Six Patch Editors On Guest List At Lindenwood University

The tables were turned on local Patch editors this week.

Jill Falk, assistant professor-communications at Lindenwood University in St. Charles invited six Patch editors to come and answer questions from 38 students in two combined communications classes. All the desks were taken in the classroom in the Spellman Center.

For an hour and a half, editors and students traded comments and questions on the current state of journalism.

The students conducted the interviews, and editors answered best they could.

The guest list included Maggie Rotermund, Wentzville Patch; Tamara Duncan, Lake Saint Louis Patch; hometowner Joe Barker, St. Peters Patch; Chase Castle, Ballwin-Ellisville Patch; Jim Baer, Ladue-Frontenac Patch; and Kurt Greenbaum, Regional Patch Editor.

Students didn’t want to know about the financial status of Patch owners AOL. Rather, they wanted to know more specifically how to get a job; what was the toughest challenges of the jobs and what courses should they be taking to get there?

They even wanted to know what minor should accompany their major in mass communications.

One of the most focused questions went something like this: “When you were in college,  what would you like to have known more about?

That was a good one.

Answers ranged from gathering more digital age skills to realizing journalism had gone the route of back-pack reporting. Perfecting video editing skills was talked about over and over.

The question about picking a minor was good. Answers ranged from English to business to Spanish.

Students are very concerned about all the gloom and doom in the job market.

Barker, product of the Hannibal Courrier-Post explained. “Newsrooms have less people today. They’ve trimmed the fat. It’s down to really dedicated people who really want to be there. In Hannibal, I’d go out and talk to ladies who ran businesses for 40 years.”

Greenbaum urged students to look closely at digital news gathering and focus on Patch in particular. “In 1970, 80 percent of the people were getting their news from their daily newspapers. That was before the advent of cable TV and the 24-hour news cycle.

“Television was just expanding from 15 minute broadcasts to half an hour a night,” he remembered. Now, newscasts of an hour are commonplace.

Rotermund took it a step further. She says newspapers movement to digital reporting might be their salvation.

“There’s been a recent big uptick in newspaper coverage on their websites. People want to get the truth from real journalists. There’s just so much out there (on the web) these days, that’s what people really want. People want journalists to tell them the truth,” she claimed.

Falk wanted to know how editors decide what becomes lead stories on their home pages?

“The challenge is to make routine stories sound interesting,” said Rotermund. “We still have to go out and cover things like sewer board meetings.”

Castle meanwhile said the “human element” is what readers really want.

He explained. “There’s the emotional side of issues and that’s what people want.”

Baer agrees. “A high degree of my stories are profiles about people. Like a clock, I like to know what makes people tick.”

The questions could have gone on and on. There was much ground to cover and little time available. Students had to dash off. After all, they are staffers on the Lindenwood Legacy and deadlines needed to be met.

These students are young and eager. They are very concerned about landing that first job in the exciting and fast-paced world of journalism.

Hopefully some wisdom from local Patch editors helped.