MONTEREY, California – So how does a US newsroom work? I’m pretty sure there is a great variety, but the smaller ones are represented pretty much by the Monterey County Herald. “Small,” of course, is relative: the Herald has a daily circulation of 25,000 (and 35,000 for its Sunday issue) for a population of 150,000, while the Mirror has a circulation of 20,000 for a population of 1.5 million. The Herald is also better equipped, with bigger offices and more computers than there are people (helped in no small measure by the recent layoffs that have been happening because of the ailing condition of the newspaper industry in this country). Despite the layoffs, there are still a lot of people in the newsroom, and they all work together to come up with a product they are all proud of.
Perhaps it’s different with the bigger papers here, but in the Herald newsroom, there is no noise, no shouting, no cursing each other, no running around to get interviews and stories done. No one bangs at the computers, no one barks out commands, no one cries in frustration. Everything is done professionally, which is not to say the place is stiff; on the contrary, everyone is warm and friendly and ready to help each other out, even a visitor like me who came here to learn and can be a nuisance and a burden to the person unlucky enough to be the guide for the day.
This easy-going pace has a lot to do with the kind of life people live here in Monterey. Here the issues have to do with development, environment, the economy, politics, and the like. There is little violence, although there is one story in which a woman was abducted and killed, and her boyfriend has now become a “person of interest.” There is also a forest fire going on somewhere, called the Chalk Fire because it is close to Chalk Peak in Monterey. But there are no daily killings, no political mudslinging, no scandalous affairs, no gossip. It’s not boring, but it is different, and the manner of coverage reflects that: there is no mad rush to get to the scene of the crime, no frantic search for a person to get his or her comments. In fact, many interviews are done by phone, and they get more information that way.
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