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 This is Jinx. He keeps me company at work.  Cosmo, my newest office mate. A year ago my first freelance story showed up in print.
Amazing how things can change in 365 days.
A year ago I was recovering from a layoff and jumped into freelance writing without much of a plan. My goal was to prevent professional atrophy and keep money coming in until I found some sort of full-time job in journalism. I was willing to write about pretty much anything for anyone willing to pay me (in money, not exposure). I pitched stories about whatever I could think of to anyone I could find. At that time I couldn’t afford to be selective — especially when my unemployment compensation disappeared thanks to a little-known snippet of state law.
But a surprising thing happened on the way to my new job.
Freelancing became my new job. And I actually like it.
I’ve learned a ton about the business behind writing. Since I write for publications with a national reach, I get to talk to intriguing people from across the country. I can choose my assignments and focus on subjects I actually enjoy. I make my own schedule, so I can take on enough work to keep me busy but not so much that I can’t do a decent job on each story — unlike my workload at a newspaper with increasing demands and decreasing staff. I’ve written for magazines and outlets whose presence is solely online. A few clients have even sought me out instead of the reverse. My income isn’t where it was before, but I’m not eating ramen noodles.
I enjoy seeing my husband more than an hour a day. I’ve discovered how great it is to eat home-cooked meals almost every night. I don’t remember the last time I ate a microwavable Lean Cuisine. In this excellent post, Philadelphia freelancer Christopher Wink points out a bunch of other reasons freelancing is a nice arrangement — including how awesome it is for expenses like phone bills and my new laptop to count as tax write-offs.
Still, there are a lot of things I miss about working somewhere that isn’t my apartment. As I explained to a source a few weeks ago, “The good thing is, I have my cats to keep me company. The bad thing is, I have my cats to keep me company.”
I used to have coworkers, and that’s one of the things I miss most about the newspaper. I often think out loud and get a lot of ideas by bouncing thoughts off other people, but my cats are horrible brainstorming partners. And I regularly heard feedback on my newspaper stories from readers who took the time to call or e-mail me with complaints or compliments. Now, I submit my stories, see them published and hope they have some sort of an impact, but rarely hear if they do. I miss having a defined work day and two days off every week. Like most people, I’m more productive when I’ve had a break, but when you work from home, you never leave. My idea of a light day is not returning to work after dinner.
As for other negative aspects of freelancing, read Wink’s post. Nearly every entry on his list is “No regular salary.” Until now, I never appreciated how wonderful it is to get a paycheck of the same amount every two weeks.
I’m still looking for a full-time job outside of freelancing. But I’m no longer desperate. I can be selective. When I apply for jobs now, I apply to places I actually want to work for, not just news organizations I can put up with in return for a steady paycheck. That’s refreshingly liberating.
But now, my focus lies on getting better at this freelance thing. The major goal I’m working toward is developing niches that I enjoy writing about. That means education, business, politics, parenting and community issues. My favorite subject is higher education. Colleges were my favorite beat at my former job, and as a first-generation college graduate who had to navigate the application process on my own, I love providing information to students who were in the situation I was in 10 years ago.
I’ll continue to lack the time to regularly contribute to this unpaid blog. And I’m OK with that.
(However, if you’ll pay me to blog, I’m happy to talk.)
Longtime Reading Eagle reporter and columnist Dan Kelly is a great guy who helped me out a lot in my four years at that newspaper. I didn’t get to know him very well, but I have a lot of respect for his work and commitment to quality journalism.
That being said, I have a few issues with his latest column, which discusses journalistic standards for digging into rumors and deciding whether photos are too graphic to print — or display on a Web site, as it were.
Here’s part of the column I disagree with:
It goes without saying that bloggers and former journalists working for Web-only publications enjoy a wider latitude in what they can write. But when it comes to photography, many of the bloggers will put up anything – the raunchier, the better.
Anything to drive hits to their Web pages.
I won’t get far into the “Are bloggers journalists?” discussion. That question has been debated for years and still being argued in the courts. The truth is, some journalists blog as part of their staff jobs with print publications. Some bloggers are trained journalists by experience, education or both. Some untrained bloggers consider themselves journalists and some don’t. I’m a journalist who has a blog, but I don’t update it very often because writing for people who pay me takes up a lot of time already. The line between “journalists” and “bloggers” isn’t as clear as it once was and matters less and less as news reporters of all stripes experiment with new ways to present information.
In my view, what really matters is whether the material I read has been verified, fact-checked, contains all the relevant information and confers necessary respect on the people mentioned in the piece. As long as those journalistic standards are met I don’t care if I’m reading a blog post, an article printed on a dead tree or an article on a print publication’s Web site. And I don’t think most other readers care either.
That’s why I wanted to scream when I read in Dan’s column that ” former journalists working for Web-only publications enjoy a wider latitude in what they can write.”
I’ve written for two Web-only publications since I lost my job at the Reading Eagle, and that doesn’t make me a “former journalist.” I’m still a journalist, and that’s not because most of my writing still appears in print. I’m still a journalist because I’m still in the business of finding out the facts, presenting them to the public and letting the readers figure out what to do with them. I don’t adjust my standards based on whether my work will appear in print, online or both. Neither does any journalist worth the title.
The column has another quote that I disagree with:
At the risk of sounding high and mighty, newspaper editors hold themselves to a higher standard.
The paragraph before this sentence referred specifically to ethical quandaries over whether graphic photos should be printed. But this sentence alludes to the perception, common among old-school newspaper types, that information is more trustworthy if it’s printed in ink (or on the website of a publication that prints in ink). Not only does it sound pretty high and mighty, but it’s not true. Sure, all sorts of falsehoods are spread on the Internet. But print media, including newspapers, spread misinformation sometimes too.
And trained journalists who publish online are able to show their credibility in ways that paper publications can’t (although plenty of print publications take these measures on their websites). When bloggers/journalists/writers post something that turns out to be false, we can make the necessary edits and add a correction to the original piece. Since journalists are human we all screw up from time to time, and correcting the original story is far superior to the paper alternative of printing a correction somewhere in the next edition.
But what I really love about writing for the Internet is the ability to link readers to the content I’m talking about. Then they can see it for themselves instead of trusting that I’ve told them everything they want or need to know. Since this post is about Dan’s column I’ve posted a link to it (and here’s another) so you can read it yourself and decide if I’m right on or completely off. I do that in my stories too. Reporters often use documents while working on stories, and articles like this one come with links to PDF files of some of the documents I found useful.
Which medium allows for more transparency?
I love good newspapers. I subscribe to one local newspaper, and not because of the coupons. I subscribe, and urge others to, because newspaper reporters do good work and a subscription helps them maintain the financial resources to keep them working. But I don’t have a sentimental attachment to ink and dead trees. I have a sentimental attachment to quality reporting.
I recently talked to a community-newspaper editor who said he thought the Internet was “a passing fad.” I feel pretty safe saying that he’s wrong. A functioning society depends on journalists who are able to do their work, no matter what medium is used to present it. Journalists all over are trying experiments in doing their jobs and generating enough money to support themselves. I’m sure that eventually we’ll figure out how to do it sustainably.
But insisting that journalists who work in paper are more trustworthy than journalists who work with pixels won’t help us get there.
The afternoon I lost my job, I hopped on the Web site for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and filed for unemployment pay. About a week later I got a letter saying I was entitled to $352 in benefits each week I was out of a job. I could receive part of that if I earned between $141 and $493 during a given week.
My next step was to start looking for work as a freelance writer, which many out-of-work journalists do. It would add a few lines to the resume I’ve since sent out more times than I care to count, connect me to new editors and allow me to learn more skills. The money would be helpful too, of course. And although it hasn’t happened yet, maybe freelancing would lead to a job on someone’s payroll.
I didn’t expect it to cost me my unemployment benefits.
But the last week of July, the $634 the state had been depositing in my checking account every other week didn’t show up. When I called Labor and Industry for an explanation, the representative told me I wouldn’t get any more unemployment compensation because I became self-employed after writing my first freelance story in June.
My husband and I had to take money out of our savings account to pay July’s bills. Without his income I might not have been able to cover the rent.
This section of state law was my downfall:
An employe shall be ineligible for compensation for any week . . . In which he is engaged in self-employment
Indeed, the packet of information I received after filing for benefits includes this paragraph:
You may be ineligible for benefits if you are self-employed, setting up a business, or have ownership interest in a business. However, you may be entitled to benefits if you are engaged in a sideline business prior to becoming unemployed from your regular employer, report that you operate a business to the UC Service Center when filing your initial Application for Benefits, do not substantially change your participation in the sideline business while unemployed, and do not derive a primary source of livelihood from the sideline business.
I didn’t understand. I hadn’t become a freelancer because I wanted to, but because I lost my job. I wouldn’t object if the state didn’t give me unemployment pay during weeks where I earned more than $493, but most weeks my earnings fell below that threshold. I faithfully filed for benefits every two weeks, reporting every dollar of income I earned even if the checks wouldn’t come for a few months.
In August I received another letter from Labor and Industry. This one said I owed the state $897, plus interest, in unemployment benefits I had wrongly received after I began freelancing. The envelope included an “Agreement of Restitution” to send with my check. If I didn’t repay the $897, the letter assured me it could get it back by putting a lien on my property or throw me in prison.
I was livid.
Here I was, trying to make an honest living without hiding anything from the government, and the bureaucracy was treating me like as if I had deliberately defrauded Pennsylvania’s taxpayers. The state clearly wanted me to find a full-time job, but I was being punished for using freelancing as part of my search for one.
Stephen Pincus, a Pittsburgh attorney who focuses on employment law, said this isn’t an isolated case.
“It’s, without a doubt, not fair,” he told me recently. “It happens a lot with attorneys who get terminated from their firms and they hang out their shingle.”
And Pincus corrected my misunderstanding that I became ineligible for unemployment pay once I turned in my first freelance article. Actually, the law says I lost eligibility once I told someone I was willing to work as a freelancer – which happened sometime April 30.
But I wouldn’t have lost my benefits if I’d started freelancing while working for the Reading Eagle and kept up the same level of sideline income after my layoff. Pincus said the state views those situations the same way it would if a person had two part-time jobs and lost one.
I called Labor and Industry for an explanation spokesman David Smith refused to offer.
“That’s the law,” he said more than once.
So what’s my advice for others who aren’t working on the side, get laid off and can’t afford not to get regular income? Whatever you do, don’t freelance. Catch up on your DVDs while you look for a job.
Pincus said the only way to eliminate this problem is to change the law, which hasn’t been updated in about 60 years.
State Rep. Tim Seip, a Democrat who sits on the House’s Labor Relations committee, said he’d never considered situations like mine until I called him for his take. But he agreed my loss of benefits didn’t make sense.
“You’re going from being an employee of a business to a business owner by default,” Seip said. “I think maybe there should be a different category, like an involuntary transition.”
Republican state Sen. Mike Folmer, who sits on the Senate’s Labor and Industry committee and happened to be my state senator when I got laid off, said Pennsylvania’s unemployment compensation laws have to be fixed. But legislators have to be careful when they do that. For one thing, he said reforms need to guard against people who game the system, like school bus drivers who collect benefits each summer.
He and Seip agreed that I didn’t get the right information before deciding to freelance. Folmer said a workforce development program may have helped me, although he couldn’t say how. Seip said my situation shows how citizens can be hurt when they need social services and aren’t connected to a person who can explain things.
In August I appealed the state’s demand for $897. In October I had two hearings before James A. Norris, a referee for the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review. During each Norris questioned me, along with representatives of two newspapers I had been writing for regularly, about my freelancing arrangements.
After Christmas I received Norris’ decisions. He decided I wasn’t eligible for benefits but didn’t have to repay the $897 since the overpayment wasn’t my fault. But the state can take that money out of future unemployment pay if I receive it again.
I called Norris’ office to ask how he made his decision. His office pointed me to the Labor and Industry press office, where spokesman Smith said there was no way I’d talk to the referee.
“That’s not possible and highly inappropriate,” Smith said.
I asked Smith if he could answer my questions, but he said he couldn’t talk about individual cases – even to a journalist asking about her own hearings.
I could have appealed Norris’ rulings to the state Unemployment Compensation Board of Review but decided not to. There’s a chance the board would decide he was wrong and I am, in fact, eligible for benefits since I’m still looking for a full-time job. But my husband and I decided we weren’t willing to pay a lawyer to take that chance. Norris’ decision, while not everything I hoped for, is something I can live with.
My ultimate goal is to work full-time for a news organization again. That would mean regular income and, more importantly, make it much easier for me to grow as a reporter. But for now, the truth my husband keeps telling me I have to accept is that I do have a full-time job. Freelance writing certainly takes up as many hours as the Reading Eagle did, and the money I earn now is often above the threshold that would have allowed me to receive unemployment compensation when I first filed.
But could I have gotten to this point if I had only my own income available to pay the bills? Probably not.
In this recession that’s devastated so many people, there has been a lot of talk about the importance of the social safety net. How fair is it that in Pennsylvania, this piece of the safety net might disappear when a laid-off worker tries to work herself out of needing it?
I must say, it feels weird to be writing my first blog entry since August. But I have had good reason to be delinquent in blogging. Really.
- First, I’ve been pretty busy adding writing credits to my clip file. I feel fortunate to be keeping busy with freelance work.
- In September my husband and I moved to a new apartment after the lease on our house ran out.
- And the main reason this blog has been dormant: Shortly after the move our laptop had an unfortunate accident. Which means the two of us were sharing one desktop computer. I write for a living. He’s a computer geek. So having one computer for the two of us was, I imagine, worse than four teenage girls being allotted a single bathroom. About a week ago we had much cause for celebration thanks to two boxes that arrived via FedEx. One held a new laptop. The other, two smartphones we both remain infatuated with.
OK, now that’s out of the way.
My last entry was about an experimental news Web site in the planning stages at Berks Community Television in Reading, Pa., down the street from the newspaper that used to give me a regular paycheck.
The revamped BCTV.org launched Dec. 1 and I think it’s worth a look from everyone in Berks County, Pa., and anyone interested in the future of journalism.
BCTV.org is full of in-depth stories on issues that affect what local marketers like to call Greater Reading. It’s pretty remarkable for an experimental product put together almost entirely by freelancers with various levels of journalistic experience.
Not that I’m biased or anything.
When the site launched I had the top story, which was about the decline of recess in Berks and nationwide. My other story details statewide efforts to set up a single phone number to connect people to social services.
Some of the other reports on BCTV.org:
BCTV joins the ranks of experimental local news sites near my hometown and my new apartment, along with similar ventures nationwide. Since Berks County was my base for four years and the source of my first real job in journalism, I’m especially pulling for its success.
I don’t see many comments on the stories on BCTV.org, which tells me it’s not getting much traffic yet. I’m sure that’s because it’s a new news source that a lot of people haven’t heard about yet, but I hope that changes soon. Quality journalism can’t flourish if no one knows where to look for it.
Those of us who love journalism can bemoan the decline of print media and/or do something about it.
And those of us who want to do something can join projects like the Community Information Hub, run through Berks Community Television in Reading, Pa.
Here’s how the Hub will work: Freelance journalists will do in-depth reports on issues like education, public safety and economic development. Trained volunteers will add reports on what’s going on in their communities. The whole thing will be available online and is on track to launch in December.
Sure, this is an experiment, but the Hub has two assets that make me optimistic:
I first heard about the Hub in March or thereabouts and thought it was just the sort of innovation needed to ensure an informed society once dead trees lose all relevance. So when Steve e-mailed me to say he wanted to put me to work, there was no way I was about to say no — even though the pay is pretty low ($300, for now at least) for the sorts of stories he wants. When he gave me my two assignments last week he told me to think Time, Newsweek or The Atlantic.
I wouldn’t do so much work for anyone else who would only pay me $300 per story. But the Community Information Hub is something I hope works. Here’s why:
I like my job. I love talking to people, finding out what’s important to them and tracking down information that helps them live better lives. I love learning ordinary people’s stories.
That’s a long-winded way of saying I’m 26 and still want to have a job in journalism until I retire.
- Nothing against citizen journalists, but someone has to train them.
Some people seem to think citizen journalists will eventually render us professionals obsolete. I hope that doesn’t happen because, as I said in a previous post, doing halfway respectable journalism requires a lot of work. If someone wants to be a volunteer citizen journalist, I think they should go right ahead. They’ll surely find some good stories. But I am wary of trusting them for too much because they probably have other full-time jobs that require a lot of work.
Back to the Hub: Steve’s recruiting citizen journalists and he’ll train them on journalistic basics. And he’ll make sure the Hub’s content fits professional standards. Sounds like a good way to use volunteers’ talents and ensure good content.
- Information is key to making society work.
I believe in giving people as much information as possible and letting them use it for whatever they think is best. Journalists are in the business of giving people information. We have to find alternate ways of presenting our work and getting paid for it.
How will we figure out what works if we don’t try new things?
 My first freelance check. I've received a few by now. Yes, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated the blog.
But I’ve been busy. Two newspapers and three magazines are putting me to work, and a friend asked me to edit his novel before he self-publishes it. Since I want to do writing that pays actual money, that’s where my focus lies.
Still, I feel like sharing a few tidbits of my new life as a freelance journalist. Here goes:
- I’m taking an online course about freelance pitching with an amazing instructor. Among other things he’s teaching us the power of follow-up calls to editors. The number of assignments I’m getting this soon shows how right he is.
- One newspaper asked me to cover state politics. I’ve been at it for about two weeks during one of Pennsylvania’s craziest overdue-budget cycles in recent memory. Talk about a crash course. Yesterday a nice AP reporter told me the lawmakers weren’t taking my question right away because I was sitting on the wrong side of the press room (I sat at the first place I found an outlet for my laptop). Oops. But they noticed me eventually. I’m OK with that.
- After more than four years of working second shift I’m getting used to waking up in the morning like a normal adult, but I’m not quite there yet. Each weekday I intend to get up at 7:30 a.m., check e-mail, Twitter, etc., hop on the elliptical, shower and start my real work day at 9 a.m. So far that’s rarely happening. I’ll get up that early if I have a scheduled interview or trip to the state Capitol, but otherwise I end up starting work later than I plan. Which also means I work later than I want because everything has to get done.
- I like having music on while I work, but lyrics are distracting when you’re trying to write or edit. I don’t have many instrumental CDs so I’m listening to Christmas music sometimes. When it’s 80 degrees out. Weird.
- When we moved here my husband and I got the cheapest land line phone plan possible because all we really wanted was the Internet. Now I’m asking people I interview to call me on that phone to save minutes on my cell phone. Turns out they’re getting a lot of busy signals. Another oops. Until that’s fixed I’m giving both numbers so people can at least leave a voice mail on the cell if I don’t pick up.
Back to work.
... or watched these.  Still haven't read these ... Paraphrasing some of the comments I received after being laid off:
- “There are worse times of the year to be unemployed. Get out and enjoy the weather.”
- “What are you doing with your time? Cleaning your house a lot?”
- “You’re home now anyway. You may as well have a baby.”
After being an economic statistic for a month and a half, here’s what I’ve done with those suggestions:
- Unfortunately, I still have no tan to speak of.
- I am cooking more lately, but the house is no cleaner or dirtier than it was before.
- I don’t know what your family-planning philosophy is, but I don’t share it.
I did expect a lot of free time, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Some of the non-journalistic things I expected to do with it:
- Get in decent shape. Ride my bike.
- Read the books I’ve bought at garage sales and discount stores but never read because I was too busy working and reading news magazines.
- Watch movies and TV shows that I own on DVDs still covered in plastic wrap.
- Resurrect the half-finished cross-stitch project I haven’t touched for about two years.
- Kill a few brain cells with bad TV movies.
The much different list of a few things I’ve actually done with my time:
- Set up this Web site.
- Spent a few days in my hometown in Michigan to clear my head.
- Lunched with four current and former freelance writers for a crash course in how to do this for a living.
- Pitched a few freelance stories.
- Spoken at a high school career day about how I got to be a reporter.
- Attended a journalism conference.
- Spent a few more days in Michigan after the death of my husband’s beloved grandfather.
- Written an article for a local business newspaper.
I’ve been almost as busy as when I had a job. So I thought I’d spend last Friday reading, taking a bike ride and generally acting unemployed.
I slept in and watched an episode of “Law and Order.” So far so good.
But then the business paper’s editor assigned me an article with a deadline in three days. As a responsible person I had to start working on that.
That night I had a babysitting job. After the kids went to bed I got a phone call. And during that phone call I set up a job interview (!) with a newspaper (!!).
I’m clearly terrible at being laid off.
Two days ago I stopped at a neighborhood gas station and asked the guy behind the counter if he’d put up a flier advertising my babysitting services.
(I still want to maintain a career in journalism. But I also love kids, have references and state clearances and need money now.)
The guy taped my flier to the counter. During our conversation, I told him I was a laid-off newspaper reporter. He suggested I offer to work for the small weekly paper down the street, even if they wouldn’t pay. At least it would get my name out there, he said.
But I said I don’t work for free. I’m a professional and deserve to get paid. And working for free devalues what journalists do.
I was nice. The man was just trying to help.
But his mindset, along with that of so many other people, upsets me.
Would he sell gas for free? I doubt it. So why should I give away my work?
I told my husband about this and he said, “Bylines don’t put food on the table.”
I’ve worked for free and close to it. One of my internships paid $25 per day and the other paid nothing. And that was fine when I was still taking classes. Aspiring journalists in college need clips more than they need money. That’s why I worked for paychecks during the academic year so I could intern come summer.
But I’m not in college anymore. I have tons of clips and just received a journalism award. Now I need cash more than clips.
But this isn’t just about my student loans, my phone bill and my desire to eat something other than ramen noodles.
As I told perhaps 50 high school students during their career day, people want and need to know what’s going on in their schools, their communities and their world. If you’re going to do a halfway decent job of telling them, it’s a full-time gig.
The Tucson Citizen’s editorial staff said it more effectively before publishing its last print edition May 16:
To all those bloggers and “citizen journalists” who, if you believe the Internet, are this close to reinventing the industry, here’s your opportunity.
Now is your chance to cover never-ending board meetings, make Freedom of Information Act requests to dislodge facts from public officials, call sources – you have cultivated sources, right? – and otherwise do what we in our dying industry like to call “reporting.”
To do it right, you’ll have to work eight to 10 hours a day, five to six days a week.
If it sounds like a job, not a hobby, it is. But don’t expect to get paid; apparently, that business model has been discredited.
People need journalism, which means they need journalists who are professionally trained — to ask the right questions without letting personal opinions get in the way, to double-check facts, to write in a manner that allows people to grasp the information right away.
All this is harder than you may think. I’ve seen plenty of people try and not grasp it.
Journalists, just like all other people who have jobs, need money. We don’t need to get rich. We do need to be able to support ourselves without getting second jobs or living without adequate health insurance.
And if journalists can’t get decent pay for their work, who will be able to do our work in the future? And how will our society get credible information?
We’re already too close to finding out. So if you want me to work, I’ll need a paycheck.
Yesterday I was a speaker for the Career Day at one of the high schools I used to cover. I committed to Career Day before I got laid off and the teacher organizing it still wanted me to come afterward.
Speaking at a Career Day is strange when you don’t have a job.
I talked about starting an underground newspaper in high school, interning at newspapers in college and writing about crime, an obscure neighborhood religious group and a nudist camp when the local newspaper hired me after I got my degree. And I talked about how scary it can be in this field now when newspapers are closing and at least 9,800 newspaper jobs have been lost so far this year.
But I also said there will always be jobs in journalism, even though we haven’t quite figured out how to make it work.
My guess: In about 10 years we will have figured out ways for journalists to be able to work full-time and make decent money in return.
I told the students that about 10 years ago I started chatting on ICQ. And I asked them if they’d ever heard of ICQ. No one had.
A decade ago there was no Facebook. No Twitter. No YouTube.
So how will journalists be able to survive in the future? I think it will be something, or a bunch of things, that we haven’t figured out yet.
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
- Donald Rumsfeld
Saturday’s Reading Eagle had a story about Penn Township ousting manager Sharon Harrison, who’d worked there for 28 years. She thought she lost her job partially because Dave Himmelberger, a township supervisor, had been fined for violating a state ethics law. Himmelberger and supervisors chairman Kyle Loder said they eliminated Harrison’s job because similar townships nearby don’t have a manager.
Local newspapers’ basic job is to tell people what’s happening with their local governments and school districts. Residents need to know what their elected officials are up to and how their tax money is being spent.
That was my job until I got laid off.
Mine was one of more than 9,300 U.S. newspaper jobs lost this year, which is why this is about more than one newspaper in one county in Pennsylvania.
I covered Penn Township and still had my job on April 27, when Harrison lost hers.
But I wasn’t at Penn’s meeting that night. I was at a school board meeting 23 miles away. The supervisors of two of the Berks County townships I covered — Penn and Union — had meetings at the same time as the school board meeting my editor told me to go to that night. From the Eagle’s Web site it doesn’t look like anyone was at Penn’s meeting.
After I got laid off I e-mailed some of the people I had met through work. An excerpt:
My main concern is that people in Berks won’t be as well informed as they were before the layoffs. I covered three school districts, 11 townships, five boroughs and five colleges, and I always felt stretched thin. I worked with some great people, but they won’t be able to do more with less.
The reason I covered a particular meeting April 27 isn’t important. Most nights when I was covering a municipal or school board meeting, a few others were happening at the same time in places I covered. Stringers covered some of them, but not all. I tried to be at meetings during which I thought something important might happen, hoping I wasn’t missing something else happening on the other side of the county. Many other nights I didn’t cover meetings at all because I had to work on another story or occasionally take a police shift.
Of course reporters can’t be everywhere at once, which is one reason that developing sources — basically, building relationships with people in areas you cover — is so important. Journalists learn about many stories because of phone calls or e-mails from the public.
But reporters can’t rely on people to come to us with news tips because they often won’t. We have to go to the public. We have to find out the news for ourselves. Part of that means showing up at township supervisors’ meetings in case the manager gets canned or an ethics violation comes to light.
I didn’t do that April 27. I missed a story. How many other stories did I miss? How many more will be missed now, in Berks County and across the country?
We don’t know what we don’t know.
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