Lead with local
When local stories are national, let’s support the newsrooms already embedded in communities
We’re reporters and editors. It’s in our nature to want to report first-hand.
So, of course, when ICE agents possibly descend on Lewiston and Portland, Maine, we want to send our own staff from our own outlets, even when our outlets are nowhere near Maine, have no connection to Maine, and don’t understand anything about life in Maine.
It’s not wrong to do this. Reporters should be reporting. But what you might not know about Maine is that it has a vibrant news ecosystem.
Before you send your reporters out to cover ICE in Maine or whatever community reaction happens, consider how your newsroom can connect and support the newsrooms already covering the situation on the ground.
In Lewiston, the Sun Journal, which dates its origin to 1847, is already covering the story locally — just as the paper did during the Oct. 2023 mass shooting that rocked the city and took 18 of its resident’s lives.
Teaming up with the Portland Press Harold, the papers produced a joint article: Lewiston, Portland leaders brace for possible wave of immigration enforcement.
Sun Journal staff reporter Joe Charpentier and Press Harold staff reporter Andrew Rice wrote: Officials and immigration advocates in Portland and Lewiston — Maine’s two biggest and most diverse cities — are bracing for a possible U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that could launch as early as next week, although nothing has been confirmed by federal authorities.
Does this article leave you with lingering questions? Did this story change your way of thinking? We want to know.
Meanwhile, Maine Public statehouse correspondent Kevin Miller took the lead for the state public media affiliate, working with All Things Considered host Ari Snider, who grew up in Maine.
Other communities in Maine also have their reporters covering the story. The award-winning Bangor Daily News put its investigative reporter Sawyer Loftus on the story, who produced two articles yesterday: Janet Mills to ICE: Aggressive tactics are
and not welcome
in MainePortland and Lewiston brace for heavy immigration enforcement in the next week.
These reporters already know their communities. Their communities already trust them. They speak the local language. This is how we build better trust in news.
I’m not saying don’t send your reporters to Maine. But wouldn’t we be better off if we learned to support each other?
I’ve often said that all news is local — even national news.
What’s more national than this story of ICE going to different cities and towns? Rather than national reporters hopping from one city to the next, wouldn’t it be better to work with the reporters already there and work to get the story out by connecting the dots in the national press? Could national newsrooms surge resources and funding to these newsrooms rather than surge reporters to these cities and towns?
How can we best cover these national local stories? By using the reporters already embedded in the community and already on the ground.
Stacy Kess is the chief of editorial and accessibility for Equal Access Public Media. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at papers across the U.S. Find her on Bluesky at @stacykess.
This in an opinion. While this piece contains factual information, it is the author’s point of view.