They were experts on New Orleans public schools and Oregon state politics. They shared the news when a popular high school basketball player in Colorado returned to the court after a knee injury, and they helped solve the mystery of a City Hall cake vandalism in Texas. At newspapers big and small — for moments grand and modest — these local newspaper journalists told the stories of their communities.
The lawsuit against Disney got announced Dec. 9. I still went to the press conference. I hope to keep reporting on that story.Nanette Light covered Collin County, Texas, and lost her job in January. She now works in communications for a pediatric health care foundation in Dallas. I was 13 when Katrina occurred. My mother stayed, and she drowned in her home. My mom was a substitute teacher. She taught English and language arts. My participation covering that system as an education reporter was informed at a basic level just by the fact that my first teacher was my mom.
We were anticipating beginning to see the declines on our housing market. You’re going to have decent-size family homes on the market that probably aren’t going to sell. We were looking at declines in college enrollment. There were a lot of students that ended up leaving the Lordstown school district. Those are all people who could have gone to Youngstown State University.
Newspapers are one of the last places where you can consistently hear voices from both sides on the same issue. There are political races that are actually close. I [covered] a Republican primary for one of the statehouse seats. It was the race for the 53rd District House seat in 2018. I did stories on both candidates and their positions. It was decided by two votes. Two votes.