From Cleveland to Amish Country, local news is alive and kicking

By Patricio Contreras

In a post published a couple of years ago, Jay Rosen argued that journalism is a solution to the problem of space. If you have a small village, he wrote, news goes from mouth to mouth. People can connect with each other because their small settlement allows them to do it. But, if the village grows to the size of a town, well, then you need a solution to the condition of “not being there”.

Journalism —reporters, newsrooms, people and organizations that tell stories— are part of that solution. “Journalism permits us to live as creatures of our time and make peace with the awayness of things within some community we identify with,” says Rosen.

In our recent trip through the State of Ohio we had the chance to meet some of the strategies, editorial guidelines, journalism practices and business difficulties that local news outlets face every day. It is the struggle of editors, reporters and other media related professionals to reach their audience in times when print publications and legacy media are being challenged by the digital tsunami.

In Cleveland, the so called “Rock and Roll capital of the World”, we went to two different outlets, but each one with an specific focus in local.

In WOIO channel, a CBS affiliate, we walked around the newsroom, the control room and the TV set. The newsroom was almost empty during the morning, cause all the reporters are out in the streets. A true example of shoe-leather reporting. We also learnt about the importance of weather reports, one of the main reasons why people watch TV. In local news in America, the weatherman is the co star with the anchor. That is was we saw at 19 Action News.

This news organization has a big opportunity to grow: only in June they received 11 million mobile visitors. One of the media managers we met said that television still has the biggest audience you can find in this country and they are optimistic of the future because of that reason.

Local TV news around the United States are doing very well. According to the State of the News Media 2015, “Local television stations enjoyed a year of higher revenue and slightly higher viewership in 2014.” The advertisement revenue grew in 2014, reaching $20 billion.

In the outskirts of the city is the headquarter of the Call and Post newspaper, a weekly publication that was started in 1916 and it’s now owned by Don King, the famous boxing promoter.

For them, “black news is the news”. There is no shortest way to sintetize their editorial approach. For almost a hundred years this newspaper has given space for the most influential voices for African Americans in the State of Ohio.

Most of their revenue —around 90 percent— comes from advertisement. In the past the Call and Post cost was 75 cents; now is half a dollar. Pretty weird for a print media environment that sees how the prices go up in every major newspaper.

South of Cleveland we had a third “close encounter of the local-news kind.” In Sugarcreek, a village in Tuscarawas County, we met with Keith Rathbun, the editor in chief of The Budget, one of the most rare examples of community journalism.

The Budget serves the locals at Sugarcreek but also to the Amish communities around the United States. Local, but at the same time not so local. Their mode of production must be unique. Amish folks send their accounts, written by hand, and the staff of the newspaper transcribe them to a digital format. Pages and pages of common issues: weather, buggy accidents, weddings.

Common issues that are relevant to this community. Through The Budget, Amish people provide a solution to the problem of space. They are reporters of their own lives. This is an interesting case of a local and uncommon journalistic experience.

One last thought: The Budget looks like a relic of the nineteenth century. I shoot this short video at Midwest Offset print facility in order to preserve the memory —and my memory— of a process that slowly seems to say goodbye, but refuses to utter that last word.

Call and Post: Blood and tradition

By Fernando Venegas Traba (Chile)

One of the main things that the general public, and a pretty respectable amount of journalists thinks about our profession, is that we have to be objective. We should check the facts, organize the information and communicate it to the public. Well, I have never agreed with this point of view, don´t get me wrong, I believe that we must be accurate, that we must pursue the facts to built a good non-fiction narrative that gives an idea of what is going on in our societies, that we must contrast sources,but I don´t think that objectitivity is possible.

Basically because we are always making decisions, when we choose to cover this instead of that, when we choose to use a source over another one, when we took a photo, we use an adjective or even when we decide the headline, we are, at all time, using our own experience and subjectivity. 

This doesn´t mean that we are blind, or we are slaves of our own perceptions, what it means is that we are always, talking from somewhere, from our experience, culture, religion (or non religion), values and even political point of view. When we acknowladge this, we can start to compromise, to take a stand, not to lie, but to be real honest in our approach to reality.

Constance Harper (Associate Publisher/Editor)

This is what I saw in our visit to the Call & Post, a niche newspaper, founded in 1916 by the inventor Garret Morgan, centered in informing the black community of Cleveland, from a black community point of view, and they are blunt honestly in recognizing this.

As you may have deducted, by seeing the photographies and reading the texts at this blog, we are quite a colorful group, and in the day of our visit, the questions and subjects that we rise were pretty direct, most of them not very politically correct in a society like this one (U.S.), but importants and necesaries to understand the culture and the focus of this publication. Racial issues, editorial focus, salaries, subjectivity and objectivity were discuss by our group and a number of the staff at the Call & Post. It was at least refreshing to see the honesty and how up front they were with their answers. They declare themselves as a commit newspaper, interpreting the reality from an african american point of view, because it is necessary, because the history of the USA has been hard with the black community, and is part of their job to give voice and opinion to those, that in many times, has been abused or forgot by the goverment or the society.

Felicia Haney, Journalist C&P

It was really interesting, and certainlly makes sense that in a place like Cleveland, with a population integrated by a 51% african american, the Call & Post is a very important media. With a circulation of 20 thousand, this newspaper reviews al of the topics that this particular community needs to know, and also, the ones that they are interested in.

This paper is made of flesh and spirit, of real truth, not only the one supported by facts, but the one that is achieved when you are clear in your point of view, in your way to see the world. The Call & Post is ink and blood.