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On Thursday, Suburban Newspapers of America hosted a webinar with information and participants from its April Specialized Reporting Institute session. Lots of good information on how to find economic stories by focusing on families and education was presented. Some highlights:
-- Workforce stories to watch for: rising number of unemployed with bachelor's degrees, regional business/education co-ops driving workforce development, and the need to replace 500,000 high-tech workers in the next few years -- as well as Millennials' low interest in those fields.
-- When trying to understand the economics of a story, follow the money: who has it, who doesn't, where it's coming from and where it's going.
-- Family angles: The decline of the middle class because of fewer secure manufacturing jobs, with longevity and pensions; poverty moving to the suburbs; unemployed adults feeling low confidence and self-worth, leading to stress, divorce, foreclosure, bankruptcy and sometimes suicide.
-- Unemployed also going through career transitions; many adults are re-inventing themselves and need opportunities and education to do so. Are local community colleges helping? Why or why not? Who is helping, if anyone?
-- Some of these stories could turn into enterprisers or require long-term reporting. Tips on managing such projects, from Tom Koetting of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, include involving people from all departments (reporting, graphics, design, online, etc.) in launch meetings, identifying the nut graf of the story upfront, choosing a deadline and planning backward from that, giving everyone the OK to have a few lousy ideas, questioning the obvious, writing in blocks rather than loooong narratives, and talking about what's worth doing online -- make sure it enhances the story, not just make it bigger.
Participants in from the reporting symposium, including GateHouse's Melissa Griffy Seeton of the Canton (Ohio) Repository and Suburban Life's Amber Krosel, then talked about some stories they've pursued based on the above ideas:
-- Griffy Seeton spoke about two stories she wrote, one about a woman laid off after 28 years at a single job who re-educated herself to find work, and another about public employees losing benefits in Ohio, and people giving up on public jobs like teaching.
-- Pam Dempsey of CU-citizenaccess.org in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., wrote about more young adults and middle-class families in East Central Illinois feeling "food insecurity," not having the money to buy food regularly. She also wrote a piece on the burden of local abandoned properties on taxpayers, which started as a crowdsourcing piece.
On Thursday, Suburban Newspapers of America hosted a webinar with information and participants from its April Specialized Reporting Institute session. Lots of good information on how to find economic stories by focusing on families and education was presented. Some highlights:
-- Workforce stories to watch for: rising number of unemployed with bachelor's degrees, regional business/education co-ops driving workforce development, and the need to replace 500,000 high-tech workers in the next few years -- as well as Millennials' low interest in those fields.
-- When trying to understand the economics of a story, follow the money: who has it, who doesn't, where it's coming from and where it's going.
-- Family angles: The decline of the middle class because of fewer secure manufacturing jobs, with longevity and pensions; poverty moving to the suburbs; unemployed adults feeling low confidence and self-worth, leading to stress, divorce, foreclosure, bankruptcy and sometimes suicide.
-- Unemployed also going through career transitions; many adults are re-inventing themselves and need opportunities and education to do so. Are local community colleges helping? Why or why not? Who is helping, if anyone?
-- Some of these stories could turn into enterprisers or require long-term reporting. Tips on managing such projects, from Tom Koetting of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, include involving people from all departments (reporting, graphics, design, online, etc.) in launch meetings, identifying the nut graf of the story upfront, choosing a deadline and planning backward from that, giving everyone the OK to have a few lousy ideas, questioning the obvious, writing in blocks rather than loooong narratives, and talking about what's worth doing online -- make sure it enhances the story, not just make it bigger.
Participants in from the reporting symposium, including GateHouse's Melissa Griffy Seeton of the Canton (Ohio) Repository and Suburban Life's Amber Krosel, then talked about some stories they've pursued based on the above ideas:
-- Griffy Seeton spoke about two stories she wrote, one about a woman laid off after 28 years at a single job who re-educated herself to find work, and another about public employees losing benefits in Ohio, and people giving up on public jobs like teaching.
-- Pam Dempsey of CU-citizenaccess.org in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., wrote about more young adults and middle-class families in East Central Illinois feeling "food insecurity," not having the money to buy food regularly. She also wrote a piece on the burden of local abandoned properties on taxpayers, which started as a crowdsourcing piece.
-- Krosel was editor on a story about for-sale church buildings in the Chicago suburbs. An oddity -- a for-sale sign on a church -- led to a story about the financial strain on churches and buildings that are too large now for dwindling populations.
-- Bruce Krasnow of the Sante Fe New Mexican wrote about a regional school-to-job initiative that stressed math skills, a need for many tech jobs that want to hire workers now.
-- Dean Kahn of the Bellingham (Wash.) Herald wrote about growing numbers at local free community meals, rising health care costs for baby boomers, even (maybe especially) healthy ones, and the thriving environment for local thrift stores.
-- Marilyn Odendahl of the Elkhart (Ind.) Truth wrote about a local jobs program that gives developmentally disabled workers a chance at employment, even in this economy.
-- Marga Cooley of the Santa Maria (Calif.) Times wrote about a local program that helps former foster-care program kids gain independence and contribute to society, rather than take from it.
