Don’t mind us, we’re just Dropping In for a few stories

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/11/2010 (5431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Click on the pointers in the map above for links to stories in our Dropping In series.

WINNIPEG – What makes ‘news’ at a newspaper? It’s not so easy to explain sometimes.

The joke in the newsroom is news is ‘what happens to editors’ because the braintrust here will often assign stories on whatever we’ve noticed in the neighbourhood that day — traffic circles, for example, or frazil ice.

Generally, however, news is something ‘new,’ something that’s happening that will interest (or should interest) a large number of our readers.

Traditional news sources are community power centres like the police station, city hall, the legislature, courts, schools, etc., and the people who run them. We also have beat reporters who use their experience and community contacts — people like you — to stay on top of issues like education, health, public policy. And then there’s our best source of community news, our readers.

But for the last few months, Deputy Editor Julie Carl has been toying with something new. Call it random acts of journalism.

It’s on this page today. Here’s how it works.

We pick a reporter. Today was Melissa Martin. Then she picks a spot at random on the newsroom’s city map — we were going to use a dart, but couldn’t afford one so we’re using the prosaic and probably much safer thumbtack, And once the reporter has the spot, he or she has just a few hours to head out there and dig up whatever news is happening at the time.

It’s a way to deinstitutionalize the news; it’s a way to have some fun with the process itself; and it’s an interesting challenge to the reporters. We call it ‘Dropping In’.

Mainstream media can often get too fixated with the politicians, the power-brokers, or the police reports. With Dropping In, we’re finding stories you won’t find elsewhere. So far, we’ve written about a bakery, a young dancer at the Graffitti Gallery, a barber shop dedicated to veterans, and international students in St. Boniface.

In future we hope to video reporters as they choose their next spot, and follow the assignment on the web as they set off to find a story to tell.

Dropping In will run on page 2 on an itinerant basis. We promise not to bore you if the reporter lands in a particularly dull spot.

And if you find one of us on your street looking for a story, don’t be alarmed. The thumbtack has been stowed safely back at the office.