How all that good and bad news gets into the paper
I never knew I was in such demand.
Actually, that’s not true.
I’m your best friend when you want to get something into the newspaper.
It’s the other times – when I’m looking for some information – that sometimes present a problem.
I have said many times that there are exactly two people who call the newspaper – aside from those who want to complain about that day’s front page and the folks who want to grumble about why their paper can’t be placed inside their screen door. That would be those people who are trying desperately to get something into the paper, and those who are equally panic-stricken about keeping something out of the paper.
The former are pretty easy. In fact, these days, they are a blessing. We get flooded with information each day about all sorts of events, community issues and other items. We are grateful when readers reach out and let us know these things. A lot of them end up on our community news pages.
Then there are the folks who insist they have a great story we should follow up on. And oh, by the way, it just happens to be about the great things their son or daughter are doing.
The flip side of these situations is a little more dicey. The calls almost always start the same way.
“Uh, a friend of mine recently got picked up for DUI, is that going to be in the newspaper?”
I almost always respond the same way.
Don’t say another word. The truth is a lot of these minor kinds of offenses don’t make the paper. But the more information we receive, and the more interesting the yarn sounds, the more we are likely to follow up.
Some police departments give us information every day.
Then there are some chief and departments – and you know who you are – who are conspicuously silent. I think the elected officials in those towns - their bosses - like it that way. The truth is I’m not sure a lot of municipal officials are especially enamored about seeing their towns – and some of their more lessthan-stellar citizens – splashed all over the newspaper.
So how do you explain Upper Darby Police Superintendent Mike Chitwood and Mayor Tom Micozzie? I often wonder if the mayor sometimes grits his teeth every time his tough top cop refers to some bad guy as a “scum bag.”
All of this was brought to mind last week when I was invited to a forum at Neumann University. It was for business and other professionals to let them pick the minds of a few media members for tips and advice on how to deal with the media. What I was doing there is anyone’s guess. These were some pretty impressive people. Folks like Maryann Vaughn, longtime assistant news director at Fox-29 (and also a Delco resident!). Steve Butler, director of news and programming at KYW Newsradio. Stephen McKenzie, managing editor of CBS-3 Eyewitness News. Mike Neilon, who for years held down the fort as a producer at 6ABC and now is vice president of communications at Bellevue Communications public relations. Gene Sonn, who is the Audio News Director at WHYY, and Anzio Williams, Vice President of News at NBC10 and Telemundo62, rounded out the panel.
I tried to give an honest assessment of where the newspaper industry stands. No, it was not pretty. The truth is we use more information today directly from the community than we ever did.
Copy and paste is one of the rare gifts from the media gods.
But what I really wanted to convey to those gathered was something I stress to almost everyone I come in contact with – that goes for community groups, school administrators, local elected officials, and business leaders.
We understand that you all are interested in positive, “good” news stories. And we’d like to present them. Or at least some of them.
The truth is we’re not going to get to all of them. So if you can give us a short press release and photo we will be eternally grateful.
However, as I may have mentioned, this is a twoedged sword.
I assured them with a fair degree of certainty that the day will come when we will be calling in decidedly less pleasant circumstances. That is what we do. Some people call it bad news.
Some people refer to it as “sensationalism,” followed by some scintillating descriptions of the newspaper, including the ever-popular “I only still get it to read the obits and line my cat’s litter box.”
You’d be amazed how many times these very same people who call incessantly to push their “good stories” for the newspaper suddenly go dead silent when we call chasing a less positive story.
Either that or when we finally reach them, the chatterbox offers a terse “no comment” followed by a click and a dead telephone line.
There is a part of me that does not blame them.
I often wonder if I would not react in exactly the same way.
The savvy ones understand that we are doing our job. And no amount of “no comment” is going to make the story go away.
So by all means, get us those stories you would like to see featured in the newspaper.
Just know that the day could come when we will be calling under different circumstances.
And “no comment” really does speak volumes.