Here are some things I found in The Columbian’s newsroom in the past few weeks.
Eggs: On Monday, our reporting staff searched for plastic Easter eggs filled with cash and candy in our newsroom. Local News Editor Jessica Prokop orchestrated the egg hunt with my help. We made the eggs more and more difficult to find. One we chucked onto a metal ledge about 10 feet high. It took a stick to swipe it down. We wedged a blue egg into a matching blue plastic airhorn. Reporters had their own strategies for searching the maze of the newsroom, but Alexis Weisend found the most eggs.
Thankfulness: This week, I received a bundle of thank-you letters from 30 children I led on a tour of The Columbian. Vivian wrote: “My favorite part was getting my first newspaper.” Lynda wrote: “My favorite part was when we saw how newspapers were made.”
Strategy: Spokane’s daily newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, announced that it is becoming a nonprofit. The Cowles family is donating the newspaper to a nonprofit called Comma, established by the paper’s executive editor, Rob Curley. This is one example of innovation in our industry and a model that more local newspapers could adapt moving forward. I plan to visit The Spokesman-Review’s newsroom once the transition is complete to see how it’s going.
