More Feet on the Street

Write for Arkansas Reporter Sarah Morris in the press room of the Stuttgart Daily News

Today there are more ways than ever to deliver news and information. But first that news must be researched, gathered and reported. Our communities need professional reporters to seek and write, to begin the news. As Stuttgart Daily Leader General Manager John Kennedy says, “We need more feet on the street.”

A new program from Arkansas Community Foundation, the only one of its kind in the nation, is helping boost the reporting staff at community newspapers in Arkansas to increase in-depth coverage of community and economic development issues. The Write for Arkansas initiative, funded in part through a $252,000 match grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, provides salaries for an additional fulltime reporting position at five community newspapers across the state.

ARCF partnered with the Arkansas Press Association, along with ARCF donors who have helped match the Knight Foundation grant, to increase the capacity of local newspapers to provide the in-depth coverage of local issues citizens need to make informed decisions and towns need to maintain a sense of community.

In addition, grant funds have been used to create writeforarkansas.org, a website where the five reporters’ stories are collected in a searchable archive and where the reporters regularly blog about their communities and experiences.

Publishers throughout the state submitted grant requests in the spring of 2010, and five newspapers were chosen to receive the grants. Areawide Media newspapers in Salem, the Madison County Record in Huntsville, The Courier in Russellville, the Daily Leader in Stuttgart and the Texarkana Gazette now have Write for Arkansas reporters on staff.

Managing Editor Lesley Valadez

The Daily Leader publishes five times a week in the thriving town of Stuttgart, home to about 10,000 people in the heart of the Arkansas Delta. Lesley Valadez is managing editor of the newspaper which is celebrating its 125th year of publication.

“It is difficult with a small staff — you can only cover so much,” said Valadez. So she was excited to receive the Write for Arkansas grant to supplement her staff. Valadez used the newspaper’s website and other online recruiting tools to get the word out about her Write for Arkansas reporter position.

Sarah Morris, an Arkansas State University journalism graduate working at a newspaper in Stillwater, Oklahoma, saw the job posting on journalismjobs.com and went to the Daily Leader site to learn more.

“This grant position for two years sounded like a challenge.”

“I love a challenge,” said Morris on her first day on the job. “This grant position for two years sounded like a challenge. I’m from Wynne, which is about the same size as Stuttgart, and this is a farming community, which I love. It’s close to Little Rock and I can still have the big-town experience when I want, and it’s close to my family.”

Valadez, a California native who has been in Stuttgart three years, said during her tenurecoverage in the Daily Leader has focused on what’s going on in town. With the addition of Morris, she hopes to expand the number of stories that ask, “What do people here feel about what is happening?” “How does what is happening affect them?” and “What do they hope will happen with city and local government?”

Valadez is confident Morris can get the voice she is seeking into stories for the Daily Leader. “I was impressed with her clips from other newspapers and the way she brought human interest into stories she had been assigned,” she continued. “Sarah fits in like she’s been here a while already, so I see great things coming out of this situation.”