It’s a quarter to 2 a.m., and I’m still awake. I don’t have a good excuse except spending too much time on Yahoo! Answers and the New York Times and losing track of time.

A good friend of mine also is up at this hour. But he has a damn good reason, and as I just finished telling him over Gmail Chat, he’s hard-core.

The state of Michigan is on the verge of a shut-down, with 35K state employees waiting to hear whether they will report to work today. The legislature is pulling an all-nighter — and so are the reporters. Check out LSJ for updates and the Free Press has them, too. So does the Detroit News. (I’m not linking to specific stories because they’re updating and I don’t want to end up w/broken links.) There may be others, but that exhausts my knowledge of Michigan media outlets.

Ryan, who just started as a mojo about two weeks ago at the Lansing State Journal, was one of the lucky ones tapped to report on the events unfolding in the capital city tonight.

At first I thought it was crazy because there’d be no one up reading the stories anyway. But I stand corrected. There are several post-midnight comments posted on the stories. I guess it makes sense: If I was a government employee unsure if I’d even need to get up in the morning, I’d be hanging out for any word of progress, too.

That my friends is why this is not only hard-core but a perfect example of the mindset we need to take. This is information people need and want to know. They don’t want to know in tomorrow’s paper (which was put to bed hours ago, before the midnight deadline passed) or even on the morning newscast. They want to know asap. They want to know now. This is the 24-hour newsroom people talk about. So maybe it’s not hard-core, maybe it’s the new necessary.

One of the first things I was told I would be charged with when I came to the J&C was helping create high school micro-sites at each of the county’s high schools.

The first of those sites finally launched Friday: Today at West Side

I’ll be honest, this was the product of a lot of hard work by a lot of people. (Full disclosure: hardly any of it was really mine.) My task was to help brainstorm what we could include and who we should involve. My main and hardest task was then to use the connections I had made — little though they were, especially when we first started and I had literally just arrived — and try to get the high schools on board. Once I had administration on board and kids lined up, my editor and our online team really took over and made this happen. Though, the enthusiasm of the principal and students helped a lot.

Our first attempt, even with my editor at my side, was a huge strike out. An adamant no-go. And rather than fight the administration, we moved on.

Fortunately, I think the only person more excited about the concept than we were when I pitched it was the WL high school principal. He saw it for exactly what we hope it will become: A great way to get more news out about the good things happening in his school.

I’ve often commented that there could be a half dozen education reporters in this community, and we’d still never be for want of a story. That’s one of things I love and hate about my beat. I always have more than enough I can do, and I will always be missing things I wish I could get to. That’s the void the printed Schools Page we launched this spring and these micro-sites will help fill.

The micro-site, if you can’t tell from the screen shot, is mostly populated by student work. There’s a tab for J&C headlines, but the content you read or see in every other section is WL student work. We decided to team up with the high school’s newspaper to have a guaranteed stream of reliable students and content (they publish every three weeks, but the kids are really excited about the idea of being able to do breaking news between that cycle). We’re also continuing a relationship with the art classes to run student photo galleries (click on the “latest media” tab). We’re working on technical issues of uploading student films from the film lit class, which previously had been seen by a small audience and uploaded in a non-uniform way on YouTube. Eventually we will include the school’s daily Red Devil TV segment on the site. Comments will eventually be implemented on the stories — another thing the kids are excited to have is feedback on their work.

In each of the cases, it broadens the audience of the kids’ work, AND gives the community more insight into what’s happening at the school.

It’s also a great learning opportunity for those students. They are the ones uploading their content into our CMS, and they’re the ones calling the shots on story placement and breaking news stories (something they’ve never been able to do before because their Web site was literally a collection of PDF archives). I can’t think of a newspaper who wouldn’t like to have a staffer who can say they did those things as a sophomore or junior in high school.

But a key component of the site I haven’t mentioned is the wlhsVoice feature, which you see in the right corner. It’s basically the GetPublished feature, but we’re hoping kids who aren’t on the newspaper staff or in the art classes or who just want to be published take advantage. We’re leaving it pretty open to whatever they want to write about or shoot pictures of and, as long as it’s clean and not libelous or anything, we’ll put it up on the site.

You know the past few weeks as I’ve been out at the local schools, especially the high schools, later in the day when classes are out, I’ve really been reminded just how much a school really brings together the community. In a lot of cases it really gives the community an identity and a gathering place. When it really gets off the ground, this site, we hope, will be a way to get more focused and deeper coverage of the school and community on a level that the J&C could never provide on our own. And it will give the power to be heard to the people, so to speak, most impacted.

Eventually, now that we have this template down and once we work out some kinks and figure out our system, we’ll try and port this to the other high schools in our county as we planned. I can’t help but think even the original no-go will give a green light when they see how this positively affects the community.

Somehow, knowing that even the NYTimes does a first day of school story makes my barrage of them (one for each county district and the catholic schools) last month seem somehow less tortuous.

Their first day was decidedly more eventful than any of mine. My biggest task was finding four different news angles to get into it. (And to be honest, by the last of the four I covered, I was fresh out and just went with a straight feature.) They also had a whole troop of reporters canvassing the city, whereas I was puttering myself across the county every day to get to multiple schools. It’s kind of funny to me. How many reporters does it take to cover the first day of school? Apparently two to write it and another four to contribute additional reporting. That’d be like half our local reporting staff.

Oh well, it’s reassuring to know even the best get this assignment. And really, I didn’t mind so much once I was doing it. It was the idea of doing it that I hated.

As an Ohioan (sorry guys, I don’t think I’ll ever consider myself a “Hoosier” even if I end up here for a good long time), I’ve been watching all the stories about massive flooding with great interest.

This morning, I noticed an AP story, Ohio residents displaced by flooding look to return home, as a breaking news item on jconline. When I clicked on it one thing struck me immediately: It was datelined Findlay, Ohio.

For those who don’t know, I interned at The Courier in Findlay last summer. And I assure you, no story nearly as exciting as Main Street and virtually everywhere else flooding occurred. In fact, when I pulled up the site I noticed immediately the picture of Main Street flooded. Dude. I LIVED on Main Street last summer probably a block from where that photo was taken. That’s a scary thought.

Last summer, the paper was just beginning to experiment with breaking news and video and all the things that many papers had already tapped. But, it was a small paper in a largely rural (everyone considered Findlay and it’s 40,000 residents “the city”) area. So, it was with trepidation that I logged on to the paper’s site today. I was hopeful, but I was also scared I’d be let down.

I wasn’t. Though the presentation is still lacking (and I’m still annoyed and baffled as to why they put all their stories on a single page?), the content all topping the front page is exactly what readers want to know and very easy to find. I also love that they’re inviting users to submit their flood photos (check out the Breaking News / Flooding sidebar at the top of the site).

Other things that didn’t used to be there, which I noticed as I quickly scanned the site, included a new Staff blog about upcoming stories, etc., and a whole multimedia collection (including several flooding related items). There are still things about the site that annoy me, like the stories being on one page and the photos running very low resolution and tiny. But all in all, I can see how far the paper’s come in a year, and I’m so excited for them and for the people of Findlay/Hancock County and outlying areas.

Kudos guys!

Does it ever get to be less weird to read your writing spliced into another’s story?

I mean, I understand the “localize this” and see the point. But as I’ve discussed before, it’s weird and interesting to see your words intermingle with someone else.

Case in point, some story about the new eStadium project at Jeff High School from eSchool News Online.

It’s a cool project and a great opportunity for local kids. I wrote about it a few weeks ago. In fact, several paragraphs from my article are in that eSchool story. (I’m guessing that’s the ‘wire’ part of the “From eSchool News staff and wire service reports.”) It’s just weird to me how the story is framed and what is used and not used, especially as it appears they did do a bit of original reporting (or at least calling my sources for additional/different quotes).

An interesting read my managing editor pointed out to me last week, but which I forgot to post: To Save Themselves, US Newspapers Put Readers to Work

It’s a look at all the (insert city) mom’s, paws, etc. sites and the user generated comments, photo galleries and blogs proliferating the world of newspaper.coms right now.

I don’t think this is a bad trend at all. In fact, we’re planning to launch a site [crosses fingers] hopefully this week [/fingers crossed] where we do this at the high school level for one of our local schools using content about the school produced by, well, the kids who know it best.

Also, the local editor here is awesome at writing the call outs we feature prominently in our paper and in a prime position on our site when we’re working on stories where we’d like to, to use the “it word,” crowdsource our readers. (So awesome in fact that it’s kind of intimidating when one of us lowly reporters has to do this ourselves. My tactic has pretty much just been to emulate his style when I write them.) Our uses range from the worst intersections for feedback as we write about the county releasing its most dangerous list, to first day of school photos and anecdotes, to personal opinions on college rankings. Sometimes the call outs hit and the story chat takes off, and sometimes the response is lukewarm at best. But, our visitors can plainly see the most important aspect of the endeavor: We want to include them. Their opinions and experiences are not only important but valuable to us in telling the story.

Other than that, we have the salary and property tax databases, and we run photo galleries like there’s no tomorrow. Not to mention the phrase “Get me something for online” is so common place that even when it’s not verbalized, most of the reporters have it ingrained in their head.

I’m kind of at an advantage. I came in just after all the reorganization/while everything was still shaking out. So for me, I’m not encumbered by the way it’s always been or how it used to be. But I will say this, I don’t think most of my co-workers are either, including those who’ve been here for a long, long time. It seems like we’re all trying to do whatever we can to best tell the story of our community. And I can dig that.

Anyway, the article is an interesting look at what Gannett is up to and what could be up its sleeve next.

I haven’t had time to properly look through it, and I’m not quite sure when it officially launched as I haven’t been keeping up with my back-home reading, but The Beacon Journal got a make-over.

Thank you, Journalism gods.

It still retains some of the same feeling and colors it had before, but it’s much more clean and accessible. I wish I had a screen shot of the “before” to compare, but basically anyone who has ever seen the blah Knight-Ridder template that they all seemed to utilize knows what I’m talking about. Don’t remember: The Philadelphia Inquirer is still using it, although theirs seems a bit more organized than Ohio.com did before.

A few things I like:

• I’m a fan of the drop-down menu. I think this is probably the best way to get in a lot of links without cluttering your page or making me click through a few pages for what I want.

• I also appreciate that the content rules and the ads largely play second fiddle. (I’ve been growing increasingly annoyed by newspaper Web site ads of recent. Look for a diatribe about IndyStar.com soon.)
• The photo gallery template is simple, links back to the story and tells me how many photos I’m in for. That largely satisfies my preferances. Though, it would be nice to quickly see the whole group at once.
• Love the Most Read Stories box. I think every paper should do this, and hate that my paper doesn’t. We get an e-mail every day telling us the stories with the top hits, but we don’t pull them out online, even though I think readers would be as interested as we are.

Toss-ups:

• I like the quick take blog links on the left side of every page. It’s a clean list even if it’s a bit long. I don’t like that I can’t see what’s been updated recently.

• I like that it seems they’ve finally resigned themselves to allowing comments on every story. But I happen to like how we do it at the J&C where you see the most recent comments on the page. I don’t think you should have to jump through another hoop to see or join the conversation. Also, as with most topix comments, the “Read all XX comments” isn’t obvious and blends into the box above. But they do get some bonus points for having in their abbreviated terms “Be polite.”
• The “Inside Ohio.com” box at the bottom of the pages is a good idea, but it comes off looking like a cheap knock off of the NYTimes menu.

Things I’m not digging so much:

• Why is the multimedia page so boring?! This should be the most exciting stuff. Where are the pictures? Where’s the fun? (Ditto on the local news page.)

• In fact, where the heck are the photos? I can’t find any on any stories I clicked on except the dominant one online.
• Speaking of that story and photos: Why is it sandwiched between two ads?! I completely overlooked it at first because I figured it was just an ad. I remember learning not to even let photos and ad stacks bump when I took news design. I know this isn’t as true of the Web, but surely stacking it in the middle isn’t an effective display.
• In that same story, they say “County Council is expected to act on the 40-page document Monday. (A copy of the plan is available at http://www.co. summit.oh.us/executive/pdfs/ DOD/Lakemore%20 Development%20Area%20(7-07).pdf.)” Two thoughts on this one: First, make it a link! Second, get a copy of the plan and pull it out in an impact box for easy dissection and so I know it’s there.

I haven’t had time to really look below the surface or get a feel for daily use and how I like it yet, but right now I’m going to say it’s a huge improvement. Good job, guys.

For more on the redesign, read the FAQ.

I’m always a little creeped out when someone ends up here at Meranda Writes by googling my full name. I mean, yes, I Google people several times a day. But the idea of someone else googling me creeps me out. There was a hit from this weekend that was just a google search for “meranda watling.” Curious, I clicked through to see if there was anything interesting that pops up.

On the third page, I saw this post:

High School Awards Student with a Car - Associated Content
Meranda Watling, “Perfect attendance key to a big reward.” Journal & Courier URL: (http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? …
www.associatedcontent.com/article/257564/high_school_awards_student_with_a_car.html

I was confused because at no time have I ever written anything for Associated Content. I’ve seen their postings on job sites and such before. I always thought it was a scam, and was never really desperate enough to do it. I don’t know what it is or isn’t. But I do know this “article” is bad. Basically, it took the quotes, details and background from my story. Padded it a bit with context (where Benton Central is, etc.) gleaned, judging by the “sources” listed at the bottom, with some info off the school’s Web site. What the heck?

I’ve posted before about how I find it interesting to watch a story go out on the AP wire and how everyone handles it differently, sometimes reworking, sometimes adding and deleting content, sometimes localizing, etc. I’ve also been asked to “localize the AP story” or “write through with local reaction” on a wire story. You know, find local people affected by this trend, or replace people elsewhere with someone here, or use this to build a bigger enterprise piece off, or whatever. But we always credit the wire, whether it’s a double byline or a Contributing tag (for our reporter or for the AP/GNS reporter, depending on how much was local and how much was wire) or a simple “STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS.”

This Associated Content story here does say “According to the Journal & Courier” several times and credit the original article at the bottom as a source. But I’m not sure that story is in the spirit of either the AC Web site or of fair use. It’s not like there’s original reporting, or this was localizing a trend, or that they are a sister paper or member of the AP. It’s watering down and repackaging what I wrote into a boring story.

I took a look at the author’s article list to see if this was her normal practice. I’m really not familiar with Associated Content, so i don’t know what’s “normal” and what’s not. This person could be the exception or the norm. I don’t know, and this is the first author’s list I’ve looked at.

What I saw was there were a lot of articles I skimmed to see how much was reporting and how was just speculation/rehashing others. I quickly skimmed a few other authors to see if this was a trend. Here’s an article about getting a truly vegan tattoo, which is an interesting topic, but I’m wondering where the writer got her information or inside knowledge. Then there was this article about a dog sinking a car, which seemed to be like the story someone rewrote of mine, a mere rehash of an AP story on USA Today that was a rewrite from the Spokesman-Review story.

The best way to sum up what I saw was that it was a lot like a middle school term papers. You know, your teachers are still worrying about mechanics and are less worried about making sure you appropriately cite sources. So, it becomes common knowledge how many couples will wed on 07/07/07 or you become an expert on whether to take your child to a funeral or how to make them value their education. Either that, or you’re an all-knowing genius. I’m willing to bet it’s neither, and the sourcing and citing is just really spotty.

The bigger question I have about all this is: Do the readers notice or care? Do they hold these “citizen journalists” to a lower standard or could we slip by with half the work ourselves? If this is the future of news, should we be scared? Because looking at the comments on those articles, they range from “great advice” to “excellent article”. And I know as a working journalist I have higher expectations of my own and others work. Am I just old school for expecting to see a story that is appropriately sourced and original reporting? What does that mean for the future? Just something to think about.

I usually don’t rant, as I know they’re unproductive. I especially know this topic of rant will never change and I will just need to deal, but seriously, give me a break.

I just checked my J&C e-mail and saw a forwarded e-mail from a reader to the ME to my editor to me. (Don’t know why the person didn’t cut out the middle men and save us both time.)

I hear a lot from people, when I’m out on assignment, when I’m covering meetings (during meetings from patrons and officials), in my e-mail, my voicemail, even doing man on the street. They all say we are always writing negative stories about (insert your school of choice here, though mostly it’s one H.S. in particular, even though the “officials” involved would tell you we’re not picking on them and are fair).

Usually I’m able to shrug it off by pointing out, often within the same edition, some “positive” story about the schools. And often times, the stories I write aren’t negative. They’re the news. I can’t help it if your school performed poorly on state tests or if there was a major problem there that we covered. I don’t make these things up, I just write about them. And the thing is, I probably write 9 to 10 more stories that are “positive” than “negative.” (I put them in quotes because I actually aim to be neutral, though obviously writing a story about a kid scoring a perfect ACT is more positive than a story about a hit list at a high school.) You just don’t remember them.

But today, for some reason, this comment got under my skin. It was from a reader, who is not even related to this academic team competing for the national title this afternoon. The person complained that, “Why isn’t this team being covered? If they were a sports team or from another local school they would be on the front page!”

I had to re-read and make sure they were talking about the team I thought they were. The team about which I posted a half dozen web updates last Monday when they were competing for a spot at today’s competition? The team about which WE DID run a front page article last Tuesday? (note that we only run three stories on the front page.) The team about which we have a brief in today’s paper telling people to check out jconline today for coverage and reaction from Orlando? Yes, I lined this all up ahead of time with the coach.

And then, the person complained about us not including photos. Well, I’m sorry we didn’t send a photographer to D.C. and Orlando. And I’ve already discussed photos with the coach. And, yes I know the team is being honored this week at the school board meeting, which if you attended many meetings you’d know is actually quite common. I knew before you. It’s on the agenda, and the coach already let me know a bit ago. When the team gets back (they were gone half of last week and half the team was out of town the second half of the week elsewhere), I am planning to do a feature on them.

Usually, I just let comments like this pass without giving a second thought. But maybe it’s just the mood I’m in, but did they even read the paper or Web site? I think the real issue for me is just that this is one of the instances where I did do it right. And people still complain. Ugh.

I just don’t understand what prompted this person to complain. Every thing they say was wrong. I do get some legitimate complaints throughout the semester about us not covering this or that, or giving more coverage to this program here and not so much there. Often times, the reality is I can’t cover things I don’t know about, and some coaches/advisers are just better PR people for their groups. If nobody tells me something is happening until it’s a week past and you’re sending me a whiney e-mail, there really isn’t much I can do at that point. That is part of the reason we’re creating microsites for the schools, so that those things that fall between the cracks now can land somewhere. So as much as it sucks, I can’t possibly cover every single team, club and event at each of the schools here. It’s just me on this beat, and I work as hard as I can. Ten of me couldn’t get it all, and even if we could, we don’t have room in print. Like everything else, we have to decide and allocate our resources — whether its my time or column inches. Thing is, this time, the complaints came even though we allocated in favor of this group. And that set me off.

Yesterday, one of my fellow reporters asked me if I saw Monday’s Columbus Dispatch. I don’t normally read the Dispatch, favoring the Beacon and the PD for my Ohio news.

She told me to check it out the story about a stripper. So, rather than walk all the way across the newsroom to find the paper, I just did a quick search. The first things I found were a couple letters to the editor condemning the paper. That got my curiousity.

So, when I found the story, I read it.

It took me to about the fifth paragraph to understand why the other reporter wanted me to see this story. Although she took it as offensive, I wouldn’t say it was offensive so much as uncalled for, seriously unnecessary. I mean, and I hate to say it because I do respect the Dispatch, but I don’t think this description has a place in any newspaper:

She twirls her fit, 22-year-old body around gold poles, her breasts enhanced and exposed, so that men will slide dollar bills into the thin, white thong stretched across her slender, tan hips.

There are other similar examples in the story where I cringed at the inclusion of details far from necessary to help me understand her plight.

But one thing I noticed, because I didn’t just read the lede and first few paragraphs like my co-worker, is as I told her, “At least there’s a news peg.” She hadn’t noticed. Probably because this “nut graph” is buried about eight or nine long paragraphs down:

Dunn and other strip-club dancers — often used to hiding what they do from people outside club doors — have made recent headlines for teaming to fight legislation they say would have put them out of jobs.

As originally proposed, the measure would have created a 6-foot “no-touch” bubble around dancers — effectively shutting down strip clubs, some maintained.

The legislation that eventually passed prevents dancers from touching patrons — or patrons from touching them — while the dancers are nude or seminude.

Even the watered-down version, expected to take effect by mid-August, still concerns club owners and dancers, who doubt its constitutionality.

Although they have many questions about the new restrictions, the most important one is this: Will they scare off patrons?

All right. I was at least relieved to see the news peg. But as I continued to read the story — all 1,600+ words of it — I found myself not just cringing at those borderline pornographic details and descriptions, but also at the girl herself. I know women who are strippers. Personally. They are fine mothers and friends. They do their job and it is what it is. So I’m not in anyway condoning the profession. It is a way to make a lot of money for those with the right personality and body type. And, like I said, it is what it is.

But this story, except for the paragraphs I pulled out above, is just the girl’s soap box about how hard her life is, how she’s working for a better life, how she paid for her sister’s braces and bought a house in the suburbs, how she reads inspirational books, how nobody thinks you can do anything if you’re a stripper and how there’s more to it than taking off your clothes. OK. I get it. I get it.

But what I don’t get is why this story ran on the front page of a major U.S. daily? I didn’t see the story in print, but apparently it was front and an entire inside page. Precious real estate.

Maybe I was just annoyed by this because I hold newspaper’s to a higher standard. All week, I’ve been subjected to the torture of seeing Paris Hilton be the top TV news story, and was relieved it wasn’t so in print. But ah las, is the hard knock life of a stripper worth so much space? Especially when the “news” angle is apparently only worth about four of those inches? I don’t know. Obviously, the Dispatch editors thought so.

I think there could have been and, if you were going to do this story and run it where and how long they did, should have been so much more. How many people in Ohio would be affected by this law? How many people work as strippers, as bouncers, as bar tenders, and how many patronize the clubs? What about the legislators. What prompted this law? What do they have to say? What about strippers who have had patrons go to far, who haven’t had such a good experience and who might welcome tightening restrictions? Maybe they’ve been reporting on this law for awhile… but I, not following the Ohio legislature or the plight of strippers, could have used some more context.

That’s my two cents.