Richland Source observes its first anniversary today, June 18, 2014, but it’s hard to call our online news an “it.” We’re a living, breathing, and most of all, mission-focused team. And our mission is reporting news, but news that is “proportionally” representative of our community. Our team has given that some serious consideration.
More than once we’ve debated as a team whether to cover a story, or how to cover a story. We’ve grown from our early efforts of writing business profiles and providing event coverage to writing more stories that are uniquely our own, while covering some traditional news stories, too. We do many of the day-to-day stories most media typically covers like elections, councils and boards. We also cover disasters, fires and crime. But those stories are covered proportionally.
That means that we consider how news impacts the greater population. It’s important to acknowledge those stories that describe threats to our well-being. But we’re also positive that our coordinates on the Ohio map mark a great place to live and we want to share that message.
We’ve been asked by other media outlets why we showed up at a scene because it wasn’t a “warm, fuzzy, feel good” story. So, yeah, we’ll tell some stories of fires, crimes, and corruption because we know “it’s not all rainbows and unicorns,” as one of our reporters described it. But here’s the thing: the data tells us definitively that those stories have not captivated our readers’ attention as much as stories of achievement, hope and discovery.
We’re not just a Pollyanna publication. If there’s a problem we want to facilitate conversations with our fellow community members and businesses to find solutions. And to be honest, we don’t mind if readers read the “other guys” for the scoop on births and weddings and absolutely every crime and car accident.
As Publisher Jay Allred put it in a talk he gave last fall,”We believe in the power of story and narrative and we will use that power to tell stories that need to be told. Because when told to one another, an optimistic story validates, encourages, and strengthens our friends and neighbors. And because the rest of the world sees us through the lens of Google searches. We believe it is our responsibility at Richland Source to create for our community a place where that new narrative is crafted and held out for all the world to see.”
We want our approach to news to be a little different—a little “punk rock,” Jay says. We want to write stories that are uniquely ours that reach beyond our community, and that are part of the solution.
As we’ve found our voice, we’re going to do more stories like the ones our readers have indicated that they like: the stories that share human achievements that portray unique places, and address issues in ways that can inform and inspire change. They’re RICH stories with photographs that help tell the story and often with videos or graphics.
And as Jay concluded in his talk last fall, “And we’ll always look forward and walk toward the future we create each day.”
