One of the five strategies of News Cube 2010 is implementing weekly Public Service Journalism alternative story formats in each of our newspapers. Download the Newsroom Handbook for more information on News Cube 2010 and the five strategies, including Public Service Journalism.

Following a regional meeting in Michigan last month, the Holland Sentinel was among the first papers in the company to publish the feature.

We asked editor Pamela Fisher how the feature was launched.

What kind of advance organization/discussion in the newsroom did it take to
launch the feature? I talked with Allegan County bureau editor Jim Hayden about the problem of gas surcharges neighborhood groups were complaining about in Allegan County. He researched the four major waste haulers in our area and why they were still charging 9-10% gas surcharges in a time gas prices have dropped by half — from $5 to $2.50.

How long did it take to report? Jim filed the story about two hours after it was assigned

How long did it take to edit and lay out? Presentation editor Krista Babbitt did it in under an hour after she replaced the Gatehouse fonts with our house fonts. We used file art.

Do you have a plan to run the feature or other public service journalism ASFs on a specific page an day? We will run another one this week our publisher discovered, hopefully encourage readers to submit their problem.

Any reaction inside or outside the newspaper to the feature? Grateful to the reporter for bringing it to their attention our commenters were pretty outraged, example: "Wrong answer Arrowaste and Chef Container- Its because you are taking advantage of the situation and your customers. I urge those using these companies to look at your billing and change to a different waste hauler immediately, I have Chef and will make the change on Monday. Thanks to Jim Hayden for bringing this to our attention"

Any tips or advice for other newsrooms preparing to launch such features? Find an issue or two that resonates in  your town to prime the pump.

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