Setting Priorities on the South Kitsap Beat
It happens every year about this time, the leaves fall, Election Day comes and goes, and newspapers cut their budgets because of continuing massive changes in the media industry.
For the third year in a row, our staffing has been reduced. This time, 26 jobs are being eliminated across all departments, including 14 vacant positions that will now go unfilled.
The newsroom will lose 6.5 positions (including two managerial positions). The cuts will
take effect between now and the end of the year.
Like other “newspapers” we are caught up in the shift to Web publication as more and more people get their news online. It’s kind of like bailing a leaky dinghy while building a yacht.
In a syndrome played out in newsrooms across the nation, we grieve the loss of talented colleagues who are also our friends, and we wonder how we will keep the ship afloat with fewer hands to bail and build.
In a strange way, it is also exhilarating. While we’re not exactly in crisis mode, urgency creates clarity. Clearly our priority must be local news.
Looking ahead to the upcoming year, I’d like your ideas on what local issues are most important to you. Feel free to be honest about things that may have slipped through the cracks. I can’t promise I’ll get to everything you suggest, but I will do my best to respond to your priorities.
With changes in the media industry, there is a growing role for you as readers.
I grew up in a Walter Cronkite world, where, much as we who are now called Boomers hated to admit it, age equals experience equals gravitas. Thanks to the Internet, however, the concept of hierarchy is eroding at an exponential rate. Today’s youth, the almighty “target demographic,” has no idea what “seniority” means … thinks it might be a condition of aging … has to look it up on Wikipedia.
Through blogs and story comments, reporters and readers interact to form a collective body of knowledge about our community that describes who we are in a way that the old model of newspapers couldn’t touch.
With that in mind, here’s what’s on my radar. Let me know what you think, where you’d like less or more.
Aspects of SK I have been covering: The City of Port Orchard, South Kitsap School District, South Kitsap Regional Park and SK recreation in general, Port of Manchester, South Kitsap people and events, SK related elections, North Mason School District. County issues are generally covered by political reporter Steve Gardner, unless its an issue specific to SK.
In the upcoming year, I’d like to do more stories on communities that haven’t gotten a lot of press: Olalla and Southworth for example.
I’ll need to keep an eye on growth, especially in the City of Port Orchard, which is in the process of annexing a number of commercial properties including Fred Meyer. Also on the Bethel corridor.
I expect the economy will be an ongoing theme. Let me know how it’s playing out in your family or business.
I have a personal interest in youth and senior citizens, and I’d like to do more on these two groups.
I expect eating and buying locally will be themes in these tough economic times, when local business can use a boost and with the memory of $4 a gallon gas still fresh in our minds.
I’m always open to a good feature story (the quirkier the better).
So stay in touch, and thanks in advance for your contributions to the South Kitsap beat.
Addendum 3:45 p.m.: Guess I should have signed this, Chris Henry South Kitsap reporter
Tags: blog, Kitsap Sun, South Kitsap
November 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I think this is to Christina Henry, but am not sure since I did not see a byline…..Glad to see that you will be remaining with the Sun, and glad to see also that you will be featuring Olalla, where I live a little more in your articles. I enjoy the online features as well as the SK Beat in the Sun. In this day of high tech, and low economy, the simpler the entertainment the better. Keep up the good work.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Given the Sun’s blatant partisanship, there are some of us who believe the best thing that can happen is that your paper go out of business COMPLETELY. I am one of those. That being said; however, I do believe there are decent people there and am sorry for the hardship that would entail. THAT being said; however, I believe your paper has neglected your fourth estate responsibilities to this community and do not deserve the honor of being our community paper.
November 12th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Chris,
In February, Mayor Coppola sent you an e-mail that said
You can find a copy of the e-mail in the thread about “glacial change.”
I drive by the Sidney-Sedgwick intersection almost every day. It’s been eight months since the mayor said Walgreen’s was “already under construction” there, and unless it’s invisible, there’s no sign of a Walgreen’s or a building capable of holding one. What happened?
November 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Blue Light - Many of your posts show wonderful insight and have been personally beneficial. If I haven’t thanked you before, I will now. Thank you.
That said…this post has the beat of someone less concerned with truth and honesty… like another person wrote it…not you….or the ‘you’ I’ve read before.
Sounds like you have a personal interest in another newspaper but can’t take the competition of the KS.
November 12th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Thank you, too, Sharon; but the post is mine.
I believe the role of the press is to serve as the fourth estate, to provide checks and balances AGAINST government. And I believe the Sun has abandoned that responsibility. They either “miss” stories of import (like the Port tax increase) or they slant their “reporting” (almost exclusively to one side). Frequently they serve - practically - as propagandist FOR government. Bottom line is they cannot be counted on to be the people’s eyes and ears. Certainly not in an objective manner. Rather than subsidize green think tanks (SEED), I - as a taxpayer - would prefer recruiting and, if need be, subsidizing the startup of a new daily newspaper.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Blue Light,
So you must REALLY object to Fox News then, eh? For the last eight years, they’ve been acting “as propagandist FOR government”.
You said:
You’re contradicitng yourself. On the one hand, you want the press to “to provide checks and balances AGAINST government”, and on the other hand you want the government to subsidze the press? Please explain how a press that’s bought and paid for (”subsidized”) by the government will be able “to provide checks and balances AGAINST government”.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
No, Elliot, I do not watch FOX News. If they are propagandists parading as press, and I’ll take your word that they are, then yes, I object. But with them, I can exercise my objection by turning the channel. Regarding our local press, I have no other option (at least as far as a daily).
I would subsidize start-up costs, or offer another incentive up-front, for another news agency to locate here.
Do you think subsidized businesses are, necessarily, politicized by that subsidy?
November 12th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
“Do you think subsidized businesses are, necessarily, politicized by that subsidy?”
I thought that the idea of government subsidies was considered to be “socialism” by conservatives?
November 12th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Well now…I like Fox and increasingly flip through the channels and stop there. Watching the different ‘news’ stations through the recent presidential fiasco and seeing the butcher job they did on Palin and sainthood given to Obama was enough of a wake-up call.
The fact is ‘newscasters’ is a outdated, invalid word these days. Edward R. Murrow was a ‘newscaster, a reporter of news’ but he and newscasters like him died.
The very fact you are allowed to post your intention of starting another daily in direct competition with the Bremerton Sun boldly states they are a unbiased NEWSpaper as they have been for over one hundred years.
I would have tossed you so far off the page the print couldn’t catch up.
If a government is supposed to be by and for the people, why is government your enemy and a newspaper expected to ? You elected them. Remember?
I just googled for something, spotted a blurb that looked interesting and clicked at it.
I’m not sure this is the place to make a comment on one of the silliest ‘articles’ I’ve just stumbled across by a writer who had nothing to say but took four columns to say it. All sniping, gossipy, speculative comments reminding me that not all adults grow beyond childhood nonsense.
He/she had nothing to say about an outstanding procucing soccer coach but filled the page with nothing. I’m guessing such writers aren’t paid but question that anyone would waste the time to read another piece.
Thank you Kitsap Sun Reporters and staff! I’ve been reminded that all things are NOT equal but the quality and professionalism of the writing and reporting of KS reporters cannot be duplicated.
Sharon O’Hara
November 13th, 2008 at 8:42 am
“I thought that the idea of government subsidies was considered to be “socialism” by conservatives?”
Who said I am a “conservative”, Elliot?
And, Sharon, fortunately neither you - nor the Kitsap Sun - can “toss” people off the forum for expressing views contrary to the “newspaper’s”. Opposition isn’t illegal. Yet. Beware, though, what you advocate. One day you might find yourself in the minority and bemoaning the tyranny of the majority (or at least, the “establishment”) that you currently - apparently - enjoy.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
“Who said I am a “conservative”, Elliot?”
Not me.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Actually, Blue Light, I AM in the minority now.
What ‘majority’ tyranny do you refer to?
Opposition is usually welcome when core beliefs are similar. But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to people using a forum supported by the very people they condemn and complain about.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Here’s Lary Coppola’s reply to Elliot’s question about development in the Sidney-Sedgwick area (which I forwarded to Lary):
I’ll check with the developer and see what the story is, because there’s obviously nothing being built there. I know they bought property and went through the permitting process around the end of last year, so let me research it and find out what happened. There was a building started there that looked like Walgreen’s-style architecture, but is now something else, so I’m not sure what the deal is.
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A couple of other things that may be of interest… Target has pulled its horns back nationwide, and won’t be developing the site at Sedgwick and Sidney it took the option on at this point. I know the developer has shown it to another local developer looking for a site that size last week, but nothing has materialized as far as I know. There are a couple of other big box retailers who were considering locating there along with Target that are still interested in the
location, so who knows where it will go? Another developer also told me this past week that Target is considering a location on Bethel, but the original developer says if they go anywhere it will be Sedgwick and Sidney. Go figure…
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Multicare is still committed to enlarging its footprint there, but has slowed the pace of expansion due to the economy. Wal-Mart is rumored to be looking at the intersection for a possible Sam’s Club now that Costco has apparently decided that its Gig Harbor outlet is sufficient to service SK customers, but no one has signed anything I’m aware of.
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However, with the slowdown in the economy, coupled with the fact we have just about completed the Comp Plan effort and have a couple of other internal projects wrapping up, this could be a good time to kick of the master planning project. I’ll let you know more as it develops.
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LFC
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November 18th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Chris,
Thanks very much.