What is newsworthy?
A group of local media professionals converged on the Cottage Café on March 2 for the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce’s monthly breakfast meeting to answer that question.
Terry Plowman, the publisher of Delaware Beach Life; Eric Ebeling, the managing editor of a group of local Gannett weekly papers, including the Wave; Darin McCann, the editor of the Coastal Point; Mary Tyler from WBOC-TV; and Kenny Beck from WMDT-TV served on the panel that addressed an audience that filled one of the Cafe’s dining rooms.
Plowman spoke first, saying that Delaware Beach Life focuses on business stories and development in the area. Real estate is a major source of ideas for the magazine — for good reason in the blooming coastal region.
“We’re open for story ideas,” Plowman said, “But we do work far ahead.”
Plowman said that he and his staff plan for each monthly issue about two months in advance. So, if people want to submit ideas, they must think far ahead, as well, he added. The rest of the panelists don’t have such strict deadlines and said they are mostly open for story ideas anytime. Ebeling said that, for a press release, though, those sending a release should allow at least two weeks for it to get into the paper as a story.
“We like to see what’s happening in the business community,” Ebeling said. “That is our bread and butter.”
Tyler and Beck – who run on about the same deadline schedule – said that they have two meetings a day and accept ideas all day, every day. Beck broke down coverage into two simple categories: what people need to know and what people want to know. The television anchor used the station’s coverage area to make a point, saying that what people need to know usually occupies most of his time.
“Our coverage area is from Smyrna to the Eastern Shore of Virginia,” Beck noted. “That’s a wide area,” he said, adding that WMDT is still open to story ideas about people and business.
On the other hand, Tyler said that WBOC thrives on outside story ideas. And because there is a coverage area similar to that of their competitors, they rely on people to submit ideas rather than having reporters go out and find the ideas themselves.
“Think visually,” Tyler suggested, asking that local residents think about story ideas even when they are having breakfast. “The people that are serving your coffee down here might have a PhD, because they’re retired. Those are the kinds of stories we’re interested in. We welcome any kind of creative ideas.”
Tyler and Beck — as well as Ebeling and Plowman — stressed in their talks that anyone with a story idea should call the station, or paper, to submit that idea. Tyler especially said that when someone calls with an idea, it is important to talk to a person that can pass the idea along. She requested that people with story ideas be persistent because local residents are embedded in communities every day and have ideas their reporters might not.
McCann took that a step further, summing up the panel’s opinion about what is, in fact, newsworthy.
“If it’s interesting to you, it’s interesting to us,” he said.