Feels good to be back in trenches, chasing facts, knocking out stories

By Michelle C. Nedved

for a decade and fully waives the B&O tax on publishers. It’s expected to that the exemption will cost the state, and save publishers, about $1 million a year.

With the recent resignation of half of our two-person newsroom, and now our remaining editor on a month’s long vacation in Europe, I’ve been back in the field, covering city council and school board meetings, heading out to take photos of construction projects and high school sports, cleaning up re-writes and following up on police reports. It feels good.

Back when I was reporter, my absolute favorite kind of story was meeting coverage.

I know, I sound like a geek.

But I loved nothing more than going to a city council meeting on a Monday night and writing the play-by-play on Tuesday’s press day. I recently attended a Priest River city council meeting, a beat I covered for 15 years before I became publisher. I still know all the players. They asked where I’ve been and welcomed me back. It brought back memories of my 20s, before a husband and kids, when I lived in a single-wide trailer on the bank of the Pend Oreille River.

I’m glad I can still do it. It kind of feels like riding a bike. Muscle memory kicks in, and the lede forms in my head as I’m driving back home from the meeting.

I remember Fred Willenbrock, a former WNPA president and the then-owner/publisher of The Miner who hired me, telling me when I was 22 years old, how to start forming the story in my head right away.

So many changes have occurred in the last couple of decades in this industry. Social media, “fake news,” loss of trust in institutions, massive declines in print advertising. You know. You’re there.

But some things don’t change. Chasing the story, covering the beat, real people doing real things, follow the money. It’s in our blood. And I plan on doing this for the rest of my working life.

And with that in mind, I’m going to end this here. I just found out there was an attempted abduction down the street yesterday, and a dead body found at the gas station over the weekend. Lots of stories to run down.

Michelle C. Nedved is publisher of the Newport Miner and this year’s WNPA president.