Publisher's column: Do you have the next big news scoop?

It’s a common question that we often hear in the community journalism business: How come the story about (fill in the blank here) wasn’t in the paper?

Most often the questioner’s intention isn’t to be mean spirited. They’re actually just really curious how the local newspaper could miss “such a big story.”

And the answer most often is really simple – the story seemed so obvious that no one thought to mention it to the newspaper!

I was recently reminded of this when we received an email from someone in Wadena telling us about the dismantling of a playset in a local park. It was a story we’d noticed in a park board email, but this local resident promised us more to the story. And now we’re working on it!

This is a good example of how a tip from the community can help us tell the stories that impact our communities.

As a local newspaper, with our journalists living, working, playing and buying in the communities we serve, we do our best to uncover all the stories that are on the minds of our readers. But, it’s inevitable that we just aren’t going to uncover every great story in the community.

Frankly, sometimes it’s just a numbers game. In our newsroom, when fully staffed, we have 10 folks covering stories across all of our communities. This is not a small number these days in a local newsroom, given the shrinkage in journalists across the country. But neither does it mean that we have the ability to be everywhere and know all of the emerging stories.

And so we’d be grateful for your help!

If you know of a great story or photo and/or video opportunity, please let us know! You can contact me at my email or phone number below, or you can reach out to any of our journalists. Our team is very responsive, and every one of us would rather hear about the story idea, even if we already know about it, than to miss an opportunity at a great story.

We see our work as a collaborative effort. We do our best work when the community is involved in helping us identify good feature stories about incredible people, breaking news stories happening right now in their neighborhood, or stories that have great civic impact.

Other potential stories could be about surprising local businesses, or the work your service club is doing, or artistic events that may inspire the community.

Really, the list is endless. But first we need to be aware!

The easy retort, of course, is: Isn’t it your job to know? You are the newspaper after all! … Fair enough. We do our best to know as much as we can, and we’re also always on the lookout for great stories. But there’s only 10 of us, and thousands of you! So we unashamedly ask for your help!

You just might be holding onto the next great news scoop, and you don’t even know it! Thank you in advance for letting us know!

Devlyn Brooks is the publisher of the Detroit Lakes Tribune, Perham Focus and Wadena Pioneer Journal, and their associated websites. He can be reached at dbrooks@dlnewspapers.com or at 218-844-1451.