Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and several years ago my colleague at the Herald News Heather Appel and I worked together on a package about his visit to Paterson days before he died. The package was for the 40th anniversary of King’s death and included Heather’s story on his visit and a video I shot and edited with one of the people influential in bringing King to Paterson. It was a rewarding experience getting to meet and listen to one of the people who helped bring King to Paterson. It’s living history to me.

After I left my position at the Herald News, though, there were lots of website changes. I thought my video was lost forever. I didn’t burn a copy of it for myself (I still kick myself). Today, though, Heather posted the YouTube version of the video on Facebook. I was amazed to see the video was still out there.

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More on fixing local news

John Robinson wrote a response today about the responses to his original post about fixing local news. I came across the original post via Steve Buttry’s post and wrote my own response about listening to the community.

And John’s post also talks about listening to the community.

Talk with people in the community. They’re the ones who you are trying to serve. Don’t survey them. We have enough surveys. Talk to them about what they need and how you can serve them. When was the last time you — a newsroom journalist — asked someone what you could do for them? Not a source. Not a relative. But a regular person who might or might not bother to read your prose. If you haven’t, how will you know if what you’re doing is what is helping them?

Make sure you read his entire post. It’s a good read.

Perhaps 2013 for journalists, especially those on the local beat, is the year we devote to listening.

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How to change local news? Listen to your community

I read Steve Buttry’s blog post today on what beats local news should cover with great interest, mainly since local news has always been my biggest passion. One of the reasons I’m so passionate about local news is because I find it to be the best way in journalism to help people, something I’ve always worked to do. And you’re not going to help people unless you listen to them and what their important issues are.

It pains me to see that so many local journalists don’t really listen to what their communities want, what issues are most important to them. Certainly there are things that we should always cover, but, as Steve points out, perhaps we should rethink how we do it.

But listening to your community isn’t just about talking to your sources or even talking to people at meetings. The people who are at those meetings have agendas and I’ve always believed to never fully trust a politician, even a local politician. They have to earn your trust, but at the same time you always need to check out what they’re saying.

Listening to your community is meaning you need to be in the community, talking to people. Go where those people are. Let them know where you are. But also eavesdrop, something we all need to be good at in journalism. Read comments on articles, and really read them. Don’t be dismissive of questions or comments and be open-minded. Be involved by asking your own questions of your audience and people in the community. Ask them about what’s the biggest issues on their mind, what they’re most curious about. Use social media, monitoring what people are saying in the community that way too.

And walk around. Always walk around. You see so much more walking around a community than you do driving through it. You’re not going to see much if you parachute into a community, as so many do (and I admit I have done in the past too). I used to be accused of being handed stories in Westport and Millburn-Short Hills, but I never was. I observed a lot and then asked questions. I’m thankful I always received answers rather than “I can’t talk about that.”

But never be dismissive, especially if you think something is “boring.” Traffic issues, including pedestrian problems, have always been a problem in every community I’ve covered. But who wants to write about crosswalks and speed humps and stop signs? But it’s what people care about because it affects their every day life. Think outside the box in how to cover it, too. One of my favorite projects I ever did was a video on what it was like to drive over a speed hump in Millburn-Short Hills. Everyone talked about speed humps both positively and negatively, but it’s another thing to show people what the experience is like.

If one thing is universal in journalism is that everyone hates to cover planning and zoning. Who wants to sit through those meetings? But development issues always are of major interest to people. It’s how their neighborhoods are changing and therefore their lives. It’s beyond NIMBY, and it’s certainly beyond covering those planning and zoning meetings. Knowing how to read an application and break it down and explain it to people is a great skill. I actually always have been interested in covering these issues because I know how important they are, even if it could be boring. Plus covering it enough means you can spot trends — like people designating their homes as “historic” to curb the mcmansion trend, which is something I wrote about in Westport.

As far as meeting coverage, which Steve addresses in his post, I do think you can’t completely escape it. Something always happens at a meeting, and you can’t make up for it if you miss it. I skipped a Board of Finance meeting back in Westport because there was nothing of note on the agenda. Instead, the board decided to discuss school funding matters after the meeting had been adjourned. In other words, no one from me to school officials to parents knew this was happening, which was its own drama in its own right because it violated freedom of information.

There are lots of ways to cover meetings other than your straight stenographer process and giving us the score. What are the issues beyond the meeting? How does the meeting work? Why should people care enough to go to those meetings? Who is at those meetings constantly and why are they there? Is the meeting process broken and how can it be fixed?

I could write so much more about how to better cover local news as someone who has both done it (and I like to say quite successfully — my sites have always been called “the gold standard”) and as someone who consumes it (frustratingly so, since I never know what’s happening in my city). But the key here is to listen. It’s good to have a plan on what to cover, but it’s also good to be flexible and change your plans based on what you see and hear.

Quick update: I realized after I hit publish that there are many news organizations that have established community newsrooms in a variety of forms. I want to applaud those efforts because those kinds of things will help any journalist understand how best to serve their community.

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Montclair mystery: montclair thymes is hyperlocal spoofing at its best

I’m always for a good spoof, and just that has popped up in Montclair, N.J.

If you’re not aware, Montclair is a hotbed for “hyperlocal” (don’t get me started on how I hate that word) news. Baristanet has been there for many, many years (few sites pre-date Baristanet, though I worked at one in Connecticut). Patch also has a site in Montclair. To say there’s lots of competition in the market is to put it mildly.

Enter the montclair thymes. Their website says: “we are bringing the best hyperlocal snooze to you pretties.” Perfect Tumblr form with the all lowercase too.

We’re all having a good laugh about it, including the folks at Baristanet. They want to know who it is. First off, it’s not me! Second off, I want to know who is behind it too because it’s brilliant. They’ve packaged all of the goodness and absurdity that is hyperlocal onto this spoof website. Bravo to them.

But the thymes responded, and I guess we’ll never know who is behind it all. Or will we? Someone’s going to open their mouth sooner or later, right? We are talking about town news here.

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Needing to follow my own writing advice

My comments this morning about the Patch article featuring my graduate adviser and still good friend Rich Hanley has brought yet more encouragement from people to do one thing — write a book. Like I said this morning, I intend one day to write about my experiences at Patch, which would be part of this project.

But I want it to be a bigger piece on local journalism, which I’ve been devoted to most of my career. I’ve worked at a weekly newspaper, daily newspaper and several prominent “hyperlocal” sites (have I mentioned recently I hate that term?). Someone I respect in the industry once told me I have forgotten more about local than most people know because of my work. A book project on local journalism is clearly something I should be doing.

And I’ve been talking about it for awhile, to the point one friend sent this message today when it came up in conversation: “Write the damn book! I would read the shit out of it.” There’s been a lot of cursing in the encouragements today, but isn’t that how we journalists roll?

The problem is the project has never gotten far beyond the “talking about it” and “thinking about it” phase. I’ve tried to outline and figure out my goals and decide who I’d need to talk to. I even started writing one sample chapter at one point. But local journalism has evolved so much in my career and continues to do so. There are so many aspects to it. What exactly do I write about? I can’t seem to collect my thoughts, do a little research and write.

In other words, I am overthinking it.

Like I wrote awhile back, writers need to not think. We need to just write. And I’m not following my own advice. I’m not just writing and getting out the dirty. And I’m not following this great advice I got from one trusted mentor today: “As my old editor used to say, just get the shit on the sheet.”

I need to sit down with this project and write something to figure out my direction. I probably won’t start from the beginning either. But once I do that, perhaps I can figure out a direction and a focus. But as I work through this, and I need to be dedicated to it, I’d love to hear feedback from folks on what exactly they want to read about local journalism. You can post a comment, send me a tweet at @jenconnic or just shoot me an e-mail.

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Finding the right places for your community to see you

There are just some habits I cannot break from my Patch and WestportNow days, including feeling the need to work out of an office and in the community. There’s just something that draws me to coffee shops and other community places to do work. Maybe it’s the noise or maybe it’s the chai or maybe it’s meeting new people. Or maybe it’s running into those familiar faces. But whatever it is, I enjoy it.

When you’re out there and need to be in touch with the community you cover and want to be a part of, you have to pick the right venues to do your work. Notice I said venues because you should never have just one place to visit to do your work. So how do you decide what’s right?

When I worked at Patch, my main hangout was the Starbucks in downtown Millburn. It wasn’t necessarily because I like the chai or knew there was a plug to be had. There were a lot of reasons I liked the Starbucks. A lot of people who worked at Millburn Town Hall visited Starbucks as did many police officers. I regularly ran into parents, principals between meetings downtown and school, business leaders and many others in Starbucks, so it was a bustling place to see (and be seen by) the locals with whom I wanted to connect.

But there was more to it than the people who visited. The downtown Starbucks is at the corner of Millburn Avenue and Main Street, which is the center of town. Even if they weren’t going to Starbucks, many people I wanted to see walked by the shop. Or they drove by. Not to mention firefighters and police officers many times drove through the center of town on a call, and I came to know what type of call they were going to based on what equipment passed and in what direction.

There was one late afternoon the fire trucks came blazing through the middle of town, and I knew without a scanner or a BNN alert there was a fire based on the direction the trucks went (they split at the intersection) and what equipment was going. I packed up, walked out to grab the scanner and go find the fire when the fire chief drove through the center of town. In fact, he waved to me as I waited to cross the street. Seeing the chief headed to the scene confirmed my suspicions.

But, despite what a lot of people thought in Millburn, I would spend time in other spots in town too. The library captured another audience to see, but it also was a sort of hiding in plain sight place. If I needed to do work and not be disturbed with long conversations (which frequently happened in other spots and I enjoyed every moment of them), I headed to the library. People would wave or say hi or ask a quick question, but because it was the library they wanted to be quiet. Plus the quiet rooms were a great spot to conduct interviews, hold meetings with freelancers/staff and get the big work done if needed.

And, of course, there was a need to make sure I was in Short Hills too because not everyone made it downtown every day. Panera was a good spot in the evenings, especially on Board of Education nights. Teachers, principals and other school staff stopped at the Panera before the meeting for dinner. Java’s Brewin’ was a good spot for mornings and lunch to capture the Short Hills crowd too. Plus the muffins there are to die for, as can be attested to by at least one freelancer.

I’d use social media devices like Foursquare and Twitter and Facebook to alert people where I was so they could find me if needed, even to just say hello. But, most often, I didn’t even need to do that. People would just stop by my haunts because they knew I’d be there. I can’t tell you how many times someone popped by Starbucks with a press release or a question just because they figured I’d be there. I even had people leaving things for me with the baristas when I wasn’t there.

The practice of finding the right working venue beckons back to my post about needing to be in the community, not from it. I’m proof someone who doesn’t live in the community (and even many miles away) can cover it properly and know more about it than the people who live there. Obviously the biggest part of being embraced by the community is to cover the stories important to it. But in order to do that, you need to be in the community, spending a lot of time there. And, most importantly, you need for people in the community to see you and be able to talk to you.

A lot of community journalists look at social media as the biggest way to connect with their readers and the community they cover. It is an important tool and should be used for that, but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to be out in town and for people to see you. When people ask if you’re everywhere because they see you wherever they go, you know you’re doing the right things.

Or maybe you will have people taking photos of you and posting them on Twitter and Facebook like I used to. Then you really know the community has embraced you.

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The Tale of the Stolen Bird Bath

“Large Concrete Bird Bath Stolen” popped up in my Twitter feed today, which made me chuckle because it brought me back to being 23 years old and still a fairly new reporter covering Westport, Conn.

I was working an evening shift, so I arrived in the newsroom in the afternoon to news of an interesting police blotter item — someone stole a 2-ton marble bird bath from one of the private schools in town. I don’t remember if it really weighed that much, but that’s what I was told when I walked in the newsroom. How the hell does someone steal a bird bath that large? It’s why it was a story of interest.

The problem was, though, the folks at the school weren’t taking calls from the day side reporter and weren’t responding to messages. So I was the one sent out to find out what I could about the stolen bird bath. It was pouring rain when I showed up at the school, but the door was locked and no one was answering the door. All I ended up with was wet socks.

I felt defeated when I showed up back in the newsroom, but I decided to call over to one of my police contacts to see if he had anything new or different than what I had been told.

“Oh yeah, that wasn’t stolen,” the head of the detective bureau told me.

“What?”

“It was a big misunderstanding.”

He went on to tell me the school had hired a group of masons to build a new stone wall on the property. The masons were told they could use any stone on the property in the new wall. Guess what they used. Yup. They cut up the bird bath, which had been moved to be cleaned, and used the marble in the wall. The bird bath was never stolen.

I hung up the phone in disbelief at how easy it was to finally snag the story, a really interesting story, in the end. I even questioned to myself if my source was speaking on the record, but he had never said he wasn’t. Story ran the next day, and apparently the school called around to a few people angry about it, including the police.

I’ve covered a lot of wacky police blotter news since 2000, but the bird bath story still remains one of my favorites.

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The Labels Are Tearing Us Apart

It seems like we’re always needing to label things in journalism, most specifically the work people are doing.

I’ve used this space to complain about the term “hyperlocal journalism” because it’s something journalists like me have been doing long before the recent explosion of local news sites. It’s local news; it’s community news. It’s existed for a long time.

But it seems like we need to have these labels on journalism. If it’s not “hyperlocal journalism,” it’s “citizen journalism” or it’s “blogger.” The latter was a topic of debate on Thursday, including in a Lost Remote post and two articles picked up by Romenesko.

But where does any of the debate about these labels and over who is producing journalism or in what format get us? It just makes us run in circles debating and debating about minutia and taking us away from focusing on how to improve journalism. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the journalism and how to move it forward?

What’s funny about some of these debates and use of labels is people don’t even use them right sometimes. I once was called a citizen journalist on a blog, which made me laugh since I have two degrees in journalism. Isn’t the definition of a citizen journalist is they are untrained in journalism? If people can’t even use the terms right, they should be ditched.

In 2007 I attended the Society of Professional Journalists conference in Washington and sat in on a panel with at least one senator (my mind is failing me who it was). At that time, a federal shield law was before Congress for debate, and the discussion at the panel shifted to who is a journalist. Should someone who is covered by the shield law have some sort of credential. Someone made the point of focusing on the act of journalism rather than who is producing it.

We live in an unusual age for journalism. The printing press is available to everyone, and there are plenty of formats in which news can be published. That doesn’t make it less worthy if it’s done by someone running a blog or someone who doesn’t have two journalism degrees. All these labels do is create a hierarchy of journalists, and that’s not fair to people who are out there doing good work. We shouldn’t look down on quality work because it’s published on a blog or completed by someone who has never taken a reporting class.

Perhaps if we got rid of the labels, we can have a discussion on the fundamentals of journalism and how to make it better for an ever-changing world.

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Patch Is Hiring

I seem to get a lot of these types of notes from friends in the business: “Hey, is Patch hiring? Are there opportunities for me?”

In my effort to get the word out: Yes, Patch is hiring. Seems like we’re always hiring as we expand across the country this year. Click here to find the job listings.

In the meantime, Lost Remote has a post about the hiring efforts.

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Learning to Fly: Latest Video on Paper Mill’s ‘Peter Pan’

It can be disheartening for any journalist when you spend a lot of time shooting and editing a video and then few people watch it. But something about a video I created last week on the Paper Mill Playhouse’s upcoming performance of “Peter Pan” struck a chord. It easily is one of the most popular videos I’ve ever created for Patch (my speed humps video ranks up there too), and the views keep increasing. The Paper Mill folks, in fact, told me they were going to link to it on their weekly e-newsletter.

Want a peek? Check out the embedded video below. The lighting was awful in the theater for rehearsal (their lighting usually is fantastic), which posed some problems, but it was a fun video to shoot and edit.

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