During a meeting with the Roodepoort police yesterday to discuss the poor service we receive from them, they said they don’t understand deadlines and why journalists are always in such a hurry to get comment from the police.
Deadlines has always been a controversial issue, especially when we need to get comment from other parties and since the company has gone digital, it has become even more important for us to adhere to strict deadlines.
This is why: although the Record is a community newspaper, we only publish on a Thursday, we are in competition with the daily papers such as Beeld, The Star, Sowetan and The Citizen. As soon as there is a huge story in our area, the journalists from all papers rush to the scene to be the “first” to get the story. The daily papers print the article, with photos in their next edition which is usually the next day.
By the time the community newspaper hits the street, the particular story is strictly speaking “old news”. To ensure that our readers still read the article, we have to find a fresh and new angle to present the same story to the community. That can be a challenge sometimes.
The only way we can break the story right now is by ensuring we have all the details, or as much details as we possibly can get, and post it on our website. This secures hits on our website, facebook and Twitter pages. The more hits you have, the better the paper eventually will be. The whole idea with the website is to give the community direct access to breaking news stories.
Unfortunately we cannot always give all the facts, but online media gives us the platform to give continuous updates as the story unfold, just like what happened during the bomb threat at Clearwater Mall. Everybody was interested in what is happening there so instead of having to wait for the paper to arrive, you can get all the info online.
Coming back to why we sometimes need comment in a hurry, is because we want to be the first to break the news. Which means we are always in a rush and do not have time to waste, not if we want to be the first.
This is me for the week.
Have a blessed week and take care of one another.
Ciao
