How we stack up
The Marion County Record has been "under the microscope" this week as a University of Kansas graduate student conducts a case study for her master's thesis on community journalism.
Lisa Coble-Krings has been in Marion since Thursday, interviewing newspaper staff members, observing at the newsroom, and talking to people in the community.
Her case study is an "objective study on weekly newspapers, decision-making, ethics, and community journalism." The Marion County Record is one of five newspapers in the study. The others are the Osawatomie Graphic, Chase County Leader-News, Washington County News, and The Coffey County Republican.
Coble-Krings has talked to staff members at length, asking tough questions about ethical issues and the decision-making process we go through to determine the "right and wrong" of covering certain stories.
The interviews have been one-on-one, so there is no collaboration on giving the "right" answers.
Her questions have been in-depth and she's asked for more than "yes" and "no" answers to questions about conflict of interest, relationships within the community, and how we handle news that affects major advertisers.
From our point of view we strive to be fair, accurate, and provide consistent coverage of community news.
She's been talking to community members about the relationship between the newspaper and the community. From the community's point of view, the newspaper isn't always a positive force in the community.
We'll be interested to read her thesis and see how we stack up against other community newspapers.
— DONNA BERNHARDT
