Working for an agricultural newspaper is unique. There are pros and cons for reporters who work for several years here, covering general or specific beats.
A beat is a certain area or specialty that a reporter follows. In the case of our paper it can be, for example, the livestock industry in general or covering the hog industry specifically.
Our staff may cover certain stories from year to year but they are also expected to cover most other areas of agricultural news. In the case of our correspondents, their beats are more geographic; for example the coverage of Manitoba news.
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We might look back at this fall as the turning point in grain farm economics — the point where making money became really difficult.
This could include following provincial elections, health issues, profiling farm families or showing what the local research station is doing.
Because our newspaper has a wide readership, the reporters need to write for a larger audience. They may tackle stories from a provincial news focus but extend the sources, background and analysis to combine the other prairie provinces, and perhaps local, provincial and federal sources.
While our newspaper is proud that our reporters have the experience and expertise to cover and understand agricultural news, there are several traps that must be avoided.
When do our staff members begin to sound like the sources? How do we avoid this particular pitfall? Are we still serving readers when this happens?
This was discussed at a session during the last Canadian Association of Journalists conference.
Paula LaRocque, assistant managing editor and writing coach for the Dallas Morning News, said she’s known reporters who have covered a beat for two years and then “suddenly the clarity, the story telling… the explanation background we were getting from that writer during the first 18 months or so just goes away, and pretty soon the person covering the school district starts to sound like those administrators.”
More next week on this topic.
