There are days when the hardest part of the job isn’t writing the story. It’s showing up to find it.
For a long time my work has been mostly behind a desk. Layout pages. Edit copy. Proofread headlines. Make sure the ads land where they’re supposed to and the photos don’t crash into the margins. It’s honest work, and it keeps a newspaper running, but it can also put a little distance between a reporter and the community he’s supposed to be covering.
Lately that’s been changing.
The Beacon has new owners and they’re giving me the freedom to do some things I haven’t been able to do in a while like getting out of my office. Go to meetings again. Visit events. Talk to people face to face instead of through emails and phone calls. In theory, that’s exactly what a small-town newspaper editor should be doing. In practice, it can feel a little like the first day of school. This week I walked over to the Council on Aging to cover an event. It wasn’t far. About two-thirds of a mile round trip. Sixty-five degrees outside. A perfectly reasonable day for a walk.
But, I forgot my sunglasses, which is a stupid thing to do when you have Myasthenia Gravis. Two minutes in sunlight and you’re blind. Ten minutes and you’re having trouble breathing. So if you noticed me leaning against a pole waiting for the world to stop spinning, that’s why.
The moment passed. I took photos. I talked to a couple of people. I wrote down notes about what was happening and why it mattered. In other words, I did the job.
And walking back to the office, I realized something simple.
It counted as a success. Not because it was dramatic. Not because it involved breaking news or a big investigation. It counted because it was one more step toward something that every community newspaper depends on.
Showing up. Local journalism works best when the reporter is present. When the editor is sitting in the back of the room at the police jury meeting. When someone from the paper is standing near the door at the church supper or watching the game from the bleachers or shaking hands at a school event.
A newspaper doesn’t just report on a community. It lives within it.
That means being willing to leave the comfort of the desk and go out where the stories actually live. Sometimes that means long meetings. Sometimes it means awkward conversations. Sometimes it just means taking a short walk on a sunny afternoon and hoping you remembered to bring shades.
None of it sounds glamorous. Most of the time it isn’t, but those small moments are what keep a local paper connected to the people it serves.
This year is shaping up to be one of change for a lot of us. The newspaper is adjusting to new ownership and new routines. The community adjusting to the new data center bringing new people and businesses. Things are changing, one event and one conversation at a time.
For my part, I’m learning again what I probably knew all along. The stories are still out there.
You just have to show up to find them.
Darryl Riser is editor of the Richland Beacon-News.
