Get 'Em While They're Young

This past Thursday through Saturday, I attended the National Newspaper Association's 123rd Convention in Mobile, Alabama.

Meeting publishers and editors of community newspapers -- mostly weekly papers -- from all parts of the United States reinforced my conviction of just how vital their work is to the overall health of an area.

Thanks to Dr. Jennifer Greer, journalism department chair at the University of Alabama and my master's project advisor, she and I were invited to present the paper and project as part of NNA's Community Building Symposium.

We heard lots of good ideas presented by people doing everything they can to help newspapers find their way to continue serving their communities through a changing economic and technological landscape.

I maintain one key is largely overlooked -- instilling the news habit when kids are young. Common wisdom says you don't wait until your child is an adult before you teach him or her to brush his or her teeth.

The problem is that not much in most newspapers is targeted to kids, is about kids, or is on a child's reading level. Our study showed less than 7% of available news space was targeted to or referred to children age 14 and under -- about 20% of the population.

Material targeted to children is largely puzzles, games, general knowledge articles, and coloring pages.

I applaud any newspaper who does that much. They have invested money and space in those products in an effort to include the youngest members of their communities in the readership of their community publication.

But most of the material we found -- even material targeted directly to children -- was written at a higher-than-9th-grade reading level.

I contend newsrooms can do more -- much more.

Part of a newspaper's responsibility is to help citizens "navigate society," according to Bill Kovach and Ted Rosenstiel, authors of The Elements of Journalism. But how credible is the map if 20% of the population is largely missing from the picture? And how useful is the map to the community's youngest citizens if they can't read it?

Want to know more about how to write real local news -- government meetings, community events, community issues, and more -- from a "kid angle" and in simple language?

Reply to this blog posting or send me an email (aander8130@gmail.com). I'd love to talk to you about scaling down local news without dumbing it down.

Our children (and their parents and teachers) can use all the help they can get in finding their way through their local world.

Kid-sized real toothbrushes, kid-sized real news -- makes sense, yes?

DATELINE: New York

Friday, March 13, 2009

I'm writing this from the breakfast room of a Holiday Inn in New York.

No, not Manhattan or even the Bronx. Not New York City at all, although I can say I'm in close proximity to the Big Apple.

I'm in a town called Stony Brook, home of Stony Brook University, where I've been attending a news literacy conference and meeting a marvelously eclectic group of people ranging from a high school librarian from Illinois to a man from Spain who works for the United Nations' media literacy program. Most people who attended are university presidents, college professors and high school teachers. That's because Stony Brook is promoting its News Literacy curriculum and program, hoping to help others to implement it or something similar.

A few industry people were here, most notably Neil Budde, formerly with Wall Street Journal Online and Yahoo! News and now with DailyMe.com; Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News; Ted Koppel, now senior news analyst for NPR and a contributing analyst for BBC America; Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of NPR and former senior vice-president for NYTimes.com; and Alexandra Wallace, senior vice-president of NBC news.

Some news innovators were here giving presentations about NewsTrust.com, Link TV's Know the News project, Poynter's NewsU, and other projects including some that reach around the world.

What was the outcome?

Monday, March 16, 2009

I'm writing this from home sweet home in Pinellas County, Florida.

I'm still sorting through my impressions of last week's news literacy conference, as well as the impressions of a conference in St. Pete the week before called Journalism That Matters.

Aside from all the interesting people I met from all over the world this past two weeks, and aside from how strongly I feel that the news industry has an important function to fulfill in society, I am more and more disturbed by that same news industry's current definitions of 'news,' of 'journalism that matters,' and of 'news literacy.'

Oh no, I hear some of you saying. This sounds like it may be the beginning of another diatribe or sermon. At the least, another scathing letter to Somebody In Charge.

Signs of the (newspaper) times . . .

The Tampa Tribune reports that, after 40 years of weekly publication, the St. Petersburg edition of The Florida Catholic is changing to an online news service. Six times a year TFC will mail a free magazine, to be called Gathered, to every registered Catholic family in the diocese. The article was not clear whether TFC would continue a print edition serving the rest of its multi-diocese circulation area.

Unfortunately, TFC's last front page and Bishop Lynch's comments both make it sound as though TFC is gone for good. Only in the sixth paragraph does Lynch add the words "as we have known it."

If journalism is to survive as a profession and as an industry, we MUST recognize the difference between "dead and gone," "gone for good," and "in transition." The more we use deadening words, the harder the transition to new, living forms.

BTW, the Tampa Tribune announced 18 more newsroom job cuts including a columnist and editorial editor.

And locally, the Tropical Breeze, Safety Harbor's monthly newspaper, stopped publishing a print edition with its October, 2008, issue.

For Posterity

For some reason, this article took some tracking down in The Anniston Star's archives. As it's one of the most extensive I did this past year, I wanted to link it to my blog.

Calhoun County overrun with strays -- from the October 15, 2007 Anniston Star.

Spring Session

After loading us with theory and arming us with methodologies, the creators of this course launched us into the field with a short-term assignment: Produce a piece of community journalism while meeting the needs of your host news organization.

In my case, the host organization was the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg. This non-profit organization that teaches journalists around the world how to be better journalists, owns the St. Petersburg Times ... and also Tampa Bay Newspapers, for whom I wrote.

They were gracious hosts indeed -- gave me my own office with telephone, Internet access and use of the copy & fax machines and of their extensive library. Provided coffee and an assortment of teas. Even a meal or two or three.

More important, they provided friendly interest, probing questions and expert guidance as I explored elementary, middle, and high school newsrooms in the area. My focus, I thought, was going to be on how the high school programs were changing. It ended up being slightly different, and that is a subject for a different post.

In the meantime, here are two videos I produced at two of the high schools I visited. Hillsborough High in Tampa is home to The Red & Black, Florida's oldest high school newspaper, first published in 1899. At Palm Harbor University High School in Pinellas County, publishers of The Eye, I focused on yearbook journalism.

Bama Blog Aug 1

August 1, 2007

Greetings all--

First off -- Most of you asked that I stay in touch during this year of graduate work in Alabama. But some of you may not have meant that you wanted to receive my periodic ramblings. That's OK. Just email me and I'll take your name off the list.

Second -- Don't feel you have to reply. Although, if you do, I'll relish hearing what you've been up to. I may or may not be able to answer. Can we both be OK with that, knowing that some communication is better than none.

So this morning's Star carried a feature story – front page first section – about the local bookmobile. Written by one of my fellow interns. She rode the bookmobile Monday and wrote about her experience. Described the bookmobile librarian in this manner: “She's spry at 56.”

Now I don't know about you, but “spry” is a word you use to describe people who are 96 and still maneuvering on their own two feet. Being only a couple of years shy of that ancient age of 56, I'm trying not to totter too much in the newsroom.

As you may have guessed, my fellow interns are mid-20s. Matter of fact, so are most of the staff writers. My editor is 31. One nice young man who asked me today about freelancing is in his “second career, too” – he recently got out of the Marines. Yes, I'm bemused by it all...and enjoying every minute. Each of these young people are not only intelligent, they're also skilled at dealing with people. The future is in at least as good hands as it's ever been.

So far I've written about teen museum volunteers, weather-related traffic fatalities, a police academy graduation, a three-part series on Calhoun County libraries, two stories on a local charity golf tournament, a school board meeting, and am working on dress code changes, a 5K run, and an AIDS event. Plus a couple of other shorter write-ups. I'm learning to deal with photographers who have their own policies and procedures, with the phone system, with computer routing my stories, and with deciphering various accents.

Outside of work, I'm fairly settled. Still don't have much in the way of furniture, but it makes it easy to vacuum. No TV, but I don't miss it. Have gotten a couple of movies from the library and watch them on my laptop. Banks and libraries close early around here. Other than that, there's a 24-hour WalMart not far up the street.

Got a letter from the local Emergency Management Association. And there was a note taped to my door about free tone alert radios. They warn in case of tornadoes. And there's a siren that has malfunctioned at least once since I've been here – for two solid hours between 1 and 3 a.m. warning of a non-existent disaster in the making. The other time the siren would go off – there are four different tones all together – is “in the unlikely event” of a catastrophic event at the Anniston Army Depot where they are in the decade-long process of incinerating hundreds of thousands of chemical weapons. I think my life expectancy in such an unlikely event is about three minutes.

Aside from that, the area is quite beautiful. The Star's offices have lots of windows. My desk when I am a student will look out toward a woodsy area. I'm told the deer come up to the windows sometimes. Hope to do some exploring soon and take some pictures.

Some of you may not have gotten my new address:

P.O. Box 4005 /Anniston, A 36204-4005

Phone is 256-xxx-xxxx

I love and miss you all.

Mom/Grandma/Anne

The Eagle Has Landed

July 21, 2007

Arrived a bit later than expected due to solar flares and uncharted asteroid belts, but safe and sound. Am mostly settled in and am finding my way around town. Worked on Friday. The three guys I had talked to when I was here last were all out of town, so no one was expecting me. Managing editor very graciously allowed me to follow him around and learn--which I did...LOTS!

I had gone in prepared to pitch a couple of story ideas, and he sent me out on one. Came back with photos and a story...and it ran on this morning's front page! Go to www.annistonstar.com -- it's the Close Encounters article. Can't go wrong with a story about kids and animals. Plus I was given another task in the morning which I also completed...whew! Glad to have my first day behind me and not feel like a blithering idiot. Monday will be a bit different, I'm sure.

Anyway--my phone number is 256-xxx-xxxx (cell phone -- no land line). Email address is same, but won't have access at home until Friday. Am using public access computer at library today.

Address is: PO Box 4005, Anniston, AL 36204-4005.

Love to all--

Anne