Saturday, March 7, 2009

Tickets For North Coast Idol semifinals on sale But This Is Not The Headline You Were Looking For

I saw this story in the local Times-Standard newspaper today. I was searching for something about the 76+thousand dollars raised by the local population Thursday and Friday in a radiothon. Nothing. Compost bins are available in Arcata read another story. I thought that one was news enough to include in my kgoe newscast on Thursday.
Still, is the fact that tickets are for sale for North Coast Idol a bigger news story than local residents giving over 76 thousand dollars to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital? It's not like they were covering who won the contest. I did notice that KIEM was mentioned in the story. They also were absent from covering the radiothon. They are about 100 feet away from the studios where the radiothon was going on. We share a parking lot.
We made it as easy as possible to cover the event. We sent out a press release that could have been copied and pasted in the newspaper just like the N.C. Idol story appeared to have been.

Maybe the newspaper is too small now to include such events. Maybe the story about local firefighters saving cats was more important that local residents saving children. I like cats and don't have any children but I still don't understand the coverage. If we were another radio group we might have gotten a story in the paper like this headline that ran in November, KHUM hosts free stop the violence breakfast at Wharfinger.
I am against violence myself and think that the event was as newsworthy as the St. Jude Radiothon. The fact is that the N.C. Idol story and the breakfast were printed before the events even happened. Before the events were actually news. Now I know I'm being a bit hard on the old Times-Standard and to be fair, the North Coast Journal was nowhere to be seen either.
Maybe our event wasn't North Coast enough for them.
It's easy to overlook local stories when we are all facing cutbacks in the news business. The current economic situation would seem to make the fact that local residents raising over 76-thousand dollars for kids, is a big deal.
I guess it was just a big deal to the residents of Humboldt County, the kids at St. Jude and our radio group.
Is it possible I'm missing something here?

3 comments:

Tom Sebourn said...

Maybe the TS is going to do something in their Sunday paper.
It is bigger than the Saturday edition. I may have to eat my words about them.

Tom Sebourn said...

Nothing in the Sunday edition.
The N.C.Journal did have a story about newspapers going away and if that happens the only place to get your local news would be Mike over at KHUM. It's like J.B. Mathers on 5 radio stations doesn't even exist.

Tom Sebourn said...

The newspaper business has been hit pretty hard. They are expected to cover everything. That is not possible, but I guess they do the best they can.
We don't cover every story either so there is always room for improvement in all form of media that still exist.