Web project seeks stories from the Main Street near you

NOTE: This post is copied from my other blog, Placecasting.blogspot.com.

(If I'm writing about placecasting, maybe this is placeumentary?)

Main Street is NOT the most popular street name in the U.S. (#1 is actually Second Street...go figure), but is IS right up there on the list. And how many times have we heard politicians and pundits refer to "Main Street America" and "Main Street Values"?

The creators of Mapping Main Street heard that, too, and they wanted to find out just what Main Street America looks like and sounds like. Turns out there are over 10,000 answers to that questions...and these folks are going to visit each one. At least, they'll visit them with our help. MMS is asking for your stories, photos or videos about a Main Street near you. Not sure if your town has one? There's a search box on the Mapping Main Street Web site that will find the Main Streets nearest you.


What a great idea! I'm excited to see such a down-to-earth emphasis on flyover country. I hope this project gets attention from users and the media (maybe politicians, too??).

Now I wonder why the project isn't asking for audio submissions as well. They have a good way of uploading photos and videos. So why not audio? We know they respect audio as a medium...the creators are radio producers AND there's a great companion series of radio stories that launched yesterday on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. The story is about Main Street in Chattanooga, TN, which -- at least in parts -- is a popular place to pick up drugs and prostitutes. The story talks with the people who live and "work" on Main Street and trust me, these aren't the folks politicians are probably talking about.

I may go hunting for stories along the Main Street in Minneapolis, which is tucked away along the riverfront across from downtown...it is NOT a major street.

Speaking of flyover...mail delivery in Idaho

 

The main photo on The New York Times Web site isn't usually from flyover country.

Today, it is. And it's about a guy who flies over it all the time. It's not a big news story...in fact, I heard it on NPR a few weeks ago ...but it's about the way some people live between the coasts.  In this case, it's about people who live VERY isolated lives in the mountains and valleys of Idaho.  Some are so isolated, that the weekly visit from the mailman is the only regular company they keep.

But the Postal Service recently tried to shut down the mail-by-plane service as a cost-saving venture.  For some reason -- protests from residents or the state's small congressional delegation or because of bad PR -- the new postmaster reversed the decision.

This story begins in Washington as a policy story, but by the end it paints a nice picture of the people in this remote part of the country -- not as curiosities, but as people passionate about their corner of the outdoors -- and what's more, it also shows them as neighbors: giving vegetables to Ray Arnold, the pilot/mailman, to pass along to the next people on his route.

10 years later

Columbine is a cultural buzzword now.  But it's also a place.

Ten years after two students killed 12 people at Columbine High School in Colorado, the gun control debate seems little changed.  But the city where the crimes took place is forever changed.

I went searching for place-based journalism on public radio stations, because I know there's a LOT of good work being done.  I came across the popular Colorado Matters program and discovered that last month, they aired a massive series of reports pegged to the 10 year anniversary of the shootings.  

The interviews and stories cover such universal topics as faith, family, recovery and public policy.  But at their core is one event in one place.  I especially like the interview with the funeral home director who had to arrange services for seven of the 12 people killed.

I wish Colorado Maters had a better Web page to organize this impressive body of work.  There is a sentence, maybe two, about each story and after that you're left to click on the audio link and listen for an unknown period of time (translating radio to Web is hard...but essential...and that's a different topic for a different blog).  Still, it's worth taking a listen to some of these pieces.

One of mine

One reason I started this blog is because I love doing stories strongly rooted in place, but I don't often get to. Well, here's an example of one my show pulled off last week.

As a producer, my voice isn't on the radio very often, but I'm working behind the scenes to mold interviews into conversations that are easy for busy listeners to hear and remember. Most of these are about today's news stories and we record them over the phone. But I always love getting the chance to take our microphones out of the studio to let the listeners hear stories about a particular place.

This week it was White Bear Lake, Minnesota. If you're from here, you know that the Walleye Fishing Opener is the unofficial start of summer in Minnesota. The Opener was on WBL this year. But I don't care much about fish and neither does our afternoon host, Tom Crann. So we went to the shores of White Bear to hear about its history from the head of the town's historical society. Turns out the lake used to be a major destination for St. Paul residents to spend a summer or a raucous weekend.

That was 100 years ago. It has since turned into the quiet bedroom community most of our listeners think of today. So in this interview , I wanted to give the listeners a chance to imagine the grand hotels, the noisy trains and the squeals from the amusement park that made this city much more fun back then than any fishing party could make it now.

This is place-based journalism, edited for a broad audience. But it would have been easy to edit this 32 minute interview in a different way, so it would apply specifically to someone standing on the shore line. "See that clump of trees straight across the water? That's where the roller coaster used to be. Turn around and look at the white house with the porch. In 1890, that's where the Williams House stood. Its glamorous summer visitors were the talk of the whole town. Meanwhile, the ground beneath your feet was the croquet yard."

There are historic photos from this time period at our show's Web site. In a podcast, though, the photos could be part of the presentation. You could compare what you're seeing now to the image from 100 years earlier. I've seen some walking tours use this "slide show"technique even as the audio is playing, though I don't currently know how to pull it off.


P.S. -- This post is mostly copied from my other blog, Placecasting. But it applied to both of these similar interests.

Found: America's armpit

This is one of the most memorable, if irreverent, pieces of place-based journalism I've ever read.  Reverence is not a requirement of good place-based reporting.  Honesty, color and voice are all more important and this 2001 Washington Post story about the town of Battle Mountain, Nevada includes all of those elements.

In early 2001, the Washington Post asked readers to send in their nominations for the "armpit of America".  Humor columnist Gene Weingarten was dispatched to pick the winner.  He was ready to skewer.  Then, September 11 happened and the wave of coast-to-coast patriotism made poking fun at one part of a suddenly-united country less tasteful.  As Weingarten puts it: "The zeitgeist had shifted. Snide was out."

In general, it bugs me when east coast reporters travel to fly-over country to "discover the real America."  It's like they're writing about their trip to the zoo (and actually often involves descriptions of the animals they see along the way).

But in this story, the completeness of the author's research and his interaction with locals who, by and large embrace his armpit theory, lend an authenticity and authority to the story.  

The story's thesis is this:

Take a small town, remove any trace of history, character, or charm. Allow nothing with any redeeming qualities within city limits -- this includes food, motel beds, service personnel. Then place this pathetic assemblage of ghastly buildings and nasty people on a freeway in the midst of a harsh, uninviting wilderness, far enough from the nearest city to be inconvenient, but not so far for it to develop a character of its own. You now have created Battle Mountain, Nevada.

Enough said.  Go read it.

The photos in the Post's magazine were also wonderful, though sadly they don't accompany the archived article on Web.

Following a new farm family

Agriculture and farm culture are rarely presented in national media, partly because those media are based so far away from farm country. Part of what I'm keeping my eye out for is compelling journalism about agricultural America.

This on-going project from the Omaha World-Herald follows Brian and Kelly Smith, a "quirky, earth-conscious 30-something couple" transitioning from backyard gardening to all-out farming.

they’ve moved their family — three boys 9 or younger, a dog and two cats — from a house in Benson to a rented farm on the metro area’s northwestern edge.
They call it Black Sheep Farms — a nod to the alternative path they have chosen and the chemical-free produce they’re trying to grow with help from investors who will share the work and the harvest in what’s known as a CSA (community supported agriculture) venture.

The paper will track the family's progress, even as the family does on its own CSA blog.

It's a great idea for a newspaper story, with obvious on-line tie-ins like a great slideshow. I'm curious to see what elements of this family's major transition the writers highlight over the life of the project. Starting a successful CSA business is hard work. So is home schooling 3 kids. Weather, economics, climate, community and family will all become part of this story.

Bats!

"The world's largest urban bat population" lives under a bridge in downtown Austin, Texas. They've become a big tourist attraction and the Austin American Statesman newspaper has a slick, simple Flash presentation on its Web site explaining the phenomenon.

The "bat viewing times" phone number up in the cornor is a nice idea that makes it possible for viewers to take the next step. It's sponsored by a "bat boat tour" company, but eventually tells you just when to stop by the bridge to see the little guys take flight.