"Where are they Now?"-type features

It can be a good feature - and taking suggestions is not bad. But like others have said, the best ones will come when one of you sits down and does some research back through microfilm and whatnot.

 

We've done this a few times. One was a general series of summer stories that turned out well. We had one on a local who was playing in the NFL, another who had a cup of coffee with the Cowboys, another about an old boat racing circuit in the area. It went well.
A year or two later we tried an all-time all-county football team. Dug through the archives to come up with names from every decade for the last 50 years and let readers vote on them. We ended up getting a couple hundred votes from each decade. Once we finished that phase, we started tracking people down and writing short 5 or 6-inch capsules on what they'd done since high school. Even though the stories were short, there were some pretty interesting tales to come out of that and it seemed well-received.

 

I like these ideas. One thing I did way back when I was a preppie, after each season when we produced our all-area team, I included a little breakout box on what every person on last year's all-area team was doing now.
Most of then were at junior college, or at a specific college but not playing anymore, or redshirting at Tech. Fortunately, we never had any "working at 7-Eleven" or "killed in a drug raid"

 

I always read WATN? stories.

But next time you offer readers to submit suggestions, simply state, "Suggestion cannot be of a relative." Won't weed them all out --- someone may have a friend submit the suggestion to get around the stipulation --- but it will wipe out most of them.

In the unlikely event the relative really is a good idea, let someone else suggest it.

 

We do them, but we like to make them anniversary-related so they're somewhat relevant and timely.

 

Ask all the newsroom veterans, who are valuable for stuff like this because of their institutional knowledge.

Oh, that's right ... they all got laid off.

 

YOU ONLY COVER US AFTER OUR LIVES PEAKED!!!

 

First it was "citizen journalists" ... now it's "citizen SEs" .... write about the ones who tried real hard

 

Unbelievably sad -- and true.

 

Newspapers should not lock themselves into having to write these once a week. WHere are they now stories should simply show up on individual beats. Forcing staffs to come up with them once a week is an old Gannett trick. Just let them come naturally. When it's time to write one let the beat guy write one.

 

We should have one once a month on a former board member who's no longer active.