Fourth year Thompson Rivers University student Jenifer Norwell recently completed a research project examining how people in rural northern communities acquire their news.
She interviewed residents from Granisle, Hazelton and New Hazelton. All three towns are incorporated, but have populations under 1,000 people. These places also don't have local newspapers.
"Every single person I interviewed without fail told me that they got at least some of their local news from word of mouth," said Norwell. She was also surprised to learn that people in these places don't utilize the Internet as much as she originally thought.
In order to better cover rural communities, journalists need to tap into their news circuits. Part of this is building a trust relationship with people in these communities before something terrible happens.
This way, "You're not calling up someone as sort of like a salacious journalist looking for all the blood, guts and gore of a community," she said, "You're calling as someone who cares about the community and knows about the community."
See more in the Citizen.
