Covering Public Affairs

For the past few weeks, we've discussed local government coverage and the challenges covering local government may bring. But before diving into that topic, let's look at the role/goals of the government reporter.

Some roles include, but are limited to: present news (facts), events, be objective, dig up dirt, promote the city, and present solutions. Which are all valid goals/ roles and I believe there is a time and place for everything.

I think the main issue with covering local affairs here at the local level is that there are new many branches, too many identities. For example, the Savannah Chatham Public School System is its own separate entity. Why? If funding is coming from the same pot, why separate it? Savannah is too small of a city, for all these different branches.

I think reporting becomes confusing, because the reporter has to separate all of the information even if it is under the umbrella of local government. I remember, Scott, who is originally from Waycross, GA and mentioned how Waycross consolidated its government and the huge uproar it caused, especially racial uproar.

Maybe since the city of Savannah is mostly African American, but Chatham County is mostly Caucasian, there could be different branches not wanting to associate with other branches, which makes reporting difficult, but race is never easy to report about, then you are accused of only reporting about race.

Lastly, since there is not unity, there are different personalities of different branches and information maybe taking out of context or become misconstrued, because no one is on the same page, causing the the reporter to get the run around when covering a story and the story ending up being bigger than it actually is.

At the end of the day, there is no unity, which makes it hard to make decisions if every branch is doing their own thing.