NewsBeat

6 NewsBeat June 2018 Four northern New York newspapers build news sharing partnership By JUDY PATRICK — Executive vice president for editorial development A In the North Country, the four papers don't directly compete with each other for local readers, which made the collaboration make even more sense. Perry White, managing editor of the Watertown Daily Times, says the collaboration has provided his readers with essential, high-quality coverage of campaign events and political spending. Best of all, he said, the coordination has given other reporters time to develop in- depth stories on campaign issues. With the 2014 election of Republican newcomer Elise Stefanik, what began as campaign coverage expanded quickly expanded into year- round coverage of the district's issues and politics. "With Stefanik, there's more than enough to keep us busy," White said. Now, four years after the collaboration began, the papers are making all of their content available to each other. Under mutual agreement, each of the newspapers is free to republish at no cost– both in print and online – any content "It's broadened our report," White said. The sharing has, for example, led to an increased regional awareness of the importance of the Fort Drum military base. "The great part about the partnership is that no one worries that any one person is getting more than the other," said Ken Tingley, managing editor of The Post-Star and a longtime proponent of sharing content. "The competitiveness of getting a story first is not something we worry about. We just want to help each other and that helps our readers to get more news." Good communication helps make the collaboration work. The editors are in frequent email contact, sending each other their daily news budgets. The coordination avoids duplication and keeps the availability of this bonus content top-of-mind. Editors are free to edit stories they take from their partners, especially to add local voices or trim to fit a print news hole. But White says the copy in general is clean, with little need for copy editing. There's enthusiasm in Peter Crowley's voice when he talks about the collaboration. Crowley, the managing editor of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, finds the daily interaction with other editors inspiring. "I'm having great conversations about stories, about teaming up, about double bylines," he said. There's also heightened enthusiasm among his staff for producing great content. "The idea is that you're covering a story for a much broader swath of readership. You want to up your game," he said. Feedback from readers has been positive, Crowley said. "They think it's nice to have more regional news, especially from northern New York in general," he said. The new content allows him to supplant his local coverage with regional content. "I use it much like I do AP," he said, referring to the Associated Press news wire. The papers are now exploring collaborative ways of better covering state government, from Education Department and Court of Appeals rulings to dissecting the governor's annual State of the State speech and budget proposal. hat began in 2014 as a collaboration to better cover an upstate congressional campaign has morphed into large-scale news sharing among four northern New York newspapers. The 21st Congressional District covers the upper third of New York state, stretching from Watertown east through the Adirondack mountains to the Vermont border and from the Canadian border south to Gloversville. At 15,000-square miles, it's the largest congressional district in New York state. Big congressional districts have always been a challenge to cover, but as the number of journalists in newsrooms has fallen, newspapers are finding it harder to cover districts as well as they had in the past. That's why editors from four key newspapers in the region – the Watertown Daily Times, the Post-Star in Glens Falls, the Press-Republican in Plattsburgh and the Adirondack Daily Enterprise in Lake Placid - decided to band together and cover the high-profile 2014 congressional campaign as a team. Hard economic times have meant that collaboration is increasingly gaining acceptance in the newspaper industry, which for generations has measured success in scoops. Earlier this year, six news organizations on Long Island launched the East End News Project to cover the opiod epidemic in their part of the world. While the papers are close enough to be competitors, Kathryn Menu of the Sag Harbor Express told Kristen Hare of Poynter that working together enabled them to confront the epidemic as a community.

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