Jennifer Retter: Small-market journalism pros and cons

When Jennifer Retter writes about community journalism, it is like Warren Buffett giving tips on money at a cocktail party. Listen up!

Jennifer Retter

Reporting for small markets certainly has its perks – research shows small-market papers are keeping circulation up compared to struggling big-market papers – as well as its challenges.

Pros

1. Clear-cut “well-known” sources

It’s much easier to present a story about local schools with a quote from the school board president of the one school district in the area. The board president is likely someone everyone in the small town knows, sees at the grocery store and maybe sits next to at church. If there’s a story about education, well, you know whom to call. In bigger markets, the choice is trickier; how many of the 35 board presidents can you call if you’re on deadline and looking for a general sentiment as to how education leaders in your area view a new legislative measure?

The same principal goes for governance. If you’re on a tight deadline and can’t reach the mayor, you’re probably OK to quote a city councilmember and get the same name recognition factor. In a tiny town, people often know their council members directly.

2. Always relevant

With (often) so little happening in such a small area impacting such few people, it’s easy to stay relevant to your audience. You have more of monochromatic reader base from the start, which means stress over which stories make the front page and which get cut is largely irrelevant. If there’s a yearly town event, you can bet photo coverage relevant; the whole town will show. If there’s a high school athlete you want to feature, it’s likely a large portion of residents know at least someone connected to him or her and are therefore drawn into the story. If there’s an event at one of the three schools in town, you’ve just drawn in one-third of your young reader base.

3. Often, less competitive

If you work for the sole news outlet covering a small town, chances are you’re the sole source of information relating to that town. Residents aren’t rushing to buy the nearest city’s paper to learn about upcoming changes to their town’s water system; they’re buying your paper.

A former coworker told me about a newspaper owner in New Mexico (I think it was New Mexico!) who operated as the sole source of town information within the town, which sat hundreds of miles from any big city. At a conference, the man expressed zero interest in a presentation on converting to online journalism. If people wanted to know the news, he said, they would have to buy his paper when it came out. While his response is not an excuse to forgo the Internet forever or slack on the responsibility to provide news in a timely manner, it demonstrates small papers’ ability to command their markets.

4. Ability to do more

In a small market, you may be the reporter-editor-photographer-designer-receptionist-ad sales rep all in one day. Your skills build, your résumé thanks you, and all those titles look better than “calendar editor” or something equally bland from a big-city paper where you worked on one mindless task every day.

Cons

1. Unpopular story? Too bad

Journalists are to report the big stories with no bias – unless it conflicts with the mayor’s reputation, involves your coworker’s friend’s sister, or at all negatively impacts (if you’re in small-town Texas, at least) the high school football team. Undoubtedly, many of the highest-impact stories in small towns never make in the paper.

The same goes for story angles on potentially controversial topics. If the football team messed up, there’s only one way that story gets portrayed – positively.

2. Gossip outlet or news source?

Sometimes news tips work their magic and you have a completely original or breaking story at your fingertips. Other times, people want to be SURE you’re aware that their neighbor posted a sign they don’t want posted, or so-and-so at this parent meeting said she would adopt puppies and oh, SHE DID NOT. I think this issue is far more prevalent in small towns – could you really see a resident of Manhattan call up the New York Times about a spat with their frenemy?

3. Small staff

Working with a smaller staff can help with the ability to cover a wide range of tasks (see pros, number 4), but can also cause problems. In a big company, an inter-employee relation problem could be taken to the HR department and sorted out. In a smaller company, HR may be the one other person you work with.

4. Fewer angles

It’s more challenging to get a diverse array of opinions and ideas about issues in a tiny town of people who all perform the same jobs, come from the same ethnic group and attend the same churches. For example, say you want to do a story on a recent change in synagogues – but your town has none. Or, a controversial measure on gay marriage passes, but your tiny town votes 98 percent conservative and the 2 percent otherwise fear social exclusion if they talk to you. You may have to cast your net much wider to find enough sources for a balanced story, which threatens your ability to remain relevant.

What about you? What are some other pros and cons you’ve experienced in different market sizes?