Tag Archives: community journalism

local news, media news

It’s like riding a bike

One of the things I discovered immediately upon taking up this gig as a freelance reporter is that I retained my ability to craft a human-interest feature story.

I spent the bulk of my nearly 37-year career in print journalism as an opinion writer and editor. Before that, though, I broke in the way most reporters do, writing general-assignment news stories and features about interesting individuals.

My full-time print journalism career ended in August 2012 and I was, to borrow a phrase, sent out to pasture. Then my wife and I moved to North Texas and I started working on a freelance basis for a husband-and-wife-owned group of weekly newspapers. My beat, such as it is, covers mostly Princeton and Farmersville.

That’s when the realization struck. I hadn’t lost the touch I acquired when I was starting out pursuing this joyous craft. I am not going to fill you with false bravado about the quality of the work I have done for my new bosses. Suffice to say, though, that they can depend on me to deliver them what they seek in a timely fashion. Deadlines, man, are everything in print journalism.

I also have determined that communities such as those I cover in Collin County still depend on local newspapers to tell their stories. It certainly is true that the digital age of journalism, the COVID pandemic and political pressure from on high all have had an impact on our influence in people’s lives.

However, community journalism is still kicking in Collin County, Texas. I am delighted to be able to continue to contribute to the telling of those stories to people who constantly tell me they still relish the feel of an actual newspaper in their hands.

local news, media news

Learning things daily

One of the wonderful hallmarks of my journalism career, which I pursued with great joy for nearly 37 years, was the learning I gained from the communities I covered as a reporter and then as an editor.

I was able to work for several newspapers during my time in the reporter’s and later the editor’s saddle. In Oregon, then in Texas, I settled into new communities and sought about learning the ins and outs of each community that read the words that I produced.

Even though my full-time career ended abruptly in August 2012, I have been able to keep learning about the communities I get to cover in my “semi-retired” state.

I work these days as a freelance reporter in Collin County, Texas, covering Farmersville (primarily) and also Princeton (where I live). I write for a group of weekly newspapers owned by a husband and wife who also live in Collin County.

That’s not all! I also get to cover issues involving a much broader community for KETR-FM public radio, based at Texas A&M University-Commerce. My work is published on KETR, org, which is the website run by the public radio station.

My latest assignment for KETR, org has me covering the status of the Hunt County jail in Greenville. I won’t divulge what I have learned, as I don’t want to scoop myself or, more to the point, my bosses as the radio station.

I merely want to relish in the knowledge that one is never too old to learn new things about new places. I am now approaching 74 years of age. I have seen a lot of things in my life, met a lot of interesting and provocative individuals along the way.

However, I can say with tremendous joy in my heart that I continue to learn about the communities I cover for the news organizations that are willing to allow this ink-stained wretch to keep pursuing the craft he loves.

Yes … I am living the dream.

local news, media news

Community journalism thrives

BLOGGER’S NOTE: I published a version of this essay a while ago. I submitted a longer version of it for publication in the Princeton Herald. The newspaper published it today, so I decided to send this repurposed and expanded version of the earlier post out for your enjoyment.

Not long ago, I received a heartwarming moment of affirmation. It came from a gentleman I encountered while shooting some pictures for the Princeton Herald.

I was taking some photos of a Habitat for Humanity house that was nearing completion on Harrelson Drive in Princeton. I introduced myself as a representative of the Princeton Herald and told the project managers I had written a story on this particular site about a year ago.

The gentleman to whom I referred earlier heard me greet the managers. He then told me something that thrills me to no end. “I read your earlier story and it motivated me to get involved with Habitat for Humanity,” he said.

My reaction in the moment as I recall it was muted. I thanked him for getting involved, but it didn’t really register to me what his underlying message was when he offered that statement.

It was that community journalism, the kind of craft I am practicing now as a semi-retired journalist, presents these kinds of triumphs all the time. People occasionally are inspired to get involved, to pay back to their communities, based on what they read in the local newspaper. How cool is that?

The name of the gentleman isn’t important. What he said to me is what counts.

I am heartened that the work we do in reporting on our communities can have this kind of impact.

I want to stress something else about those of us who have worked in the media and who do so going forward. Media representatives – even semi-retired folks like me – are operating in a hostile environment. The hostility comes from politicians and their followers – I feel no need to tell you who, as you probably know – contend that the media are the “enemy” of Americans.

Not true!

Not only do they disparage the work, they denigrate the individuals who do their jobs with honor and honesty. We all have heard the language that pours out of some politicians’ mouths.

Community journalism, as I understand the definition of the term, intends to report to those who consume community news on the status of the cities and towns where they live. Those of us who write for community news organizations seek only to hold officials accountable for decisions they make. They make decisions that determine how much we pay in taxes to fund our government; they determine the level of police and fire protection we receive for the money we pay; they decide when to pick up the trash we produce in our homes. These officials also provide clean water we use to bathe and drink; they repair our streets, making them safe for us travel.

Indeed, Princeton is in the midst of a major street renovation program at this very moment.

Community journalism also tells stories such as the one to which I referred at the start of this essay.

How can any of this be seen and described as the work of an “enemy”?

The gentleman I met that day in front of the Habitat for Humanity house on Harrelson Drive likely didn’t intend for me to accept his statement as an affirmation of the work I do for the Princeton Herald.

But I surely did.

He provided hope that all is not lost even in this toxic environment that occasionally causes people in power to disparage the work done all across this great land by media representatives whose only mission is to tell their communities’ stories.

I do so in my community with great pride.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, media news

Community journalism at work

Today was a day of affirmation for me, given a chance meeting I had with a gentleman I encountered while shooting pictures for a weekly newspaper for which I work part time in Collin County, Texas.

I was taking some photos of a Habitat for Humanity house that is nearly complete in Princeton. I introduced myself as a representative of the Princeton Herald and told the project managers I had written a story on this particular site about a year ago.

The gentleman to whom I referred earlier heard me say it and he then told me something that thrills me to no end. “I read your earlier story and it motivated me to get involved with Habitat for Humanity,” he said.

My reaction in the moment was muted. I thanked him for getting involved, but it didn’t really register to me what his underlying message was when he offered that statement.

It was that community journalism, the kind of craft I am practicing now as a semi-retired journalist, presents these kinds of triumphs all the time. People occasionally are inspired to get involved, to pay back to their communities, based on what they read in the local newspaper. How cool is that?

The name of the gentleman isn’t important. What he said to me is what counts.

I am heartened that the work we do in reporting on our communities can have this kind of impact.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

The joy returns

Community journalism is where it’s at, man.

How do I know that? Because I am involved in it at its most basic level. You see, I once was a retired journalist. Not at the moment. I remain in what I prefer to call “semi-retired” mode.

But my task these days is to report on city council matters, on school board matters and to write occasional features in a lovely North Texas community just a few miles east of where I live with my wife and Toby the Puppy.

Farmersville is home to about 5,000 individuals. It’s a growing community with plenty of issues relating to rapid growth. Streets need repairing. The city is embarking on a new fiber-powered Internet system. It has battled in recent years with a wastewater treatment plant. It is trying to find an individual to manage its Main Street program.

The community relies on the newspaper for which I write on a freelance basis. The Farmersville Times publishes once each week. It contains stories from yours truly and others who write for the group that owns the Times, C&S Media, based out of nearby Wylie.

I want to toot the horn of community journalism because it continues to thrive even though what the conservative talking heads refer to as “mainstream media” continue to struggle.

They struggle because of a perception – and I believe it is misplaced – that major media outlets no longer just “report the news.” They lace their reporting, the critics assert, with their own bias. I believe the bias lies in the minds of the consumer, not the messenger … but that’s another issue for another day.

I just want to declare that the joy has returned to the calling I received many decades ago to become a reporter. I so very much enjoy covering these city council, school board and feature-article issues because they deal with matters that affect citizens most directly.

It is my job – which I perform on a freelance basis – to report to the community about the decisions their elected representatives make on their behalf.

When I started this gig a couple of years ago, I came out of retirement from a career in which I was an advocate for opinion pages of two medium-sized Texas newspapers: one was in Amarillo, and one was in Beaumont. However, like virtually all print journalists, I got my start covering city councils and school boards and writing feature articles.

I learned something about myself when I started this new job: I didn’t forget what I had learned all those years ago.

I am having a lot of fun.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

media news

Hooray for community journalism!

Too often, it seems, when we ponder the term “community journalism,” we lapse into thinking of reporting on county fair farm animal competition or an outbreak of burglaries in the neighborhood.

However, the term always should include the kind of reporting and commentary that earns journalists the greatest prize their craft delivers for excellence.

So it is that the Palestine Herald-Press, a small East Texas newspaper, has won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. The award goes specifically to Jeffrey Gerritt, editor of the Herald-Press, who looked critically at a rash of deaths of inmates in the county jail.

The award makes me proud for Gerritt and for the work done far from major media markets by community journalists who work for small-town publications such as the Herald-Press.

Granted, Gerritt joins a long list of community journalists who do their job with dedication to their craft and who honor that craft with excellence.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/04/small-town-paper-makes-it-big-time/

I once worked for a newspaper, the Amarillo Globe-News, that won the Pulitzer for Meritorious Public Service in 1961 for the reporting of the late editor Tommy Thompson, who exposed corruption throughout county government. That prize, of course, pre-dated my time at the newspaper, but the paper’s legacy included that proud accomplishment.

Jeffrey Gerritt continues to further the cause of community journalism. As the Pulitzer board noted, Gerritt was awarded “For editorials that exposed how pre-trial inmates died horrific deaths in a small Texas county jail — reflecting a rising trend across the state — and courageously took on the local sheriff and judicial establishment, which tried to cover up these needless tragedies.”

That is how you deliver top-tier journalism to the community you serve.

local news, media news

Hereford Brand gets new life! How about that?

If there’s a media god in heaven somewhere, he or she is smiling down on the Texas Panhandle journalism community at this moment.

Jeff and Angela Blackmon have stepped forward to take over the daily operation of the Hereford Brand, a small community publication that was slated for the scrap heap effective today.

It ain’t happening. The Brand is still alive and presumably kicking.

This is happy news. I hope it is cause for long-term happiness among those who want community journalism to survive and one should hope flourish in this changing media climate.

The Brand’s former owners announced this past weekend that they planned to shutter the 118-year-old publication. Its final day was supposed to be today. Jeff Blackmon, who I understand is the former sports editor of the newspaper, and his wife stepped up. The news story I saw this morning said they will honor all the paper’s advertising and circulation commitments.

I presume they’ll also honor the paper’s commitment to the community by telling its story and by chronicling the happenings of the folks who comprise the Deaf Smith County region.

The peril remains, however, for small-town newspapers everywhere just like the Hereford Brand. Immense pressure is being brought to bear by the Internet, by cable TV, by other sources of “information” and commentary. Community newspapers are losing their relevance in people’s lives.

And yet . . .

When news such as what broke in Hereford, a community about 30 miles southwest of Amarillo, that its paper was about to vanish forever, you could hear plenty of wailing about the demise of the paper and expressions of sadness over its impending demise.

The community is now going to be given a chance to demonstrate its commitment to a century-plus-old tradition.

Here’s hoping for a much longer life for the Hereford Brand.

Good luck, Jeff and Angela Blackmon.

media news

Community journalism takes another gut punch

To those of you who aren’t familiar with the Texas Panhandle, this picture might not mean all that much to you.

Those of us who call the place home — or used to call it home — and worked in the field of print journalism, the photo speaks volumes.

It saddens me greatly.

The picture announces the closing of a community institution in a Texas Panhandle community that once relied on its local newspaper to chronicle its stories, to be the “first draft of history” in the town’s on-going evolution.

Hereford, Texas, sits about 30 miles southwest of Amarillo. The Brand has covered the community for 118 years. It’s going out of business. The owners of the paper cite declining circulation, declining advertising revenue and the unspoken issue of “declining relevance” in the lives of those who once read The Brand.

Man, this really stinks. It’s a continuation, I fear, of what is happening in rural communities all across the nation. The “Digital Age” is inflicting more casualties constantly on once-proud community institutions.

Even in Amarillo, where I worked for nearly 18 years, the Globe-News has vacated its historic location and moved into non-descript offices in a bank tower downtown. It has ceased printing the newspaper in Amarillo; that’s being done in Lubbock. It has hired a regional publisher, a regional executive editor, a regional “director of commentary” and a regional “distribution director.” The emphasis is now on centralizing its daily operations. The newsroom no longer employs photographers, its copy desk functions are being done out of a centralized operation center.

Do you get my drift?

Now this new age of “journalism” has claimed another victim.

The Texas Panhandle has a long and rich tradition of kick-a** journalism. The Amarillo Globe-Times once earned the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, for crying out loud! Communities scattered across the Panhandle’s spacious landscape have been served well by mom-and-pop newspapers that over time have morphed into “group ownership” organizations.

Those communities very soon will have one less newspaper among their ranks.

Sad days, indeed.