What the appendix says when the press release does not
The rent report story was in a table on page 41 of the cabinet papers (sample).
I report on rent, buses and city hall in Springfield.
Ines Calder (sample): reporter for The Springfield Ledger, columnist every Thursday, and the person who reads the council appendix so you do not have to.
October on paper
1,000 words
2,000
3,000
Ledger
Thu 2 Oct
860 words
Lakeside Review
Mon 6 Oct
2,150 words
Ledger
Thu 9 Oct
840 words
Ledger
Sat 11 Oct
410 words
Ledger
Tue 14 Oct
3,050 words
Ledger
Thu 16 Oct
850 words
October so far, cut out and labelled with the newsroom slug. Each strip is as long as the piece: one ruler mark for every 1,000 words. The red corner is this week’s column (sample).
The Thursday column
850 words on page 12 of The Springfield Ledger every Thursday, online from 7:00 (sample). One question about the city, answered with documents and the people who were there.
Thu 2 Oct
Springfield Ledger, column
860 words
Columns (sample). Headlines open on the paper’s site.
What I cover
Four beats, the same ones since 2014 (sample). If your story touches one of them, I want to hear it.
Housing and rent
Who owns the flats, what the council spends on emergency housing, how long repairs take.
Most weeks
Buses and getting home
Timetables against shift patterns, fares, and the stops that were quietly cut.
Twice a month
City hall
Budgets, contracts and the papers attached to the agenda, read to the last appendix.
Every council meeting
The river
Who owns the banks, what goes into the water, and the path the city keeps promising.
A long read each spring
The rent files
An investigation in three parts (sample): four months, 212 tenancy records and 38 interviews about who owns the flats on one street, and why nobody fixes them.
Part 1
The flats nobody repairs
Tue 30 Sep
2,400 words
Part 2
Six companies, one address
Tue 7 Oct
2,700 words
Part 3
Who owns Mill Road
Tue 14 Oct
3,050 words
The Thursday letter
One email on Thursday at 6:30, half an hour before the column goes online: the column itself, the documents behind it and the questions I could not answer yet. Free, about six minutes to read (sample).
- This week's column, a day ahead of the paper's site
- Every document I used, linked
- Readers' replies, printed only with permission
- One thing to watch at city hall next week
4,100 readers (sample). Reply to any letter to leave.
Lengths and rates for editors
Every length on the same ruler as the cuttings: what 400 words looks like next to 4,000. Rates are per piece, with research, interviews and one round of edits included.
Example prices. Photos, data graphics and syndication are quoted separately.
1,000 words
2,000
3,000
4,000
News story
400 words
$180
within 24 hours
Column
850 words
$320
three days
Feature
2,000 words
$900
two weeks
Long read
4,000 words
from $2,400
six weeks
Ten years on the same streets
I started on the council beat at the Ledger in 2014, covering every planning meeting nobody else wanted (sample). The column came in 2021, when readers kept asking what the decisions meant for them.
I correct mistakes in public: every correction is listed with its date and what changed.
From the notebook
Notes from three nights on the 14 bus
The last 14 leaves the hospital at 22:40. The late shift ends at 23:00 (sample).
Why I still keep paper notes
A notebook does not sync, which is exactly the point for some sources (sample).
Know something Springfield should know?
Tell me what happened and how you know. I read every message myself and never name a source without asking first.