By Katie Liesener
ACJ Education Liaison

If, like politics, all journalism is local, then community journalists are the privates sent to the front. Last month, an array of captains and generals from some of the finest news organizations in the country came to rally the troops at the "Making the Most of your Local Advantage" conference, co-hosted by the Alliance for Community Journalism and the Nieman Foundation.

A sold out crowd of reporters and editors from weeklies in small towns and big cities across Massachusetts sat rapt and scribbling as journalistic trailblazers Lane DeGregory, Ben Montgomery and others divulged their secrets Oct. 20.

DeGregory was the first to reveal her tricks. A features writer for the St. Petersburg Times, DeGregory profiles the quirky characters - from egg delivery men and pageant dress specialists to "that crazy guy" who seems to live in every community (but may not be as crazy as he seems). Her advice was as eccentric as her subjects: Hang out at bars to get the scoop (bartenders are natural story collectors). Lie on the floor and stand on cabinets to steal the cinematic perspective. Get away from the fanfare for life's winners, and find the "losers" on the fringe. Tour their homes and photo albums. Vacuum the scene for details. Talk to them as they engage in their daily activities. See their humanity.

Montgomery, also of the Times, encouraged reporters to think like authors, fully fledged narrators who can unveil the facts in dramatic fashion. People are characters, who need as much fleshing out as their fictional counterparts. Sequence as plot keeps a reader hooked to the last graf. Poignant facts—not writer-ly maneuvering—convey emotion. Moments in time can be expanded or collapsed. In short, Montgomery showed how to mill life into story.

After their talks, Montgomery and DeGregory interspersed with the attending journalists, mingling, draining coffee and shaking hands with them while answering questions in the intimate setting of the Nieman Foundation house at Harvard.

There was a diverse contingent trading stories from their respective neighborhoods: college students, working reporters and freelancers from print, radio, television, and ethnic news organizations. In common, they had come out of a passion for strengthening their communities through their craft.

One way, of course, is exposing truths. At the investigative forum, community reporters shot questions to Mary Newsom, Joshua Benton and Olivera Perkins, all Nieman fellows from urban newspapers, on how to sniff out the activities of shifty developers, school administrators and city departments. The fellows caught their audience’s enthusiasm and bubbled with advice on public documents, potential sources, and questioning strategies.

In the cozy library downstairs, a trio spoke to environmental journalism’s trials and tribulations. James Baxter of the Edmonton Journal warned the troops to beware of libel suits. Kate Galbraith of Economist fame suggested a number of different ways to cover the great changes afoot, and the Harvard Green Campus Initiative’s Leith Sharp brought it all together with talk of how difficult it can be, even for a green-as-can-be CEO, to turn a company’s environmental practices around.

Himself an editor of a community newspaper, Dean Miller, of the Idaho Falls Post Register, gave other editors tips on how to grow readership.

Completing the day, Connie Hale, author of Sin and Syntax, highlighted the high and low forms of English, those razor-sharp edges where the language is most alive. (She brought stories told in Hawaiian Pidgin, the creole language she had grown up with in Hawaii, and told of her disorienting transition to life at Yale among the literary demigods.) It all boiled down to practical advice: Cut out prepositional underbrush and let verbs shine.

Attendees left the conference swapping contact information, making plans to stay in touch, and hopefully attending again next year. (Cross your fingers or contact us to volunteer!)

Recordings of two of the seminars will soon be available on this site.