Second Printing
My welfare story is coming together. I spoke to the PR guy at the state welfare office. He clarified some points of confusion for me. Local towns aren't on the hook for state welfare recipients falling out of line with state guidelines, but the are on the hook if someone runs out of their allotted five years of state aid. So, the federal change shouldn't shift a lot of the burden to the towns, but it's still going to be a change. The PR guy is going to put me in touch with the office that has jurisdiction over our coverage area and try to connect me with a welfare recipient. That's a story.
In other news, we printed yesterday. I got photo credits—I've gotten photo credits before, but it's been a while, and I've also never had so many in one paper. The editor seemed impressed at my record rainfall articles. He said he didn't realize I had talked to so many people. He doesn't know me as a reporter well, yet. That's what I do—talk to as many people on a subject as possible. One of my other articles came out bad. I'm not sure if he made a small change and it no longer mapped with my later writing, or if I made the mistake. In any event, that article came out sounding awkward.
Overall, yesterday was pretty laid back. I got in just before 11am and left just after five. A sliver of that was down-time, but I also spent a little while scanning the area dailies looking for national or state stories I could localize. I found two things, but I already know I can't localize much. The first was population growth. The U.S. is approaching 300 million, and this state's growth rate is above the national average. I thought I could write an article about where the people are coming from and what it means for the community. I narrowed my statistics and found the county that contains our circulation area had average growth nationally. That's less of a story.
I'm going to make an effort to write about teen-agers. One profile a week should be just fine. I think it could help circulation. Parents like to read about kids. Everyone likes to read about themselves, and kids like to read about their friends. That's a win/win.
A final note. I had a cool interview yesterday. This big ape of a man came in to talk to me. I asked him to because local police caught a burglar due to his call. I thought a little first person piece on this could be great. It turns out he's an ex-con just doing his civic duty. I wish I could print the ex-con part, but he immediately told me not to print it after he said it. Had a selectmen or other elected official done that, I'd print it, but this guy doesn't know the rules. I'm not going to string him up by them.
Oh. I've been eating turkey sandwiches for lunch. I ran out of turkey yesterday, so, today I'm going to treat myself to the Chinese buffet.
In other news, we printed yesterday. I got photo credits—I've gotten photo credits before, but it's been a while, and I've also never had so many in one paper. The editor seemed impressed at my record rainfall articles. He said he didn't realize I had talked to so many people. He doesn't know me as a reporter well, yet. That's what I do—talk to as many people on a subject as possible. One of my other articles came out bad. I'm not sure if he made a small change and it no longer mapped with my later writing, or if I made the mistake. In any event, that article came out sounding awkward.
Overall, yesterday was pretty laid back. I got in just before 11am and left just after five. A sliver of that was down-time, but I also spent a little while scanning the area dailies looking for national or state stories I could localize. I found two things, but I already know I can't localize much. The first was population growth. The U.S. is approaching 300 million, and this state's growth rate is above the national average. I thought I could write an article about where the people are coming from and what it means for the community. I narrowed my statistics and found the county that contains our circulation area had average growth nationally. That's less of a story.
I'm going to make an effort to write about teen-agers. One profile a week should be just fine. I think it could help circulation. Parents like to read about kids. Everyone likes to read about themselves, and kids like to read about their friends. That's a win/win.
A final note. I had a cool interview yesterday. This big ape of a man came in to talk to me. I asked him to because local police caught a burglar due to his call. I thought a little first person piece on this could be great. It turns out he's an ex-con just doing his civic duty. I wish I could print the ex-con part, but he immediately told me not to print it after he said it. Had a selectmen or other elected official done that, I'd print it, but this guy doesn't know the rules. I'm not going to string him up by them.
Oh. I've been eating turkey sandwiches for lunch. I ran out of turkey yesterday, so, today I'm going to treat myself to the Chinese buffet.
posted by Matt Casey at 7:42 AM
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