Our last two programs have focused on local news and the challenges of providing information for people in our communities. We’ve talked with researchers at Washington State University who released a study about local news in Washington. We’ve talked with the people who oversee the news operations at several Spokane media outlets. You can read and listen here and here.
Today, we talk with the publishers who operate weekly newspapers in Newport and Colville, Washington. We’ll talk about local news, present and future, at Spokane Public Radio with General Manager John Decker. And we’ll remember the folk singer and public radio music host Dan Maher.
Michelle Nedved has been The Newport/Gem State Miner’s publisher and part owner for 22 years. She talks with SPR rural affairs reporter and Murrow Fellow Monica Carrillo-Casas.
Michelle Nedved: What we're trying to focus on now is more storytelling, longer form, kind of more feature stories, even as far as covering city council meetings. It used to be you go to the council meeting Monday night. Tuesday morning, you write a story. The city council did this, this, and this. What we're trying to do now is find the deeper story and talk to more people and talk more about how what municipalities are doing affects people's daily lives rather than just actions that the city council took. Same with sports. We still do the follow the games, report the scores and the stats, but we're always looking for feature stories on players that might not always show up in the stats.
Spokane Public Radio has a long history of reporting regional news, going all the way back to its founding in 1980 when one person manned the news department. Now there are two full-timers, Owen Henderson and Doug Nadvornick; Murrow Fellow Monica Carrillo-Casas; part-time reporter Steve Jackson; weekend news host Tom Lee and, soon, a new full-time reporter (details to come soon).
General Manager John Decker talks about the emphasis on adding local news, despite the uncertainty of funding for public broadcasting.
John Decker: What faces us here at Spokane Public Radio specifically is our need to move into that on-demand digital world, where I think we all would agree that we're not doing as much as we could. And there's some opportunities there.
Colville's newspaper, The Statesman-Examiner, recently changed ownership. Monica Carrillo-Casas talks with publisher Gabriel Cruden about the community reaction.
Gabriel Cruden: So many people are so happy to have their newspaper back, and we've been growing it steadily over the last year and working on getting our internal house in order with all our systems, and then really striving to re-establish the trust of the community...It's been a challenging journey for sure, but it's one that we're really proud of.
Dan Maher, the folk singer and producer whose program aired for decades on KPBX and other public radio stations in the Northwest, has died. SPR’s Doug Nadvornick has this remembrance.
