Regional towns and people love their local newspaper – seeing stories and images of family, neighbours, friends … and even themselves.
And every person the local journalist encounters has a story to tell or one to share. The story may be big news of achievement, dreams or hopes; the story could be a brief (two or three sentences). Sometimes, the person you are chatting with may think the conversation flows from anecdote to anecdote about themselves and therein the local journo sees that every person has a story to tell.
With trust and professionalism displayed and proven, those people then entrust you to share their story, telling it truthfully and faithfully, engaging the audience in a way that has them consumed with every word and painting a picture that connects.
So here are a few thoughts to assist you in discovering the joys of sharing the stories in your local communities.
Rural towns and districts are resilient and connected places where people look out for each other. The local rural journalist becomes part of that community from the day they write their first words for publication.
Don’t be removed or isolated. Play sport with the local team (or at least be a barracker at matches), if you’ve a passion for the arts or history, become a member of those organisations. Show the community (the readers) that you are part of the town and one of them. A good newspaper, after all, mirrors its community.
Being part of the community is just the first step in building local networks and trust among people.
Identify sources of accurate (and timely) information, have ethically respectful and professional relationships with the local police and emergency services, grow the branches of your own “community involvement” tree for it can be the norm for a handful of people in one local organisation to be in many others around town with some even representing that group at regional, state and national levels.
A sage old newspaper editor once said ‘Life is Lived Forwards, But Understood Backwards’. If you’re new to a country area, swot up on the history – whether from last week, last month, last year or further back in time. This can be by reading back issues of the newspaper, local history books or talking to some of the older residents (you may even pick up a contemporaneous story or two in the process).
Generate within yourself a degree of “corporate and acquired knowledge” that can be useful in providing context with stories and around issues.
Always check the names of people to be featured or quoted in your stories. Some districts can have different families of similar names, EG Byrne or Burn, Leach or Leech, Stevens or Stephens – they may be in the same football or bowls teams and it can be an easy mistake to use the surname of “that other lot”.
Gain an understanding and appreciation of the stories they like to read – country towns like to celebrate achievements, milestones and events, they also like to see articles about former residents (and particularly children or grandchildren of current residents) doing well in the big smoke or overseas.
There will be the tough stories too – not everything is rosy in country towns. There may be articles about the local council – a fiery meeting, a project budget blowout, the swimming pool closed, roads waiting to be repaired etc. Don’t shy away from those local stories – if someone has raised the issue with you, it’s important to them.
Distil the complaint, take out parish parochialism and then put context and balance into the story. Ask questions of council, government etc. You may only receive responses (a bit different to answers) but make sure the story is honest, fair and balanced. Again, this goes a long way in developing networks, trust and showing you are part of the community where you work and are charged with recording tomorrow’s history today.
In this 21st century technological age, it’s easy to be consumed with a reliance on the information superhighway and emails. Country people often don’t work like that and in many rural areas mobile phone and internet connectivity can be worse than dodgy. Country people like to meet you, see you and talk in person – they’re always on for a chat.
But with time of the essence in the daily life of a rural journalist, and sometimes the distance between towns or districts in a circulation area also at play, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone for initial contact. If you rely on a reply to an email, the response might miss deadline. Government and local government may of course say to put the questions in an email but that’s a different situation to connecting and engaging with people on the ground.
As a starting-out journalist on a country newspaper, everyone will know you before you know them, it’s the way of life in a country town. And if your circulation area is across multiple towns and district (as is pretty much always the case), the grapevine will quickly tell family and friends in the next town about the new journo on the patch. These people love their country newspapers and they expect you to show those same qualities.
Chris Earl is owner and managing editor of the Loddon Herald. Chris established the newspaper covering communities in the Loddon Shire (population 7700) in 2021 during the COVID pandemic when the area was left without a voice.
The Loddon Herald has since been recognised with major awards by the Rural Press Club of Victoria and the Victorian Country Press Association including the 2022 RPCV Media Outlet of the Year and for its news and sports articles in print and online, photography and community campaigns on childcare, swimming pools and small town main street road safety.
Chris started his career an industry-trained cadet journalist on a regional daily newspaper, later edited a tri-weekly newspaper for seven years and was a metropolitan daily sub-editor before returning to regional dailies prior to being employed as a media adviser for senior federal politicians, writing several history books and publishing a music magazine. Journalism has been at the core of his career as has rural and regional communities. “Proud of country Victoria where many great ideas are born,” he says.
