This business I’m in causes some contradictory feelings. When you are
a reporter or editor at a newspaper, your competitors are also your
brethren. Sometimes the other team gets it right, and so you admire
what’s been done.



The women and men at the other media outlets are trying to do the same
job of informing people about the community around them and analyzing
what is going on. Though you want to beat them to a story, you can’t
always do it. You always want to do a better and more thorough job instead
of just rehashing the same material from the same sources, but you don’t
always accomplish it.



As I wait for the sun to rise while pecking away at my keyboard, I think
back to last night as a good example. Haywood County citizens gathered
to discuss the courthouse projects, a $36.6 million construction package
that will be the largest ever undertaken with tax dollars in the county.
Rightfully, there is much debate.



There was Russ Bowen and a WLOS cameraman, busy working before the rest
of us, interviewing people on the courthouse steps. Jon Ostendorff of
the Asheville Citizen-Times was in the courtroom tapping away on a laptop,
trying to make his early deadline while getting the whole story from
the two-hour meeting. Becky Johnson from The Enterprise Mountaineer
was sitting in for vacationing Vicki Hyatt, facing the difficult job
of stepping into a fellow reporter’s beat and doing so with finesse
and expertise.



We were all trying to get the story, to learn as much as possible from
the hearing. Good reporters have to care about the issues they are covering.
This is one of those jobs where it’s impossible to fake it. If
you don’t care and aren’t committed, it shows up in your work.
This is no 9-to-5, punch-the-clock job. That attitude will produce a
sleepy, boring story that isn’t worth reading or watching.



I spoke to a civic club last week and told them the same thing. You
can rightfully call me — and most reporters — freaks, but
we enjoy sitting and talking about construction projects, political
intrigue, courthouse goings-on, crime, ordinances, zoning, taxation
or whatever is the issue of the week. If you don’t care, you won’t
be a good reporter.



After the public hearing and some post-meeting interviews, I was headed
down Main Street to the office last night when a truck pulled up. The
first words out of Citizen-times reporter Sandy Wall’s mouth were
about the courthouse hearing. What happened? Who spoke out? Anything
new? Before we exchanged pleasantries, the reporter in him needed a
fix, needed a few answers. Wall was off work, but like most reporters
he really wasn’t.



As I travel around Western North Carolina, I hear a lot about how the
public feels about our different newspapers. Being relatively new, many
want to talk about what The Smoky Mountain News is doing in context
to the existing newspapers. So I listen and try to learn. Since my background
is as an editor and a reporter, I find myself separating the work of
individual reporters from the total, overall image of their newspapers.
Many good reporters work on mediocre newspapers or mediocre television
stations.

I sometimes even sit and think about what my dream team would be. Given
unlimited resources (money always talks), who would make the best pack
of reporters and editors in Western North Carolina? The paper in Asheville
certainly has some biggies, but like a shrewd scout for an NBA team,
I think the community newspapers — the CBA of the newspaper world
— have some real talent that could make it in any league.



I’ve known for a while that the other newspapers in this region
are doing good things, but I was reminded of it over the last two weeks
as I was trying to figure out just what issue to discuss in this column
this week. My ideas kept getting one-upped, written and printed elsewhere
before our deadline rolled around. To be specific:



° Corporal punishment — The Enterprise Mountaineer in Waynesville
editorialized against spanking children in school after the Haywood
School Board backed off a temporary ban. They said most of what I wanted
to say, but let me quote the summation: “Children must learn that
adulthood means something ore honest than practicing violence and calling
it discipline.” Well said.



° Illegal closed meetings — The Jackson County EDC sent an
announcement to the media saying it would travel to an asphalt plant
in a van and would conduct a meeting during the trip. The Sylva Herald,
never afraid to speak out, editorialized strongly against such a meeting:
“Often, when a situation like this occurs, people shake their head
and say to each other, ‘There ought to be a law.’ ... this
time there is a law — one the EDC is apparently choosing to ignore.”
Intentional or not, the meeting was illegal. Give’em hell.



° Clean well water — Macon County investigated the possibility
of charging a $25 local fee to well drillers so local monitoring and
records of well locations could be kept. The idea was to keep wells
and septic tanks far enough apart to keep drinking water safe. Commissioners
originally seemed to approve of the idea, but then struck down the proposal
(Janet Greene was the lone commissioner to support it). Apparently,
well drillers got to commissioners, and so the Franklin Press went to
work: “If contaminated wells eventually make enough people sick,
some future board of commissioners will no doubt respond — and
adopt an ordinance designed to protect wells from contamination. Our
present commissioners could have saved them the trouble — if they
hadn’t been so quick to yield to a little political pressure.”
A well-deserved kick in the stomach.



Good editorials are usually the work of reporters and editors working
together. They are my favorite part of the newspaper. These three got
it right, robbing me of the opportunity to be first in print with the
message. I hate it and love it at the same time, and am reminded again
of how strange this business can be.



(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.)

 

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