Community Journalism Is (Was, Will Always Be) the Life for Me

By Anne Tezon

This book is a chapter culled from a longer memoir, "Letters from Home: Adventures with Mad Mother, Lemonade Man and the Kid," detailing the joys and challenges of community newspaper journalists. In a voice that one reader describes as a cross between Garrison Keillor and Erma Bombeck, author Anne Tezon discusses the funny things that can happen on the way to a newspaper deadline, including the sacrifices made, technology snafus and dealings with subscribers who love to get under your skin with practical jokes. In a few serious moments, the author relates the challenges of adapting to dramatic changes in the industry and tells how her small town weekly covered the biggest story of her career--9/11. The chapters include some of the collected personal columns Tezon wrote in a 30 year career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Tezon
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310356957

Anne Tezon

Anne Tezon got bit by the writing bug in fifth grade when a "What I did last summer" assignment got rave reviews from her classmates. After earning a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri, and following a 3-1/2 year stint with the Peace Corps in Brazil, she began working for a small town weekly newspaper. She later purchased the newspaper and served as publisher, editor, photographer and even the janitor for more than 25 years, retiring in 2013. She was also a part-time journalism instructor and picked up a master's degree from the University of Memphis during her newspaper career.While serving as publisher of The Caldwell County News, Anne and her husband, Marshall, were able to publish several books, beginning with her mother's memoir, published after her death in 2003. Anne has taken on her mother's cause of encouraging others to tell the stories of their personal journeys for the benefit of their descendants.Anne lives in Kansas City with her husband, two dogs and a cat. She can be reached at [e-mail]

Book preview

Community journalism is

(was, will always be) the life for me

By Anne Tezon

Published by Anne Tezon

Copyright 2014 Anne Tezon

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to all community journalists who strive to make a difference.

Table of Contents

Column 1 - Go yipping gently into the night

Column 2 - Some newspaper bloopers

Column 3 - The sacrifices we make for good column material

Column 4 - An election day sickbed column

Column 5 - Now accepting nomination for Screw-Up of the Year

Column 6 - The occupational hazards that beset column writers

Column 7 - Warning label: Suitable only for old geezers and baby boomers

Column 8 - When it rains it pours, then you step in doo-doo

Column 9 - Dealing with the fall of the great wall

Column 10 - The end of American arrogance

Column 11 - Another in a long list of life’s little uh-ohs

Column 12 - True confessions about some less-than-ideal employees

Column 13 - The self-appointed expert on meeting room chairs

Column 14 - Help wanted ad by a non-nimble footed nitwit

Column 15 - Flicked switches that lead to lost columns and dropped jeans

Column 16 - Doing things the hard way, even with modern technology

Column 17 - If He leads me to a microphone, I will not follow

Column 18 – J-School centennial elicits thoughts on our professional roles

Column 19 - Life’s speed bumps in the lovely month of May

Column 20 - Paying tribute to previous practitioners

Column 21 - Be sure to disinfect your rectal thermometer

Column 22 - A brave new world is changing the media landscape

Introduction

What modern American institution serves as the public conscience, urging local citizens to get out and vote, to clean up their own back yards and be better stewards of the land?

What provides a weekly history lesson and serves as a record of births, deaths, weddings and anniversaries?

What makes a local man into a hero, merely for submitting a letter or for having his unique hobby described?

What emphasizes local high school sports and school news to the exclusion of national and world news?

What is sometimes the subject of much derision and laughter in a college dorm as it is read by a city-bred roommate unfamiliar with news of Aunt Tillie meeting her nieces and nephews at Kentucky Fried Chicken for Sunday dinner?

The answer is the rural community weekly newspaper . . .

Thus began my master’s thesis for the University of Memphis, written over a decade ago. It examined the role of weekly newspaper publishers and editors. The subject grew out of my own need at the time to consider how and why I kept at this profession, despite a multitude of sacrifices. Now that I have sold my weekly in Northwest Missouri and have had almost a year to grieve and look back at that former way of life, a new perspective is emerging.

Those were the good times, the wonderful and satisfying times. Yet it was time to put a -30- on that phase of life and start a new one. The new life began with collecting the personal columns written for my newspaper over the course of 30 years and making it into a personal memoir. The aim of the work was ostensibly to leave a personal record for my only child, so the first part of Letters from Home: Adventures with Mad Mother, Lemonade Man and the Kid,