Opelika-Auburn News

Troy Turner comes home to serve as Opelika-Auburn News Editor

Troy Turner, editor of the Opelika-Auburn News

By Rachel Sprouse

Since 1904, the Opelika-Auburn News has served as the community newspaper for the Opelika area.

Although it was purchased by Berkshire-Hathaway in 2012, it was originally the Opelika Daily News until it was purchased and renamed to the Opelika-Auburn News in 1969.

The newspaper is led by Troy Turner, editor, who returned to work at the paper after several years away from his hometown of Opelika.

What is Community Journalism?

The OA News is a daily newspaper, which means different top stories and topics every day. Turner said that’s what most of the staff enjoys about the business.

“Journalism is not a get rich quick scheme,” Turner said. “You have to have a passion for it to really enjoy everything there is about a journalism career.”

Turner said he thinks most of the people who come to work for the OA News are there because they have a passion to report or “journal” what’s going on in the daily community.

Community journalism should be an accurate reflection of what the community is, and what it lives and breathes every day, according to Turner.

“The responsibility we have is to accurately reflect what the daily life is of the community,” Turner said. “Not only that, but also to take a leadership voice.”

A community newspaper must be able to keep the readers informed of the events and dangers going on, covering anything from road to school closures.

The editorial pages can be a starting place for conversation, according to Turner, whether people agree or disagree with the editorial’s stance. Turner said it is the paper’s duty to be a civic leader by involving the community on various subjects.

“But it’s also our duty to accurately tell them as their news source and their information source,” Turner said.

Day to Day

The fun thing about a daily newspaper is that every day is different, according to Turner. They may have some idea of what the headlines of the day will be but not exactly.

“I like coming in and not knowing what the headlines of the day are going to be,” Turner said. “I don’t know what stories are to be told today, but I know there are going to be stories told today.”

Turner starts his day by checking online to see what’s trending, making sure the website has been updated and looking for new stories.

“We always want to be prepared for spot news when it does happen, if there’s a shootout on the interstate or another roadblock,” Turner said. “A typical day is when you come in and you start checking the police reports, you start checking email, you talk, as editor, with the reporters as they come in.”

Most of the reporters are out on assignments after the morning huddle, which has no set time. The huddle happens when there’s a “quorum,” according to Turner, or when most of the morning shift staff is present.

“We just informally gather around one of the desks out there,” Turner said. “We go around the room and talk about what our best stories are coming for the day.”

From there, the staff develops an idea for print of what will be on the front page for the next day. They discuss ideas for the weekend’s top stories and try to coordinate art by talking to their photographer.

“We decide which reporter and story the photographer should tag along for,” Turner said.

The night editor will come in around 2 p.m. and check the budget, talk to reporters to check on stories and prepare the print product.

Turner works with the digital editor to update the website, checking to see if the top stories have been updated and plan ahead for upcoming stories. They strategize social media engagement and look for opportunities to incorporate digital elements, like live streaming a coach’s press conference.

Root, Root, Root for the Home teams

Turner said their area has an active sports scene.

“There’s a lot of community spirit when it comes to supporting the local team,” Turner said. “I think that’s a good slice of community journalism to be able to cover prep sports.”

With Auburn University nearby, the OA News also covers college sports. Turner said one of the main draws for readers is their coverage of college sports.

“It’s a very important job because at the Opelika-Auburn News, you expect to have good coverage of Auburn football,” Turner said. “That’s a lot of fun for a journalist to be able to cover something like the SEC and Auburn.”

News

Auburn University also generates a variety of local news, from guest speakers to construction plans. With more than 25,000 students, Auburn University provides plenty of stories and potential readers. But Opelika also is a hotbed for news stories.

“You’ve got Opelika, where you’ve got some industry and some technology going on there and a lot of good jobs,” Turner said. “It’s a happening place for news.”

Turner said he is a big believer in enterprise journalism at any level, from the smallest community papers to the largest of metros. He said he would like to see more enterprise journalism done in community newspapers.

“Enterprise gives us a chance and an opportunity to broaden the horizons of our readers in understanding their own community in ways they may not have before,” Turner said.

While it can be difficult to dedicate reporters to working on long form stories, Turner said he makes sure the reporters are productive in all ways and the focus is to get the daily news first. By creating a balance between daily news and other stories, the reporters can find the time to do a decent job on both types of stories.

“Sometimes that requires a little more time than you’re able to give on a daily basis, but there are ways if you make that an important part of your mission,” Turner said.

The reporter must be passionate about the topic they’re writing about and be interested in enterprise journalism.

“You've got to have some fun in doing a story and telling a story that most people haven’t heard or finding a way of telling it different,” Turner said. “It’s fun to tell people stories, for journalists anyway. If it’s not fun, you shouldn’t be doing it.”

Social Media

According to Turner, email made the letters to the editor process simpler for readers.

“It’s still the same thing,” Turner said. “We still require the name, the hometown and contact information and so forth, but you can do it so much easier by email than you could back in the day when you had to buy a stamp [and] take time to write it on paper.”

Technological advances have allowed reporters to work remotely. Reporters can upload their assignments and post updates on a story from outside of the office, which helps update the website and draw in more traffic.

Social media has opened up community engagement because readers are comfortable sharing their thoughts with Facebook posts and tweets, according to Turner. The newspaper will occasionally feature feedback from Facebook in print and later be recycled on digital mediums.

“I’ll be getting letters to the editor, but I can take something off digital like Facebook and use some of those comments,” Turner said. “Social media makes it easier for people to share and engage in a conversation. And so it’s important for journalists and journalism entities to tap into that so that’s what we’re trying to do.”

But with a push for digital first, Turner said it’s important to maintain a solid product in both mediums.

“As an editor, my responsibility is to be thinking of both all day, and so I have to be mindful of both,” Turner said.

Because there is a demand to get a story up immediately, some stories may go up with mistakes.

“Fortunately or unfortunately, some things are posted immediately online in digital, and you’ll see a cleaner version later, but you will eventually see some editing done,” Turner said. “A lot of times it’s not so much about the quality of the journalism as it is doing the community service of getting that information that they could use out there immediately.”

But Turner places accuracy as “number one no matter what” because it does not do the readers any good to mislead them with incorrect information.

“It does no good to tell somebody to avoid the interstate if you misunderstood the information and it said the interstate is your only way out,” Turner said. “Accuracy is always, to me as an editor, it’s always number one.”

Print's Not Dead

Although many readers look for their news on their smartphones and computers, Turner said many readers still prefer print or enjoy having both.

“A lot of the print readers still really insist on wanting the feel of the newspaper in their hands and are very loyal and dedicated to that type of product,” Turner said.

Turner said print is still the paper’s biggest source of revenue.

“It’s very important that we maintain a solid print product because not only the readership, but also for the advertising and the economic side of the business,” Turner said.

In Turner’s opinion, newspapers aren’t dying but changing with the times.

“Some day down the road we may not be using paper, but I do think paper is still here to stay for another 10 or 20 years, but it’s a different market than what New York Times or something like that would be doing on paper,” Turner said. “I definitely think community papers though have a chance to be here for a little while longer.”

Turner said newspapers need to continue their revival of investigative and enterprise journalism.

“Hopefully a balancing act that works for the newsroom side of the business where we can keep appropriate staff to do the job,” Turner said. “With journalism, I’m sad to see fewer and fewer resources dedicated to investigative journalism. I think there has been in the last year or so a renewal on that where there has been a renewed emphasis to some degree.”

Turner said it can be hard to devote time and resources to these pieces because many things have been cut.

“So many resources have been slashed so far and that has an effect on the news that’s being told,” Turner said. “There’s less of it being shared and less investigative work, less watchdog journalism, less explanatory journalism, so we as a society miss that.”

More than 100 years of community coverage

By Rachel Sprouse

Since 1904, the Opelika-Auburn News has served the communities of Opelika and Auburn. Originally called the Opelika Daily News, the paper became the Opelika-Auburn News in 1969.

According to Rex Maynor, publisher of the OA News, the newspaper was purchased by Berkshire Hathaway from Media General in 2012, the previous owner of the paper. Although the staff sends the paper to a design center in Hickory, North Carolina, the paper has total control over what goes into the paper.

Other than the financial backing, the paper has total autonomy, according to Maynor.

“They do not dictate any content for us,” Maynor said. “Warren Buffett openly endorsed Hillary Clinton, but he didn’t tell us we had to do that.”

According to Maynor, one employee in their ad department creates a dummy of the paper, showing the layout of the ads for the next day’s edition. The editorial staff in Hickory will edit the content and make suggestions on what to make the lead stories and what sidebars to include.

At 11 p.m. each day, the team in Hickory will send back the paper for the editors to look at, according to Maynor. This allows the editors to catch mistakes and double check their work.

“One year Auburn beats Alabama in the Iron Bowl, and the paper the next day said ‘Auburn beats Alabama, Roll Tide Roll,’” Maynor said. “If our editors hadn’t had caught that, we would have looked like total idiots the next day when our paper went out.”

The paper’s print circulation is 12,000 Monday through Friday and 12,500 on Sunday.

“When I travel, I use this, but it’s basically the full newspaper there and you can expand on it,” Maynor said.

Readers can access current and previous issues of the paper by purchasing an all-access pass, which gives them the print edition and allows them to access any digital content the paper provides.

Maynor said he encourages readers to do the all access option so they can view everything the paper provides, from the daily news to their Auburn University sports website.

Maynor and Troy Turner, editor of the OA News, both encourage employees not to hold news. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, newspapers would hold news so it could be in the next day’s edition. But in today’s digital age Maynor said they will put a story up on social media and their website.

“Some companies will say they’re digital first, some companies will say they’re print first, [but] I say we’re going to be customer first,” Maynor said.

Two months ago, there was a hostage situation on the interstate. Maynor said the staff was putting information up immediately because they felt like they could minimize harm.

“We felt like...if someone saw that before they left their office, they would stay out of that area or not go through there and make themselves subject to being in the line of fire,” Maynor said. “When you have the data or information, you slug [it] out, put it out there.”

The newsroom monitors the website on a television monitor, looking at its website metrics with a program called Chartbeat, which provides statistics on real-time viewers and traffic sources for their stories.

“It grows quite a bit during football season on the weekends because of the additional 120,000 people that are in town,” Maynor said. “There’s another 15,000 to 20,000 people whom come in just to tailgate.”

After football season ends, Maynor said the print circulation drops a bit, but not in a large way.

“It drops off from 12,000 to maybe 10,500,” Maynor said.

One of the services the paper provides is an e-edition of their newspaper. This allows readers to have a digital edition of their newspaper, which can be accessed on their cell phone, computer or tablet.

Readers can access the newspaper if they are out of town traveling or moved away and still want to keep up on what’s happening in the town.

Matt Okarmus, digital content manager for the OA News, said it’s like feeding two beasts when it comes to planning what needs to go out. One of the beasts is the website.

Okarmus said he uses Chartbeat to see which stories are doing well on the website and which ones to move around to gain more traffic.

“You have to make sure there’s fresh content on the website, and even if you don’t necessarily have fresh content, the website needs to look fresh,” Okarmus said. “If someone comes to your site at 7 a.m., your site should look different if they come in at 3 p.m.”

The other beast Okarmus said he has to feed is social media, in particular, Facebook. Okarmus said he thinks Facebook is the top social media referral app for stories.

One of the things Okarmus has to balance is how much time he spends engaging with the digital audience.

Matt Okarmus, digital content manager of the Opelika-Auburn News

Rex Maynor, publisher of the Opelika-Auburn News

“Engagement is only going to take you so far in terms of bringing people to your site and putting in numbers,” Okarmus said. “But at the same time, it’s important that people know these aren’t just robots and the stuff you’re doing is actual people.”

The OA News has eight reporters, including the editor and news editor, listed on their newsroom staff page, but 45 employees listed on their full staff page.

Lindy Oller, reporter, focuses on community news and the crime beat.

Oller starts her day by reading police reports and calling sources for leads on stories or following up on interviews. She said the Smiths Station community seems to like her coverage of their area.

“They generally didn’t get a whole lot of feedback in previous years, so it was nice for someone to report on what they do there,” Oller said.

Oller said one of the challenges of her job is having sources drop out last minute for an interview. Sources can get sick, have a change of schedule or change their mind about being interviewed, according to Oller.

“We like to plan out our stuff days in advance,” Oller said. “Just to have a story fall through, you have to pick up the pieces and find more stories.”

But there are always more stories to be found. The OA News covers everything in Auburn and Opelika, from high school sports to the SEC, from Auburn University speakers to city council meetings.

Lindy Oller, reporter for the Opelika-Auburn News

(Don't) Stop the Presses

By Rachel Sprouse

Unknown Track - Unknown Artist

00:00 / 00:00

Loud mechanisms crank as they pull paper through. Splatters of ink can be found on the floors near the press. The smell of hot ink being pressed onto rolls of paper fills the room. This is the sound, the smell and the look of news being made.

Adjacent to the Opelika-Auburn News’ building is their printing press. From this facility more than 35 newspapers, including the OA News, are printed and shipped out, according to Rex Maynor, publisher of the OA News.

Rolls of birch tree paper are lined up, ready to be attached as soon as the current one runs out.

“We never stop the press,” Maynor said. “When that roll runs out, the press doesn’t stop. It auto-pastes.”

Large vats of ink sit ready to be pumped and pressed into letters to make the news. Black ink is the largest container, with the newspaper’s logo stamped onto its front.

Each tower prints about four pages, according to Maynor. After the pages are printed, pre-packs, or sections that are prepackaged like sales’ fliers, are inserted into the paper before bagging.

The paper cannot be made without the aluminum plates Angel Johnson prints.

Each newspaper page must be printed onto a large plate specifically made for each ink color. For example, the front-page plate must be printed four times so that each ink color (black, yellow, blue, red) will appear in the final product.

Johnson makes sure the plate is lined up exactly with the printer because even a centimeter of error can cause catastrophe. According to Johnson, each plate must then be shaped to fit onto the press so that the images and words on the plate can be pressed onto the paper.

Inserts for the paper, including special editions, comics and coupons, are added separately. According to Maynor, the inserts come in last, after the newspaper is printed. They use a separate machine to rapidly place the inserts inside each paper instead of individually adding the coupons and comics.

The presses never stop. With more than 35 papers to print and the OA News being a daily newspaper, the presses have not and cannot stop. There must always be another roll of paper waiting, a backup supply of ink ready to replace the current one. The news cannot stop, and neither can the presses.