The article reflects on the realities of working in local journalism, contrasting the dramatic portrayals seen in films with day-to-day experiences. It recounts the author's early days at The Citizen in Auburn, New York, where the writing primarily involved covering mundane local government activities. The author discusses the challenges of creating compelling stories from small-town meetings, often reporting on trivial matters rather than high-stakes scenarios, highlighting the importance of daily journalism even when it can seem unexciting.
Sometimes I got to write about significant expenditures of public money or entertaining personality flare-ups or meaningful policy debates. More often, though, I did not.
During the time that we now think of as local journalism's golden age, these sorts of stories made up the broad middle class of the newspaper.
It was with The Citizen, a 200-year-old newspaper covering the largely rural area around Auburn, New York, halfway between Rochester and Syracuse.
A write-up of a public meeting, usually done at night on deadline, is the canonical daily.
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