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Local Coverage
Bea Sellinger did translations for a recently arrived Burmese refugee family. Sellinger was
a child in 1962 when military rule was first imposed in Burma. It took the family nine
years to get permission to immigrate to Pennsylvania. Sellinger worked as a cell geneticist
in Philadelphia before her husband was transferred to Roanoke in 1999. Photo by Stephanie
Klein-Davis/The Roanoke Times.
of Myanmar/Burma but also worked
in only-in-Roanoke details that were
especially relevant to our community.
She focused on a suburban Roanoke
homemaker who’d fled Burma in the
1960’s and recently found her translation
skills in high demand. 1
Macy took the same global-local
approach with a 2006 series, “Land
of Opportunity,” in which she told
several tales of immigrant journeys
that all ended in a familiar destination,
Roanoke. 2
What’s News Who Reports
It
Seeing the promise in such stories is
relatively easy compared to the other
task, the one that involves a reassessment
of what we consider “news.”
Put another way, how do we make a
concrete plant controversy compelling
journalism Will homeowning editors
remain in the position of preaching
to renting reporters why this story is
so important—reminding them that
it’s all about a threat to hearth and
home equity
Or do we turn to our readers to “report”
such things And do we fill our
Web and print pages with what they
appreciate but what we are sometimes
loathe to gather—the “user-generated”
pet photos, Little League scores, and
dispatches from neighborhood block
meetings
I warily watch such experiments at
other newspapers, warily because of
this one fact: Readers live busy lives,
especially those with family obligations.
Between their jobs and kids’
soccer practices, most can scarcely eat
a dinnertime meal together, let alone
accurately report the fundraising shortfall
for a neighborhood playground. I
can all but hear them asking, “Isn’t this
what we pay you to do”
Every reader survey I’ve seen ranks
investigative reporting as a high priority.
From inside the newsroom, we
feel pulled in two ways—how do we
maintain our highest level of public
service journalism and keep our eyes
focused on the many details of our
community’s life
In his role as the seeker of “new
channels,” Yancey has been consulting
the small-newspaper division of
our parent company as we look anew
at our zoned editions. By and large,
these small weeklies and biweeklies
are healthy and lovingly appreciated
by readers. What is their secret for remaining
vibrant in an age when readers
are peeling off from the Pulitzer-winning
papers covering many sprawling
metro areas
So far, these conversations have
produced one valuable nugget of
advice, something we can act on and
see promise in: Hire local. Look for
part-timers or flex-timers who want
to do a little writing on the side or
in between things. Above all, seek
out those who are well connected in
the community through their family,
friends and activities.
Yet already we, the professional journalists,
can’t help ourselves. Already
we are talking about the ambitions we
have for them. We’ll train them. We’ll
invite them to an in-house journalism
boot camp where they’ll learn how
to write and report and abide by our
ethical standards. A wise editor friend
has done this before, with success.
“Invest in them and they’ll invest in
you,” he says.
That’s where we stand in the fall of
2007—exploring new channels and
recalibrating our budgets and outlook
on journalism. The young journalist
who fled D.C. is back home, working as
a journalist in Roanoke. The young reporter
who invented that MEGO award
eventually went to work in downtown
Tampa. From there he landed his dream
job—at a big city, but now very ailing,
West Coast newspaper.
Carole Tarrant is editor of The Roanoke
Times in Roanoke, Virginia.
1
Macy’s story can be found at www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/133868.
2
Macy’s immigration series can be found at http://blogs.roanoke.com/immigration/.
32 Nieman Reports / Winter 2007