About the Mahomet Daily
It’s in print, on the television, on the internet, in your social media feed.
News comes from a freedom of information for the people. It’s birthed from a free press that is backed by free expression. It is rarely praised, yet essential.
News has been my life and breath since 2008. I can’t say that I even thought about being a journalist; I just knew that I enjoy people, like to tell stories and want to share wonder with the world.
When I became the owner of the Mahomet Daily in 2013, a good friend, whose husband owned a business for many years, told me to come up with a mission statement and to always stick to that mission statement, no matter what.
And so, after a little thought, I decided that the mission for the Mahomet Daily would be to “Build Community.” In life, all I really want to do is to bring people together.
In 2013, the vision of “build community” with a news organization was innocent.
Like many other Americans, I looked at the news as a marketing tool. I thought reporters should tell people about events, tell them what happens at meetings, share a few stories of businesses and people and everyone will live happily ever after.
Running the Mahomet Daily publication really could be a very easy job.
There are a number of events that happen in this community on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. For some time, I operated the publication just giving readers the information, regurgitating what was presented at board meetings, talking to a new business owner, showcasing a local gardener, giving a festival committee member their moment to shine, and in doing such, the town was as shimmery as its leaders wanted it to be.
Some people would call this news. Some people would call this community.
But in every system, in every town, in every school, in every moment there are different stories happening. Sometimes, there is information, important information that is not presented to the public. Or there is misinformation. There are moments when knowledgeable voices are not heard by the powers that be. Then there are groups of people, and sometimes individuals, who are underserved and overlooked.
Any journalist will tell you that there is always more to know, there is always the unseen, and we have a daily decision on what questions to ask and what information we publish.
We live in a town (it’s like many other small towns) where reporters have only asked questions based on who, what, when or where. That changed with the Mahomet Daily. There was no longer a choice between gathering information, telling the highlight stories, and asking why and how.
I care about your ideas, your hearts, your visions and even your voice. I want to and have celebrated all of our wonderfulness with you. I have also sat with you on the phone, listening to your concerns and felt what you are feeling.
A news organization can and should do both. A healthy community can handle, see and work on both.
I truly believe that this simple notion has caused skepticism in news organizations today.
In an Ohio paper in the 1920’s, there is a story about my great grandmother, Gladys Stillwell. She had a tea gathering in her home. A reporter went to the event and collected information on who was there, what the decorations looked like and what food was served, when the pastor showed up and which women stayed to clean up. The papers were an actual recount of a day’s time in any community. Today this kind of reporting would be considered gossip.
But what it did was paint an accurate picture of a people’s common life together.
Fast forward to February 2020; I was driving in the early hours of the day, listening to the radio. The newscaster came on, reporting that there were riots in Hong Kong, giving a 15-second quip of what happened overnight.
Sometimes I think that in 100 years people who want to know who we really are will just think that we are a bunch of angry mobsters who fight all the time. Yes, there were riots in Hong Kong, but during that day, there was probably a tea that we chose not to record.
I have also learned that readers have a responsibility.
It has been interesting to see that in these small towns that we serve, there is a push towards “good” news, news that makes a town and people look in a way they see themselves. It is, really, their best marketing tool.
But consumers of news interact with, share and promote news stories that they also deem polarizing more so than they interact with, share and promote news that they deem is a mirror of who they are.
As journalists we have a responsibility to reflect both the good and the bad of a people within each publication. People want to see themselves reflected in the stories that are told, but they also want to be informed.
The work that journalists do is the first line of history. It is their job to paint an accurate and complete picture for those who want to be educated in this life today and representative for those in the future.
Of course, with time, I’ve also gained insight. I’ve learned that community isn’t just the shiny. Community comes from hard work. It comes from truth and empathy. It comes from priority and vision. And news organizations can help to capture that conversation, disperse it, facilitate it so that people can move forward in community together.
Dani Tietz
-owner, Mahomet Daily