Grading papers

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I noticed the calendar when I began writing this. It is exactly six months to the day I took this job. I immediately thought of time-bound judgements and was grateful I wasn’t the president and it was not the 100th day. Imaginary markers like that or even six months don’t capture it. Time moves fast. In my position, I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot (probably the busiest publisher in history) and achieved more in the first six months (mainly by executive order) than anyone in the history of newspapers.

That’s a laughable assessment.

Grading it is impossible. I’d give myself a C; maybe C+ so far. I feel you, Mr. President. Looking ahead is more productive. Some amount of review and self-reflection is required, though, to move forward.

A long time ago, on another planet (Nebraska), another publisher and I were trying to ascertain the value of a paper our company thought about purchasing. He had been at it longer than me and explained how he arrived at a figure. He counted the classified ads and the letters to the editor. It was that simple. He didn’t look at the number of advertisers or the single copy price. He didn’t care what the expense side of things looked like. He judged a paper’s value on community involvement – stuff like letters and classified ads.

After 30 years, I still can’t shoot down the methodology. I have, however, added things. For instance, each issue, I count the number of faces photographed and figure the percentage of local content. The Inquirer does well on those counts. We also have a lot of classifieds. Letters? Not so much.

The reason for that, escapes me. There is plenty of stuff to write about. People call us up with all types of concerns which could easily begin, “Dear Editor.” Perhaps I fail to see how daunting a task it is to sit down and write something for public consumption. Maybe it’s intimidating. If so, here’s a quick method to writing I learned from a veteran editor on yet another planet (Savannah, Georgia). He told me to start everything with “Dear Mom,” and go from there. It works well. Try it.

We ultimately can’t control how many letters we receive, though. What I can control is crossword puzzles and I’m searching for one. I’m not a big Sudoku fan. The crossword is not for me, though. I bet there’s five or six people in this county who could do a crossword in ink if I provided it. I can improve my C+ grade considerably by thinking up ways to involve readers with this newspaper. But none of them will be comics. I won’t do comic strips because of what happened when I pulled Calvin and Hobbs on yet another planet (New Mexico). The reaction was so severe we almost never recovered. I still have the letter from Jean Baca, canceling her subscription after she noticed the strip missing. Nobody had to tell Mrs. Baca how to write a letter.

The easiest (and most labor-intensive) thing to give you is the news. I think we get a B+ on that one and are improving. We want to be a hyper-local paper. There are some things, like our history column, not written by us that will always appear because of reader interests. But for the most part, we want to write about Gonzales County (and Shiner, to a degree). Even regarding news, reader involvement is essential. You, invariably, determine what it is. We will always cover the tedious; the government and meetings. There will always be a police blotter. The real stories come from you, however. I have two examples on my desk, right now, of stories shared with us. The first is 1st Lt. Loye James Lauraine Jr. Lt. Lauraine was killed in action in 1944. He was a hero. His service records were lost. His family is rebuilding the history of what occurred to get a medal he deserves. The second is O.S Grant, a local music legend who returned to Gonzales. O.S. is not one story. He’s a bunch. We’re going to write about both gentlemen.

We will never grade out as an A because we simply can’t get to everything. I’ll look back six months from now and see a whole lot of stuff we missed.  In the interim, you can help me avoid that. Send us story ideas. Do the crossword. Send us letters. It’s an interactive but highly entertaining process. It starts with, “Dear Mom.”

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