The Daily Citizen, Dalton, GA

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February 1, 2012

Column: Class Acts, school news and keeping up on the education beat

Rachel Brown

When I was in journalism school, my professors reminded us that most people get their day of fame in a newspaper only twice in their lives — once in the birth announcements and once in the obituaries.

At a community newspaper like The Daily Citizen, we like to recognize you a little more often. One way we do that is by printing photos, stories and other tidbits about all the achievements of local students.

As the education reporter, I cover 44 public schools, two local colleges, several small private and parochial schools, and various activities by local home schooling families. There’s no way I could even begin to cover everything that happens in these schools, so I depend on teachers, parents and others in the know to write to me about goings-on that, while important, wouldn’t make the front page of the paper in our daily coverage.

They definitely keep the news coming!

From Jan. 25 to Tuesday, I received 20 emails with requests for publication and several more requests through hard copies of photos and announcements that enthusiastic parents and educators dropped off at the office. That collection doesn’t even count the requests handled by others in the newsroom, nor the ongoing requests from Whitfield County Schools and Dalton Public Schools to publish the stories and photos they place on their school blogs (wcschools.drupalgardens.com and dpsschools.wordpress.com). It’s also in addition to the school news pages we publish for several local high schools every month.

We also publish “Class Acts,” a periodic article that features dean’s list and president’s list announcements as we receive them from local colleges. The feature usually runs in the Sunday or Monday edition and typically includes the names of dozens of students.

Yep, we get a lot of school news, and we love it.

Unfortunately, we don’t have space for it all. So we developed a blog dedicated to school news on our website, www.daltonnow.com. You can find it under the Education tab on the left side of the home page. The blog is where we post anything we can’t get in the paper reasonably quickly. It’s usually updated every few days.

It’s great when educators send their own articles and photos for events and recognitions after the fact. It’s even better when they coordinate with us beforehand. Often, someone in the newsroom can provide tips on the right camera settings or the information you need to provide before we can publish your submission.

We might just decide to give you even more prominent coverage by coming out to the event ourselves.

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.



Rachel Brown covers education for The Daily Citizen. She can be reached at (706) 272-7714 or rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com.

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