winning a Pulitzer Prize. I'd like to retire with one myself. But that prospect isn't what makes me hop out of bed each day, raring to go to work. For me, it is more like working with cool people, doing a job that makes a difference and having fun with all the challenges of it. Oh, the paycheck helps, too.

Hi John,
Well, some of us did go on to work for The Great Gray Lady -- and then couldn't escape journalism fast enough as a result. So, hey!

I stumbled on your blog today because, out of the blue, I wondered, "What ever happened to Juan Santos?" I liked and admired him so much, and learned a great deal from him back then. It broke my heart to read that he had passed, only recently and too young, and I never had the chance to reconnect. I should done so a year ago. So now, I'm saying hello to you.

Peace,
Kim

I've been covering local government for all six years of my career. I, too, have an interest in what Bunch terms newspaper reform. But I think his essay betrays a common attitude among reporters that is problematic: Sometimes they think the newspaper is there to give them fun things to do. Well, it's a business, and as some are painfully learning, it is subject to the same laws of supply and demand that every other business must yield to. Given the choice between covering a pivotal, history-making world event and the City Council vote on teacher pay, most of us would choose the former. But we all have to realize that our specific jobs must provide a specific service (really, a product) that the public can use to be worthy of a budget line-item at a for-profit business. As a local government reporter, I do think that the IMMEDIATE reactions I get from readers to my stories, even the ones I think are hum-drum, are an incentive to keep doing my job well, and to get better at it. If you don't get that, you are probably in journalism more to serve yourself than to serve others.

John,

I agree: "more money, more resources and making sure they can make a difference" will make all the difference in the world.

In my own experience, Bunch's column spoke to my own ambitions as a young journalist. My ambitions haven't really changed but life, as it typically does, happens and courses get altered--even beyond our own understanding or desire at the moment.

My point is that newspapers have to recognize the creative longing of their reporters. They need to feed it, cultivate it and respect it.

And while newspapers are businesses, the last thing we need are reporters who feel like they are stuck in dead-end jobs. As Freehling notes, and I readily agree, reporters need to see themselves providing a valuable service to the community but no one--no matter how altruistic they claim to be--wants to feel like they are being taken advantage of or their talents--those interests outside of covering city hall--aren't being utilized to make the newspaper, the product we know and love, better for all concerned.

Thanks for the discussion,
Richard Thompson
Mediaverse