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TEMPLE: A new era in reporting at Rocky

By John Temple, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 5, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Thursday's vote in Iowa brought to a close an important experiment by this newspaper.

Our Washington correspondent, M.E. Sprengelmeyer, had the idea to plant himself in the middle of the stream of candidates flowing through the first state to vote in the first presidential nominating contest. His goal would be to chronicle what it takes to land on the podium at the Democratic National Convention in Denver or the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

I was immediately taken with the proposal. It's my view that we shouldn't try to duplicate the reporting we receive from our news wires. Our staff needs to tell stories of special significance to readers in Denver. What better way to make the meaning of the historic gathering in our city clear than to take readers on a ride along the back roads leading to the White House? Hence the name of his blog: "Back Roads to the White House."

M.E. arrived in Iowa on Easter Sunday and has been a writing fool ever since. I can call him that because we go way back. M.E. worked for me as a stringer when I was city editor of The Albuquerque Tribune in the late '80s.

To say he's a hard worker is an understatement. The guy has written more than 160,000 words on his blog and more than 130 newspaper stories since he arrived in Iowa. The Des Moines Register was so taken with his approach that it wrote a story about him.

I didn't just agree to this experiment because I have great confidence in M.E. I agreed to it because M.E. embraced the idea of writing in real time for the Web and of doing a different, more layered kind of writing for the newspaper.

We've experimented with live blogging on major news stories before, such as the excellent work by Jeff Smith, David Milstead and Sara Burnett on the trial of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio. The goal with M.E.'s blog was to go even farther, making it clear that the blog was the center of what we were doing.

The result is not just that the Rocky has provided, in my view, a perspective on Iowa and the presidential race worth paying attention to. It's also that we're going to approach other major stories in a similar way, starting with the Colorado legislative session beginning next week.

Traditionally, we've had one reporter cover the House and another the Senate. This year, we're going to have one reporter blog throughout the day, under the direction of a seasoned political editor, Jim Martin. Some of the accounts from the blog will be edited for the next day's paper, just the way we have with some of M.E.'s blog postings. The other full-time legislative reporter will focus on providing more depth and insight into the goings-on under the dome.

In addition, we'll also be sending knowledgeable beat reporters to the Capitol to report on stories falling into their area of expertise. So you'll likely hear from our environmental reporter or energy reporter and many others as issues on their beats arise. Developments they cover will make their way onto the blog before they're published in the paper.

I hope you'll check out our "Live from the Colorado Legislature" blog throughout the day starting next Wednesday to stay on top of the votes that matter to you.

We'll also be working with The Gazette of Colorado Springs and the Greeley Tribune, two papers we've partnered with to give you a more complete state news report. You may find their bylines on stories about legislative issues the way you've seen stories from both papers about a range of other topics during the past weeks. I hope you'll be reading bylines from other Colorado papers in the Rocky shortly, too.

It's a different era. When editors from these papers sat down with us to discuss whether it would benefit their readers more if they shared stories and photographs than if they kept them to themselves, the answer seemed obvious.

The principal source of news on Colorado Springs is going to be The Gazette, just the way the Greeley Tribune dominates northern Colorado coverage. Yes, we venture into their territory for big stories. But we don't try to compete on a day-to- day basis on local, grass-roots coverage.

If we help one another, we actually help our readers. That was our theory. And so far, in my view, it's turned out to be the case.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202.

Live blogs, newspaper partnerships

The Rocky has been developing ways to bring our readers more news and different perspectives. Here are a few:

* Back Roads to the White House Rocky writer M.E. Sprengelmeyer has embedded himself in Iowa since Easter Sunday to write via blog and print about the presidential campaign.

* Live from the Colorado Legislature Beginning Wednesday, Rocky reporters will blog live from the Capitol to offer up-to-the-minute vote results, news and insights during the 2008 session.

* Newspaper partnerships The Gazette, of Colorado Springs, and the Greeley Tribune, along with CBS 4 News, share stories and photographs regularly with the Rocky.

Comments

  • January 5, 2008

    2:47 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    JohnSWren writes:

    Why is the Iowa Caucus worth a full time reporter, yet you give no coverage of what's being done here for our Colorado Caucus? Just doesn't make sense to me.

    I went to a packed meeting room this morning at Sante Fe & 8th, filled with enthusiastic volunteers every bit as interesting as the folks in Iowa. Meetings like this will be held over and over again from now until February 5. Why aren't they worth covering?

    Does it have to be on the nightly TV news for you to consider it worth a reporters time? Maybe it would be a national TV news story if our local papers were covering it like the Iowa papers cover the Iowa Caucus.

    Why aren't you assigning a reporter to tell the story of how our Colorado delegates get selected to the national convention this year? Because of TV, do you think your readers are more interested in Iowa than what is going on right here in Colorado? If so, you have an insultingly low opinion of your readers.

  • January 5, 2008

    11:48 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    nonayerbsns writes:

    Pay no heed to IOWA, which is merely an acronym:

    Idiots Out Wandering Around

  • January 10, 2008

    5:04 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    agahran writes:

    Ok, so now it's Thursday, and this blog was supposed to launch Wed., but I don't see it on the Rocky's "columns & blogs" page. When's it really going to launch?

    It sounds like a great idea, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

    - Amy Gahran
    (Poynter.org)

  • January 11, 2008

    5:24 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    newsguy writes:

    IOWA = I Oughta Went Around

  • January 18, 2008

    3:26 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    BikerChick writes:

    Good column, John,

    M.E has done a great job in Iowa.

    Your approach is refreshing -- and it worked well.

    Brings back fond memories of ace-reporting.

    Thank you.

    Best, Sally Flack, the Biker Chick