From Gossips to a Small town paper; Challenges of survival

Originating from country where having access to newspaper is a matter of luxury, it was exhilarating to learn that independent newspaper existed in a village of USA. It was more fascinating to learn that the paper’s history was longer than that of the place.

Nestled among the foothills of beautiful Mt. Rainier, Eatonville enjoys a small town charm and distinctive

natural beauty. The paper has a long standing history like the Mt. Rainier. The Eatonville Dispatch has been the voice of South Pierce County since 1893. While, the town of Eatonville was incorporated in 1909.

Our team was lucky to meet the three full time staffs of The Dispatch who are struggling hard to get the paper going. We were able to hear the stories from persons who were involved in the editorial, marketing and the office operation.

The current editor shared about the challenges of transforming the paper from the local Gossip paper to objective paper. It was interesting to learn how the paper had a surviving history of more than 121 years though it was a gossip paper. It was also interesting to learn how ‘gossip’ sales throughout the world.

The experience from the marketing personnel of the paper who faces trouble convincing the advertisers about the tangible changes in the sales was very familiar to what I hear in my home country. It was amazing to know despite that, there are several local business that still advertise.

The revenue model of the paper was new for me. The paper is owned by the law firm which has taken ownership of similar local newspaper from the other parts of the state to publish the legal notices. I never see such sight back at home. It was good to know that legal notices make a good business for the paper.

It was also exciting to learn that how doing journalism in a small-town paper is difficult. People know every other person of the town personally and it becomes hard to write about the person whom we know personally.

It was also wonderful to see 1000 subscribers of the paper in a town which has around 2,815 residents. It was also insightful to learn that the majority of these subscribers are people from the older generation who actually grew up with the paper.

Like all the papers around the world it was good to learn that the paper has its unique strategies to cope up with the changing media landscape and increase its young readership.

Gun violence has foreign visitors fearful of US

Years ago, on a long distance train ride in India, I asked a young man sitting next to me if he’d ever traveled to the United States. He mentioned a 48-hour layover in Los Angeles so I inquired about his sightseeing–imagining a whirlwind tour of the La Brea Tar Pits and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“I stayed in the airport,” he said, “I was afraid of getting shot.”

This very violent month in Seattle has me remembering that conversation. I’ve been preparing to teach a class about American journalism to a group of South Asian students visiting the University of Washington.

In the three weeks it’s taken me to finalize my syllabus two young men were shot and killed on Capitol Hill (one of them, Dwone Anderson-Young, was a recent graduate of the UW Department of Communication where I teach), a shooter at Seattle Pacific University killed one student and wounded two more and a man was arrested for threatening to shoot women on the UW campus.

As all this horror hit the news I wondered about the international students arriving this week to start their program:  Did they know about these recent tragedies? Were they scared? What did they think about coming to a country where the threat of gun violence seems increasingly normal?

“We read about it in the news and my mother freaked out,” says Medha Kohli, 19, of India, referring to the SPU shooting, “We knew that shootings are pretty common at universities in America but then it was happening in Seattle that was very scary for my mother.”

Visiting students from South Asia — seen here visiting The Seattle Times — say the US’s reputation for mass shootings looms large in their home countries. (Photo by Catherine Cheng)

Kohli and her classmates have grown up watching American school shootings on TV and they casually rehashed some of the bigger ones (“the one with the Kindergarten students,” “Adam Lanza,” “Virginia Tech”) while navigating new American breakfast foods (the tater tots are popular, the reconstituted scrambled eggs are not).

There are a lot of stereotypes about guns in America clearly perpetuated by Hollywood, from the ubiquitous handgun in the bedside drawer (one student, from Nepal, assumes all Americans have one of these) to references to “cowboy movies.”

But mostly there’s genuine confusion about why guns are so easy to access in the United States.

“We don’t see these kinds of things happen in South Asian countries,” says Dipendra K.C., 24, of Nepal–a country where guns are tightly controlled by the government.

There’s a moment of thought before his classmate, Simran Bhui, 20, of India, pipes up to add, “We have other kinds of terrorism.”

Terrorism?

Bhui’s use of the word to describe gun violence in America seemed extreme. But it got me thinking about how our sense of fear and awareness of risk is heightened when traveling to a foreign country. It also got me wondering if I’ve become desensitized to violence in my own country.

Maybe Americans are being terrorized by gun violence.

President Obama visits victims of the 2012 movie theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado. (Photo by Pete Souza / The White House)

“You do think of it,” says Thilini Kahandawaarachchi, 31, of Sri Lanka describing her decision to become a graduate student of International Studies at the University of Washington, “It has happened in so many universities, in so many schools and it keeps on happening…So it’s one of the things that are talked about.”

UW recruiters often hear about concerns over guns in America when in other countries says Kim Lovaas, Associate Director for International Admissions at The UW.

“Safety and gun violence is a general question, especially in countries where guns are outlawed,” says Lovaas, “I’ve been doing this 14 years and have probably been asked [about this] every time.”

Lovass is quick to point out — to me and to prospective students — that violent crime on the UW campus is low and that students should be more concerned with theft.

The South Asian students I spoke with had mixed opinions regarding whether or not the threat of gun violence would color their time to the U.S.

But K.C. says it won’t be on his mind at all.

“I won’t be thinking about it because I’m not used to the idea that someone will suddenly come up to me and shoot me,” he explains.

Hopefully someday American students will be able to say the same.

(This article was authored by Sarah Stuteville for Seattle Globalist)

World Bank Live: Google Hangout: Coding Your Way to Opportunity

Date: Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Time: 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. ET (11:00 – 12:00 GMT or convert time)
Location: Online 

On June 4th, join a panel of tech and youth leaders from Sri Lanka and Nepal to discuss how young people can code their way to opportunity in South Asia. In this live Google Hangout. the panel will also take questions about the World Bank - Microsoft regional grant competition "Coding Your Way to Opportunity".

Last month, the World Bank and Microsoft launched a call for proposals for a South Asia Regional Grant Competition titled: “Coding Your Way to Opportunity” in Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The regional grant competition invites youth-led initiatives and organizations to showcase fresh, innovative ideas that bridge the existing coding gap in South Asia between those who have access to the gaining skills they need to be successful and those who do not. Learning to code can propel job creation and development, and boost shared prosperity In South Asia and other regions, coding and computing have become essential and desirable job skills. Jointly implemented by the World Bank and Microsoft, the competition aims to enable youth to expand coding knowledge amongst their peers, in turn helping them secure gainful employment.

The program will be organized in four South Asian countries – Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Each country will win one grant of at least US $10,000 to carry out an innovative project, one year in duration.

Click here to learn more about the program.

(This article originally appeared in World Bank Live)