A Sentimental Journey back to the Wake Weekly
June 15th, 2009
by Jock Lauterer
Director, Carolina Community Media Project
In this, the 9th summer of the Community Journalism Roadshow, our latter-day Johnny Appleseed is targeting indy and semi-indy non-daily newspapers, which are clearly weathering The Great Recession far better than their corporate-owned big-city daily brethren. This week our rambles take us to the Wake Weekly, a paper we’ve been following for 40 years. Forty years, y’all!
Q: What kind of a weekly can support a staff of 17?
A: A very good one.
There has always been something special about the Wake Weekly. I first heard about the paper 40 years ago when I was myself in the community newspaper biz, having just started THIS WEEK, an innovative weekly in Forest City (with partners Ron Paris and Bill Blair) that leaned heavily on my large black-and-white photographs.
After we pretty much swept our first NCPA competition, I got this call from this total stranger in Wake Forest named Bob Allen wanting to know how I managed to capture high school football action photos without using flash.
“I’m not about to tell you,” I responded impolitely, ”because then you’d know my secret and you’d try to beat us next year in the photo competition.”
Bob has long since forgiven me for my youthful arrogance, but I still wince at the memory.
JUST ANOTHER ALLEN BOY
Because 15 years later, when I was a freshman “perfesser” at UNC and in need of a summer job, who made a spot for me? Yes, Bob (and Peggy) Allen of the Wake Weekly. And I don’t think they really needed me, so much as they just realized I was needy. That summer of ‘84 I slept on a chaise lounge on their screened in porch by the swimming pool, and I pretty much became just another Allen boy. Read the rest of this entry »
The Garner Citizen: Put on your seat belts!
June 4th, 2009by Jock Lauterer
Director, Carolina Community Media Project
Over the last nine summers, I’ve led community journalism workshops at over 130 Tar Heel newspapers. This summer, I’ve decided to focus on the independent (or semi-independent) community papers, particularly the so-called “non-dailies,” which are clearly weathering The Great Recession far better than their big-city daily cousins. Last month I went to one of the state’s most “dug-in” pair of weeklies, the Clemmons Courier and the Davie County Enterprise Record of Mocksville where the average tenure of the staffers was in the double digits (including 85-year-old Sara Campbell, who’s been there 63 years!) This week, by contrast, I wanted to find out about a daring start-up over in Garner, just southeast of Raleigh. What I found there should restore your faith in the future of journalism.
WHAT KIND OF A FOOL…?
Newsprint, the office cat, had left her gray catnip mouse on the newsroom floor of the Garner Citizen, bearing silent witness to the old saying: You can tell it’s a community newspaper if there are kids and animals in the newsroom.
But the Garner Citizen (News & Times) isn’t just another 2k paid circulation weekly, of which there are literally thousands across the country. The bold newcomer to the Wake County newspaper wars, an almost 2-year-old indie, gives the lie to a snarky blog post I read recently: “What sort of FOOL starts a newspaper in 2007?!”
HERE’S YOUR MODEL: Continuity and Accessibility
May 21st, 2009By Jock Lauterer
May 2009
Permit me to disabuse you of the notion that all newspapers are failing.
Sure, we all know that many major metro dailies were already in a dismal state prior to the economy tanking last fall, due largely to investor greed and corporate owners taking on too much debt. Since then, their sad demise has been all too well documented.
So take a deep breath and allow me this summer to take you beyond from the beltways, off the interstates and out onto our state’s “blue highways” where we boast at least 190 smaller newspapers, including about 140 weeklies — many of which are still independently owned, or at least owned by small groups which could hardly be called a “chain” in the sense of a company the size of a McClatchy or a Gannett.
I’m interested in this size newspaper, not only because I used to help run a pair of weekly papers and the fact that I teach “community journalism,” but also because of what I’ve observed firsthand over nine summers of workshops statewide from Murphy to Manteo.
In spite of the economy, I’ve witnessed in weeklies (and especially in the non-chain weeklies) a strength of community spirit and a vitality of robust sustainability that will restore your faith in journalism.
So wouldn’t it be instructive to ask: what are these folks doing right? How are these community papers weathering what some are calling “The Great Recession?” Is there a formula, or at least a common denominator among these successful small-town news institutions?
I decided to start with a pair of western Piedmont papers I’ve long admired, the Clemmons Courier and the Davie County Enterprise Record of Mocksville, both owned by the Evening Post Co. of Charleston, S.C., and printed at their sister paper in Salisbury. Read the rest of this entry »
Remembering Ron Paris: the Little Giant of Community Journalism
September 16th, 2008By Jock Lauterer
In the recurrent dream I’ve had for years, I enter a small-town newspaper office that is strange and yet vaguely familiar. As I search for my desk, Ron Paris materializes before me, greeting me with his characteristically merry war-whoop, directing me to my place.
When my old partner of 30 years ago died in late August after a two-year battle with cancer, his family, former employees, friends and colleagues hailed the deceptively built Ron as “the little giant,” “the last true community journalist” and a “champion of the community” and “a pioneer.”
Ron was all that and more. I was privileged to serve as his junior partner and co-editor/publisher along with Business Manager Bill Blair during the best days of my working press life, the nine years from 1969-1978 when our start-up, THIS WEEK in Forest City, grew into arguably the best weekly in the state — a creation that was largely the result of Ron’s vision, hard work and unswerving dedication to excellence in community journalism. (The “little paper that could” went daily in 1978, but in my opinion the Daily Courier never measured up to the weekly. Our conversion to daily prompted me to sell to my partners and start the weekly McDowell Express in Marion in 1980.) Read the rest of this entry »
In Which the Hot Dog Man Trumps the Roadshow
August 21st, 2008
My intended target, the unsinkable Al Carson, editor of the Oxford Public Ledger, needs no schooling in journalism — or life lived large, for that matter.
So I turned off the Powerpoint and started listening.
In March 2007 at only 57, Al suffered a stroke that would have killed a lesser soul. Although still paralyzed on his right side, Al is back in the editor’s chair, aided by a loving wife, a supportive work environment at the Ledger, a loyal community, a red scooter and two faithful side-kicks on the news side at the paper.
But it is Al’s relentless sense of humor that struck me from the get-go. (First of all, picture a latter-day lumberjack with a graying beard, mustache and mischievous flashlight blue eyes.)
“People say how courageous it was for me to come back to work,�? Al harrumphs with his trademark sly grin. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with me.�? Like the storyteller that he is, Al lets the line just hang there for second longer…
Then, “My wife, Betsy, said, `You’re not staying here in this house! Now get out of that bed!’�? He laughs, and then adds seriously, “She been really instrumental in my life.�? Read the rest of this entry »
The Smoky Mountain News: Not Your Father’s Community Paper
August 11th, 2008During this summer while the Carrboro Commons staff members have either graduated or completed J-459 (Community Journalism), this space follows the statewide ramblings of Carrboro Commons adviser Jock Lauterer, who, for the last eight summers, has led community journalism workshops at small papers “from Murphy to Manteo.” So far this summer he has visited with the folks at the Shelby Star, the Gaston Gazette, the News of Orange County, the Lake Norman Times, the State Port Pilot in Southport. Herewith is his latest blog from the mountain community of Waynesville where the Smoky Mountain News, a feisty upstart weekly, has made a name for itself with hard-hitting investigative reporting.
So the two-newspaper town is a thing of the past, right?
Wrong.
Not only do all eight N.C. major metro papers have cross-town print competition of some form, but more surprising is what I’ve found out there in the Tar Heel state’s smaller towns on those “blue highways.?
(For a N.C. dual-newspaper town list, see the end of this story.)
This observation, gleaned over eight years of summer Roadshows on the backroads of North Carolina gives heart to this old newspaper hound. While the major metro newspaper industry may be in the “Big Chill,? our community papers appear robust.
All this came into focus today when I visited with owner/editor Scott McLeod of the Smoky Mountain News, a free 16k weekly located right around the corner in Waynesville from another excellent indy tri-weekly, the Waynesville Mountaineer.
So how do they do it? The 9-year-old Smoky Mountain News (SMN) has carved its own niche with the aim of being “the regional newspaper west of Buncombe,? Scott explains. And their claim to fame? Investigative reporting!
You read that right.
Gene Roberts never got too big for his britches
July 21st, 2008
Arguably the most decorated living Tar Heel journalist, the 75-year-old Roberts started small before becoming a national figure.
But even when he reached the top, he never turned into what my mama used to call “Mr. Big Britches,” — never forgetting or denigrating his humble Eastern North Carolina journalism origins; and that’s one of the many reasons why I honor him so.
To my great delight, I’m not the only one. The North Carolina Press Association named Roberts its 2008 “North Carolinian of the Year” at their annual summer convention in Asheville on Friday, July 18.
Read the rest of this entry »
Greater than good: The State Port Pilot
July 3rd, 2008June 24, 2008
Maybe you’ve been reading about the buyouts, layoffs and shrinking news hole at McClatchy-owned papers and could use a dose of optimism.
To do that, you might want to take to the “blue highways,? where all-local community papers, including small dailies but especially independently owned weeklies, are holding their own, and then some.
For starters, I wish I could pack the whole glum bunch of professional media funeral mourners into my car and take them to the State Port Pilot of Southport.
The gold standard.
That’s what I call The State Port Pilot. This profitable, innovative, growing, family-owned broadsheet weekly consistently wins annual state press awards for news and advertising by the boatloads.
The challenge of covering McCity
June 9th, 2008A visit to the LNT at LKN
6/04/08
If you want to know how much Mooresville, N.C., has changed in a mere decade, just ask Bill Kiser, editor of the Lake Norman Times.
“My parents’ house was sitting right here,? Bill says matter-of-factly. My bedroom was…about right over there,? he says, turning and motioning towards an adjoining room.
Surrounding our lunch spot, (AKA, Bill’s old homeplace) sprawls Mooresville, revered by NASCAR fans as “Race City, USA.? We are surrounded by malls, fast-food places, shopping centers, apartments, condos, gated communities with generic names, office parks and the sameness of the predictable franchises you see lining four-lanes of Anywhere, USA.
And what is so striking about all this growth, is how NEW it all appears.
“It is new,? Bill agrees, pointing out the window. “That used to be woods. That used to be pasture. None of this was here 10 years ago.?
A native of this burgeoning southern Iredell County region, Bill says his parents watched the economic building boom happening and waited until they got an offer they couldn’t refuse. Then his mom and dad, like many others, moved somewhere else more rural. The way southern Iredell used to be. Before the lake and before the interstate changed everything forever. “It’s hard to find a real native (of Mooresville). They’re selling and moving to Rowan County,? he says.
Read the rest of this entry »
A Visit to One Very Cool Web-Savvy Newspaper
May 21st, 2008Jock Lauterer is the NNA’s newly-appointed grand poobah of community journalism, but the title he really likes is “guy.? Jock is also the director of the Carolina Community Media Project at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches, among other things, community journalism. A former community newspaper editor-publisher, he is also the author of the leading text on the subject, “Community Journalism: Relentlessly Local? UNC Press 3rd. ed. 2006. Contact him at jock@email.unc.edu
For each of the last eight summers, Jock has led workshops at smaller papers across his state. Here is his first blog post from this summer’s Community Journalism Summer Roadshow.
by Jock Lauterer
NNA’S Community Journalism Guy
Cool.
That word kept cropping up during my Roadshow visit to the Shelby Star earlier this week.
And while “cool? may not be a word most folks associate with newspapers, but it sure applies to the Star.
For the Star is no ordinary community paper. In fact, it may be one of a kind, and an industry leader too.
And frankly, when I visited last earlier this week, the newsroom had more of the feel, energy and go-go-get-this-up-now of a 24/7 broadcast station.
“The Shelby Star was blown up its newsroom - figuratively,? explains a release from the Southern Newspaper Publisher’s Association. “The paper’s newsroom no longer operates like a traditional newsroom and the newspaper doesn’t read like a traditional newspaper. It’s more local. Easier to read. Easier to digest (no jumps!) More interactive. And it fuses with the paper’s Web site.
“Reporters now consistently work to find every opportunity to enhance a story with online content (usually video). Staff photographers and reporters carry video cameras (usually the inexpensive and simple to use Flip) on assignments. Editors encourage the community to submit comments, photos and video. The newsroom has added an Web master and a Web-savvy managing editor (Joy Scott, the Star’s award-winning former investigative writer) and Web content increasing has fused with the print product.?