Category journalism

Editorial: Bad Behavior of Bethlehem School Board (2007)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

When we launched the Lehigh Valley News Group, the Lehigh Valley branch of Berks-Mont newspapers (a Journal Register entity), I served as managing editor for the five new newspapers and the one previous-existing, The Saucon News. In addition to managing editor duties, I served as editor of the largest of the new papers, The Bethlehem News. We headed into a territory that had been abandoned by my previous employer (Chronicle Newspapers, a division of The Morning Call, a Tribune Company newspaper). In addition to those Chronicle weeklies that had just closed, most of our proposed territories were also served by The Press weeklies, an entity that still continues today.

I attended the school board meetings of the Bethlehem Area School District. After more than five years of covering the Phillipsburg School District, the differences between the two boards fascinated me. Bethlehem was a larger school district, had more schools and more students. But let’s just say the people who sat on the two boards were also different. I’m sure everyone had their good intentions, but the interactions on the Bethlehem board were often tense.

I wrote this editorial after one board meeting where the disagreements between board members, and their unwillingness to move forward after a vote, scared not only me but also drained the color from the superintendent.

BASD board behavior

BASD board behavior

Feature: Jordan Sonnenblick’s first book (2004)

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In 2004, author Jordan Sonnenblick was still a middle school English teacher in the Phillipsburg School District. At the time I et him, he was anticipating the release of his first book, Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, from a small publisher, Daybue. I can’t believe that we’re approaching the ten year anniversary of that event. I forget how I heard about Jordan. I don’t know if someone sent me a press release or if I heard about his success at a school board meeting. I followed up because as a writer myself, his story intrigued me.

We met in a coffee shop across the street from my office. We talked about his past, his struggles as a writer and why he rejected an offer from a big New York publisher to go with a small independent publisher instead. I remember my own awe when he said his creative writing teacher in high school was Frank McCourt. Yes, as in Angela’s Ashes. I also enjoyed his sense of humor. Apparently, success found him when he stopped trying to write the next Great American Novel and instead used the voice of a 13-year-old boy.

Shortly after all this, Sonnenblick landed a contract for Drums from Scholastic. The book now has a sequel. I’m not sure how many books he has now. 9? 10? He has one available for pre-order and it could use some hubbub. Jordan is a great guy. I’ve read several of his books and I love them.

Author Jordan Sonnenblick

Author Jordan Sonnenblick

Health: Eating Disorder Support Group (2005)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Sometimes the stories we write as journalists don’t develop with the depth or the complexity that we would like. We face deadlines. We have limits to our sources. Sometimes, we touch on something sensitive that we don’t know exactly how to handle it. One such case I wrote involved a family living with HIV; another was this one, about a group of women who gathered as an eating disorder support group.

This story is not my best written, and I apologize for the cut on the bottom of the scan. I worked hard to provide enough of a voice that various people could connect to these women, but not enough information as to identify them. That is a challenge. Let’s face it. The world stereotypes and judges people and these women had a strength and a willingness to make a difference. They hoped, as I hoped, that their story would help any other women facing similar issues, doubts or feelings of inadequacy.

I don’t know if it helped anyone. I don’t know if it made anyone stop and think. It certainly didn’t change any societal perceptions, but I hope that maybe it touched one person who needed it.

Eating Disorder Support Group

Eating Disorder Support Group

Daily journalism: Brush with celebrity, Mitchel Musso (2007)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

Image Image

The holiday season, 2007. My daughter was a week shy of three-and-a-half years old. I recall having plans this night. Grown-up plans. My editor from the Morning Call telephoned and asked me to do this quick assignment. Famous last words.

I am not a fan of Disney. I like the classic Disney films like Mary Poppins, Pete’s Dragon and maybe a Bambi or Lady and the Tramp. (Okay, maybe not Lady because I get really upset when Lady gets thrown out of the house.) Blame Hunchback of Notre Dame. I went to go see it with the man I later married. I did a “May term” in college where I traveled to Paris for three-plus weeks to study the influence of politics on the art and architecture of various periods and Hunchback/the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris were on the list. When we returned to the States, we read the various literary works in the original French. Except for Hunchback because we had worn our poor professor thin and he asked us to please read it in English over the weekend. His plan was to meet with us Monday and be done with us so he could continue with his summer.

And it would have taken us too long to read the book in French. This is my back story. It frames my anticipation for the Disney film.

I arrive in the theater. I am watching. The cathedral is on fire. Esmerelda crawls into her cot where in the book she dies. I am crying. In the book, everyone dies. Tragedy is a French necessity.

She wakes up and lives happily-ever-after.

I was very angry.

Flash forward about ten years and I’m sitting in the Crayola Factory in downtown Easton with a thousand other people waiting for a star of the Hannah Montana TV series who, like everyone else in the Lehigh Valley, got caught in traffic on our infamous highway Route 22.

And I’m waiting for a much needed date night after I file. I barely met my deadline this night, and instead of date night I treated myself to an album of French Christmas carols I downloaded from iTunes. And, to further frame the way my life often works, the album turned out to be instrumental with some children singing “La la la” where the words should be.

My husband claimed they were French “la’s.”

I have been teased mercilessly about this album.

To return to the story for one last moment, I tried to inflect some humor into it. And Mitchel Musso was a really nice guy. Not that I know/knew who he is. I barely knew the name Hannah Montana.

 

 

Feature: Behind the scenes at the circus (2001)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

The Clyde Beatty/Cole Brothers Circus invited me backstage when they performed at the Phillipsburg Mall. I watched the clowns prep for the performance, talked with the lion tamer, interviewed a corps of Russian Aerial Ballet artists and even fed the elephants. I loved those elephants. The man who took care of them handed me a loaf of bread, plain old sliced white bread and directed me to slap it into their mouths.

Literally.

I had three or four slices of bread on the palm of my hand. The elephant would lift his trunk and I would stick my hand in his mouth and press the bread to his tongue. And he ate the whole loaf.

This feature appeared in the (Phillipsburg) Free Press in June 2001. I took the photos. I also photographed the show. I may have to dig those out and scan them another day.

 

circus1

circus, part 2

circus, part 2

Circus, part 3

Circus, part 3

 

 

Feature/Health: Breastfeeding (2004)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I clearly remember leaving the office on my due date to visit the obstetrician. I had been 4 cm dilated and significantly effaced since my birthday, a good three weeks earlier. In the newsroom, at meetings and at interviews, my heavily pregnant self made people nervous. I asked my obstetrician when I should stop working. He looked at me and, once he recovered from the shock that I was still in the office, suggested I not return.

That was June 10. My daughter came into this world on June 23, thanks to some hearty doses of Pitocin to hurry her along. Any first-time parent will tell you, those first six-to-eight weeks are “baby boot camp,” grueling, exhausting and testing your limits. I can’t speak on second babies. I only had one.

As a good reporter, I tried to recycle some of my personal experience into copy. Plus, I learned a lot of information as a new parent that I never knew before, or perhaps thought about things I never thought about before I had a baby.

Breastfeeding was one of these topics. I felt like no one really talked about it. I was born premature and didn’t come out of the hospital for three months so my mother never breastfed. I felt lost and figured if I felt lost, so did others.

My editor allowed me to do a lengthy two-part series on breastfeeding. This is part one.

Breastfeeding, part 1

Breastfeeding, part 1

Breastfeeding, part 2

Breastfeeding, part 2

 

 

Feature: Keep on Riding (bicycle commuting, 2003)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

The part of being a journalist on a regular beat is the relationships you form with people. This feature on bicycle commuting featured a local business owner (Russ Padgett, Cycle Funattic in Phillipsburg, N.J.) and if I remember correctly, because it was a decade ago, the idea came from him.

To put this story together, we followed Russ on his commuting route, a good 15 miles, and our staff photographer literally hung out of my car like we were on The Dukes of Hazzard.

I like the way the story turned out, and I feel like it was a very timely piece for its day. Gas prices then were escalating, but not nearly to the extent we would see a few years later.

This ran in the Phillipsburg Chronicle, August 1, 2003 as a “Community Life” feature. For more information on Cycle Funattic, see their web site: http://www.cyclefunattic.com/.

Feature on bicycle commuting, section 1 of 3

Feature on bicycle commuting, section 1 of 3

Bicycle commuting, section 2 of 3

Bicycle commuting, section 2 of 3

Russ Padgett, bicycle commuting part 3

Russ Padgett, bicycle commuting part 3

News: West Easton talks trash with Waste Management, fining them 40K (2002)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

As a freelance reporter for the Morning Call, I loved West Easton. Small town, good bunch of elected officials who always had something to say. They could balance a mean budget. This particular saga started in the summer of 2002, when their trash hauler missed a good portion of the borough. The trash saga between Waste Management went on for months, but if we’re talking off the record, you have to admire the little town for standing up to a huge corporation.

It’s my version of a municipal soap opera.

These articles are also available online at The Morning Call.

Little West Easton considers significant fine against Waste Management

Little West Easton considers significant fine against Waste Management

Part 2: West Easton levies $40K fine

Part 2: West Easton levies $40K fine

Part 3: Waste Management asks West Easton to lower fine

Part 3: Waste Management asks West Easton to lower fine

GourMaybe: Should servers depend on tips?

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment
Do Servers Deserve a Real Paycheck?

Do Servers Deserve a Real Paycheck?

 

I have often played with the idea of writing a food/opinion column. I pitched the idea when the Saucon News was still a small local weekly, one that was later bought out and grouped with a series of five other new weeklies by Berks-Mont Newspapers/Journal Register company. That became the Lehigh Valley News Group and at its creation in 2006, I served as managing editor.

But this little opinion column predates all of that, and honestly I had forgotten about it until I recently dug through the crate of news clippings I have in my home office.

I tackle the question: should servers receive a real paycheck? This was at the time that the IRS was considering using a restaurant’s credit card receipts to determine an average amount that each server earned in tips and then use that as a basis for income tax liability.

 

 

Opinion: Lessons Learned in Phillipsburg, N.J.

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment
My guest column in my last issue of The Free Press

My guest column in my last issue of The Free Press

 

I worked at The Free Press (Phillipsburg, N.J.) for about a year. I left when a publisher from another weekly called me out of the blue and offered me an editor position. I hated to leave Phillipsburg and my amazing publisher Enid, but I had long ago learned that regrets often stemmed from not knowing “What if?”

The Free Press was a weekly paper, paid subscription, mailed to those who subscribed. At the point I started working for Enid, I had already freelanced for a decade. This was my first full-time journalism position. I was sitting at my desk in our very tiny newsroom on September 11, 2001. The experience of being part of the media, even if only part of a small local weekly, gave a haunting layer to the tragedy.

After a year as editor of The Blue Valley Times, working with my former science teacher, Larry Cory, I joined the staff of the start-up weeklies from the Morning Call, known as The Chronicles. I returned to Phillipsburg, and in the three years that entity existed, I made some relationships that last until today. Phillipsburg still holds a special place in my heart.

And it’s not just because the gas in New Jersey is cheaper than Pennsylvania. And it’s not because the gas stations are full service.