The art of Community newspaper management
21 December 2014. By Abi Giwa
A newspaper
Understanding the application of the Content Management System, CMS, and the Indesign software, represent the acquisition of knowledge in modern newspapering that employers seek. Thus, when the executive editor of the Long Island Herald Community newspaper, John O'Connor, asked to train me in the company's CMS and Indesign, my joy was boundless. It was the beginning of another period of learning practical reporting in a news room, following instructions of senior editors and managing information processing, strictly for a particular community.
I had noticed before interning at the Herald that there was hardly any media employment advertisements, which did not require expertise in CMS and Indesign. Learning the application was the height of my three months internship in the newspaper house. The Herald newsroom is a typical place of work, located on one floor, shared with other departments, where reporters are busy with little or no interference from one another unless there is a need to share story ideas or information. All works are done on the computer. The newsroom is a quick reminder of "Newsroom Today" class in one the semesters during which we visited many newsrooms across New York City. The Long Island Herald as a Community newspaper, cover various communities in Long Island and made a great addition to the earlier knowledge I acquired in "Newsroom Today" class. In all, there are about eighteen newspapers published by the Long Island Herald Community newspaper covering places like Franklin Square/Elmont, Nassau, Westbury, Wantagh, Bellmore, Baldwin, East Rockaway, Long Beach, Lynbrook, Malverne, Oceanside, Rockville Center, Seaford, West Hempstead and Five Towns. Except Professor Scott Brinton who edits two newspapers - Westbury and Bellmore Herald respectively, each of the paper is edited or managed by an editor, who also cover reports and write stories. And the newspapers live to their billings as community newspapers,; reporting events, personalities, school and community activities, students' performances and residents achievements, in and out of the communities and any big event affecting the communities outside the community.
As I first approached the newspapers' building on Endo Boulevard in Long Island, the sight of the company's printing machine through the window connected me back to my days in the Daily Times newspapers in Nigeria, where I began media work as an advertisement clerk in 1979. The printing machine in the Herald's window serves as a memorial of an old Helderberg printing machine behind my office in the Daily Times, similar to the one that sat as a reminder of the past, before the arrival of the web-offset printing machine. Seeing the web-offset printing machine at the Herald evoked my years at the Times, 1979 - 1985, and my stint as a reporter at the Insider magazine in 2001. At the Insider, there was no printing machine - a representation of journalists' effort to own their own magazines - while printing is contracted to printers outside the magazine. The similarities between my experience at the Insider and the Herald, unlike the Times, was working with editors, covering events, doing interviews, writing reports and stories for publication as a reporter and an intern-reporter.
I became a reporter at the 'Insider' without a formal university education rooted in journalism, and that cut my stay at the 'Insider' short in favor of a journey to the United States for the acquisition of necessary education for journalism. By the time I was admitted to work at the Herald as an intern, i had bagged an undergraduate degree in English from Mercy College, and I was about to complete a masters degree in Journalism at Hofstra University. An internship at the Herald represented a new turning point in my search for professional building blocks. A senior editor at the Herald, Professor Brinton, led me to a table, asked me to sit before a computer and began showing me my initial assignment as an intern - to edit press releases and crop photographs for the Franklin Square/Elmont Herald. He also immediately taught me to make cold calls to various organizations in search of event coverage. It immediately began apparent that any press release from the police concerning the appearance of an accused person in a court requires a call to the district attorney's office to find out about the accused legal representation and what the attorney has to say about the case. If the accused is represented by a Nassau County official attorney, it is a no comment case.
Within the first three weeks of the internship, I had three events to cover alongside editing press releases and cropping photographs in the office. The first coverage was the Elmont Memorial Library's 70th anniversary; followed by a ceremony in recognition of women with cancer at the Belmont Park and the third coverage was the Franklin Square Street Fair. These event coverages coming after several years of cessation with on the spot news coverage, I felt it was a challenge. Doing my best, I used what i learnt my Advanced News Reporting class, using the Inverted Pyramid Structure with the lead having the most important aspect of the event, and the rest of the story in order of importance and significance.
"Do you know how to get a photographer to cover your assignment?" Professor Brinton asked following the first reporting assignment he gave me. "Alright, come, I need to show you how to do it." He asked m over to the photo editor's desk on the other side of the floor. He introduced me to the photo editor and told her he needed to show me to assign a photographer to cover my works. H e took a form from a tray, and showed me how to fill it out to request the photo editor for a photographer. After he had shown me how to fill the form, he told me that I could arm myself with my own camera and get some snaps at the event to be submitted with my report, in casino photographer showed up. Later on at the event, I napped some photographs as instructed by Professor Brinton, which I submitted along with my report of the event. I was not aware whether the photographer I saw at event belonged to the herald or not; but when the report was published, I saw that a photographer from the herald covered the event and his photos were used along with two of my own shots.
An interview I had with Gene Goldsmith and Michaelle Slogaes posed different challenges, which I tried to meet as a reporter, putting reporting above personal comfort. Goldsmith is a business man at Elmont who won a business -man- of -the -year award from the Chambers of Commerce, and Solages is an Assemblywoman who won a reelection, representing the 22nd District in Nassau County. I had called Goldsmith's office a day before the interview, and his assistant had told me to call back the following. Therefore, on my way to the office, while in the train from Atlantic Train station to hempstead, I called his office. Goldsmith answered the phone, and when I asked about the time for the interview, he said I could catch him in the next hour. I knew there was no way I could get to the office and be back to his office in one hour. I was in a train, and Hempstead is a distance from Elmont. I needed to get to Hempstead before deciding whether to go to the Herald's office, before heading to Goldsmith's office. I knewto tell him I was not ready for the interview in an hour as he demanded might mean losing the interview or getting another longer arrangement. But right there in the train, I told Goldsmith I was on my way. Thus on arrival at Hempstead, I took a cab straight to Goldsmith's office, abandoning the journey to the Herald's office. At Solages interview, I learned that an interviewee could refuse any other form of recording apart from writing. Her assistant had told me earlier that Solages does not do phone interview, but that she prefers face- face. Thus when i arrived at her office, bringing out my tape recorder, and she declined my use of any recording device aside from writing, I knew why the assistant had told me she would not do phone interview. The experience reminded of the days reporters were required to be proficient in shorthand.
At the Herald, I learned for the first time to disregard events in Albany and Washington and others around the world not directly affecting the communities in Long Island. As an intern attached to the Franklin Square/Elmont Herald, I also learned to forsake events and coverage of other areas in Long Island, except Franklin Square and Elmont areas.
I had noticed before interning at the Herald that there was hardly any media employment advertisements, which did not require expertise in CMS and Indesign. Learning the application was the height of my three months internship in the newspaper house. The Herald newsroom is a typical place of work, located on one floor, shared with other departments, where reporters are busy with little or no interference from one another unless there is a need to share story ideas or information. All works are done on the computer. The newsroom is a quick reminder of "Newsroom Today" class in one the semesters during which we visited many newsrooms across New York City. The Long Island Herald as a Community newspaper, cover various communities in Long Island and made a great addition to the earlier knowledge I acquired in "Newsroom Today" class. In all, there are about eighteen newspapers published by the Long Island Herald Community newspaper covering places like Franklin Square/Elmont, Nassau, Westbury, Wantagh, Bellmore, Baldwin, East Rockaway, Long Beach, Lynbrook, Malverne, Oceanside, Rockville Center, Seaford, West Hempstead and Five Towns. Except Professor Scott Brinton who edits two newspapers - Westbury and Bellmore Herald respectively, each of the paper is edited or managed by an editor, who also cover reports and write stories. And the newspapers live to their billings as community newspapers,; reporting events, personalities, school and community activities, students' performances and residents achievements, in and out of the communities and any big event affecting the communities outside the community.
As I first approached the newspapers' building on Endo Boulevard in Long Island, the sight of the company's printing machine through the window connected me back to my days in the Daily Times newspapers in Nigeria, where I began media work as an advertisement clerk in 1979. The printing machine in the Herald's window serves as a memorial of an old Helderberg printing machine behind my office in the Daily Times, similar to the one that sat as a reminder of the past, before the arrival of the web-offset printing machine. Seeing the web-offset printing machine at the Herald evoked my years at the Times, 1979 - 1985, and my stint as a reporter at the Insider magazine in 2001. At the Insider, there was no printing machine - a representation of journalists' effort to own their own magazines - while printing is contracted to printers outside the magazine. The similarities between my experience at the Insider and the Herald, unlike the Times, was working with editors, covering events, doing interviews, writing reports and stories for publication as a reporter and an intern-reporter.
I became a reporter at the 'Insider' without a formal university education rooted in journalism, and that cut my stay at the 'Insider' short in favor of a journey to the United States for the acquisition of necessary education for journalism. By the time I was admitted to work at the Herald as an intern, i had bagged an undergraduate degree in English from Mercy College, and I was about to complete a masters degree in Journalism at Hofstra University. An internship at the Herald represented a new turning point in my search for professional building blocks. A senior editor at the Herald, Professor Brinton, led me to a table, asked me to sit before a computer and began showing me my initial assignment as an intern - to edit press releases and crop photographs for the Franklin Square/Elmont Herald. He also immediately taught me to make cold calls to various organizations in search of event coverage. It immediately began apparent that any press release from the police concerning the appearance of an accused person in a court requires a call to the district attorney's office to find out about the accused legal representation and what the attorney has to say about the case. If the accused is represented by a Nassau County official attorney, it is a no comment case.
Within the first three weeks of the internship, I had three events to cover alongside editing press releases and cropping photographs in the office. The first coverage was the Elmont Memorial Library's 70th anniversary; followed by a ceremony in recognition of women with cancer at the Belmont Park and the third coverage was the Franklin Square Street Fair. These event coverages coming after several years of cessation with on the spot news coverage, I felt it was a challenge. Doing my best, I used what i learnt my Advanced News Reporting class, using the Inverted Pyramid Structure with the lead having the most important aspect of the event, and the rest of the story in order of importance and significance.
"Do you know how to get a photographer to cover your assignment?" Professor Brinton asked following the first reporting assignment he gave me. "Alright, come, I need to show you how to do it." He asked m over to the photo editor's desk on the other side of the floor. He introduced me to the photo editor and told her he needed to show me to assign a photographer to cover my works. H e took a form from a tray, and showed me how to fill it out to request the photo editor for a photographer. After he had shown me how to fill the form, he told me that I could arm myself with my own camera and get some snaps at the event to be submitted with my report, in casino photographer showed up. Later on at the event, I napped some photographs as instructed by Professor Brinton, which I submitted along with my report of the event. I was not aware whether the photographer I saw at event belonged to the herald or not; but when the report was published, I saw that a photographer from the herald covered the event and his photos were used along with two of my own shots.
An interview I had with Gene Goldsmith and Michaelle Slogaes posed different challenges, which I tried to meet as a reporter, putting reporting above personal comfort. Goldsmith is a business man at Elmont who won a business -man- of -the -year award from the Chambers of Commerce, and Solages is an Assemblywoman who won a reelection, representing the 22nd District in Nassau County. I had called Goldsmith's office a day before the interview, and his assistant had told me to call back the following. Therefore, on my way to the office, while in the train from Atlantic Train station to hempstead, I called his office. Goldsmith answered the phone, and when I asked about the time for the interview, he said I could catch him in the next hour. I knew there was no way I could get to the office and be back to his office in one hour. I was in a train, and Hempstead is a distance from Elmont. I needed to get to Hempstead before deciding whether to go to the Herald's office, before heading to Goldsmith's office. I knewto tell him I was not ready for the interview in an hour as he demanded might mean losing the interview or getting another longer arrangement. But right there in the train, I told Goldsmith I was on my way. Thus on arrival at Hempstead, I took a cab straight to Goldsmith's office, abandoning the journey to the Herald's office. At Solages interview, I learned that an interviewee could refuse any other form of recording apart from writing. Her assistant had told me earlier that Solages does not do phone interview, but that she prefers face- face. Thus when i arrived at her office, bringing out my tape recorder, and she declined my use of any recording device aside from writing, I knew why the assistant had told me she would not do phone interview. The experience reminded of the days reporters were required to be proficient in shorthand.
At the Herald, I learned for the first time to disregard events in Albany and Washington and others around the world not directly affecting the communities in Long Island. As an intern attached to the Franklin Square/Elmont Herald, I also learned to forsake events and coverage of other areas in Long Island, except Franklin Square and Elmont areas.
