Community reporting — its purpose and impact (JOUR 375)

Any community wants their community journalists to care about and report on what matters to the people in the area. If a journalist fails to do this, they immediately lose the interest of their audience.

According to extensive research conducted by the Pew Research Center, every community care about what is said in their local news. During the journalism conference held in New Orleans, Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research at the Pew Research Center, detailed many points on how news effects a community and what areas of news the vast majority of communities find important.

Within the research, Mitchell said confidently that most people get their news from television, for even the news online plays a major role in media intake, most people still look to their TV for current news coverage. To the surprise of many, the transition into the digital platform is not happening as quickly for television and radio said Mitchell. Although this transition seems to be slow, the switch into online news platforms is projected to take over completely soon.

Emily Brown, Liberty alumni and sports reporter for the News and Advance, came to class and emphasized the importance of journalists being in touch with their community. Brown previously covered the Nelson county beat, covering news and events for that area. Because of her experience in community reporting, Brown shared valuable advice to the class on how to best conduct community reporting.

One of Brown’ strongly encouraged us to make connections and sources within the area you are working, stating that valuable local sources always play in your favor. She gave many examples where this advice deemed true, for she would have sources reach out to her informing her with valuable, story-worthy information.

“Know what is important to people in your community,” Brown said.

Brown also touched on larger stories in her professional portfolio, encouraging students to not shy away from the bigger stories that might take a long time to put together and write. The courthouse story example stood out to me as a piece that turned into a challenging angle. Brown made us think about what angle would be best to tackle this story — historical, legal, emotional.

I made the point to ask Brown how she organized all of her notes, interview transcriptions, emails and research before she began writing these larger stories, for gathering everything together can be the most daunting part when faced with a large story. Brown said she laid out all of her information and spent all day making a large outline with all the important points she wanted to make and crucial information that needed to be included. She also placed quotes within the outline, so when it came time to write the piece, she inserted those quotes where they flowed the best.

One way I would connect my local media organization with the community would to have several writers plugged into different facets of the community to ensure every group in the community is heard and covered. We need people to have their ears listening in many different places so the media has diversity in their reporting. I would also drive the point that the local media is serving the community and should have complete access to them to share what is happening.

Any great journalist must first be a great listener to the people around them — then curiosity will follow through with stories.