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I got an anonymous
letter this week with a clipping from WVU’s Alumni Magazine portraying “Ron
Blankenship,
Superintendent of Calhoun County and WVASA Superintendent of the year,
addresses faculty and members of the Public School Doctoral Cohort at a
November breakfast hosted by the EDLS program.”
The sender
had handwritten the following question on the clipping, “How come news
like this never finds its way into the Chronicle?”
The answer
is simply, “because we didn’t know about it,” but the reasons we don’t
know are not that simple.
Calhoun
County
covers 281 square miles, and includes more than 7,300 people. There are
more than 40 organizations, 12 government offices, and countless
churches.
There is
absolutely no way a reporter can keep track of all the news happening.
There is no way that time constraints and travel budgets can allow me to
be everywhere, go everywhere, see everyone who has news. Readers could
easily say, “But it’s your job.” Yes, it is, but normally this giant
task is assigned to three or four people, and not just one.
For example,
the article for this week’s county commission meeting took five and a
half hours--two hours and a half in the meeting, three hours writing.
So, you can see how one article can take up quite a bit of time. I spend
about three days a week covering the basics, and one day delivering
newspapers and updating the web site. That leaves one day to clean my
desk, file my paperwork, and cover everything else that is considered
“news.”
With about 75% of county
entities, I am dependent on others to cooperate with me to get their
news--especially good news--out to the community. In addition, each
group has their own approach to sharing news. Some groups prefer to
handle their own outgoing news, but never send any. Others send us
reports every week.
Almost every
organization has a policy (or someone responsible for) sharing news.
This is true, for example, with the schools, the hospital and groups
involving children, due to laws concerning privacy and dealing with
minors. For some, I am resigned to sit and wait for them to tell us what
is happening. With some, we beg for news and stats, but rarely do our
inquiries get any response.
For others,
I know someone on their end is supposed to send out press releases, and
I am not inclined to spend my time doing their work. Forgive me, but
that’s the reality of time management.
Some groups
don’t want their news in the paper. I’ve had one group move the location
of their meeting at the last minute so I couldn’t find it. Thus, two
hours and several gallons of gas were wasted--time and resources that
could have been spent covering something else.
So,
anonymous letter writer, it may be easy to ask why we miss news, but the
answer is multifaceted. First, we do not have the manpower to cover all
the news. Second, many people do not contact us to share the news they
have. Third, some people do not want their news to be shared. Fourth,
some people just do not want to work with us (or me).
Sure, we
would like to cover as much news as possible--and we try. I do the best
I can. If there is news you think we are missing, yes, we hope you would
let us know. Also, consider discussing the lack of coverage with the
group or organization that has the news. Let them know we welcome news
from all over the county--even if we can’t come and get it.
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