Putting the ‘community’ in the community newspaper
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The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman has been a community newspaper for nearly 65 years. But new technologies and social media — like the Internet and Facebook — are transforming how we include the “community” in the news gathering process.
Readers are used to getting Mat-Su Valley news from the print version thrice weekly, at frontiersman.com daily and, increasingly, from our Facebook page.
For example, take Friday’s police chase and fatal shooting of a suspect that closed the Glenn Highway for nine hours in the midst of rush hour.
We first learned of the story around 7 a.m., when managing editor Heather A. Resz received an email alert from Alaska State Troopers asking for help getting the word out to commuters here about the road closure. Still at home, Resz started pushing the news out into the world using Internet-based technologies.
“Before coffee, before a shower, I reported this story on the website as breaking news and on Facebook, too,” Resz said.
The next step is a new one: We used Facebook to reach out to readers in real time and asked for help reporting this breaking news event.
“While I waited for information to trickle in from Alaska State Troopers, I posted what I knew and asked folks stuck in traffic for information,” Resz said. “And, I asked for photos. (Because of the backed up traffic) I can’t get there, but there are hundreds of readers with camera phones there who can’t leave, but can get photos to Facebook, the Internet and to me.”
Only moments had elapsed when readers began to respond with comments and photos. Jacob Klingle posted a photo on Facebook of the burned out shell of the car Anchorage resident Justin Lloyd Abrahamson, 29, drove while leading Alaska State Troopers and Wasilla and Anchorage police on a 30-mile chase south on the Glenn Highway.
Another reader, Stacey Kolstad of Palmer, saw the news about Glenn Highway traffic and decided to fly her personal plane to work in Anchorage. Along the way, she snapped a few aerial photographs of the extensive traffic snarl and sent them to news@frontiersman.com.
Friday’s breaking news story followed another collaborative news effort last Monday. Then, the story was erosion of the Matanuska River and flooding of property near it. Again, a reader, Jim Stocker, shared stunning aerial photography of the affected area that gave an overall perspective of the situation our reporters and photographers on the ground couldn’t capture.
We share this experience to illustrate the exciting new opportunities we see to partner with our readers to gather and report the news.
No other news outlet covering this story captured the photos you — our readers — delivered. You already had photos of the burned car and an aerial view of the clogged road when no news reporter in the state could even get close. All we had to do was ask you to share.
In the Mat-Su, there is certainly a role for this sort of citizen journalism. We are grateful our readers value the Frontiersman enough to become active participants in reporting the news. We look forward to working with you to do more of this sort of community news gathering.