Now, six months into my job at the Ionia Sentinel-Standard — a small, daily newspaper — I can’t be happier it didn’t work out that way. Why? Because Benedetto was absolutely right on all accounts. The most surprising, however, has probably been what I’ve already covered and where I’m at.

In my time here, I’ve covered a flood that submerged over 1,000 cars* and made the national news, a mayor who unexpectedly resigned* his post under the shadow of scandal, quite possibly the most difficult school budget in recent memory*, and admitted violations of the open meetings act.

There are a number things that I’m currently following, too; the embezzlement sentencing for the former mayor* and the disappearance of a local man*, for example.

I’ve also already been promoted to the lead reporter position, shifting my beat from the county schools to the county government (including the Board of Commissioners and court system) and city government.

While it’s probably true that I would have been a contributor to similarly scaled stories at a larger paper, I can definitely say I wouldn’t be taking the lead. I also seriously doubt that after less than a year, I would have been promoted.

The moral of the story? I know that people are not being too choosy about where they find journalism jobs right now, but don’t despair if the only ones you can find aren’t big-time papers. The experience may just be more than you could have ever hoped in a small newsroom.

And, as my editor is fond of saying, it’s amazing how much more secure your job is.

*I apologize for not linking to my stories directly. We recently changed our Web site and the archives are not available yet.

I’d like to say that my most recent epiphany came from something profound, intellectual or otherwise respectable. But no. It came from watching a movie. Frankly, I’m just glad it wasn’t a commercial. Or worse, an infomercial.

Monday night, after a relatively long day at work, I came home and popped in “State of Play.” For those of you who don’t know, it’s a thriller based on DC political journalism. Well, technically it’s an adaptation of a British miniseries that the directors  moved to DC for the silver screen — but I digress.

What really matters is that the movie is AWESOME. But that was not enough to inspire my lightbulb moment. Sure, it chronicles exactly what I would love to do with my career… be in DC, breaking a huge story — so huge that someone tries to kill me over it — and making my own bit of history.

That’s inspiring, make no mistake, but the facts are that I’m not working at a huge DC daily. I’m working at a small town daily, doing work that is just as important, only on a smaller, less glorified scale.

The moment that scoured any doubts about my life as a journalist from my mind was my reaction to the closing scene. None of the big-name actors are in it. There isn’t anything particularly dramatic about it. But it shows the story going to print, the newspapers being bundled and shipped out to hit the newsstands.

I was giddy, watching that. The very fact that it was so far removed from the Hollywood drama that proceeded it should have made it easier to turn off the DVD and move on to other things. But instead, I was glued to the set.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not particularly attached to print journalism as a rule. I love the smell of newsprint, but I’ve never had my own subscription to a paper. I spent most of my free time online, reading blogs about how journalism is changing and I’m excited for those changes.

So I stopped to think about why that scene hit me the way it did. And after much thought I’ve come to the conclusion that it was because I saw it as the literal meaning. It was the news getting out to the people.

That’s it. It’s why I do what I do, despite the urgings of many around me to look for a better paying job with more consistent hours. I want to find out all I can, distill it into the most pertinent information in the most easily understood language and send it out to people. I want to capture what is happening in this day in history and record it for all to see.

I’m sure this echoes something written by a thousand other people, especially with all the current talk of journalism being dead. I’ve probably written something similar already on this blog. But the reporter in me wanted to see this in print for myself. And maybe you’ll take something from it too.

The reporter I was replacing, Frank, was greeted at every meeting I shadowed him at with certificates, farewell speeches, hugs and parting gifts. I heard tales of how he was beloved in one community because he was the first Ionia Sentinel-Standard reporter to really venture there, and he did a better job reporting on them than our competition. And I saw the ease with which he interacted with school board members, teachers, city council members and concerned citizens.

Being completely new and fresh out of the gate, I knew I had my work ahead of me. These people didn’t know me, didn’t have any reason to trust me… that was something that I was going to have to build up.

The transition has, I think, in large part been smooth. I’ve made a handful of fairly minor mistakes, as is to be expected, but no one has had a serious problem with my reporting. I’m starting to get on a first-name basis with a number of officials, and, from time to time, I actually have people giving me tips.

I have only been with the paper a few months and by no means have run into everyone that knew and had worked with Frank in the past. I still expect questions and/or remarks about the fact that he is gone. But perhaps the most annoying way people choose to remark on his absence is with the statement “So you’re the one who took Frank’s job.”

Perhaps I’m being touchy, but that seems to imply that he left it unwillingly, that I was cheaper labor that the paper hired to  cut costs. Which isn’t remotely true — Frank opted to leave for a number of reasons (so I’ve been told, from Frank himself among others) but in large part because he wanted to explore another career and life in Texas.

With the economy being what it is, I bristle a bit when I hear people talk about the switch from Frank to me in that way. Even “So you’re the new Frank” is preferable… that’s just a reiteration of how much Frank had come to be seen as a face of the Sentinel. It’s even more true, I suppose.

What do you think? Am I wrong to be put off by the repeated “so you’re the one who took his job”s?

Now I’m over a month in.

Expecting me to say that I no longer think this is the opportunity of a lifetime? That I’m overwhelmed by the responsibilities of the big-kid world and disillusioned by the workload?

If that’s the case, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

I love my job. Is it exactly what I thought it would be? No, of course not. Would I want to change it? Not on your life.

Over the first month, I’ve met students, teachers, administrators and parents from almost every school district in the county. Well, that’s to be expected as I took over the education beat. City councils have seen my face around as well. I’ve covered budgets and state-wide news. Concerts and 4-H kids.

Through that I’ve met some really great people. I love sharing their stories.

It’s come with long hours — 12 hour days were the norm last week — something familiar to journalists all around. Working at a small paper means that everyone chips in with everything; my time waiting for return calls is spent typing up the local court news or a local woman’s weekly column on health questions.

I take all of my own photos. I like to think of it as diversifying my talents.

Getting this job at a small-town paper that covers the entire county was probably the best thing that could have happened to me for my first job. Why? Covering the entire county usually means that I’m not pulling teeth to get my daily two stories. Covering a network of small towns means that I can form the personal attachments to the communities and the people who live in them that allows me to overlook the long hours and low pay.

Having this job will, in my opinion, give me the best chance at keeping the burn-out at bay.

The only thing  I regret a little is that, as it stands now, the paper isn’t really Web-integrated. We post our top three stories online daily, with only the lead story’s photo. Our archives are only searchable for two weeks.

But the editor seems interested in exploring the Web so I’m hopeful that I’ll be there for  the Sentinel’s online integration.

Oh, and just as a point of pride, I covered the recent flooding of the Ionia fairgrounds at the B93 Birthday Bash over the weekend. The story also made the national news, via USA Today among others.

I still don’t think it has hit me that I’m done. I am now a college graduate, going on into the big, grown-up working world.

That’s right, the working world.

The day before my very last final exam, I got that coveted phone call inviting me to an interview. Right after my final, I packed up my car and drove to Ionia, Mich. to meet with the editor of the Ionia Sentinel-Standard. Two days after that–and one day before my graduation–I was offered one of the paper’s two full-time reporter positions. I start Monday. Talk about a tidy ending.

I know just how lucky I am. While so many of my peers are scrambling to find work, I managed to snag not just a job but a job in journalism. It must have been the lucky penny that I picked up that day.

That doesn’t mean that everything is coming up roses… with student loans looming (the by-product of my expensive private college education), my entry-level reporter salary will mean a lot of macaroni and cheese and PB & J sandwiches in my future. I’m also crashing in my friend’s living room as I try to apartment search from across the state. And having a couch (even a Salvation Army steal) is looking like a pipe dream.

But when it all comes down to it, I couldn’t be happier or more excited.

I, of course, am both really excited and jealous about the move: excited because I was there to help transition the site to one that supports the switch, as well as offering a little input on how the new program should look, and jealous because I’m graduating before the program moves exclusively online.

Okay, enough about that. The real reason for this post is because the switch is bringing a lot of changes to the paper.

• First, the publication will be updated far more frequently. With our current process, stories are pitched with a 10-day lead time, making a lot of stories old news by the time our readers finally see them in print. By moving to to the Web, we expect stories to be updated at least twice a week and “breaking news” stories could be made available as soon as they are edited.
• There will be a lot more focus on multimedia reporting. We have a relatively small program here–only one professor and about three classes offered per semester–which limited how much ground we could cover. By eliminating the design aspect of the curriculum (we used InDesign for page layout in the print version), we will have time to teach staffers how to shoot video, construct slideshows and edit audio for the Web.
• The move to the new Web site allowed us to add a lot of community building features. We now have a RSS feed and can allow readers to comment on stories. I’ve also created a Twitter account (@PleiadOnline) that feeds the latest stories as well as insights from the editors. Don’t like a story? Think we got something wrong? Or just want to add your own thoughts to what was reported? Let us know with a comment. Talk with one another about the stories using the comment feature–you’ll get a lot more from the what we report that way.

If you want to know a little bit more about how I put the site together, check out this post.

If you have any questions or concerns about how the site –from being confused about how something works to telling me that you don’t like the color scheme, now’s the time to say something. Before I leave, I want to do my best to make this your paper as much as it is the staff’s.

Having the paper exclusively online is going to be a change, but I think it’s going to be a great one. What do you guys think?

**Edit: The Pleiad archives will be migrated to the new site over the summer. Because of my busy schedule with classes and applying to grad programs and jobs and whatnot, I didn’t have the free time to do it with the initial transition.

My immediate reaction was this:

community based reporting, ties experienced reporter with “citizen journalist” to create in-depth web content
funded by the community

I know, I know, shame on me for lapsing on proper grammar and capitalization. Double boos warranted for not even using complete sentences. But the idea itself… I think that has real-life potential.

After thinking about it a little more after the chat, my plan morphed to encompass not only my love for journalism but also my goal of teaching as well as acknowleging what it would take to get the communities of Sanilac County to rally around an online publication.

My new plan? To try to convince the ISD to allow a journalism program.

The program would partner one or two students with active members of their home community’s organizations–PTA moms, school board members, city hall representatives, school sport boosters. That person would become essentially the inside source on the information going on within those institutions (Obviously, this person can’t be particularly high up in the organization, nor can they be quoted sources as that would be a huge conflict of interest. Their role is essentially to steer the students in the right direction and perhaps legitimize their work to the institution).

The students would report on their “beats”–developing stories, art, and multimedia, for the publication, which would be updated as stories come in. I’d serve as editor for the first few years at least, while I established a base in the program, and then potentially open up positions for student editors (second-year students who proved themselves capable).

Local advertising and perhaps a $5 subscription fee would help fund the project.

I’ll be the first to say that this isn’t an easy thing to do. Money is tight and everyone knows that the newspaper industry is collapsing, so why would they invest in a vocational program to teach students how to do it?

The trick is going to be showing the validity of teaching community based reporting and the skills necessary to present that on the Web.

I have a couple things working in my favor:

• To my knowledge, none of the schools in the county offer journalism classes; the closest we get is yearbook. So the program would be unique, not duplicating what is already offered in the home school districts.
• The program, by virtue of being a publication, could generate some revenue towards its existence.
• In the process of teaching the students how to report, we would be producing a quality source of hometown news that would be widely available to the community.
• I’d be teaching how to present the news reliably online–something that currently is not really being done in Sanilac County. Sure, the local papers have Web sites, but they just reiterate the content from their print versions online in badly formatted pages. This could be the first publication in the county to do it right.

I think this has the potential to be a really strong program that would give students an outlet that they currently don’t have. What do you think? Is it viable?

Not anymore. No one in Sanilac County will be safe from my musings in the coming year. Muahahaha.

My editor at the Sanilac County News has asked me to contribute as one of twelve columnists for the “In My Opinion” section. At least four times, I’ll be given approximately 400 words to discuss anything I feel warrants the attention–national news, county politics, life in general, nostalgia… the options are completely open.

I’m really excited about the opportunity. I’ve enjoyed the columns that I’ve written for the Pleiad, and feel like a well-written column can drive home the facts of a drier news story with a punch that even a journalist’s beloved statistics can’t. They give the condensed version of impact that you get in a well-written investigative piece. Good columns make the stories that play out on the front page  real for the readers.

But why is that?

Honestly, I think it’s because of the voice that you get in a column. The idea of the objective media has its strengths, but making people feel like they are involved in what’s going on isn’t one of them. A column people can agree or disagree with. It feels like a conversation. A well-written column can provoke people to look deeper into what’s really going on, to really think about how they will be affected.

In my humble opinion, this is exactly where professional blogging fits in. Properly researched posts serve the dual purpose of getting people the basic facts of an issue and taking a stance on it, then giving the readers an interactive forum in which they can assert their own views. And that environment is precisely why I think so many people are turning more and more to the Web for their news (not to discount the fact that we haven’t found a way to charge for Web content, so it’s cheaper that way as well).

That melding of reporting and reaction is one of the most exciting parts of journalism for me right now. So here’s to my venture into using that voice in print, and hoping that I can hone those skills on the Web as well.

• I decided that the Teach for America program wasn’t for me. After I got invited to the final round of interviews, I sat down with my family and close friends to talk about my future and realized that I’m just not ready to commit to being away from home for two years yet. Sounds ridiculous, but the contract aspect of the program scared me away. So I pulled myself out of the running for that.
• This will allow me to pursue part-time or freelance journalism work while going to school for my teacher certification.
• Financially, this is the most sound decision for me right now after eliminating TFA.

I’m hoping to finish my program there by December 2010 and hopefully I’ll be better positioned to find my way in the working world then. In the meantime, if the staff at the Valley Vanguard is looking for another writer, I’m more than happy to volunteer.

In order to give myself a “safe” space to experiment with my vision for the site, as well as various plugins and whatnot, I’ve downloaded XamppLite onto my laptop and am running a version of WordPress 2.7 on a localhost server. It’s my first experiment with this, and I have to say I’m liking it. A lot. My mistakes aren’t made public and I have access to all template and application files for WordPress–something that will change when the site goes live on Albion’s servers.

I’ve opted to modify the Structure theme to fit the paper’s needs–mostly because the site needs to be ready to go live quickly, and between work and classes and interviews I don’t have time to try to do something from scratch. With my novice abilities, that would probably take a long while even if I were working on it full-time.

After a couple days of playing around; this is what the “above the fold” of the site looks like (keeping in mind I’m using placeholder articles, not real ones):

The header graphic needs work, and the colors will likely be tweaked… but overall, I’m pretty happy with how far I’ve come as quickly as I’ve done it.

Anyone have any tips or suggestions for me as I continue to try to make this better?