On Monday, a New Yorker journeyed home from spring break while on assignment for The (Batavia, New York) Daily News.
“My name is Audrey Wolinski,” she wrote. “I am 9 years old, I live in Perry, and go to school at Warsaw Elementary. I was on vacation in Florida and flying back on the eclipse day. At the end of the plane ride I talked to my pilot and I asked him about the eclipse.”
The nine-year-old was one of two cub reporters who helped The Daily News cover the eclipse on Monday.
The publication's coverage area includes four counties and more than 2,100 square miles, said Batavia Newspapers Corp. regional editor Ben Beagle.
And all of those counties were in the path of the eclipse’s totality.
The paper’s editorial staff is about a dozen total. Some were on vacation this week, and the publication hoped to get the community involved in the coverage. Building off of a database of contacts cultivated through annual special sections on graduates and students entering the military, the paper’s spring coverage of high school musical season and a newer “teen of the week” feature, staff reached out to area schools in search of cub reporters who wanted to help cover the big day.
They heard back from six students, Beagle said, and got submissions on Monday from two. He suspects turnout was a little lower thanks to it being the week before spring break and the rather cloudy weather in most of the coverage area.
“We were really happy with the result we got,” he said. “We had no idea what to expect.”
The students’ voices offered a freshness, Beagle said, that adults might miss from the experience.
“That Audrey thought to interview the pilot of the plane she was flying home in was an unexpected touch, but one that I think showed her excitement at sharing the story of the eclipse.”
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, he said, but engaging with their community is a regular and necessary part of the community journalism they practice. That includes hearing from unhappy readers in the dairy aisle at the grocery store sometimes. And this week, it included working with a couple local kids.
Beagle was at a park watching the eclipse with his family, and despite the clouds, he said, “when that period of totality came, that was like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.”
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