This is not a sign that "news organizations should try harder" (quoting another comment).<p>It's a sign that good local news is not profitable to produce — e.g. a failure of the free market to provide a critical public good. As a corollary, it's a sign that a prerequisite of functional democracy is failing.<p>One potential solution is directly government funded news, but then the government can control the news, which is a potentially worse scenario!<p>A more effective alternative might be a universal tax rebate of say $100, which can only be allocated to news organizations. (though of course there are lots fiddly details to make this actually work)
Her name is <i>Hilde</i>? The same as the heroine Hilde Johnson in the greatest movie about journalism (yes, that includes All The President's Men IMHO), <i>His Girl Friday</i>? You couldn't ask for better journalism parents :).<p>BTW <i>His Girl Friday</i>, directed by Howard Hawks, is not only one of the best movies of its era, it is one of the few great movies that are truly in the public domain. You can watch it on Internet Archive:<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/his_girl_friday" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/his_girl_friday</a>
These articles are all so clichéd aimed straight at the masses.<p>A child seems to be doing something only an adult could do and better even! Stupid adults, kids showed them.<p>There exists an adult who's mean about it! OMG get out the pitchforks we get to be self righteous, the world is beating on a child.<p>Why can't we take things as they are. It's very cool she's writing stories. It's an interesting slant for her readers that she's a child. Leave it at that.
When a 9 year old consistently does your job better and more thoroughly than you do purely out of enjoyment maybe it's a sign that you should try harder.
That's super neat! It's really unfortunate people are being so negative. Sometimes the anonymous aspect of the internet, while overall a good thing, can lead to people being critical of others for no reason at all.
<i>“Because she’s the only one doing community news, she’s developed sources who trust her to cover the news. One of her sources contacted her, and she was able to confirm it with law enforcement. She knocked on every door, like she’d seen me do with the Daily News. There were no other reporters there.”</i><p>Old school journalism. Ask questions, check with sources, get independent confirmation, write it up. Woodward and Bernstein had to get confirmation for three different independent sources before the Washington Post would run their major story that took the President down.
Reminds me of the Wonder Showzen segments called "Beat Kids"
<a href="https://youtu.be/IwvrGHsjD7g" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/IwvrGHsjD7g</a>
I'm not sure whether being 9 makes her more vulnerable to manipulation by figures who want to make themselves look good in the news, or less. It's certainly <i>different</i>, ie unlikely to have the same sorts of biases as other reporters, which can be quite valuable.
Like: little girl already takes something that serious and works hard on it.<p>Not like: Hard to believe that a 9 year old kid gets these ideas really by herself. I worry a little that her father is pushing her too much. Also investigating murders is maybe not something a child should do.<p>Not understand: Why is it such a big deal that someone reported something first? Never really got behind why that's a deal. Maybe this way you can understand your "job" more as a "game"? I don't see people switching from newspaper/blog number one to newspaper/blog number two, because number two reported one story faster.
The article available without a paywall on this news site:<p><a href="http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2016/apr/05/9-year-old-reporter-breaks-crime-news-posts-videos/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2016/apr/05/9-year-old-repo...</a>
What a promising young woman, I'm sure her parents are very proud! Sadly, it's not very hard to beat the local paper anymore. Now that we consume most of our news online for free, media companies rely entirely on ad revenue and simply can't afford to provide good local coverage. Ad-supported professional journalism just does not work for local stories that can't attract a huge audience.<p>Some of you have suggested Government funded news - while I agree that quality local news is a critical public good, I believe that Government intervention in the industry is dangerous. I'm confident that the free market will eventually solve this problem with a creative new business model.
[Here's a link to the original response video which the article failed to include.](<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ShfNQOUeAY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ShfNQOUeAY</a>) Probably to reduce bounce rates or something.
At one side I am happy to see this new kind of journalism where people would get news from genuine sources instead of some _madeup_ stories while on other hand I am sad for this kid who got into such things in the age where she should get involved in things that help her to enjoy life.
"Her father is an author and former New York Daily News reporter who took Hilde to his newsroom and to stories he covered around New York and hooked her on the rush of chasing news."<p>Welp.