After returning from a newspaper conference hosted by the Arkansas Press Association earlier this month, I'm taking one editor's advice and writing a series of columns for you, our readers, about how things work here at the newspaper.

I guess in the day to day grind of things we newspaper folk tend to take for granted that our readers magically know why we do some things the way we do them. So, for those of you who are like me, that is of a more curious nature, I thought I would spend the next couple of weeks sharing some of the "ins" and "outs" with you.

This week I want to talk to you about how we select what items we will publish in the newspaper as well as how we choose what events to attend to take pictures of for the paper.

There are a number of things that factor into whether we "cover an event," but first and number one is whether or not we were invited. Believe it or not, there are a lot of things that happen in our community that we may never find out about until after the event has come and gone. So, if you're planning an event you'd like us to be a part of, please let us know! And, if we could get a couple of days notice that would be fantastic!

Because our staff is limited, we also have to prioritize events. It's very difficult for us to take pictures at everything , especially things that happen at night or on the weekends. Thankfully, digital cameras make it easier than ever for our readers to bring in photos for us to publish. So while we may not be able to come to your grandparent's 50th anniversary reception, we'll be glad to print a photo if you will bring it to us.

That brings me to my next point, how we choose which materials submitted to us are published and when they are published.

As an editor, I literally receive hundreds of faxes, e-mails and letters each day, and it's my job to sort through those things to decide what best serves the interests of our readers. As a small weekly newspaper, the most important thing we consider is how does this pertain to our community. If it's not something specifically local, then it usually gets tossed to the bottom of our pile.

Other than staff written stories, we print a lot of community news. Generally speaking, we try to publish anything local that is brought into our office our sent to us by someone with hometown connections.

And, unlike some of the bigger papers, we print all our "lifestyles" type news at no charge.

What a lot of people may not know is that the size of paper, or the amount of stories we can print, is determined by how many ads we have for any given week. We use a percentage based system, meaning that try to always keep ads and news within a certain balance. That means that sometimes we don't have as much print space available for the amount of local news we would like to publish.

It is then that as editor I have to make some tough decisions. Things that are date sensitive are usually given first priority, especially if they are for a local event. Then we try to consider the order things were given to us. Sometimes a story that seems less important may be published before another story simply because we've "held it over," meaning we didn't have room for it in the previous week's paper.

One great resource we're utilizing more and more lately is our website. We're able to publish longer stories on the website and a virtually unlimited number of photos. In the future we may begin including some stories on our website that we aren't able to publish in our print edition. We also hope to eventually ad a place where you can upload news and photos directly through our website.

And, in an article about story selection, I can't leave out our most important asset -- you! We depend heavily on tips from our readers about what is happening in the community.

I hope this article has been helpful to you in learning a little more about how we select stories for coverage and publication.

Next week I'll share more with you about how we assemble the paper, including how we select front page stories. Another future topic will be letters to the editor and their importance to the local newspaper.

Is there a certain question you would like answered? Please e-mail me at tcteditor@eritter.net or give me a call at 358-2993.