By JIM BROOKS
The Nelson County Gazette
The value of what exactly constitutes “news” for any media outlet is always something of a conundrum, a moving target on the best of days. With that said — and having attended my fair share of budget meetings (where what’s “news” is typically decided), I know how diverse opinions among editors and writers can be.
Looking at today’s Kentucky Standard (actually, looking at the news posted on its web site), I expected to see a front-page story about Nelson Fiscal Court. I wasn’t disappointed as I found the story, but the best part — the “Hey Martha!” moment in the fiscal court meeting — was buried 15 paragraphs into the story! To quote my daughter’s text messages, “WTF?”
The buried news that has people talking was the ongoing flap that Jack Hurst brought into the Nelson Fiscal Court meeting yesterday, as well as on March 16th. In this case, where this part of the story was placed boils down to differing views on what constitutes news. In my book, when the county judge executive and a citizen are in a public squabble — and the judge adjourns the meeting to shut the citizen off — that has “story lead” written all over it.
One of the maxims in journalism (at least the ones that existed when I was studying journalism at WKU) was a very simple rule: “Conflict makes good copy.” Former WKU professor Jim Highland used to pace back and forth at the front of the classroom while admonishing his students to lead the story with the best stuff first. Always, always hide the boring stuff, he would tell us. My class even attended a Warren Fiscal Court meeting to help us understand how to find the “good stuff” in often very routine meetings. Enough of the history lesson.
The story about the Nelson Fiscal Court meeting begins (or “leads”) with the EMS service getting a bariatric lift for an ambulance. It’s an interesting detail, true enough. But when the judge executive shuts down fiscal court over a dispute with a local businessman, I can’t help but think that’s the better stuff. That’s the stuff that people will be talking about over coffee at Mammy’s Kitchen in the morning; they won’t be marveling over the new bariatric lifts.
Now you can argue that giving the lead to Mr. Hurst only gives him encouragement, or it gives him recognition, etc. But Mr. Hurst is what people will be talking about, and burying that part of the story down 15-paragraphs — when you know darn well it’s a huge interest item — misses the mark in my book. Now if I only owned a newspaper … (sigh)
COPY EDITOR ON HOLIDAY. OK, OK, I admit I have absolutely NO room to point out others’ errors in print or online, but in the same fiscal court story I found this gem:
The cost of retrofitting the ambulance with the lift is $6,380. There are also products such as a wench, which can be used to aid in the transfer, but Prewitt said he believes the lift is a safer and better route.
Having made this exact mistake myself makes it easy for me to spot. What the writer meant was winch, a motor/gearbox combination used to pull or lift heavy objects. A wench, as illustrated by the accompanying photo, probably won’t be very useful in helping EMTs get patients into the ambulance, though I expect it would improve morale for those being transported.
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