In late October, I got a text from my friend Hannah Wise.
“Hiiiiii I have a thing you need to know about,” wrote The New York Times social strategy editor. I first met Wise in 2016 when I visited The Dallas Morning News, where she worked then, to write about how that newsroom was transforming. Wise went on to be part of Poynter’s Women’s Leadership Academy, and became a (smarter, younger, cooler) friend of mine.
Wise was texting from Kansas, where she went to school, and more specifically from Eudora, Kansas, where she was having lunch with two student reporters and a professor/editor who’d recently launched an online news site in a town that hadn’t had news for years.
“It’s so small,” she texted, “but I’m at lunch with them and people came up to talk to them and say how grateful they are.”
“Amazing!!!” I wrote back. “Sounds like a story!”
And it sure was.
Eudora, Kansas, is about 15 minutes from Lawrence and the University of Kansas. It’s also a place that lost its weekly newspaper in 2009, got an online site in 2010, and lost that in 2015.
This year, Eudora started to get news back with the launch of The Eudora Times, a project that turns student journalists into local reporters.
Eudora’s the kind of place where everyone knows each other, said senior Riley Wilson, and where people remember your name.
It’s also the kind of place, said junior Lucie Krisman, where people seem glad to have news again.
You can read more about The Eudora Times here.
From left, Eudora Times reporters Riley Wilson and Lucie Krisman with New York Times social strategy editor Hannah Wise. (Submitted photo)
While you’re here:
That’s it for me!
See you next week!
|
