At a meeting last week, a local school official lamented that The Herald Bulletin’s education reporting beat had changed hands so frequently that local educators were confused about who to contact.
That has been a problem for our newspaper — and other newspapers — over the years. Reporters sometimes move on quickly to a larger newspaper, or move closer to home, or move into editing or management, or move into another profession altogether. Or a meddling editor might decide to reassign reporters to different beats.
It’s hard, even for a meddling editor, to say what the future might hold. But I think most of our current reporters will stick around for a while. I hope they will, because they’re a really good group of journalists.
Here is a brief summary of our news reporters and their beats:
Aleasha Sandley covers business and Anderson city government. She can be reached at aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin.com or 640-4805.
Justin Schneider manages our Web site, handles early-morning reporting duties and covers county government. He can be reached at justin.schneider@heraldbulletin.com or 640-4809.
Dave Stafford covers education and the town of Pendleton. Dave can be reached at 640-4250.
Brandi Watters covers many Madison County communities, including Elwood, Lapel, Frankton and Alexandria. Brandi also reports on health topics. Contact Brandi at brandi.watters@heraldbulletin.com or 640-4847.
Christina Wright covers public safety, including police, fire and courts. She can be reached at christina.wright@heraldbulletin.com or 640-4883.
The best time to reach most of the news reporters is late morning through the middle part of the afternoon, Monday through Friday.
Now, I wish I could guarantee that all issues within each beat will be covered by the reporter assigned to that beat. Wouldn’t that be nice? Yes, but reality dictates otherwise.
Our reporters have to cover weekend shifts and evening shifts. According to who is working on a particular day and what news is happening, reporters often cover stories on other reporters’ beats or stories that fall between beats.
That’s bad because it means they have to deal with subjects that are unfamiliar to them, and it pulls them away from doing stories on their beats. But it’s good because it gives them a variety of experience and ensures that they’re versatile and well informed in general.
Despite our efforts at advanced planning, our news staff has to juggle assignments from day to day as news breaks and issues arise. Associate Editor Steve Dick (steve.dick@heraldbulletin.com; 640-4863) is the head juggler. As the reporters’ direct supervisor, he is responsible for helping them manage their beats and seeing that the top news stories of the day are covered.
Associate Editor for Features Scott Miley (scott.miley@heraldbulletin.com; 648-4230) also plays an important role in managing the daily news report. And even I do some actual work once in a while by pitching in to work with reporters on stories!
Steve also collaborates with reporters to make sure we’re tackling what is called “enterprise reporting” in the journalism profession. These are stories that deal with important issues or personalities in depth, using a wide-angle lens to take in the big picture, as opposed to merely reporting the news.
We often use the Sunday newspaper for these in-depth packages. Enterprise stories show up in the daily paper, as well, though they’re generally not as detailed and deep as the Sunday reports.
Editor Scott Underwood’s column appears Mondays. Contact him at scott.underwood@heraldbulletin.com or 640-4845.
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John P. Cleary
Discussion
Scott Underwood: Juggling the daily newspaper
It's hard, even for a meddling editor, to say what the future might hold
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