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Second, you or someone else at the Scoop needs to be aware of stuff that's coming up.
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As someone who works at a weekly newspaper, I can empathize with those who put together the scoop. We hear this line a lot where I work. With everything that goes on, sometimes there's things we miss. Being a weekly newspaper, we have a real need to be a community newspaper. Which means that we rely on information from the community just as much as we rely on our own information gathering.
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All of that stuff took me around an hour to look up and write in one big paragraph.
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Take into account, the people that put together the Scoop don't do this full time. They have other things to do in real life that take precedence. The Scoop is something that is heart and soul, something that does take care. But without digging from the community, there are some things that won't get in, because you can't expect the Scoop to go looking for everything.
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Third, do some proactive recruiting. Post a message in upcoming event announcement threads saying that you would like an article about the event in the City Scoop and asking someone to volunteer to write it up. Trust me on this, if someone hears, "Please send articles to the City Scoop," you're not going to get anything. On the other hand, if someone sees a post saying, "We need someone to write up a short (200-500 word) article on taking down the drop ships on Virtue, and a picture or two would be nice," you're
much more likely to get someone to spend a few minutes to write something up. Hell, I've read the thread, and there are some posts in there you could almost drop in unmodified. People
love bragging about their endeavors.
Use that!
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That's basically the same thing. You can hammer people in the head to do things as much as you want, but bottom line, it lands on the person who reads the link. I've often thought about sending in an article or writing a short story and sending it in (because, I think the serial series of Canadiens would be cool). Shout from the rafters, but it still lands on the person, and in today's world, no matter what you do, the person will still be the one to take the initiative. Often, they don't. Pessimistic? Perhaps, but it's also realistic.
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Fourth, take some time to do some actual coverage. Drop PMs to Synapse and Sunstorm asking if you can ask them some questions about background, experience, and so on. (Or at least ask Ex Libris to relay the requests.) Don't sit around waiting for them to come to you. Ask Agent Ruby some questions over in
her thread, or if you don't have the time, cull some of the answers she's already given and report on them. One thing I've considered that might be kind of cool, and I think was actually tossed around at one point, is a series of interviews with fan site owners, such as the Titan Network guys, the Badge-Hunter.com/VidiotMaps guys, the CoH Podcast people, some of the radio DJs from The Cape, Split Infinity, etc. Get out of the forum silo! As you probably know, it was announced that Tabula Rasa is shutting down, and being the same company and all, some people are concerned how or if it will affect City of Heroes. There was an interesting
thread about this in the Player's Questions forum. Tap this curiosity and write up an editorial to calm folks down and mention that City of Heroes might be getting a few more players soon.
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No comment to this, it basically will be wrapped up in final comments.
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You can't just sit around and wait for the stories to come to you, you have to
go to the stories. Drop some PMs. Ask some questions. Do some reading. Visit some other servers. Delegate stories out to other people. You don't have to take hours to do it, just a few minutes here and there.
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If they don't know of something, because no one told them, then it'll get missed. If you see something, drop the scoop a line and let them know. That way, the onus is as much on you, the reader, as it is on the Scoop to get information and articles out there. It's what being a community newspaper/ezine is all about.
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Fifth, you guys
really need to lose the "we need a week's lead time to cover stuff" line. Most events are announced, happen, and are over with within a week. You're busy. I get that. We're
all busy. I spend at least a few hours a week working on the Paragon Wiki, Forums, and Taxibots sites, plus I have a pretty time-intensive job,
plus (as hard as it is to believe) a life outside of CoH. I'm not asking that you write
War and Peace every week, and I'm sure as heck not saying that one person should be doing it all. But I guess I really just don't see the big deal in spending an hour or two among the entire Scoop staff in culling a few current events for timely coverage. Of all the stuff I referenced in my previous post, the latest among them happened Thursday afternoon. (The earliest, a week ago Friday.) I'm not criticizing that all of them weren't covered, I'm criticizing that
none of them were.
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A production like this takes time. It don't happen in a day. To produce a 24 page, broadsheet newspaper to get it ready for Monday mailout, it takes at least three days. We have a Wednesday deadline of 4:30 p.m. Sure, it could take less time, but not only am I the production manager, I'm the production department. Me, myself and I are the only ones who put all the ads and copy into the newspaper. And that's a full time job for me. For the one's who write the Scoop, this isn't a full time job. I have eight hours a day to put together a paper. Granted, there is a news guy and a sales guy to get other things in place (news articles written, ads sold, so on). For the Scoop, they maybe have two or three hours per day to work on things. It's very mentally draining to do something like that, even for two or three hours.
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I'm not saying that you have to change the world tomorrow. I'm not even saying that you ought to do every one of the items listed above, some of them might not work for you, and they're really mostly meant to illustrate my suggestions. But still, I can't help but think that the City Scoop ought to be thriving like crazy. There needs to be progress, it is supposed to be
better than it was on day one, and it's not. I'm sorry if I'm coming off like an armchair quarterback. I wish I could help out, but I already run two fan sites and I've got too many irons in the fire as it is. I can't run the thing for you, I'm not an Editor. Besides, for several months, I
did try to help out, offering my services and delivering articles, and felt quite unwelcome for my efforts. I guess I'm just frustrated still at how potential and expectations are so far beyond the current state of affairs, and I wish that someone would step up and deliver. I'm not asking for your head on a stick, or anyone else's for that matter. I
know you can do better, but you've got to want to.
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The easiest thing to do is drop them a line letting them know of an event coming up. If you know about it, great. Don't assume the Scoop does as well. Maybe they do, but chances are, maybe they don't.
I see the Scoop very much akin to a weekly community newspaper. We rely on the community, as much as they rely on us. Without the community, there is no paper. Without the CoX community, there is no Scoop.
