a proposal to replace it with
Local Late Night.
The program would be a mix of news and opinion on all things Las Piernas and surrounding areas. He wasn’t unknown to the people he pitched it to—he’d taken a few classes in radio production in his unending time at Las Piernas University, during which he’d done his best to network with the people who were now running the station. They went for it.
Long before the first show aired, he had built an online following for himself—started in part at the
Express
—and made use of social networking sites and other tech that the paper hadn’t fully utilized, and as a result he was already something of a local celebrity. When he became the host of the show, that following increased, and he was now enjoying himself immensely.
One of the best things he did was to organize a Web site for the show that allowed those of his former print colleagues who worked with him now to write at length—any length—about the issues we discussed on the show. So while the part of the story that went on the air had to be kept short, the audience was always told there were more details on the Web. More underwriting and pledge dollars were generated from the site.
A few decades working as a journalist who focused on local politics didn’t hurt my ability to find stories for the program, but it took me some time to get used to the job, which differed in some important ways from print work. Learning to use the flash mike and the sound-editing software on my laptop were mechanics—they didn’t take too long, although I was nowhere near the artistry of some when it came to sound editing. I got used to carrying more gear and learned the hard way to always have an electronic Plan B (extra flash card, more batteries).
I tried to stop writing things down during interviews, a habit I couldn’t quite break, and tried to find humor in the fact that, in the press conference pecking order, my old colleagues couldn’t stop thinking of me as a newspaper reporter, which often allowed me to grab a better position than lowly radio reporters would usually get. On the other hand, I often caved in to the practical need to set aside my dignity and sit with my new colleagues on the ground at the feet of the television cameras for the sake of better sound quality.
Changes in my own thinking and writing had more to do with the nature of the medium. I found out how fast a minute could go by. I learned how much breath was needed to speak a long sentence on the air, so my sentences became shorter. I was expected to cover two to three stories in one day—that kept me moving.
While the on-air stories were shorter, the associated Web site allowed the reporters working with Ethan to develop our stories even more fully than we could have done at the
Express
, which had never made good use of its own site (failing to listen to the pleas of our computer guru, until she left in frustration for a much higher paying job). In the last few years, as the print edition’s pages had dwindled, the
Express
had kept most stories shorter than the ones we were publishing on the KCLP site.
The KCLP site wasn’t the equivalent of the
Express
in its heyday; it was going to be reached only by the computer literate who happened to be paying attention in the first place, and it didn’t compare to even a small daily newspaper in terms of the variety of items it could cover. We knew that people who read newspapers would often look through an A section and become engrossed in stories they hadn’t set out to find, while on the Internet the average reader might be picking up only one local story a day, and that as the result of a search. Still, it was at least one way to get the local news out and to keep some level of accountability in Las Piernas government.
Ethan had also hired Mark Baker, as well as a couple of people whose specialties were the local art and music scenes. We all got along well, and Ethan had us working together as a
Local Late Night.
The program would be a mix of news and opinion on all things Las Piernas and surrounding areas. He wasn’t unknown to the people he pitched it to—he’d taken a few classes in radio production in his unending time at Las Piernas University, during which he’d done his best to network with the people who were now running the station. They went for it.
Long before the first show aired, he had built an online following for himself—started in part at the
Express
—and made use of social networking sites and other tech that the paper hadn’t fully utilized, and as a result he was already something of a local celebrity. When he became the host of the show, that following increased, and he was now enjoying himself immensely.
One of the best things he did was to organize a Web site for the show that allowed those of his former print colleagues who worked with him now to write at length—any length—about the issues we discussed on the show. So while the part of the story that went on the air had to be kept short, the audience was always told there were more details on the Web. More underwriting and pledge dollars were generated from the site.
A few decades working as a journalist who focused on local politics didn’t hurt my ability to find stories for the program, but it took me some time to get used to the job, which differed in some important ways from print work. Learning to use the flash mike and the sound-editing software on my laptop were mechanics—they didn’t take too long, although I was nowhere near the artistry of some when it came to sound editing. I got used to carrying more gear and learned the hard way to always have an electronic Plan B (extra flash card, more batteries).
I tried to stop writing things down during interviews, a habit I couldn’t quite break, and tried to find humor in the fact that, in the press conference pecking order, my old colleagues couldn’t stop thinking of me as a newspaper reporter, which often allowed me to grab a better position than lowly radio reporters would usually get. On the other hand, I often caved in to the practical need to set aside my dignity and sit with my new colleagues on the ground at the feet of the television cameras for the sake of better sound quality.
Changes in my own thinking and writing had more to do with the nature of the medium. I found out how fast a minute could go by. I learned how much breath was needed to speak a long sentence on the air, so my sentences became shorter. I was expected to cover two to three stories in one day—that kept me moving.
While the on-air stories were shorter, the associated Web site allowed the reporters working with Ethan to develop our stories even more fully than we could have done at the
Express
, which had never made good use of its own site (failing to listen to the pleas of our computer guru, until she left in frustration for a much higher paying job). In the last few years, as the print edition’s pages had dwindled, the
Express
had kept most stories shorter than the ones we were publishing on the KCLP site.
The KCLP site wasn’t the equivalent of the
Express
in its heyday; it was going to be reached only by the computer literate who happened to be paying attention in the first place, and it didn’t compare to even a small daily newspaper in terms of the variety of items it could cover. We knew that people who read newspapers would often look through an A section and become engrossed in stories they hadn’t set out to find, while on the Internet the average reader might be picking up only one local story a day, and that as the result of a search. Still, it was at least one way to get the local news out and to keep some level of accountability in Las Piernas government.
Ethan had also hired Mark Baker, as well as a couple of people whose specialties were the local art and music scenes. We all got along well, and Ethan had us working together as a
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