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June 11, 2008

STEPHANIE SALTER: Operating on the silly, old notion that newspapers count

By Stephanie Salter

TERRE HAUTE — Sometimes I have this fantasy when I hear yet another smug know-it-all talk about the “irrelevance” of the mainstream news media — or “MSM,” as the abbreviated slur goes.

I think, OK. How about we just fold up shop right now?

Everybody who has trained for years to gather, verify and disseminate news — especially all of us soon-to-be extinct print dinosaurs — we’ll just go home. Tomorrow, there will be no more daily paper on anybody’s doorstep. And someone else can pull things together to put on a Web site for people to read for free.

Want some information that lasts longer than a 30-second video clip about, say, a complex school board issue? A scandal in the county recorder’s office? A multi-million-dollar federal appropriation that’s been withdrawn? A black-and-white kitten that was rescued from rising flood waters?

Want to spread out a big aerial shot of those flood waters to get some lasting perspective on how helpless or heroic some of your neighbors were?

Tough. Try the blogosphere. Maybe somebody there will pick up the slack.

Saturday night would have been a good time to entertain my fantasy. All over south-central Indiana, flash floods were giving Hoosiers a small, nasty glimpse of what our fellow Americans suffered at the wet, whirling hands of Hurricane Katrina.

Interstate 70 was out of commission, along with countless highways, streets and roads. Scores of people were leaving their homes by rescue boat.

Dozens of agencies were trying to coordinate and prioritize their emergency efforts. Citizen volunteers were piling sandbags and directing traffic in the absence of police and working stoplights.

Yes, what a perfect time to imagine an MSM void.

But I was too busy for fantasies. So were the three reporters, two photographers and four copy and design editors who managed to get to the Tribune-Star to put out Sunday’s paper.

Those staffers who couldn’t make it past washed out bridges and downed power lines kicked into gear by phone or e-mail. One of them was Susan Duncan, our assistant editor for news, whose multi-tasking skills are so strong, she could attend a weekend workshop then start the next day as an air traffic controller.

The floods canceled days off, doubled scheduled shifts and made reporters and photographers of almost everyone in the Tribune-Star’s news operation.

Sheila Ter Meer, who handles the super-busy Community Desk through the week, kept us informed about Brazil. Her call to tell us that tremendous interstate traffic was moving east and west bound on U.S. 40 through Brazil was just ahead of an official notice that I-70 had been closed at Putnamville.

For Monday’s paper, Ter Meer shared her first-person account of saving a half-drowned kitten that she scooped up off U.S. 40. The story carried her photo of the cat and Ter Meer’s daughter.

Most MSM people like Ter Meer don’t have to be told to come into (or call) work when the day starts with a declaration of a state of emergency in their county. In the old days, we called this “drifting in.” People just appear and ask what needs to be done. As experienced journalists, they instinctively know when a story is too big for ordinary staffing.

They knew Saturday.

Even people who don’t work here full time anymore drifted in. Retired sports writer and current T-S correspondent Tom Reck almost literally drifted. His golf shirt and Bermuda shorts soaked, his laptop and a couple of pieces of dry clothing in a garbage bag, Reck came straight to the paper from being boat-rescued out of his south-side apartment.

“I wasn’t sure where else to go,” he said, shaking from the air-conditioned cold on his wet skin.

Photographer Jim Avelis, who had been driving, wading and shooting since early morning (and later would change into dress clothes in the men’s room so he could attend a wedding), had just made a strong pot of coffee. We made sure Reck got a cup.

After he changed his shirt and socks, which turned out to be only a little dryer than the originals, I asked Reck if he’d do a first-person piece on being rescued. He didn’t blink.

“Sure, I can do that,” he said, and sat down at one of our ancient iMacs.

Only hours later, after Reck had walked to the nearest motel to check in and sleep, did we realize he’d never had any shoes with him. No time when he was evacuated.

Big breaking news like the floods brings out that ésprit de corps in most MSM folks. Egos are set aside. Everyone collaborates, even if it means “Tribune-Star staff report” over a story instead of a hardworking reporter’s name, as happened several times Saturday to Crystal Garcia.

When a producer at the Weather Channel in Atlanta called to ask if we could transmit photos of the floods and get some national recognition, both Avelis and news editor Zach Taylor said, “only if we have time after we get our stuff done.”

When Mark Bennett’s terrific account of rescue efforts around Prairieton came in, I checked with Duncan to see if she objected to me substituting Bennett’s piece for that of the territorial columnist who usually runs on the Sunday Bi-State cover — me.

As normal deadlines passed and midnight crawled up, Taylor’s staff members were laying out pages on their computers with astounding speed and style. Almost buried in printed page proofs, copy editor Chad Steenerson caught a horrendous spelling error that had slipped by three sets of eyes. He saved us from looking like idiots.

In the wee hours, the printing crew in our Margaret Avenue plant cranked up the presses. Then, carload by truckload, our under-sung carriers drove the Sunday Trib-Star through flooded streets and roads to as many subscribers as they could.

Next day, some conditions were better: Duncan was back in her editor’s chair and the Valley got a one-day break in the rain. But the aftermath of the flood was even bigger and more diffuse than the day before.

If you still have Monday’s paper, take a look. Besides Ter Meer’s cat story, all that local flood coverage was done by only two reporters, Arthur Foulkes and Brian Boyce, and one photographer, Bob Poynter. All three had worked overtime shifts late into Saturday night.

Amazing, huh? Why, it’s almost as if no one had told these guys they’re irrelevant.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

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