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How much could Pasadena Now really be spending on journalists?
They aren't paying anything. The site is run by the guy and his wife, with help from an intern. My wife is terribly valuable, but she doesn't write herself a paycheck; that'd simply mean more taxes. And they don't intend to start. School board, town council, ditch commission, and county commissioners meetings get covered by stringers. A journalist is someone who finds a story and develops it. A stringer sits at the back of the room, reading a Louis L'Amour novel, and keeping one ear open, in case something happens. Back when the minimum wage was $2, there was no shortage of people eager to spend an entire evening covering a school board meeting in order to submit a 10-20 column-inch story at 7c an inch. (Newspapers had 8 11.5-pica columns back then.) I've recruited a couple of dozen stringers when I've owned newspapers, and I've also been a stringer for multiple newspapers. The best stringers write up the neighborhood news. Joan's daughters each gave her a new grandchild on Thursday. Susan found a skunk had a litter under her back porch, and everyone used the front door for the last week. As a rule, nobody runs for school board unless they've got an ax to grind. They want to fire the coach that benched Johnny, or the teacher who is rude and cruel to Susan. After they solve that problem, they decide it's too much hassle - all these people complaining about coaches and teachers - and they don't run again. And it's very difficult for a stringer to cover the really juicy disagreements, because they have to live in the community. I often wished I could get someone from the next county to cover that news - but for 7c an inch, nobody could afford to. And if I tried to cover the news myself, well, some of the board members would be big advertisers. I could say, "I don't have any choice; all I can do is to print what the stringer writes", but if I were to write it myself, I had to take care not to bite the hand that fed me. The guy probably IS significantly improving the news coverage by recruiting a remote local news guy. The problem he's going to run into is getting pictures to go with the stories.
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