News meetings in the world of journalism are almost as important as finding good sources and picking the right headline — they are sort of the bread and butter that hold together our day-to-day work.
Our weekly meetings, which we have every Wednesday morning, are significant because during these sessions we pitch our story ideas, hand out assignments, mull over ideas for a special section or discuss whether or not we should cover a more national news story.
They set the stage for the week to come.
Our meetings at our Healdsburg office are perhaps a bit more subdued than how story pitches are often portrayed in film or on TV. We don’t sit around a big glass table loudly hurling ideas around like a scene from the movie, “The Post.” Instead we gather in our small newsroom, some of us lucky enough to snag the deep comfy armchairs or the seat next to the communal candy bowl, and take turns sharing ideas for each coverage area’s paper.
While our meetings are more casual in nature due to our familial atmosphere we are just as passionate in our discussion of the news as Tom Hanks is in “The Post.”
Recently we discussed whether or not we should in any way cover the national political news story of the impeachment inquiry in relation to President Donald Trump or if it was OK for columnists to stray from their usual topics to touch on national news items or their own political opinion.
The topic had come up because in the past our managing editor had heard from some readers that the discussion of politics in certain parts of the paper was the reason they stopped reading the newspaper.
In terms of the question about covering national news items, our Sonoma West Times & News editor Laura Hagar Rush argued that it may be better to not set aside such a big developing news event like an impeachment inquiry, but others noted that as a community weekly newspaper we have to remember that we are often a reflection of our communities and what matters the most to them.
Laura argued that if we were journalists in the 1940 we would most likely not ignore the national news story that was World War II and the corresponding genocide. Her vote was that national news impacts all of us, so in some way it should be covered.
Our Windsor Times editor Heather Bailey saw both sides of the argument.
Even though each editor had a good point, we made a compromise to cover a national news topic if we can localize it, in other words, if we can find some way to tie the issue back to the community.
Having a local tie to a story or a column would give it purpose and would maintain the flow of the story.
Our Cloverdale Reveille editor Zoë Strickland provided a good example for a story idea of localizing a national topic. She said for instance, if a columnist or a reporter wanted to consider immigration as a topic, they could relate it back to what county organizations or ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raid watch groups are doing in response to immigration policy or citizenship concerns.
While a certain idea or a story may be shot down, we always try to do so kindly or offer up a compromise or brainstorm ways to look at a certain story idea at a different angle.
Since Wednesdays are often our sigh of relief — our busy week of newsgathering, writing, editing and designing is done and the papers are put to bed, meetings often come with tangents or sometimes bouts of loopy, sleepless laughter.
During the same meeting where we discussed national issues we ended up going down a rabbit hole about Smokey the Bear. Our tangent floated around the topic of how you spell “Smokey,” whether it was with an “ey” at the end or simply just with a “y.” We looked it up; it is spelled “Smokey,” in case you were wondering.
One day we also stumbled upon the subject of where and when we should hold our Halloween office party and the skill with which our Windsor Times editor, Heather Bailey, decked out her corner of the office with cobwebs, spiders and pumpkin lights. Halloween is her favorite holiday.
However in the end no matter how many off-topic subjects or silly stories we may dive into our meetings always yield a string of ideas for next week and a solid outlook for the coming week in local news.
Our managing editor Andrew Pardiac then compiles a story list for us all to pursue and we are off into our next round of stories until the next meeting.
