1941 newspaper rainbow cat breaking news

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oh, how I would love to write little articles like this in a community newspaper.

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when I first moved to Ann Arbor, we had a person who wrote a ‘local crime’ column

where they listed the week’s ‘crimes,’ such as:

– a robbery of a university student on the street of 2 pencils and $2.41

-a police call of someone possibly being attacked, but what turned out to be the screams of two people watching a horror film

the crime reporter would read the police blotter each week and report out, excellent work.

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in another community paper

in a tiny local town

I read ‘sandy’s corner’

where sandy would share her personal recipes

 the one I happened to read was for a

‘baked potato’

does not get any better than that.

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if I had to report on unusual pets such as the rainbow cat above, well…

the sky’s the limit!

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At the “Emerging Mind of Community Journalism” conference in Anniston, Ala., in 2006, participants created a list characterizing community journalism: community journalism is intimate, caring, and personal; it reflects the community and tells its stories; and it embraces a leadership role.

If you want more of a definition, I’m afraid it’s like when someone asked Louie Armstrong for a definition of jazz. The great Satchmo is reputed to have replied something like this: ‘Man, if you have to ask, it won’t do me any good to try to explain.’ You know community journalism when you see it; it is the heartbeat of American journalism, journalism in its natural state.” — Jock Lauterer