A little more than a month ago, I celebrated the success of HomeinHenderson with a note to you readers. What excited me wasn’t a rash of donations (we’ve had few) or an influx of ads (we still haven’t set the site up to run them, let alone tried to sell them), but the fact that the number of comments posted on the Web site had raced past the number of articles.
The site received its 2,000th reader comment today, nearly three times the number of original articles on the site.
Back in early July, I announced that we hoped to bring about some changes at HomeinHenderson to make it better for readers and give it a chance to become a profitable enterprise for me (I couldn’t expect my wife to support this as a hobby forever). Well, changes are coming, but not the ones I expected.
I have accepted a job in Atlanta, and my family and I will be moving to Georgia in the coming weeks. My first day on the job is Aug. 29, so my time as a reporter — the reporter — for HomeinHenderson is over. I have a few articles to write, and I’ll occasionally offer a column. But I’ll no longer produce the day-to-day content on the Web site.
Frankly, the articles have long since ceased to be the primary reason to visit HomeinHenderson anyway. The comments all of you post are what keep people coming back, often several times a day. Not only are the comments and the resulting debates entertaining, but they are informative.
Who hasn’t learned about the awkward, often unsuccessful relationship between law enforcement and the District Attorney’s Office? Who hasn’t benefited from the occasional answers posted by people such as Henderson Mayor Clem Seifert, state Sen. Doug Berger and District Attorney Sam Currin? Who doesn’t know more now about city finances, the local drug war, Crimestoppers, the Rev. C.J. Dale and more?
I appreciate everything I’ve learned the past six months, and I look forward to learning more in the coming months and years as people continue to post their comments.
Yes, HomeinHenderson will go on after I am gone, but it will depend on the help of you — all of you who appreciate this site and want it to survive as a place where anyone can feel free to share information, offer opinions and ask questions instantly.
The problem is that the site needs articles to spark the conversation, and it’s impossible for me to cover anything in Vance County while living six hours away (eight if traffic is particularly bad on the Atlanta Perimeter). I tried to hire an excellent young newsman to take over as editor, but he politely refused the unsolicited offer.
I was more successful in persuading a schoolteacher to take on the exhausting task of covering the regular meetings of the Vance County Board of Commissioners and the Henderson City Council. So we’ll have the most important events covered. In addition, I’ll continue to post articles based on press releases from law enforcement, the Farm Service Agency, lawmakers and any other organization willing to send us information. And, through the wonders of e-mail and the Web, I’ll be able to do occasional off-hours news-gathering and virtual interviews.
But all of that isn’t enough to keep the discussion going.
It’s time to take this little experiment in citizen journalism to the next level. It’s time for anyone and everyone to become a reporter.
The dirty little secret of the media is that you don’t need any special skills to be a reporter. You just need an open, inquisitive mind and a willingness to put aside your biases to tell a story. I’ve been in this business long enough to know that there are a lot of you out there who are sure you can do a better job than most of the professional reporters anyway.
Now I’m not only giving you your chance, but I’m begging you to take it.
The concept is simple: If you attend an event or meeting that you think is important enough to share with everyone — and why would you give up your own time if the event weren’t important? — write an article about what happened. E-mail it to me at submit@homeinhenderson.com. I’ll edit the article and post it on the Web site, either under your real name or your chosen alias. (If you are a participant in the given event or meeting, you ought to write under your real name — it’s a full-disclosure thing.)
You don’t need to write a comprehensive report on something. For example, if you attend Monday night’s City Council meeting and are fascinated by Vance Emergency Operations Director Brian Short’s presentation on the National Incident Management System and bored by the rest of the night, you can write just about Short’s talk. You even can add your opinions on the talk; just separate the opinions and place them under a “My take” header.
Ideally, multiple people will write about the same thing, providing a truth-through-multiple-perspectives effect. But a single article is all that is necessary to inform people and inspire them to respond.
If you care about this site, if you want it to survive, do your part. If people don’t write, the site won’t be long for the World Wide Web.
For those who are truly dedicated to HomeinHenderson and have some time on your hands, there’s something else you can do. Because I will not be home in Henderson anymore, we need people who are willing to serve on a local advisory board. The board will meet as often as is necessary to discuss the issues and events that need coverage and to ensure someone does the story. My wife assures me that virtual meetings also can be arranged.
If you’re interested in serving on such a board, e-mail me at michael@homeinhenderson.com. I’d like to hold an organizational meeting for the board Wednesday evening.
I’d like to thank everyone who has supported this site to date, either by posting comments, providing information, offering positive comments or donating money. Although the site won’t be the same, there’s no reason it can’t be better.
— Michael