BY TERI FINNEMAN
Publisher
eudoratimes@gmail.com
The Eudora Times will resume operations Monday after our summer on hiatus.
After our three months away, we hope you’re looking forward to having community news again. A newspaper is a vital service, especially with how much news is happening in 2020.
We, of course, had to go dark due to a lack of funding to pay a reporter to work over the summer. I’ll discuss that more in a minute and also introduce you to the fall reporting staff.
First, I need to discuss some of the COVID-19 realities of our situation.
For the most part, the reporters will conduct interviews by phone or Zoom for their safety, just as we did when we had to change course in the spring. Our team immediately rose to the occasion in mid-March and provided significant community coverage through mostly remote means through May, so I am confident about my team’s ability to provide Eudora news again this fall.
However, that also means we are more reliant on local officials and other sources to return our calls when we have questions that we normally would ask in person. We will hold local officials accountable to return our calls in order to ask the questions that we know you need answered and will tell you if they don’t.
If our reporters are in the community doing interviews, taking pictures or covering sports, they will wear masks and, if applicable, will ask their interview subject to do the same while talking outdoors at a distance.
Before I introduce the team, I will continue to be honest and transparent with you that our ability to run this online newspaper continues to be precarious.
We rely on donations from the community to operate. All of the money goes to the KU journalism students doing the reporting, which is significant, professional work that has beat out other small daily newspapers in reporting awards at the state level. I do not take even a nickel of this money and volunteer my time serving as publisher.
We have less than $800 in our bank account – for four students to work for 14 weeks. It’s going to be hard for me to keep recruiting reporters at that rate.
To put this in perspective – Sydney’s story that ran Friday about the School Board was read 900 times in just over 24 hours. If 900 people in Eudora gave us $20 per year – just $20 once per year – we could begin discussions about becoming a full-time newspaper rather than wonder if we’ll have to cease operations in December.
To donate, please go to this link to support our community journalism: tinyurl.com/y4u7stxj
Finally, here is your fall reporting team, many of whom are familiar faces to you already:
Sydney Hoover is a senior at the University of Kansas going into her second semester as editor for the Eudora Times. She is studying journalism and Spanish with a minor in sociology. Hoover will primarily cover schools and public safety in Eudora through December.
Lucie Krisman is a senior in the J-School and the managing editor of the Eudora Times.
She covers the city government and business beats for Eudora. She is an Oklahoma native and is a founding reporter of The Eudora Times.
Chris Fortune is moving from the religion beat to become our sports editor this fall. He was born and raised in North Plainfield, New Jersey, where he discovered his love of professional football and the New York Jets. When he was in eighth grade, his family moved to Overland Park, and his love of sports grew.
Emily Johnson is a junior studying journalism from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Emily is interested in broadcast media specifically but also enjoys writing and reporting as well. Emily will be a general assignment reporter who covers many feature stories, but will also specifically focus on senior citizen reporting.
And finally, I am a journalism professor at KU who started my own reporting career 20 years ago. I am a native of North Dakota and a two-time graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism.
Send us your story ideas or reach out to us at eudoratimes@gmail.com and again, please donate to keep our newspaper going at tinyurl.com/y4u7stxj.
We will resume our weekly e-newsletter on Sept. 2. To get on the mailing list, email us at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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