Reports about the Messenger

From the Reader’s Perspective: Exploring How a Student-Produced News Website Has Affected a Small Town

By Rachel Aretakis
University of Kentucky
Spring 2014

Abstract

This paper explores the reactions and opinions of community members to the Midway

Messenger, an online news source published by a University of Kentucky journalism class. Citizens of Midway, Kentucky, discuss their impressions and offer their critiques of the publication that has put a spotlight on the town of 1,700 between Lexington and the state capital of Frankfort. The main objective of the project has been to provide upper-level journalism students with real-world experience, as well as offer a new type of journalism to a small town where the main news source is a weekly newspaper published in the county seat. This paper examines how the project has affected the city, as well as its benefits and drawbacks, from the perspective of Midway residents. Through various interviews with community members, the purpose of the paper is to explore the overall impression that the Messenger has made on the small town.


From the Reader’s Perspective: How a Student-Produced News Website Has Affected a Small Town

Introduction

When one opens the webpage of the Midway Messenger, a tagline on the right catches the eye. It reads, “News in and around the small but surprisingly interesting town of Midway, Ky.,” a phrase that captures the purpose of the site. The news site (midwayky.blogspot.com) is devoted to Midway, a city of about 1,700 people, located halfway between Lexington and Frankfort, the state capital. The project was started in January 2008 by Al Cross, an extension professor in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications. He began the online publication as part of a 400-level community journalism course. Students in the class produce content for the website by documenting the community, its residents and its events through reporting and writing, videos and photographs. It both cooperates and competes with the weekly county-seat newspaper, The Woodford Sun.

While the students from previous semesters and some community members have provided opinions and commentary to the instructor, the project has lacked an independent review of the course that considers Midway citizens’ perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to examine the opinions of citizens and their views on how the Messenger, its students and its instructor have affected the community.

Methods

Various residents of Midway and instructor Al Cross were interviewed one-on-one either over the phone or in person. Participants were Mayor Tom Bozarth; Steve Peterson, The Woodford Sun managing editor; John McDaniel, Midway columnist for the Sun; Charlann Wombles, former city council member; Diana Ratliff, president of Leadership Kentucky;

Sharon Turner, council member and mayoral candidate in the 2014 election; Grayson Vandegrift, council member and mayoral candidate; Phil Moloney, the city attorney, who practices and lives in Lexington; Helen Rentch, leader of the Midway Nursing Home Task Force; and Al Cross, the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, and chief political writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal for more than 15 years. All were asked their opinions of the Messenger, its benefits, disadvantages, coverage and their experiences with students and the instructor.

A community journalism course

Professor Cross has cited four main objectives for the project: to provide journalism students with real-world experience in covering rural communities; to cover local government and public issues for a community that lost its newspaper in 1938; to demonstrate to rural communities and the county newspaper the importance of online journalism; and to research best practices of online community journalism (Cross, 2013).

The community journalism course is offered each semester to upper-level journalism students. Students are required to cover city council meetings and are assigned beats, including the local private college, government, land use, business, horses and farming. The class meets once a week; students receive instruction on articles, discuss community journalism-related topics and review each week’s edition of The Woodford Sun, Woodford County’s only printed newspaper. Students provide in-class updates on their beats and stories they have been working on, and the class discusses reporting, writing, editing and presentation techniques.

Coverage of Midway fluctuates depending on class enrollment and time of year. During university breaks and holidays, Cross often continues covering the city and keeps the website active until students return. He occasionally writes articles during the semester that are more realistic for him to write, given his experience as a political reporter in Frankfort.

The community

Midway is a city of 1,647, according to the 2010 census, with about 3,000 people living in the zip code, which reaches into Franklin and Scott counties. The city is 14 miles and a 25minute drive from the University of Kentucky campus in Lexington. The county seat is Versailles, about eight miles from Midway.

The city’s newspaper, The Blue Grass Clipper, closed down 76 years ago. Ever since, the city’s sole regular coverage has come from The Woodford Sun, which serves the county of nearly 25,000. But Midway has seen various newspapers over the years started by community members. For example, John McDaniel, a Midway native, Sun Midway correspondent and active community member, began a monthly newspaper called The Midway Exchange around 2003. Along with others in the community, McDaniel published the paper, which had a historical writer and advice columns. However, it only lasted five years; with a circulation of about 1,000, it was not a moneymaker.

Today, The Woodford Sun is the weekly newspaper that covers the entire county, Versailles and Midway. It has been owned by the A. B. Chandler family since 1942. It has a circulation of 5,300, with a household penetration of nearly half the county, according to its managing editor, Steve Peterson. Each week, the Sun devotes one page to Midway; it includes a list of community and church events and columns written by McDaniel and Midway Mayor Tom Bozarth. The newspaper covers city council meetings and other important happenings in Midway.

Cross works in collaboration with Peterson, occasionally sending Peterson a student story that he thinks would be of interest to the Sun to be republished. In addition, each week, Peterson sends PDFs of the main news pages of the Sun to Cross when it goes to print, so students and the instructor can discuss each edition as the printed paper is being distributed. The class reads through the Sun, finds and discusses potential story ideas and compares coverage in the Sun and the Messenger.

First impressions

Initial impressions of the Midway Messenger varied. Mostly, residents were curious when the project arrived in town. Community members who were interviewed for this paper often expressed pride that Midway had been chosen for the university project.

The main focus of the Messenger’s coverage began with, and has continued to be, city council meetings. Students and Cross have become a staple at council meetings on first and third Mondays. Their presence now includes video equipment to live-stream the meeting on the Messenger’s website. When students started attending council meetings, it put a singular focus on the town, which had been accustomed to one newspaper. The Messenger became the outsider looking in on a small, closely connected town, and it would take some council members time to become accustomed to the project.

The Messenger was met with some skepticism from the city council, said Charlann Wombles, who served three two-year terms on it and later was appointed for about a year to fill a vacancy. She said those who met the Messenger with uncertainty had a wait-and-see attitude. “The effort was initially viewed with a great deal of suspicion,” she said. There was a fear that it would be critical or lack understanding of the town; as a small city, people “get accustomed to being pushed around a little bit. So maybe you become a little bit defensive. And you watch outsiders a little more carefully. Outsiders need to prove themselves,” she explained.

On the other hand, Wombles said that she was excited for the project and flattered that Midway was chosen. She thought the city would benefit from the coverage. And as time passed, the skepticism diminished and a respect grew for the students and the instructor, she said.

When starting the project, Cross approached various members of the community to lay the groundwork for support. Peterson, the Sun’s managing editor, was one of the first with whom he discussed the project because the Messenger would be entering the weekly’s coverage area. Cross met with him to clarify the project’s goal:

I told him that our intent was not to supplant the Sun as a source of news for Midway, but to supplement it; that we would make student stories available for republication in the Sun; and that if we stopped using the site, the Sun would have the right of first refusal to take it over. (Cross, 2013, p. 13)

Peterson said one of his initial thoughts was surprise that such a project had not been done before at the university, where he earned a journalism degree. With a staff of four, (managing editor Peterson, two staff reporters and a sports editor) he said it is difficult to focus on a city like Midway. But Peterson does not consider the Messenger the Sun’s competition because it does not affect the Sun’s advertising. The Messenger does not accept advertising.

McDaniel, who as Sun correspondent writes a weekly column, said that when the project came to town, he was excited and expressed pride that Midway had been chosen. McDaniel has served on various boards in Midway and has been writing his column for the past 10 years. He mixes commentary and humor with the town’s history.

McDaniel tries to attend every council meeting and considers himself knowledgeable about city news, events and gossip. Even though most people are aware of what is going on in the city, McDaniel said there is a need for such a publication like the Messenger: “I pretty well know all the inside gossip and the outside gossip, but there have been a lot of times where I open up the Messenger and there will be something that I probably didn’t know about. … So it’s been informative to me.”

Benefits

As part of the course’s primary objectives, the project serves to help soon-to-graduate journalism students obtain more reporting experience outside of the classroom. Secondly, the project covers local government and community issues for a city without its own newspaper. The two objectives play an important role in how Midway residents have viewed the Messenger. Most of the Midway community members who were interviewed for this paper agreed that the Messenger has been beneficial to the community.

From the start, the mayor, Tom Bozarth, has been a key player in the Messenger’s coverage. Bozarth views the project as a way for students to gain more reporting experience, rather than a consistent news source for the community. He said the project is a good opportunity to expose journalism students to government in a small, controlled way. “I’ve always tried to be helpful to them,” he said, “because I understand they are there to learn.” Due to Midway’s size, the city council is “a good classroom for students to come and learn the proper way to report,” he said. “It is important that we try to help our younger generation to further their education.”

Similarly, Peterson sees the Messenger as a teaching and learning tool, not competition.

But it happens to benefit the community it covers:

Midway is an excellent laboratory for students to be able to go and watch how government actually functions. It’s one thing to read about it or hear it discussed in a lecture, but to actually go and sit in a meeting, absorb the information, write a story and then publish it — in this case on the Messenger — I thought was very, very valuable and a good way for students to become acquainted with not only this small town journalism, but journalism in general. And so the Messenger in that sense has given the students a perfect opportunity to get that done while still in school. Rather than having to wait until they get out of journalism school and go into an entry-level job, they go into an entry- level job having had this experience — that’s a leg up for them. … The Messenger is a very valuable tool, a teaching tool and learning tool.

Longtime Midway resident Diana Ratliff, president of Leadership Kentucky, which is a nonprofit organization that brings together and educates a group of selected people to advance the state, has been impressed by the quality of journalism produced by the students, and said their articles are exceptional for student journalists. Moreover, the publication has had a positive impact on the community, she said, and she has enjoyed reading the articles and the different perspectives on Midway:

Any time that someone is providing the members of our community, or any other small or even large community, relevant and timely and important information about the functioning of government and about the things that really have an impact on our citizens … I think we have to applaud those things.

Furthermore, she explained that in a small town, there is “opportunity for gossip to abound,” And the Messenger often puts a stop to or reduces inaccurate information that goes around. With access to the Messenger, people can find the whole story, she said.

Most who were interviewed for this paper said the Messenger has provided broader coverage of the city that is not usually covered by The Woodford Sun. With a staff of two reporters, the Sun’s coverage is often limited to council meetings, large events or other happenings in the city. The Midway Messenger can cover smaller events in more depth, as stories are published online and without space constraints. Overall, interviewees said the Messenger has offered Midway residents another news source, thus another perspective, which is available online at any time. This allows residents, or anybody really, to catch up on what they missed either before The Woodford Sun is published.

The Woodford Sun has a website where it only publishes obituaries, government meeting agendas and club schedules (woodfordsun.com). It has also developed a limited social-media presence on Facebook. It refers readers to the print edition or offers updates on stories, but is not regularly updated, sometimes going a month without posting. Peterson said the Sun has intentionally avoided publishing its articles online because he knows it will reduce print circulation. He has yet to see a good business model for online advertising, and right now, it would be like giving content away for free. Until there is a sure way to make a profit off of an online model, he said the Sun will continue to focus on print.

When asked if smaller cities like Midway need a publication specifically devoted to it,

Charlann Wombles said the Messenger fits that need perfectly. “The Messenger is a win-win. I think it’s a win for the students, I think it’s a win for the community,” she said. Wombles, who is the former president and current vice president of the Woodford County Library Board, is a big fan of the Messenger and its mission. “It brings some energy to this community that it’s missing,” she said, adding that the Messenger often covers interesting topics. The Messenger’s coverage of city council meetings is often more detailed than the Sun’s: “I think I get a much better flavor of the meetings from the Messenger.”

Additionally, the online news source is healthy for the community because it seems balanced. It could easily be something divisive for the community, but to her knowledge, it has not been, she added. “The Messenger has a really broad vision,” she explained. “(It’s) not promoting anything in Midway. (It does not) have a self-interest in the town, and that just gives (it) a fresher perspective.”

McDaniel conveyed a similar sentiment that the Messenger gives another perspective to citizens than the Sun. To him, it appears the Messenger does not have quite the same boundaries as the Sun; there are certain topics the Sun does not touch on that the Messenger can, mostly regarding politics. Cross mentioned a similar occurrence in his essay in 2012, saying the Sun never touched on city council factions: “The Woodford Sun covered the meetings and reported the disagreements and split votes, but rarely if ever referred to the factions,” (Cross, 2013, p. 15). McDaniel said he uses the site as a resource and believes each semester the project improves:

The whole concept gets better and better with each group. I don’t know whether it is because (they are) able to go back and see what the other ones have written about and how (they) can improve on that. … (They’ve) got more background to work from, from past students. So I think (they’re) learning from students before.

A few participants commented on Cross’ participation in the project and how it has influenced students. McDaniel, for example, said the energy of the instructor is clear; Cross is often at events when students cannot attend. “I’d say that project would be hard-pressed to succeed without his energy,” he said. “I’ve learned just from watching him.”

Furthermore, many of those interviewed expressed positive assessments on the students’ professionalism. Specifically, Grayson Vandegrift, a council member since January 2013 and mayoral candidate, said he has been impressed: “It never feels like a student is trying to get a good grade. It feels like it is a future journalist who is taking it seriously.” Having a well-respected journalist like Cross educate students is a good thing, he said, and he knows what he and others say will be accurately represented:

With my experience with the Messenger, it always seems to capture the feeling (of the council meetings) real well and it seems to hit on the main bullet points. … I think that’s probably Al’s experience. He can kind of hone in and teach (students) how to hone in on the bullet points or the key aspects of the meeting. And I think that’s a better representation of what went on.

Vandegrift likes that students cover council meetings, saying the more news outlets watching a governmental organization, “the more you’re going to keep the whole process honest because it’s more transparent,” he said. Comparable to the Sun’s coverage, the

Messenger’s articles on council meetings make it easy to catch up on the key topics discussed. This, in turn, makes it easier for citizens to remain informed, giving them the opportunity to see the decision process, rather than just a final decision, he explained.

Like Vandegrift, Sharon Turner, another mayoral candidate who has served on the council since January 2008, said the Messenger can bring people up to speed on what happens during council meetings. Unfortunately, many citizens do not attend the meetings, and so when people read the Messenger, it encourages them to inquire and ask questions, which she said is good. It has been positive for the community, she said, and she looks forward to seeing it grow to include the whole community and possibly county news. Though Cross said it is not his intent to serve the county, as it is important to maintain his and the Messenger’s relationship with the Sun, the Messenger is starting to expand its coverage.

Relationship with city council

The Midway Messenger’s and its instructor’s relationships with the city council, especially the mayor, began fine, but became troubled. Issues regarding the instructor’s style of reporting, open-records requests, including one denial that was successfully appealed to the state attorney general, characterize the somewhat rocky beginnings of the relationship that eventually settled down.

One of the main issues between the Messenger and the council has been requests for access to public records. Cross said the Messenger’s relationship with Mayor Tom Bozarth became adversarial, writing, “Frank, professional news coverage often pleases one side more than another, and in this case it made our relationship with Mayor Bozarth more adversarial,” (Cross, 2013, p. 15).

Cross and a student wrote an open records request for the 2010-11 proposed city budget that the mayor had sent to the council members. The mayor refused the request, saying he was not obligated to release the preliminary budget until council approved it. Cross wrote that this was “a departure from past practice and seemingly a reaction to the previous year’s reporting.” (Cross, 2013, p. 15). He and the Messenger then appealed the denial of the records to the Kentucky Attorney General, who ruled: “The proposed budget submitted to the city’s legislative body … is a nonexempt public record and no longer shielded from disclosure,” (Conway, 2010).

The city did not appeal, and Cross wrote “there had never been a decision on this exact point . . . so this decision made new law,” (Cross, 2013, p. 15). Phil Moloney, the Midway city attorney, said the ruling was a departure from what the attorney general had ruled in the past. “The attorney general leaned toward being more transparent,” he said, indicating that the preliminary budget should be available for public disclosure.

The year after the attorney general’s ruling, the mayor would only give the Messenger the proposed budget after a written open records request was submitted. Instead of writing the request, the Messenger obtained the proposed budget from a former mayor, who was part of the anti-mayor faction (Cross, 2013).

Circumventing the open records request process by obtaining the budget from the council member furthered the tension between the publication and the mayor and members on council. Bozarth said he felt disrespected and that Cross was exempt from the open records process:

I don’t think we had the respect of him as a journalist and us, as being public officials, from the standpoint of wanting information, asking questions, and just coming up in the middle of a meeting and looking over your shoulder or asking for the piece of paper. …

That’s very disruptive. It just kind of sends a bad message for us. Yes, we’re small, but … we’re not different than Lexington. Treat us the same way.

Cross said at other meetings of legislative bodies that he has covered in the past, he has been allowed observation or provided copies of documents: “My specific complaint to him about records was that he required us to wait the maximum three days after a records request was filed to give us records that were readily available. That no longer happens; it’s a much more comfortable relationship,” he said.

Turner thought it would have been beneficial to teach the students the process of requesting open records and that she was saddened by this. As a small town, Midway does not deal with issues that perhaps a larger government would day in and day out, Turner said. So it has been a learning process for council members, the same as it has been for the Messenger. Bozarth agreed: “We try to accommodate (Cross) at times and at other times (we) make him go through the process. I think that every student that’s in that class should know how to go through that process, know how to go through an open records request and know what to ask for.”

Bozarth added that though the case went to the attorney general, it was not a big deal. He was under the impression that he did not have to release the budget to the Messenger and said it was nothing intentional on his part or the council:

I just think that sometimes you ought to think about the other side. And I think that really it would have been good for the class to have an understanding of what it’s like being an elected official in a small city, and what you’re faced with. It’s not like a bigger city. They need to understand, too, that in a sense we are all students and we are all learning. …

We’re not doing it for the money because that’s not what it’s about. We’re doing it to give back to our community, and a lot of us have other jobs. We’re not … professional politicians. So you know we don’t do everything right all the time. We try to do our best and there’s never any malice in anything we do. … Sometimes you make honest mistakes, you know, and we’ve tried to correct them.

Since becoming mayor in January 2007, Bozarth said his goal has been to make the city government more transparent. Before he was mayor, he said council meetings were never posted or advertised, and council met in private locations where minutes were not taken. “We worked hard to change that,” he said. He said Cross and the Messenger’s presence may have made them “toe the line” a bit more on issues like open records requests, but the council has improved and has come a long way in the past eight years, he said.

When asked about the situation and about transparency in general, both John McDaniel and Grayson Vandegrift said tough questions and transparency are important.

McDaniel, who said he is a good friend of Bozarth’s, said it took some time for the mayor to get used to the Messenger, but Bozarth had nothing to hide.

“I probably would have been a little more diplomatic, but then I’m not a hard-core journalist,” McDaniel said. “And I haven’t had any of the experiences that (Cross has) had. The more I know of him and about him, the more respect I have for him.” McDaniel spoke about how he appreciates investigative journalism and when newspapers keep politicians or government in check. But he does not think that is something Midway necessarily needs from the standpoint of checking on city council: “The people who work in government here … they are working here for nothing, and they don’t have other agendas like running for governor. …Their basic interest is truly about Midway.”

He added that a positive aspect about covering council meetings is having the opportunity to review what happened: “It gives you a chance to read that and maybe review yourself from another person’s point of view.”

Vandegrift, when asked if small towns need a newspaper to keep an eye on things, said: “We absolutely do. We’re in the age of transparency and so the more times you have someone who is reporting back objectively, the better the process is going to be in general.” He likes the Messenger because it covers committee meetings, when most of the time citizens are not aware they are happening. When everything is covered, it allows readers to remain informed. “It has benefited the process itself with city government in that I think it’s important for people to be able to see what happens. But also it benefits the people themselves in that it is easier to be informed than it ever has been.”

He said it is obvious when the media are too hard on somebody and he has never felt poorly treated by the Messenger:

I’ve never really found the Messenger too hard on anybody. To me, I don’t like fluff journalism because I don’t think it does any good for anybody. … It’s true that we’re all volunteers, but at the end of the day, we asked for it in a way — it comes with the territory. We went and asked people to vote for us. … I feel like as long as the meeting is represented, you’re quoted fairly, I just don’t ever feel like there’s an agenda with the Messenger.

Moloney, the city attorney, said from time to time, there have been some differences in opinion between the council and the Messenger, but overall, it has been positive and “a very rewarding relationship from both standpoints.”

There always is a healthy tension — maybe tension is not the right word — between politics, and the running of government, and the press. And I think as long as both sides understand the job of the other and have a respect for what the other does, it benefits the public. When it gets lopsided and they don’t respect the relationship that ought to be there, things don’t work out as smoothly or as well as it should.

Cross made a similar assessment: “For instructional purposes, we have to hold the city to the same standards of accountability that metropolitan news outlets would. The difference in community journalism is that you need to develop a good working relationship in which those on both sides live up to their institutional roles.”

Peterson, the Sun’s managing editor, noted that some people in the Midway city government may feel an adversarial relationship. It is not strong, nor bitter, but there is a sense of wariness. He said some may worry about the Messenger, “whether there is some sort of agenda at work or not,” adding that this is a common sentiment.

It has to be kind of intimidating, maybe quite intimidating for someone of that stature to focus a microscope on what you’re doing. … Does the Midway Messenger, Al Cross’ class, Al Cross himself, influence how these people behave? Now, I suspect that it does. But I suspect that it does in a positive sense. Small town governments — and I’ve covered a few — tend to be sort of lackadaisical about what they are up to.

Peterson said it might make some people uncomfortable, “for someone of that stature to focus a microscope on what you’re doing.

I think Al Cross’ presence at this meetings has forced them, has kind of dragged them to the point where they need to dot the I’s and cross the T’s and do these things correctly. And that is not a bad thing. I think it is a good thing and I think it’s kind of a shame that it can’t be done in other places. … I have a lot of respect for Al Cross, what he does and what he is trying to do. And he’s trying to keep the standards of journalism high, and I can’t argue with that. It needs to be done this way.

Criticisms and suggestions

Three main suggestions emerged from those interviewed when they were asked for suggestions or criticisms: Not enough citizens are aware of the Messenger, it is only available online, and the Messenger needs to expand its coverage.

First, interviewees expressed over and over again that not enough people in Midway are aware of the Messenger. More than once people said it could be more widely read if citizens knew about it.

In February 2014, the website had 3,740 page views; 62 percent of those views came from unique monthly visitors. Cross said this percentage is higher than normal, as monthly unique views are usually about half of the monthly page views. Several widely read stories contributed to the number of uniques, such articles about a natural-gas liquids pipeline proposed for a section of greater Midway; city government election filings; a Christian church’s lay Sunday service; a development project changing 37 acres zoned residential to industrial; and an observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Cross noted that he has done little to promote the website, other than social media posts: “That is partly because I know we will not always have the personnel available to cover stories that need to be covered. I tell people in Midway, ‘You can’t always rely on us, but you should always look for us,’” (Cross, 2013, 18).

Charlann Wombles mentioned her concern that people just do not know about the site. She said community members need to energize interest in the project, and whenever she can, she encourages others to view the website. She also suggested the Midway Public Library should create a link to the website on its computers. She compared it to a print edition, which would have copies available at the library, saying it might bring more attention to the project. Helen Rentch, leader of the Midway Nursing Home Task Force, agreed that not many people are aware of the Messenger, including herself up until recently. She said she tends to be old school when it comes to getting the news, choosing print editions like The Woodford Sun and the Lexington Herald-Leader over online sources. She suggested a hard copy be posted in the post office: “I think there aren’t a lot of people aware of it at all. But, I think if we saw it a time or two (in the post office), we would be a lot more tuned into the fact it was there.” Seeing a hard copy of the Messenger would create a connection to the online website.

John McDaniel had similar comments, saying it would be helpful if more people knew about the Messenger. He expressed a desire to be able to share his opinion on the site and his main complaint is that he has been unable to leave a comment on articles. As the website is set up now, it requires a code to enter, in order to verify one is not a computer or virus. The code can be difficult for many to access, he said, which prevents him from commenting. The process cannot be changed though, Cross said, because the comments are moderated and it is limited by the Blogger software.

McDaniel believes that more people would visit the website to see what others are saying: “(The Messenger) would get more viewers if that was easier because (it will) get more people talking about it and those people will be looking up things just to hear what so-and-so had to say in response to something else.”

A second common criticism expressed is that the Messenger’s online-only aspect discourages people from accessing it. Both Sharon Turner, a mayoral candidate, and Mayor Bozarth expressed a concern that the elderly population of Midway may not read the Messenger because they may not be as technologically savvy as the younger generation.

Turner, who is also the managing editor of the Kentucky Beverage Journal, for beer distributors, added that sometimes for her and for many, she likes reading print copies of newspapers rather than online editions. However, she said there is definitely room for both the Messenger and the Sun in Midway: “There’s always going to be a market for both (online and print),” she said. Both the Sun and the Messenger have their own roles in the community and do not compete, she added.

Bozarth, when asked if the Messenger has been beneficial to the community, said Midway’s older population do not access the Internet as much, so he was unsure how many community members the Messenger actually reaches. “The beauty about The Woodford Sun — they aren’t online.” Bozarth said getting the paper once a week is the only way to read the news about the county. “A lot of people take The Woodford Sun for gospel,” he said. “You know, that’s our community newspaper.”

In contrast, Vandegrift likes that the Messenger is an online news source where he can view articles whenever he wants. In his opinion, one of The Woodford Sun’s pitfalls is that it has no electronic presence: The Messenger “may set a good example for other small cities to get into the digital age.”

Moloney said he likes to read print editions in his hands, but he said as times change people are becoming accustomed using a computer to read the news, rather than a traditional print. He said he sees the Messenger benefiting the community because it is keeping up with the times and staying relevant: “It will have a present value, but a future value.”

Cross said the main reason there has only been an online edition of the Messenger because he lacks time to produce it, though he acknowledged he could have assigned a student to create a monthly printed edition. It still is a possibility, if he and students can raise funds, he said:

Another reason has been that I want to maintain the cooperative, only mildly competitive, relationship with the Sun. Raising money from donations probably wouldn’t do that, but raising it from advertising or subscriptions would, and the work required to handle ads and/or subscriptions would only add to the workload. At this point I think it would be feasible to produce a semi-annual or quarterly print publication with money from one or two donors, and test the reaction.

The last criticism that was expressed is the Messenger’s coverage. Both Bozarth and Turner said the Messenger should expand its coverage outside of city council meetings and even outside of Midway. Bozarth suggested that the Messenger needs redirection to include more than just the city. He said one disadvantage to covering only Midway is that there is not a lot of news. Moreover, there is not always a lot of business discussed at council meetings, so he said he could see students expanding coverage to the county and Versailles city governments: If you want The Midway Messenger to grow, you’re going to have to do more stories which are going to tie in the three governments … because people have a real interest in that right now. There’s a lot of interest in merged services for Woodford County and this would be an opportunity and something that is ongoing from class to class. But I think that it needs to involve the other two governments.

He suggested a story idea such as why one county needs to have three road departments, as well as a story that looks into inter-local agreements and emergency management. That would draw more interest, he said, and he thinks it would pique the interest of students, too.

Midway is “limited here as far as what you can write about,” he said. “It’s a good incubator to get somebody started in it, but I think (the project) needs to grow even more.”

He also suggested that students write profiles on council members so they can get to know them better. Plus, it would provide a way for citizens to get to know their council members better.

He has not gotten to know many students, other than one student who a few years ago took an interest in the city and wrote a profile on him. The council members have not developed relationships either: “I don’t think you can ask the council members, past the present, if they know any students’ names. I’d be surprised if they did. So we don’t have that relationship.”

A future without the Messenger?

One question asked to each participant regarded the future for Midway if The Midway Messenger ceased publication. Cross noted that the project will not continue forever under him, as he can retire from the university in seven years. He said the community could sustain the project after he ends his involvement, writing that he has been “compiling a diverse list of Midway residents who could act as both an advisory board and stable of contributors,” for the website (Cross, 2013, p. 18).

Ratliff said that Midway would lose a news source: “What I’m afraid will happen is that Midway will no longer have any local news representation” other than The Woodford Sun, said Ratliff. The Sun’s coverage of Midway is “basically one page of one article by one person — the mayor’s article and five things or six things about churches — and that really isn’t new from my perspective.” McDaniel’s column also runs weekly.

Vandegrift thinks that Midway would need something like the Messenger to continue, maybe set it up so somebody else could take it over. He said he knows a lot of people who read the Messenger and it would be unfortunate if it were to come to an end.

Turner said it depends the project’s progression. If more people use the website as a resource, then it would leave a void if it was not picked up by another professor or community group.

Wombles, too, would like to see the Messenger continue as long as it is continued in the same manner as it is now. As noted earlier, Wombles expressed an opinion that the Messenger is objective and does not promote any one cause or interest in Midway.

Lastly, Cross promised Peterson and the Sun the right of first refusal should the project not continue under Cross. Peterson said it could be a possibility: “We would certainly give that very serious consideration and it's something we'd probably do. But not knowing when that might occur and what may happen in the meantime, I can't really give a more definitive answer than that.”

Discussion

Most people interviewed have had positive experiences with the Midway Messenger and are appreciative of its purpose in their city. The overall impression expressed is that the Messenger has had a good impact on the city of Midway and its community members.

Participants interviewed for this paper seem to appreciate the educational value the project offers to journalism students and are proud that Midway is a part of the project.

I only encountered a less positive view of the Messenger in regard to the city council and the open-records dispute in 2009 and 2010. Both Turner and Bozarth expressed disappointment with the way it happened, but also said since then things have become better and tensions have been reduced. This seems particularly evident with the relationship between Bozarth and Cross, which is much less adversarial now than it was after the budget decision made by the attorney general. Furthermore, Cross said the relationship has improved to a point where now, the mayor sends him the council packet each week before the meeting. Cross said, “To me if there is one specific piece of evidence that I can point to about the maturation and improvement of this relationship is the fact we are getting the council packet of the meeting.”

The objectives of providing experience for students while offering a community another news source seem to work well together in this project. While most interviewees said they see both objectives equally playing out, Bozarth and Peterson leaned toward an understanding that the project is more of benefit to students, rather than the community. As the Messenger is complementary to the Sun, they both saw it as another news source that does not replace the Sun.

On the other hand, others, such as Wombles and Ratliff specifically, expressed an appreciation that the Messenger served as another news source and another perspective for citizens. Ratliff noted that the Midway page in The Woodford Sun is not enough coverage of Midway, which is why she appreciates the online publication’s articles.

Another objective of the course is to demonstrate how an online website could benefit a small community, particularly demonstrating this to the city and its local newspaper. Here, there is also a sense of a new-versus-old battle between the online aspect of the Messenger and the print aspect of the Sun. Different values were expressed by interview participants; Bozarth, Turner and Peterson valued the print product of The Woodford Sun more than the Messenger’s online-only approach. Vandegrift, Wombles and McDaniel enjoyed the Messenger as an online publication, readily available whenever one wants to access it.

While just a few members of the Midway community were interviewed for this paper, they represent residents who have been most affected by the Messenger, who have been most involved in the publication, or who are very active in the community. For further investigation, it would be interesting to have concrete numbers on how many citizens in Midway are actually aware of the website and how regularly they check it, if at all.

References

Conway, Jack. 10-ORD-103. Office of the Attorney General. 20 May 2010.

Cross, Al (2013). Extension journalism: Teaching students the real world and bringing a new type of journalism to a small town. Grassroots Editor, 54 (3-4), 12-18. http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com