By Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
Anne and Rich Lee, St. Bonaventure journalism and mass communication faculty, spoke at this year’s Joint Spring Meeting of the American Journalism Historians Association and the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
The conference was held at New York University on March 21.
Anne and Rich Lee’s presentation, entitled “In the Towns: Focus on People and Places,” took its name from Newark, New Jersey, newspaper The Star-Ledger’s community news section. The roughly 12-minute presentation tackled the topic of regionalized news becoming more prominent in the late 1980s.
Anne Lee said this increase in local news coverage could, in large part, be attributed to advertising.
“Advertising was a very big reason for [the increase in local news coverage] because these smaller sections were supported by the smaller ads, so The Star-Ledger did see some profit in those initial years,” Anne said.
About two-thirds of the presentation spotlighted The Star-Ledger’s community section, which concentrated on Newark and its surrounding area. The newspaper heavily covered the city’s jazz, art, theater and high school sports scenes. Organizations around Newark saw these sections and wanted similar attention, so they sent their advertisements to the newspaper, Anne Lee said.
Rich Lee concluded the presentation by discussing how “In the Towns” and other local news sections of daily newspapers laid the groundwork for the current popularity of hyperlocal news sites. “Hyperlocal” refers to the approach of homing in on events and topics in even smaller areas, such as neighborhoods.
“This is the type of news that people are interested in,” Rich Lee said. “They’re interested in who won the high school football game and those sorts of things.”
Both Anne Lee and Rich Lee have garnered journalistic experience through reporting local news.
Anne Lee worked for Dorf Feature Service, which covered stories across New Jersey for The Star-Ledger from 1977 to 2001. She said she edited obituaries and TV listings, organized and reported on meetings and wrote feature stories.
During the 1980s, Rich Lee reported hyperlocal news in Montclair, New Jersey, focusing on schools, churches, temples and theater groups in the immediate area.
Rich Lee said that college journalism programs have started making use of the popularity of hyperlocal news sites on the Internet to present students with real-world journalism experience. For example, The Convergence, which is an online publication created by the Journalists’ Workshop course at St. Bonaventure, features students covering local events and topics, such as Snowcross in Salamanca and features on war veterans.
“Not only does [reporting hyperlocal news] give college students real professional experience, but it fills a gap,” Rich Lee said. “You’re giving students experience as well as helping the community by informing them about things going on that no other journalism operation is doing now.”
klaibejj14@bonaventure.edu
