By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew
Around the country, local news is struggling. Shrinking newsrooms due to financial pressure, burned out reporters, publicness trust journalism is being hit harder than it ever has before. While New Hampshire is not immune from the crisis, here in the Granite State news organizations are doing everything in their power to innovate and engage to keep local journalism alive and sustainable. Annmarie Timmins senior reporter for New Hampshire Bulletin, Carol Robidoux founder and publisher of Manchester Inkling and founding member of the Granite State News Collaborative, and Julie Hirshan Hart reporter and editor for The Laconia Daily Sun are here to discuss the state of journalism in New Hampshire, what's happening in the news industry and how it impacts communities within the Granite State.
Melanie Plenda:
Annmarie, can you tell us about some of the bigger issues facing local news and how you've seen their impact in the Granite State?
Annmarie Timmins:
I guess I’ll start by saying I think we're really lucky here. We have a very strong news presence. There's so many different kinds, and a lot of it's free to read, thanks in large part to the collaborative and other nonprofits. But that's not to say that there aren't challenges right now. I was at the Concord monitor for about 20 ish years. And when I was there, we had 15 reporters on staff. And we always felt like, why are they starving us of resources? I think they're down to five reporters now and still manage to get the paper out. So I think what I'm seeing generally as newsrooms are shrinking, but the demands for news every day remain. So I just think reporters are working on more stories with less time that results in a very different kind of story than big takeaway, investigative pieces. So I think the resources in New Hampshire are very, very strapped here. And I just don't know how a lot of my colleagues get news out every day. So I think that's a big picture. We're luckier than most and that we have so much free local news here. But it's hard to get it out. And I wonder how long some of us can continue to do that.
Melanie Plenda:
And, Julie, let's pick up on that with you. How do these issues kind of play out in the community? What impacts do they have on the everyday lives of community members?
Julie Hirshan Hart:
Well, as Anne Marie mentioned, now, we're all trying to do more with less so as our newsrooms are shrinking and as we have less resources, we still have the same number of stories that we have to cover, we still have the same number of towns that we have to deliver news on in our coverage area. So our community, with the advent of the internet and social media, is used to being able to access the information that they want immediately. And we have to do our best to keep pace with that, while also prioritizing the most important stories and trying to balance delivering all of that information to our readers with less resources.
Melanie Plenda:
I know all three of you have really, really built community engagement into what you do, prioritizing, knowing your sources and building relationships with them, and knowing your community members. So, you know, let's talk about that a little bit. So Annmarie, as a reporter, talk to us about how you broke this barrier of distrust and formed those relationships with your sources and why that's important.
Annmarie Timmins:
I will say it's getting much harder to do during my time at the monitor, in part because the monitor was a trusted new source. There wasn't this competition of people masquerading as new sources that Carol described. And because I've been around a long time, I have a long source list from people I met many, many years ago and it was just much easier because there wasn't as much distrust, there was people who felt like the monitor had a bent, but in the end, they could separate the newsroom from the editorial page.
What I'm seeing now is a sort of trickle down of what we saw during the Trump administration, the press being enemy number one, that still is coming up for me. And so when I call people who presume I am a progressive, Uber liberal socialists like filling the word, source, they won't talk to me. And they're often rude about it. And so it's hard to find a way to get into a conversation. So for us, the Republican leadership at the Statehouse has been very distrustful of us, they've sort of tend to go toward another outlet that is really opinion, but calls itself news for most of the time.
And so when we don't have their voices in a story, it's unfortunate for readers, I think, so what I'm trying to do is, take the abuse that I get from some people who view us as not the good journalism outlet, and just keep going back and keep going back and trying to convince them send them my story that I wrote about their subjects and say, please let me know, if you find anything inaccurate here or slanted. It's just a long, long process, I really have not encountered this kind of resistance before. I'm even asked, "Are you on my side?" when I call a news outlet, a source, or try to talk to someone at an event even about why they're there. And it's just, it's more and more hostile.
And I think the other piece is Carol alluded to this, that news is being delivered in a different way. So if you take Twitter, I feel like it's largely become a platform, at least for my writing for the Libertarian Party, for example, is very much targeting me. For anything I write, it's not clear to me, they've read the story, but they feel like I'm a progressive reporter. And they'll say things like, people should throw tomatoes at me, or I'm a hateful person, or I'm a bad person. And the amount of pylon that I see on Twitter within a day, there'll be 45 people liking that. So that kind of, I think, distrust just piles on and then if I try to talk to anyone in that party, they just know me as this Twitter, you know, personality. And so it's just, it's hard, you have to keep trying to do it. And it's abusive sometimes. But I have my notebook between me and them. And I tried to think this is not about me, this is about them. And it's my duty to keep trying, but it's become harder.
Melanie Plenda:
Well, first, no one should have to put up with that level of abuse from anybody in any field. And I'm sorry that you have to go through that. And all journalists are going through that right now. But one follow up question, when someone does ask you, “Are you on my side?”, how do you respond? I'm curious, because what would you say in that situation?
Annmarie Timmins:
One quick example, I was at an event where the Proud Boys were there protesting it. And I just went up, I said, “What are your concerns? What brings you out today?”. I was easily attacked like, “that's a biased question”. And so, how is that bias? I don't know. But I tried to explain that this is what we do. This is how journalism works, that I'm talking to these people. But I also feel like it's really important. I hear from them. It's kind of journalism, one on one, I increasingly have to have that conversation. I'm not sure it's persuasive. But that's usually my response to say no. And even like, could we just have a conversation first, set the interview aside, and you can ask me sort of how I'm approaching the story. And we'll just have a casual conversation, and then please, then maybe decide if you want to talk to me. So it's a lot more explaining what we do, which I don't think is a bad thing to help people understand what journalists do. But more and more I'm happy to say, this is how I approach it. This is journalism. Why do you think that's a biased question? So just trying to be open to a conversation has helped a little bit.
Melanie Plenda:
And, Julie, how do you implement that kind of community gauge engagement into your newsroom? I know you've done quite a few initiatives in that regard.
Julie Hirshan Hart:
So we try to prioritize transparency in everything that we do, to try to invite the community in and see behind the scenes see how we're doing our work, who it is in our newsroom that's doing that work so that they can connect with us when they see us out in the community, and recognize us as trusted reporters who work for a legitimate newsroom. We've started hosting events, which help many community members, whether their sources or readers, get to know us as journalists, and also help them understand the work that we do.
Melanie Plenda:
And I think to me engagement comes from the need for diversity, diverse audiences, diverse sources and diverse newsrooms, staff, all of you. Why is diversity in news so crucial? And how do you implement diverse perspectives both in and out of your newsrooms?
Julie Hirshan Hart:
Diversity can look a lot different. One thing we're focusing on in our newsroom is, instead of just relying on those official sources that we've had in our contact lists for years, is looking for younger voices or looking for new voices that have a different perspective on an issue than we might be used to. And also just being present in the community going to those community events, whether we're more reporting on them or not, but that develops sources, like we mentioned earlier, makes people recognize you and be willing to come up to you and share story ideas, meeting as many people as possible. We try to do editorial boards as often as we can and invite people into the office just to talk about what's on their mind and that helps us not only learn about new sources, but new story ideas. And social media has become a huge part of our work that connects us with different sources that we might not meet, through our day to day work out in the community or at our desks. And it really allows us to include the voices of sources we might not otherwise be able to.
From left to right; Annmarie Timmins, Carol Robidoux, and Julie Hirshan
Melanie Plenda:
Annmarie Timmins, senior reporter for the New Hampshire Bulletin, Julie Hirshan, editor for the Laconia Daily Sun, and Carol Robidoux, founder and publisher of Manchester Inkling and founding member of the Granite State News Collaborative. Thank you all so much for joining us today and what you do every day.
The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.