Missouri Press Association
Serving Missouri Newspapers Since 1867
For decades, students in the Missouri School of Journalism have received a firsthand look at weekly newspapering through the Community Journalism course.
First offered by MPA Executive Director Bill Bray in the 1950s, the course has also been taught by Doug Crews, Jim Sterling and Elizabeth Stephens.
As the Community Newspaper Management Chair in the J-School, Stephens now teaches it every fall along with serving as the executive editor of the Columbia Missourian.
This fall’s class has only 11 students – including four graduate students – but they are an inquisitive bunch who pepper the guest speakers with dozens of questions. The speakers have included Judd Slivka, managing editor for the Tulsa Local News Initiative; Nick Parker, president and publisher of Link 2 Lee’s Summit; and Katherine Nagasawa, engagement and impact editor at El Tímpano.
Field trips are also an important component of the course. Ten of the students visited the Chariton Marquee in Salisbury and the Fayette Advertiser on Oct. 1. On Nov. 12, they’ll be going to the Sedalia Democrat, Concordia Concordian, and Odessa Odessan.
“These publishers are making a big sacrifice in terms of sleep and time with their families to run these papers,” one student said in the Oct. 6 post-trip discussion. “It kind of scared me.”
Another student added: “If no one else is that passionate [in the community], what happens when that person wants to leave the business? Sustainability is definitely a major concern.”
The class noted that each newsroom has a “unique pace” and that a one-size-fits-all approach wasn’t feasible.
“Everyone has some giant conflict of interest in a town of only 2,000,” another student said. “Complete separation [of news and advertising and community roles] just isn’t possible.”
“The mixture of guest speakers from all over the country and in-person visits close to home help students see the many forms community news can take,” Stephens said. “This class isn’t going to solve the local news crisis, but the students are going to enter the industry with a better understanding of ways community news can thrive.”
The textbook for the class is News for the Rich, White, and Blue, by Nikki Usher, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Illinois. There are chapters on “Myths of Local News and Why Newspapers Matter, Anyway;” “News for (and by) the Rich and White;” “Journalism’s Big Sort: Is the News That’s Left Just News for the Left?;” “The Beltway Versus the Heartland, Embodied: The Case of Washington Correspondents;” “Place and the Limits of Digital Revenue: Goldilocks Newspapers and the Curse of Geography;” “The Counterpoint: The New York Times’ Chase for Global Readers;” and “Blue News Surviving: The Big Sort in News Philanthropy.”
The students have a case study assignment, which requires them to take a closer look at a local or community news outlet by interviewing at least three people within the organization. The students will complete a SWOT analysis on their news outlet and then write and present a final report.
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Gary Sosniecki, who took Bill Bray’s Community Newspaper class in 1973 with his soon-to-be wife, Helen, recently shared his lecture notes with me. Doug Crews, the future MPA executive director, was also in that class.
Bray told the students the first day: “I don’t think anybody ought to be in journalism who doesn’t have an opinion.”
According to Bray, the six main sources of pressure on a newspaper’s independence were the friends of the editor and publisher, public officials, advertisers, promoters, readers, and the dominant institution of the area. “Regardless of its size, a city will only support one paper economically,” he said.
I taught a community journalism class at Missouri Southern State University in the 1990s and early 2000s. Gary and Helen Sosniecki, who published the Webster County Citizen at the time, spoke to the class two or three times.
One year, they took the students through their typical 80-hour work week, adding that they were never able to take a vacation due to the demands of the job.
I can’t say that many of them desired similar careers, but they did greatly admire the Sosnieckis’ work ethic.
Nick Parker, who spoke to Stephens’ class on Oct. 13, was a student in the MSSU class. You’ve probably heard that everyone is connected by six degrees of separation. Well, we can beat that by two here: Bray-Sosniecki-Parker-Stephens. The Community Newspaper class really has come full circle.
Regardless of the teacher, regardless of the university, regardless of how hard the work might be, the goal of these programs is to inspire a steady flow of students to enter community journalism and keep rural America informed.
