How to sink your teeth into a new neighborhood

Being the new reporter in town is like arriving late to a party. You are forever entering mid-conversation.

Everywhere you go, residents are buzzing about the latest events, dropping shorthand references and leaving the "obvious" unsaid.

Your head is turning as fast as your pen is scribbling. Who? What? Where? Huh?

The irony of course, is that you – the stranger without a clue – are supposed to become this community’s expert source of information. So where to begin? How does a new reporter at a community newspaper get a feel for the place, its people and politics?

In this edition of the Beet, several local reporters – and Roy Peter Clark from the Poynter Institute – offer their own insights into the “new reporter’s paradox.”

For most reporters, the starting point is going to be home base itself: the newsroom. Look through a year’s worth of the paper’s back copies, and consult your editor’s behind-the-scenes expertise for a crash course in the issues at hand. But that’s not always a possibility at small papers where the editorial and reporting roles are combined. So discovered Adam Smith, one his first day on the job as editor and reporter of the Sampan News.

“You don’t have anyone to say, ‘Here’s the scoop on the neighborhood,’” he said. “You’re picking up where the person beforehand left off.”
In that situation, square one is community meetings.

“Go to as many meetings as you can, even if it’s a topic you’re not interested in or don’t quite understand,” Smith said. “It helps you learn what’s going on and get a chance to meet people. And they can see you care a lot about what you’re doing.”

And don’t hesitate to make your own meetings. Pat McGroarty, news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, suggests, “Find the presidents and leaders of civic associations, local elected officials and their top aides, and higher-ranking city employees who live in the neighborhood you're covering. Take these people out for a cup of coffee, and ask them what the important issues facing the neighborhood are.”

As you’re meeting the neighborhood face-to-face, it might be a good idea to keep the wonders of the internet in mind. Pete Stidman, formerly of the Jamaica Plain Gazette and Boston Courant, advises getting on key e-mail listservs.

“I make a list of bookmarks on my web browser that link up to the website of every neighborhood association, community group or institution I run into, and then I email them and ask them if can get on their listserv,” wrote Stidman. “It makes for a heavy email intake, but it helps me keep a handle on local controversies when they pop-up.”

Then there’s the matter of getting to these meetings. At the very least, you can’t grasp a community until you’ve grasped its geography.

“Particularly critical is getting a clear idea of your coverage area, however defined (e.g., neighborhood boundaries, distribution zones, whatever), then sketching it out on a map so you can orient yourself,” wrote John Ruch, reporter for the Jamaica Plain Gazette. “Then hit the streets--walking or biking at least the main drags to see street-level where things are.”

David Taber, also of the Gazette, finds that on-the-ground reconnaissance as relaxing as it is enlightening.

“I am always a little embarrassed when it happens I am not entirely clear on the exact location or geographic layout of a place that's the setting for a story I am covering,” he said. “I often enjoy, after a day of working the telephones, walking around the neighborhood I have been jawing about with folks.”

If that means you are wandering around with a map, it’s okay. Sometimes, you can’t get on a level with the locals until your tourist dues are paid.

“Get a handle on top local attractions/institutions/etc., and visit ASAP,” Ruch advises.

(And here, the humble reporter of this story sneaks in her own grubby two cents.)

In my time as a reporter for the Wayland Town Crier, I found that once you have a working understanding of a community’s layout, you can begin to see a place the way the locals do.

A community’s history is often written into its geography. In Wayland, I had heard passing references to tensions between the town’s ‘newcomers’ and ‘oldtimers.’ But it didn’t completely hit home for me until I got off the main thoroughfare to Town Hall and started exploring the back ways – where multi-million dollar mansions presided over older, cottage-size homes.

Grasping the history of a place – beyond just an editor’s memory or a year’s worth of newsprint – is central to the four main tips from Roy Peter Clark, vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute. The very first two are designed to delve decades deep into a community’s “backstory”:

1. 1. Get to know the people at local institutions who have been there the longest, the office assistant who has worked there for 30 years and can give you a sense of history.
2. 2. Visit the local public library and spend some time wading around in historical documents, photo albums, etc.
3. 3. Have a veteran at the newspaper take you on a news tour, not only to show you city hall, but to point out the diner where the mayor likes to eat.
4. 4. Join something: a church choir, a softball team, a PTA.

John Hilliard, a reporter for the MetroWest Daily News, also goes the diner route. But he goes to nosh with the everyday Joes:

“Come in for breakfast early on at a local hang out – not at a McDonalds, but a diner, or diner-like small town restaurant where people linger, and make nice. Encourage people to talk to you. Let them know who you are, and they'll reach out to you.”

If early mornings at a diner sound like a grueling turnaround after that late-night school board meeting, you’re probably right. But you’re also probably on the right track to total immersion.

“Know what you’re getting into,” said Smith. “Realize you’re going to have to deal with a more than 40-hour work week in the beginning.”