This is a transcript from a online chat with Gwen Larson, Gazette executive editor, who is leaving at the end of the year after 17 years at the paper.
Q What do you enjoy most about the journalism profession?
A For years, I have told students considering the journalism profession that the best part of my job is the daily variety. But even more, what I enjoy the most is being able to try and learn new things. Emporia firefighters have dressed me in gear and taken me into burning trailers during training exercises. Emporia police officers let me shoot guns. Law-enforcement and probation officers have let me ride along during Night Light patrols, which showed me the inside of every bar and tavern in Emporia (an eye-opening experience).
Back in college, my fascination with the law led me to consider a law degree. At the time, I decided four years of school was enough; I wanted a break. As I covered our court system, I discovered that I had the best job. I was able to participate in what I consider the “fun” part of the legal profession — being in the courtroom — and avoid the drudge work — all the piles of paperwork and seemingly endless research needed.
Q What have been the biggest stories of your time working at the paper as well as some memorable newsroom moments?
A The bulk of the time I’ve spent as a reporter for The Gazette was spent covering cops and courts. These always were my favorite beats. I’m a cop-and-court junkie, which is why I’ve been a fan of every Law & Order franchise. That also means that most of my most memorable stories involved crime and tragedy. I can probably list for you every homicide trial I ever covered. I also remember every family member I’ve interviewed when a loved one died suddenly (farm accidents to flooding on the Kansas Turnpike).
I was blessed to be able to cover two sitting presidents when they came to the area. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were in Topeka, and I still have my press passes (including the Clinton pass typed out for WDAF-TV in Kansas City but crossed out to put my name in).
In The Gazette newsroom, I’ve shaken hands with both Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw and enjoyed the craziness of tracking down whether then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was really going to be stopping in Emporia. (Yes, he was, but his campaign staff, like many others, think The Emporia Gazette is the newspaper for Emporia, Va. You’d be amazed how many news releases we get from Virginia organizations.)
Even when it doesn’t have to do with news, we have plenty of moments in the newsroom. I had been with The Gazette less than a year when my 30th birthday rolled around. Bobbi Mlynar, who in many ways was my “work mom,” made sure we had a celebration. I arrived to find a German chocolate cake on my desk (“It was as close to black as I could get,” Bobbi told me) along with “over the hill” balloons and cards. When I returned from my rounds at the police deparment, a bouquet was waiting for me — a prune bouquet from the old Donna’s Florist on Sixth Avenue. It’s OK, I got Bobbi back when she turned 50 — even though she wasn’t working at The Gazette then.
Q What are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about news or what you do?
A Personally, I think the media has given media a bad name in the last few decades. The popular media (movies, TV shows and books) have gone from portraying journalists as crusaders seeking the truth to vultures who live to only dig up titillating dirt, not caring who is hurt.
And some of our co-workers in television, I think, also have hurt us. I find I can’t watch all the talking heads on cable news shows who cover news by injecting their opinion.
I was trained with the maxim that journalists don’t create the news, they cover it. Television pundits, I think, are more interested in telling us what they think rather than trusting us to take the information and form our own opinions. In turn, the public expects us to offer our opinions.
I believe this misconception is especially difficult for print journalists. Many readers today don’t understand that there is a difference between news pages, feature pages and editorial pages.
Q Hi Ms. Larson! How have your interviewing skills evolved through the years? Have you found that, with much practice, your mind just churns out questions on the spot? I have enjoyed your writing since I was a little girl — thanks for your hard work and contribution to the community! Have a great holiday season, Elisabeth Delaney Tholen
A Thanks, Elisabeth. I never think I’m old enough to have fans since they were children, but I guess I am getting that old — at least that’s what my boys tell me all the time.
In my early days, I always took prepared questions into an interview to get the ball rolling. Usually, though, if I listened while I was scribbling my notes, I would have other questions. Eventually, I realized that interviewing someone is just as simple as having a conversation with them — except I’m taking notes.
The key is to be curious. I think curiosity is key to being a journalist. Much of what we do is try to answer questions we think our readers may have.
People I’ve interviewed will probably tell you that my interviews don’t usually have a logical flow. We tend to jump from topic to topic as questions occur to me.
I also have discovered that telephone interviews, although a time-saver, are my least favorite. When I interview in person, people can see that I’m writing down what they said and will wait for me to catch up. On the phone, though, they can’t see that. And few people like silence, so they start talking again, so I keep scribbling furiously and it’s a vicious cycle.
Q The Gazette has had some great people work at the paper. What did you learn from people like Ray Call, Pat Kelley, Bobbi Mylner, Nancy Horst and others?
A I agree that I have been blessed to work with some wonderful people during my 17 years at The Gazette. Some retired and some moved on, but all left behind pieces of themselves. Ray Call and Pat Kelley were part of the management team that hired me as a reporter.
Ray taught me the beauty of tight ledes — the fewer words, the better. Think of those contests that ask you to describe something in 25 words or fewer and cut that by 75 percent. I think Ray would have loved one-word ledes if we could have come up with them.
Pat Kelley taught me to write editorials. I don’t recall sitting down with him for lessons. Just watching him and reading his work was a wonderful way to learn. I don’t consider editorial writing a strength of mine. I find it easy to write when a topic grabs me, but Pat was writing four or more editorials a week. There is a real gift to finding topics day in and day out, forming an opinion and writing it.
Bobbi Mlynar taught me early on how to organize my thoughts. During my first homicide trial — a shooting on a local dance floor — I would come back from court during the lunch recess and crank out a story for that day’s paper. My first day’s coverage was a flop. What happened at the end of the morning was fresher in my mind than what happened earlier. So, what I wrote had the news buried at the end. After that, as soon as I came back from the trial, I’d sit down with Bobbi, who was my city editor then, and spend about five minutes talking about what happened that morning. That was enough to organize me so I could write my story.
I know it sounds strange, but Nancy Horst had left The Gazette by the time I arrived in 1993. Still, we’ve worked together quite a bit during the last 17 years, and she has taught me many lessons that I’ll take with me as I move into marketing at Emporia State. I’ve already warned Nancy that I’ll be calling her for advice. In fact, that’s the beauty of working at The Gazette. We’re our own little fraternity and we’re always a phone call away for advice, story tips or just sharing memories. Thanks to Facebook, it’s easy for us to keep in touch.
Q Yes Gwen First, thanks for your work in keeping Emporia informed over the years! My question — what is the criteria used to determine whether an entire thread is pulled for abusive comments, or just an offending post or two? If I might be allowed a second question it would be — how have online forums changed the way news is actually covered on a daily basis, if at all.
A When it comes to online comments, Biscuitboy, decisions are somewhat subjective. I would say we work more with “guidelines” than “rules.” In general, I’ve tried to follow these criteria: comments should be on the topic of the article (although some threads have taken off on cute tangents) and they should be what I would label “fair comment” (disagree and criticize the author’s premise, but not the author’s character).
I also try to take into account the role of the person being criticized. I think that those in the public eye (myself included) need to have thick skins. It’s not fun to hear the criticism, but if you’re criticizing how I do my job, it’s fair game.
As for when to pull individual comments versus the entire thread, the answer is often a matter of logistics. The Gazette does not have a person who can monitor the threads 24/7. There are some threads that are such hot topics that I believe they don’t need monitoring — they need babysitting. Those are the times an entire thread might be disabled because no one has time to spend all weekend babysitting.
And, sometimes, a comment that needs to come down has stayed up long enough to have a number of responses to it — a thread within the thread. In that case, it’s difficult to delete the offending thread and all responses to it. It makes more sense to just hide all the comments.
Watching the forums has been a learning experience. They have provided us at The Gazette with sometimes instantaneous feedback. They have also provided us additional information to follow up.
In many cases, I don’t think what shows up on the forums is any different than what folks are saying in the morning coffee circles, on the barstool in the evening or even around the water cooler in the office. In the old days, though, most folks didn’t follow up the comments with letters to the editor. Now, the water cooler has become online forums.
Q What can be done do bring vigor and enthusiasm back to Emporia? Not only in terms of economic development, but cultural activity and community involvement. It makes me so sad to see a quieter town each time I come back to visit. Elisabeth Delaney Tholen
A Unfortunately, I know there aren’t easy answers. It’s human nature to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, which explains why a lot of people I know choose to shop in Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City. There’s an allure about spending time in those cities. I saw the same thing when we lived in Rolla, Mo. My husband and I found everything we needed in town, but knew lots of people who preferred to drive to Springfield, Mo., or St. Louis for shopping.
I think we have to publicize ourselves and our events more. With social media, it’s even easier. When an event comes to Emporia, why don’t we plan to attend, but also invite our out-of-town friends to come, too? If we can drive to Wichita for a concert, can’t our friends come here? We can almost guarantee our friends that the tickets will be less expensive here.
As for community involvement, it’s always easier to sit back than jump in and help. Some of that comes from being burned out from too much volunteering. My personal theory is that, if I choose not to participate, then I can’t complain.