Star Local News
Reporter Christina Rowland takes a deep breath and positions herself in front of a swath of bright green fabric thumb-tacked to the wall of an empty office at Star Community Newspapers in Plano. She licks her teeth (it helps her smile appear more natural) and checks her wireless microphone. There’s no teleprompter in this make-shift news studio, so the broadcast she’s about to deliver is Scotch-taped to the video camera in front of her. In just a few hours, her suburban-centric mix of breaking news, sports scores and community features will be shot, edited and uploaded to the Web.
Why is a traditional ink-on-paper news outlet spending time and precious dollars on a Web-based newscast? Simple: the Web is a weekly newspaper’s ally. Instead of several days of lag-time before they get a breaking story in front of readers, reporters can start thinking in daily terms.
“If you’re not publishing a newspaper every day, by the time you cover a story it could be old news,” said Bill Weaver, publisher of Star Community Newspapers, which publishes the Carrollton Leader and 12 others across the North Dallas suburbs. Eleven newspapers have already launched a daily news webcast, and plans are underway to add the remaining markets in the coming weeks. More…