The Makings of a Municipal Reporter

By Roxie Farina

The article in Newswriting on Deadline featuring Ross Markman, a municipal reporter, mentioned many different useful strategies. Markman's story introduces the readers to a variety of approaches that a reporter must follow in order to become successful and meet a tight deadline. 
 
Ross Markman is a reporter for the Havre Daily News in north central Montana. He covers a variety of different areas within the news, for example: “governments, city government and the local schools.” At a larger newspaper these topics would be separated and divided into their own beat, but because the Havre Daily News paper is so small, they combine all of these into one beat. You would think a reporter would only want to be responsible for one of these beats, but Markman says covering all of these “gives him lots of great experience because he sometimes writes 10 or more articles a week.” Many of these articles have a tight deadline that Markman has to follow, and despite that he only has a few years experience; he’s already “a real pro at banging out news copy quickly.”
 
After listening in on a city council meeting, Markman was able to write the story in about 30 minutes. In order “to write that quickly a reporter has to do his homework before the meeting ever starts.” I like the fact that Markman mentions doing some ‘homework’ before sitting in on a meeting because it shows the readers that there is a lot of extra work that is put into reporting. You can’t expect to gather all the information you could possibly need for your story in a 60 minute meeting; you have to do some research about the topic prior to the meeting. Markman also mentions, “It’s key, if you’re writing on deadline, to get background material ahead of time on the issues being discussed.” Not only should you research the material before hand, but you should also reach out to some of the people attending the meeting and seek their input on the subject.
 
Another strategy Markman talks about is determining what is “newsworthy.” “The more people affected by an issue, the bigger the story,” summarized textbook author Tony Rogers, who profiles Markman. Depending on the meeting agenda, and if several different issues are spoken about, Markman might write a separate story for each important topic. Toward the end of the article, Markman shares his college background with us and I was surprised to see that he only earned his associates degree. Despite his college background, Markman has a great deal of experience within the news writing field. He has had several different jobs, and he has left his comfort zone to enhance his career, which shows how dedicated he is.
 
In conclusion, I feel his article about the city council meeting was full of great information. Markman also quoted many people which shows good credibility and attention to detail. I feel the more people you quote in your article shows that you were very involved in the meeting and you took the time to go back and question certain issues in order to help your audience fully understand the topic of the meeting and how it may affect them.