Typically, Mondays are the day where I scour the local news outlets to find something to praise, take issue with, rebut or simply elaborate on. This week, however, I’d like to try something new. I’d like you to find some local news worth talking about, and share it with the rest of us.
For the purposes of this experiment, any local news outlet — even other blogs — are fair game. We’ll say that “local” means “in South Carolina, preferably in Spartanburg.” Your goal is to explain what the story attempts to explain, and why you liked or disliked the coverage. If it overlooks an important question or element in coverage, mention that. If there seems to be a bias at work, mention that too. If the story goes above-and-beyond in some way, feel free to praise it. The big goal is to get you thinking about HOW the story was covered, not the story itself.
Below is the format I use for Sparkle City Headlines, which you can copy and paste into the comments.
Headline: COPY AND PASTE THE STORY’S HEADLINE HERE
Source: THE NAME OF THE PUBLICATION WHERE THE STORY WAS PRINTED
Story: THE URL OF THE STORY, IF ANY
In a nutshell: ONE OR TWO SENTENCE SYNOPSIS OF THE STORY
Thoughts: YOUR CONCERNS, REBUTTALS, KUDOS OR ADDITIONAL VIEWS ON THE TOPIC.
Some suggestions for local media outlets to check?
- Spartanburg Herald-Journal‘s Upstate section. Suggested stories: School for Deaf and Blind takes drastic measures; Scott: City staring at leaner budget
- Hometown News. Suggested stories: Greer Freezes New Hires; Burnett Is New Mayor Of Woodruff; and Waste Management supporters make their C.A.S.E.
- WYFF’s Spartanburg newsroom.
- WSPA’s newsroom.
- Spartanburg Journal No website, you’ll have to find an actual copy of the paper. Refreshingly 20th century, in a way.
- SpartanburgSpark.com. Just because we’re hosting the conversation doesn’t mean we’re immune from criticism. Our reporting could always be better, and this is your chance to tell us where we goofed.
Now, it’s over to you. Tell us what you think of the local news coverage!
Steve Shanafelt
Steve feel free to edit. I can’t make the fonts all pretty like you.
HEADLINE: School for Deaf and Blind takes drastic measures
SOURCE: Spartanburg Herald-Journal
STORY: [urlhttp://www.goupstate.com/article/20081124/ARTICLES/811241014&tc[/url]
IN A NUTSHELL: Budget cuts hits School for deaf and blind students
THOUGHTS:
The Herald Journal published an article about some major budget cuts they were recently informed of and how they are coping with the shortfall. My first question is how come it took so long for this story to make headline news? I was made aware of what was happening to the school a week ago through an acquaintance who is on staff with the Spartanburg location. She mentioned the budget cuts, the mandatory furlough to cut costs and wondered to me how families who had two people on staff with the School of the Deaf and Blind were going to handle things financially.
On the plus side, Lee Hagley does a good job of covering the situation, and demonstrates the upbeat mindset interim school president Carol Mabry is working hard to maintain during this time. She is also working to bring about a change in status so that the entity she oversees is qualified as a k-12 school, not a separate state funded branch of the education department as it is now.
The school which serves the entire state through its different locations, Spartanburg being the main, has had to make some tough decisions in the past week or so.
The mandatory furlough and program cuts are a second, more severe phase, deemed necessary after lesser money-saving actions weren’t enough. The first phase, which is still in effect, includes a freeze on nonessential hiring and travel, including field trips. The school is only purchasing basic supplies, and substitute teacher pay scales were modified.
Mabry said all cost-saving measures were approved collectively by key administrators and the school’s board.
The reporting, while a bit slow on the take was to me pretty solid and fit the facts that I had been given myself before hand. Lee Hagley kept the piece from being too gloomy, gave some good facts, and ended the article with information about a fund raising campaign the school is doing to help cover some of the costs to maintenance and improvements to student housing.
I do wish however that there had been a bit more to the story. It would have been nice to know why an agency that fills a real need has been hit with the second budget cut in a single year. It is quite interesting that seems to be the education sector who has been hit first with such budget cuts. Who made this decision, and why the School for the Deaf and Blind was chosen for such cuts? Were there other agencies that the state budgeting committee thought more important, and why? None of those questions are touched upon in this article.