So we could debate for days about what constitutes “news” and “journalism.” But sometimes the thing that everyone is talking about — the “news” in a community — has been written about until reporters’ eyes are ready to bleed.
Take a heat wave, for instance. Go to the cooling center. Check. Call the hospitals and the coroner. Check. Catch up with athletes at practices. Check. Find some people with hot jobs. Check. Who’s at the pool? Check.
You get the picture.
Such was the case this past August, when oppressive heat and humidity settled on Springfield like a wet, wooly blanket. We’d been wanting to do some kind of video project about the heat, but didn’t want to do the old fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk number. I’d noticed that some colleagues at the Post-Dispatch in St. Louis had tried to bake dashboard cookies in the heat a day or two earlier, and I figured why not give it a whirl here. So I picked up some cookie dough at the store and grabbed my cookie sheets. SJ-R photographer Justin Fowler rigged up a camera inside a car to take photos of the cookies every few seconds for a time-lapse video. I posted occasional updates about the status of the cookies and the temperature inside the car, which essentially became an oven, reaching about 175 degrees inside.
The result was a fun, memorable project that generated buzz and page views for SJ-R.com and got people talking about the heat in a different way (Romenesko even picked it up). The project also served as a means for reminding readers about not leaving pets or loved ones in the car unattended in the heat. Was it journalism? I think so.
Click here to check out the blog entry I wrote about the project, and be sure to click on the time-lapse video.
On Aug. 22-23, 2008, I again donned a laptop backpack and headed downtown to blog about preparations for and the day of presidential candidate Barack Obama’s visit to Springfield, where he was to announce Joe Biden as his running mate.