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Sarcastic ad gets sources to talk on the record

Reporter John Faucher fishing behind the Press-Star office  in New London, Wis. (Photo by Adam Campbell)

Off the Record

Next week I want to have a newspaper with blank pages and call it all off the record.

Eventually people spoke on the record, but they expected Faucher to print only their side of the story because they went to high school together. He emphasized the facts to his friends and explained he wouldn’t be swayed for a story, Faucher said.

“In many ways it’s more challenging to be a reporter in the town you grew up in.” 

However, Faucher has found the upside to newspaper reporting on the Wolf River, where he keeps a boathouse behind the newspaper during the summer. 

“It was the first job I had where I could take my boat to work,” Faucher said with a smile.

Readers appreciate his outdoor news because he himself fishes the Wolf while writing stories. Plus, there’s more time available to write feature articles at a weekly. A reporter could spend a year observing Sand Hill cranes for a feature story on their habitat, life and behaviors, if he wanted.

Faucher earns an annual salary of approximately $20,000, and plans to voluntarily increase his time at the newspaper to 70 hours a week. He hopes to reduce editing mistakes by creating pride in the newspaper. He gave black hats with the Press-Star logo to the staff to make them more accountable to readers.

“I want to see how much better we can make this paper look,” he said.

There is a correlation between profits and workload. According to the News Crossroads survey, 67 percent reported higher profits and higher workloads. Yet salary change isn't keeping pace: 48 percent of weekly newspaper journalists said their salary change was slower than the rate of inflation. 

When a paper doesn't have a production staff, it's bound to make some editing mistakes. Last year Faucher and Sheli Strunc edited the newspaper without a production staff. The stories Strunc proofread Wednesday mornings were pasted by the afternoon, but Faucher was writing stories at night without a proofreader in the newsroom.

Mistakes in the newspaper could be found in the opinion section on page two of the Press-Star. The Aug. 3, 2001 issue had two erroneous headlines: 

“Is wanting to shoot someone Polically Correct?”

“New London Public Schools ain’t bad all that bad!”

Today, proofreading is the last thing finished, even if it means Faucher calling someone to help stay up until 3 a.m. fixing editing errors. Plus, the paper hired another production employee, which makes four people, with Strunc, looking through the copy.

Newspapers are hiring more staff to compensate for workload. Of the weekly newspaper journalists polled, 42 percent said there are more people working at their newspaper since they started working there. Newspapers are hiring production staff and press support and laying off editorial employees, said Bill Haupt, former publisher of the The Lodi Enterprise.

Faucher never thought of becoming a reporter until he read a Press-Star ad. He had two semesters of journalism training in college and was eager to try something new. His first story was the termination of the Hortonville fire and police chief. He and publisher Bill Melendes compared city council notes and Faucher wrote the story for that week’s edition, Faucher said. 

“He felt I did an accurate job, so he hired me.”

Faucher continues to write for the Press-Star while fishing in his boathouse in downtown New London. Although he doesn’t earn as much money as he once had liked, he said simply having a job he enjoyed was enough to live by. He thinks about ideas for the next issue of the newspaper while dropping off the last issue to the printer Thursday mornings. It’s a refreshing week-to-week cycle, Faucher said.

“I hate the deadline,” he said. “But there’s nothing more productive than the last minute.”

Note: The Press-Star is a member of Add-Inc. and Journal Communications.