‘BLOGGER’: Jen Connic
FEATURED BLOG(S): Behind the Press
WEBSITE: Millburn-Shorthills Patch
TWITTER: @JenConnic & @JenPatch
MILLBURN.PATCH.COM
Today’s installation of our “Bloggers We Love,” series is a little different, as Jen Connic isn’t a blogger per se. As editor of the Millburn-Shorthills Patch, Connic considers herself a ‘community journalist,’ a role that she views as distinct from that of a ‘blogger’ or ‘citizen journalist.’
Connic in the Field
“A blog has come to be known for more than it actually is—not everything in the web space is a blog. I’m not a blogger. I was called a citizen journalist by someone [and I’m not one]. I’m a professional journalist who’s been doing this for more than ten years,” Connic says. “If I’m writing an article about the Board of Education budget, it’s not my opinion. If I want to give my opinion about that item, I will write a column about it.”
Connic says she considers someone a professional journalist because they’ve had formal journalism training—not because they get paid for their reporting, which is what many would associate with the term ‘professional.’ She notes that in today’s changing media landscape, there are a lot of out-of-work reporters who are blogging for free, but that they remain trained professionals first and ‘bloggers,’ second.
Still, Connic does recognize that not all blogs are opinion-based. “A blog can be an opinion column, it can be a photo column, or it can be a news blog,” she notes. “You see this a lot in news. [A reporter might say] ‘I can’t write an article right away, so I’m going to post something on my blog.’ You especially see this in the sports world.”
And, while she is careful to distinguish herself from citizen journalists, Connic says she appreciates the work they’re doing.
“I have all the respect in the world for [citizen journalists]. There are a lot of people in my industry that frown on citizen journalists, but there are a lot of people out there who are not trained who are doing great things. I call it the ‘Matlow factor,’” she says.
By Matlow, Connic explains, she’s referring to Dave Matlow, a ‘citizen journalist,’ she worked with while she served as the editor of WestportNow. “Dave’s work has been picked up by the AP, he knows what to look for at a scene, and he knows what kind of information to bring [to his editor]—and he’s not a professional journalist,” Connic says.
Hold on a second.
A reporter who knows what to look for at the scene, what information to bring to his editor, whose stories have been picked up by the AP – and he’s still not considered a professional?
Hmm.
While many may dispute Connic’s terminology and we could surely argue about the semantics endlessly, there’s one thing we can probably all agree on: the work Jen Connic is doing at the Millburn-Shorthills Patch is helping to change the local news industry.
EVERYBODY LOVES MILBURN
Millburn, NJ is indeed a popular spot when it comes to local media, a fact to which Connic can attest.
“There are so many of us here. We have The Item, The Independent Press, The Star-Ledger, TheLocal and The Alternative Press. That’s two weeklies, one daily and, including us, three online ventures.”
According to Adam Isserlis of Rubenstein Communications, who represents Patch, “Patch aims to deliver the best, most comprehensive, local news, in real-time. It’s real journalists doing local news on a real level.”
So what makes Patch different from other local news sources?
The distinction is ‘real-time,’ Connic says. “We’re going to tell you what’s going on right now, not what went on three days ago,” she says. While most online news sources do this, Connic says her advantage is that she covers a smaller community than the others. “The Alternative Press covers a much larger area [than the Millburn-Shorthills Patch],” Connic says, “and TheLocal is also being drawn in different directions because they cover other communities, too.”
Essentially, the Millburn-Shorthills Patch is able to do what it does by keeping its geographic focus narrow. “In my experience, towns under 20,000 are manageable,” Connic says.
DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK
Given the popularity of the term ‘hyperlocal,’ in Connic’s—and our—line of work, it seems only natural that we would ask her how she would define the term herself.
“[Hyperlocal] bugs me, it’s a buzz term,” she says. “What we do is down and dirty community journalism. It’s the same thing that people have been doing for decades: ‘Don’t call it a comeback,’ to steal a line from L.L. Cool J. Community journalists have been here, only now we’re getting pulled in different directions. The daily papers aren’t here anymore, or they’re not covering their local communities like they used to, but there isn’t anything new about the kind of journalism that local journalists are practicing. This is the kind of news that people have always been craving, and it’s always been around, only now people are getting it online.”
CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE
Of course, that isn’t to say that the changing face of media and journalism hasn’t changed the way Connic actually writes and operates—it has.
“When you write for a newspaper, you’re writing for tomorrow,” Connic says. “I think when you write for the web, you have that whole aspect of writing for ‘now,’ and not ‘tomorrow.’ If you write for tomorrow, it’s old news.”
Connic also says that ‘less is more,’ when writing for the web. “Two lines is news on the web. I can put out the first notice of a story and do the writethrough later. That’s the beauty of the web.”
Oftentimes, the way stories are edited is also different online. This is certainly true at Patch, because as the editor of the Millburn-Shorthills Patch, Connic is its only full-time employee, so she doesn’t always get a second set of eyes on her stories.
“I call it ‘flying without a net,’” she says. “This is how I operated when I worked back at WestportNow. The first time I had to do it, it made me nervous—it scared the crap out of me—because I’m a perfectionist. But I’ve had to stop beating myself up. I’m by myself, and there could be an error in a story that’s there for 3 hours.”
Still, Connic isn’t really alone—there’s clearly a fair amount of collaboration going on at Patch.
“We all kind of look out for each other,” Connic says. “My regional editor will look at my stuff later on, or if I want someone to put their eyes on something, I’ll call Jose Ortiz, my sports editor, and I won’t post it right away. It’s not, like, scary ‘without a net.’”
Of course, many in the media world do feel they are ‘flying without a net,’ right now—even scary ‘flying without a net.’
But not Connic.
“I really hate it when people say that print is dying or that newspapers are dying or that the news industry is dying,” she says. “We’re not dying, we’re evolving. The news industry hasn’t always been the way it’s been for the past 10 years. [If you’re interested in the future of media,] you need to be a reader of history. Even 100 years ago, in the days of Pulitzer and Hearst and those guys, the news industry was quite chaotic. They were saying some of the same things then as now. Obviously I am concerned—and I want to evolve with [the industry]. I can’t imagine myself not being in this industry. I’m not scared, I’m excited.”
THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM
Connic’s job is certainly not meant for those lacking passion, fortitude and a very strong work ethic. Moreover, in an industry that’s been plagued by mass layoffs in recent times, it must take a certain fearlessness to endeavor to become a journalist. But what other skills are crucial in a quality community journalist?
“The basics are: a sense of curiosity. Be observant,” Connic says. “There’s a lot to say about the scientific method when it comes to reporting. You have your hypothesis and you start asking questions, and eventually you come to some sort of conclusion, and that’s your article. Having a good pair of walking shoes—that will really get you a lot of places. Those are the basics. If you don’t have those basic skills, it doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have or if you’re using Facebook or Twitter or what have you. I guess you could say I’m a little ‘old school,’ in that way.”
Old school or not, Connic is leading the charge to define a decidedly new-school incarnation of local journalism.
