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Here’s what you may not know about us
Published Tuesday, April 8, 2008
I’m on the speaking circuit these days. Large groups of people with inquisitive minds frequently ask me to enlighten their members with information about my job. It’s quite an honor, really, to be in such demand.
And if the average age of the audience crept above 11, I might have something to brag about.
But it doesn’t, so I won’t.
Instead, I’m going to take a lead from Mrs. Ganey Ryan’s fifth-grade class at Vidalia Upper Elementary and answer a few questions.
The students submitted written questions to me about the newspaper, and they did such a good job I thought some of our older readers might appreciate the answers as well.
Children do, after all, have the luxury of being able to ask questions that adults might feel silly asking.
Here they are:
Q: When was The Natchez Democrat founded and who founded it?
A: James Lambert founded the newspaper in 1865. For a full history you can visit our Web site and click on “About us.”
Q: How do people put ads in the paper?
A: To answer this, I’d first like to explain the difference between and ad and a news story. Often, readers get the two confused. Advertising costs money. It’s a way for business owners, community groups, politicians and anyone else to get the things they want to say in the newspaper. Typically, ads promote something that is for sale. We have two types of advertising — classified and retail. Classified ads include garage sales and lost dogs. Retail ads are larger and usually have photos or images in them.
To get an ad in the paper you can contact our advertising department by phone at 601-445-3625 or you can stop by our office on North Canal Street.
News stories are free. But our staff decides what goes in them and how they are worded.
Q: How do you get reports in the middle of the night?
A: We have newsroom employees that work in the office until a little after midnight each night. They listen to the police scanner for news. Often, people in the community will call in and tell us when news is happening. We appreciate these calls and welcome more of them.
If something happens after midnight it takes a little luck to find out about it. Sometimes community members call our cell phones or home phones. Other times, we just happen upon the news ourselves. Recently, when the Relax Inn caught fire at 1 a.m., photographer Marcus Frazier got to the scene early because his mother saw the fire on her way home from work and called him.
In the mornings, we make calls to local law enforcement officials to ask if anything happened overnight.
Q: How long does it take you to write one story?
A: Writing a story has two major parts. First, our reporters gather the information. Interviewing sources, reading documents and visiting sites can taken anywhere from 30 minutes to several days.
But once they have all the information, most of our reporters spend about 30 minutes physically writing each of their stories.
Q: When someone calls you yelling about something you put in the paper and pointing out your errors, does that hurt your feelings.
A: Yes. We are just as human as the next person. No one likes to be told what they did wrong. But we make as many mistakes as the next person, maybe more; we just happen to print 10,000 copies a day of our errors. Because taking negative phone calls, e-mails and visits is a pretty regular part of our job, we do learn to deal with it. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt our feelings.
And my favorite question: Would you ever put our class in the newspaper?
A: I’ll tell you what I told the children. This is your newspaper. It is about you and for you. We’d love to have your news. If you have a story idea or a news item you can contact me anytime.
Julie Finley is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com.
Comments
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on April 9, 2008 at 8:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Julie, Do you mind if I ask - What became of the Democrat's plan to build on Franklin Street? Is that still in the works?
Posted by JessicaRyan (anonymous) on April 9, 2008 at 12:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hi Julie,
I must say that my 5th graders here at V.U.E were ECSTATIC to see some of their questions in the paper. They think they're famous!
Thank You.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on April 9, 2008 at 6:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What are your reporters doing with the rest of their time, if it only averages about an hour to research and write a story? Do they work eight hour shifts? How many do you have? Are they also photographing, editing other reporter's stories, proofreading?
Using your statistics, the stories would either be much more numerous, or more in depth. Nobody's perfect, but they certainly don't seem to be studying their spelling, grammar, syntax or story structure. Where is the critical thinking about serious topics? Where is the analysis? Where is the adversarial questioning that brings out the truth? Perhaps it takes longer for the reporters to write their stories, which I suspect is the case, if not the questions raised above become relevant.
Stories should be better written, more insightful and more numerous. The majority of the paper seems to be either fluff or advertising. The opinions seem many times to be about feel good topics or soft-pedaled to avoid controversy.
Online blogs should also include ongoing, long-term general discussions of the most serious topics such as politics, religion, education, race, etc. so that public give and take on a particular topic doesn't fade into oblivion in just a week or two.
I'm not trying to be negative, but rather to offer some constructive positive criticism...I think you might get more subscribers if they felt there was something to subscribe for. I hope I haven't hurt your feelings.
Posted by redusmfan (anonymous) on April 9, 2008 at 8:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Well Sam, I was kinda wondering the same thing. Julie, I understand what you are doing and saying, but I hope that you chase after some of these stories and do the old fashioned "Scoop" occasionally.....
You did many stories about Pilgrimage again this year....after year....after year.........I know it comes with the territory, but what about some ideas about something unusual for Natchez.....like....following a crew around and watching how many hours are really worked in a given day while they are on city, county, state, and federal payroll....
I bet it would shock you......
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on April 9, 2008 at 8:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, thank ye kindly, redusmfan...I think there are a lot of things that we might agree on.
Posted by dangyankee (anonymous) on April 10, 2008 at 12:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Sam, while I agree in principle with much of what you say, I also think you should consider what separates a small-town newspaper from, say, the NY Times.
Tiny detail first: Julie didn't say that it took an average of 1 hour to write a story--reread her answer to that question. While the actual writing of it may take 30 minutes (I'm betting she underestimated that, anyway), she said that the research could take "anywhere from 30 minutes to several days." Even if they were telephoning sources, they could spend 30 minutes just on hold; visiting personally obviously would take much longer, especially if any travel at all were involved. So I wouldn't pick on reporters' hours too much.
As to whether there should be "more" stories, well, there are economic considerations, I'm sure: Every story takes up space--takes up paper; it costs money to print each page. The number of stories they can print depends on the number of pages their advertising (yes, advertising drives this "engine," not subscriptions) can support. While the editorial/reporting staff of the ND might want to provide us a lot more stories, the economic reality is that they cannot, or so I suspect.
They also have to consider their audience, probably much more so in a small town than they would somewhere they could be more anonymous, where it would be infinitely less likely for them to know or otherwise socially encounter the subjects of their stories, and conversely. Most small-town audiences, and maybe big-town audiences, too, WANT "fluff," want "feel-good" stories--and what's wrong with that? Don't most of us hear enough dirt dished about our fellow citizens and local businesses, etc., in our churches or workplaces or anywhere else we gather, already?
Yes, the stories should be better written, although I'm not sure how I would define that--I suppose I would know it when I saw it. Yes, they DEFINITELY need to pay more attention to basics like spelling, grammar, syntax, etc., but the same could be said of the majority of us. These reporters likely were educated in our public school system, after all. Insight, analysis and critical thinking? You're asking for a lot, there. Probably not one journalist in 10, or 100, can give you what you're looking for, and I don't mean only in small markets.
As for the online blogs, the ND has no control over the content, other than to be able to disappear comments that violate their guidelines. If a topic fades into oblivion, that is OUR fault, not theirs.
And I suspect I'm out of space, so will shut up.
Posted by dangyankee (anonymous) on April 10, 2008 at 12:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
P.S. A newspaper's "job," first and foremost, is to report the news. News is not always bad. "If it bleeds, it leads," is a catchy quote, but that truly is not how most newspapers function (outside of tabloids, that is).
It is unfair of us to expect Woodward and Bernstein (for those of you who remember the original "gate," that is, Watergate), or even (especially) "Lou Grant," from a small-city newspaper, or even, for the most part, from any large-city newspaper. The ND is not a television show; its daily activities are not "scripted."
A community's newspaper is a record of that community's "activities of daily living." Sometimes that may get pretty boring, for readers and reporters alike, but, hey, they don't call them "activities of DAILY living" for nothing. I don't know about you, but I appreciate that "boredom" sometimes; I don't WANT my life to be a nonstop, daily series of dramas and crises and all that wonderful jazz.
The ND does not do a perfect job--on a couple of occasions they've had, um, lapses of such incredible and incomprehensible incompetence that it stunned me, in fact--but, given the "big picture," overall they do fairly well.
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on April 10, 2008 at 12:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Gosh Julie, I can understand what you said about hurt feelings. Maybe you could just pick a number?
1. I don't know.
2. I know, but its none of your business.
3. The plans have been canceled.
4. The plan is right on schedule.
5. We're waiting until after the election so the mayor and aldermen will not take credit.
6. I went and asked but was told I was on a "need to know basis".
7. We realized that we love our present location and could never leave it.
8. other
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on April 10, 2008 at 7:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I stand corrected on the "...30 minutes to several days." issue, however, I stand by the rest of what I said.
Posted by grrbrts (anonymous) on April 10, 2008 at 9:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
My personal, and favorite quote, "It's not how one makes a mistake, it's how one corrects it."
Another great quote, from the mind of Albert Einstein, "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. [-Albert Einstein]"
Posted by roberth33 (anonymous) on April 10, 2008 at 9:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'd love some in-depth stories about the behavior of all the "little darlings" in the High School. Ben Hilyer referred to some students behavior in his column last week (or 2 weeks ago). We hear a lot about the lousy teachers and lousy school administration. Let's here about the lousy parents and lousy students who don't come to school prepared and ready to learn.
Why are CHILDREN (yes even high school students are children) allowed to have phones in school? School should be a no-cellphone-zone. There needs to be a zero tolerance policy and if found, they should be confiscated.
Posted by dangyankee (anonymous) on April 11, 2008 at 12:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Roberth33, I actually agree with you on the cell phone issue, but would go further--they should be confiscated at the door of restaurants, for instance, and should be made nonfunctional by some electronic marvel whenever a driver's key is turned in an ignition switch, among other occasions.
But: Why in the world do we need any "in-depth stories about the behavior of the 'little darlings' in the High School"? After all, we all already "know" how bad that behavior is, right? You're just asking for reinforcement of our "knowledge," I suppose.
Instead, how about some "in-depth" stories about the kids at the high school (and we all know which high school you're referring to) who are NOT engaging in criminal or self-destructive behavior? I know such kids exist, having met some products of "that" school up at Alcorn a few years ago, and also encountering more of "that" school's graduates on a daily basis at Wal-Mart and Rite-Aid and McDonald's, among other places. They may have gotten, or are in the process of getting, a bad education at "that" school, but that does not make them bad kids--merely unfortunate.
Why are you (we) so interested in the "dirt" about other people? Does it make us feel better about ourselves? In this particular case, I suspect there is a racial angle, too, and that also puzzles me, to some extent. Also, in this particular case, whyinheck are you at all interested in digging up dirt on KIDS? I assume, perhaps wrongly, that you're an adult--whyinheck do you want to spend your time, or have the ND spend its time, attacking kids? What's the point?
Yes, we "hear a lot about the lousy teachers and lousy school administration"--and there is a whole lot of "lousy" going on, there. Same goes the other way--we just read about some NHS powerlifters being arrested for grand larceny, for instance.
Maybe that is what is giving us an overall negative outlook on life in general, I don't know. Negative begets negative, after all.
If today's younger generation is "f-worded up", just remember, it took at least two preceding generations, their parents and grandparents, to make them that way. That would be US. All of us.
How do we fix it? I have no bleeding clue.
Posted by JessicaRyan (anonymous) on April 11, 2008 at 2:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Did any of you even notice that these questions were submitted by STUDENTS? Students who were delighted to read the Opinion column this week. Oh, but I forgot....children don't have opinions, right? You only want our newspaper full of scandals, politics, and all of the other topics that YOU are interested in. Well, I'll tell you like I tell my 5th graders....You can't make everyone happy. But if you want to see joy in it's PUREST form, look at the face of a happy child. Which I witnessed Wednesday morning when the students saw their questions in the paper.
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