this is going to be long, but I have a lot of years of experience pondering the topic and so a lot of thoughts….
-The kind of news you’re asking for more of is put out by businesses and organizations that answer to the almighty dollar. The business case for doing some of the stories you might’ve been used to reading 10-20 years ago isn’t what it once was. It’s by no means exclusive to Brandon but we’ve seen it’s realities effect what you see and don’t see in news locally.
-i can’t say I share your opinion re the Sun. We’ve had our differences over the years but they play arguably a more critical role than ever because of the absence of other options as much anything else. I've been a subscriber for a couple years and you can't match the depth they bring to some of the more traditional news stories.
The problem from a news perspective is that they’re having to go it alone on a lot of days. After the Sun we just dont have a lot of true nose-for-news journalists on the ground in the community finding and covering stories like there would’ve been 10-15 years ago. A healthy news environment involves multiple perspectives feeding off of each other. We have competition locally but I’ve seen more of a “be the first” competition than a “be the one to get the public that answer they haven’t yet gotten” competition.
-That said, CBC is still a really underrated presence locally on the bigger stories. Their current Brandon reporter is excellent at what he does on the bigger stories that he’s able to get into. Discover Westman is also getting more into doing local unique stories online and are worth keeping an eye on. CKLQ/Star has gone through some changes and I hope they’re in a position to see value in continuing to evolve into playing more of a role themselves (they’re also worth a look to see if they meet your needs at present, they have a couple news people on staff).
-i wouldn’t call what I’m doing “news” so much as conversation drivers. I see my role as complimentary to the bigger news picture. I know to some it’s just semantics but I’m intentionally picking topics that will be of interest to the audience that are constructively contributing to the information climate on the site and aiming for 1 or 2 per day. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been thrilled with the response and based on usage numbers I feel like its really playing a valuable and unique role, but its simply not meant to replace what a CKX or Journal would’ve done.
Maybe some day I’ll hire a reporter or two to go further into more traditional news if I can make a business case for it. It’s not in the immediate plan as I just don’t have a lot of interest in losing money and I’m not going to try to underpay someone inexperienced only to have to re-hire, re-train once or twice per year. If I do it I'm going to do it right, pay going rate and have someone that intends to be part of the community for a long time all the while feeling that the content they generate will at least earn as much as I pay in salary. I suspect there are some that are more experienced in the business that would tell me thats easier said than done.
-you mention mostly police/accident stuff when you talk about your personal idea of news. The Police continue to evolve in providing so much of that directly. Just about every morning by 10am you can go to http://police.brandon.ca/media-zone or follow Police on their social media to get a summary of those items that took place over the past day. There are definitely times where there needs to be a depth of coverage past what Police are able to say or a level of coverage before Police share anything. In those cases its generally the Sun and on the bigger stories also CBC that are asking the questions and going deeper than what you can get yourself every day direct from Police.
-In my case re Police stories I’m specifically choosing to only share stories where help is requested or alerts have been issued along with summaries of only the biggest stories that Police put out. No interest in being that site whose content is simply 1/2 copy and pastes of what have already been put out direct from the source earlier in the day.
-there’s a trend over the last few years toward copy/paste press release re-broadcasting, like-chasing, be-the-first-at-all-cost stuff. I imagine it makes it tricky for a news organization in that some of the public confuse echo-ing a press release with actual news coverage and that press release can be copied and pasted literally minutes after its sent out versus the often hours it takes to research, do interviews and write an independent news piece. Depending on the story, by that time so much of an audience has read the copy/paste broadcasted press release (or worse, just its headline) that the independent story doesn’t always get the amount of views to justify having put in the work to create it.
I think the news reading public really needs to be mindful of this dynamic and to know that the depth and the answers to questions often comes in hours and days following when a story first breaks. For what I do I’ve moved more and more towards doing my own unique write-ups based on conversations with sources. If I happen to be the first to break a story either by my own work or through passing along details from a press release please still consider looking for what other outlets put out on the story in the hours/days that follow to further your understanding of the big picture!
At any rate if there’s a story you’ve come across that would benefit from an explore please drop me a note or start a discussion thread. I’m enjoying contributing in my own way and am always on the lookout for new and unique things in the city that would be of interest to the audience and very much rely on tips!