Lunchstorm-repj
Representative Journalism: A report from the front in Northfield, Minn.
Since September, a bold experiment in local journalism has been underway in Northfield, Minn., a small city about a halfhour south of Minneapolis which is home to two colleges, a handful of key businesses, and some tricky municipal issues. It's also the first venue for a test take at the future of community journalism -- "RepJ." Come meet "RepJ" fellowship reporter Bonnie Obremski, on Friday, Dec. 5, from 12 noon to 1 p.m. in RJI Room 203 (room subject to change based on seating requirements).
Brainchild of Atlanta-area professor
"RepJ" is the idea of Leonard Witt, a journalism professor at Georgia's Kennesaw State University, outside Atlanta. Witt, a former newspaper editor and radio producer in Minneapolis, wanted to test the hypothesis that a geographic or topical community might be willing to underwrite quality journalism if the community was carefully consulted, primed and involved in the process.
Enter Bonnie Obremski. After two years as a full-time staff reporter covering a small town for a Massachusetts daily, the North Adams Transcript (circ. 6,800), Obremski, a recent Hampshire College graduate, was ready for a change. In August, she got in her car and drove to a state she had never been to before, to take up residence in Northfield and begin reporting -- via the web -- on Northfield.
Now one-third through a one-year fellowship, Obremski will visit Mizzou Dec. 3-5 to talk about the initial vision of RepJ and how it is working on the ground so far. What's it like to essentially parachute into a community and try to win the minds, hearts -- and pocketbooks -- of the citizenry through quality journalism? How do you navigate the spread between your perception of what the community ought to know vs. what it wants to know? What happens when your editor and boss is 1,500 miles away? Is this idea replicable elsewhere? How does a community react to an outsider?
Which stories have worked? Which haven't?
Background three or four stories you've worked on and which have and haven't resonated, and why.
Presentation -- embedded vs. independent blog
Talk about the LocallyGrown relationship
From virtual to real
Explain your plans and practices so far for pre-story and post-story outreach. Are you having coffee klatches? How do you get story ideas?
Compare to small-daily reporting
How does this compare with reporting for a small, resource-limited daily? What's good? What's not?
Background on funding and next steps
Probably len shoudl write this part.
