Students and faculty from the Bowling Green State University School of Media and Communication took an afternoon yesterday to consider the changing world of community journalism. Included on the agenda was a look at the media world here in Galion.

As we shared last week, “Taking Local News Live” was designed to allow media students and others to gain information on the changing world of news media and how it may impact their own futures. Featured speakers included Jan Larson McLaughlin, County Editor of the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, and Thomas Palmer, Owner/Publisher of GalionLive.

In her presentation, McLaughlin profiled numerous changes in how local news in Bowling Green and Wood County is collected and shared. The Sentinel-Tribune remains a locally-owned, family-owned operation, she noted, allowing it to weather the downtown in print subscription and advertising better than most. Still, she added, the staff recently agreed to absorb an across-the-board 19% pay cut in order to stay in business.

While the business end of the operation has changed, McLaughlin continued, the basics of newsgathering and writing have not. She encouraged students to consider whether or not they have a driving need to tell stories about their communities. Several important stories from the Sentinel-Tribune’s pages were shared, including an important feature on a local public health issue that resulted in McLaughlin receiving an award at an event in Baltimore and which effected real and substantive change on a local level.

Palmer’s presentation reviewed not only the state of journalism in north central Ohio, but how local changes echo dramatic shifts in news gathering and sharing across the country. The decline of print journalism has been accompanied by the arrival of online sites designed to serve as resource centers for community news and information, he noted. Several of these sites nationally have developed successful and sustainable business models.

Those present also learned a good deal about covering news in Galion, including the amazing fact that at many meetings of City Council and the Board of Education in a community of just 10,500 people, some five media companies are present. The importance of local ownership and focus as well as digital-first reporting strategies were also discussed. Finally, students learned about some of the overall issues and skill sets needed to successfully pursue new media opportunities nationwide.

Both students and professors had several great questions about GalionLive — how it is constructed, how it operates, how decisions are made on coverage, etc.. Those questions included the following, among many others:

• Because of dwindling budgets for news operations across the country, it is a rare thing these days to read true investigative coverage. Will new local independent online media find a way to do that?
• How is it possible for a small number of people — with freelance assistance — to cover the news of a community?
• How does GalionLive measure success for individual components — Galion on eBay, for instance?
• What goals does GalionLive have in terms of numbers of stories? What is the end goal for the site and for other local sites around the country?
• What are online paywalls? NOTE — This was in response to a discussion of the fact that the Mansfield News Journal, Bucyrus Telegraph Forum, and 80 other Gannett news operations will require payment for free access to articles online before the end of the year.

Before the meeting, speakers joined members of the journalism faculty, as well as editors of the BGNews, the BGSU student newspaper, for a luncheon in downtown Bowling Green. The event ended with an in-person workshop put on by the BGSU Career Center.

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2. Asking Questions, Getting Answers
3. GalionLive Now on Google Plus
4. Galion Students Excel at North Central
5. More Galion Students Excelling in College