Interviewing Emily McClure

Lindsay Stevens
Aug 31, 2018 · 7 min read

Emily McClure has had a passion for journalism since she was seven years old. It started when she decided to make her own newspaper named “The McClure Times,” which she sold to her family members for five cents.

McClure in her office with this weeks spread on the computer screen.

“The top article was on our new fridge and then the bottom had an article on how awesome I was,” said McClure. “It was stuff about what a seven year old would want to write.”

It wasn’t until she was 14, after she discovered her passion for nonfiction writing, that she figured out she wanted to go into communications. Then, her senior year of high school, she took a journalism class and decided that was her calling.

“My senior year of high school, I took a journalism class and I was like I love to interview people, I love to write journalism, I love to write articles, and I especially love to be published in my high schools newspaper, The Monitor.

While in college, Emily worked as the head news editor for The Colonnade. Her senior year of college she was able to get her job through GC’s communications day. She went to the job fair and by chance met with Lynn Hobbs, associate editor of The Eatonton Messenger. At the time Hobbs told her they didn’t have any positions open, but she wrote her a thank you note anyways, which kept her in the back of Hobbs mind. A few weeks later she got an email from her current boss, Josh Lory, saying they were looking for a new editor at The Lake Oconee News.

The Lake Oconee News office

Now as the editor of The Lake Oconee News, Emily has a hectic schedule every week. For Emily there is no such thing as a normal day. Every day brings new challenges and new topics to cover.

McClure’s news week starts at noon every Wednesday, when she makes her sticky notes for this week’s stories. She then marks her calendar with the week’s events and public meetings she needs to go to. After that she starts reporting.

“If I can do something on Wednesday in the afternoon I usually do,” said McClure. “But most times it will start late Wednesday afternoon or early Thursday morning.”

On the following Tuesday, Emily comes in early to start layout on the paper and finish up her stories. Editorial is due at 5 pm on Tuesday night, which means the stories must be edited and put on the layout to be checked the next morning in their Madison office. Then, after the articles are checked at the Madison office, McClure goes back to Green County office and begins working on her sticky notes.

To find the leads for her sticky notes, McClure goes to public meetings, where they casually mention stories.

One of her biggest leads came from a Greene County Development Authority meeting at 8 am on a Tuesday morning.

“I was half asleep in the front row like I’m not here, my recorder is on but my brain is not present, when they mentioned the poinsettia farm,” said McClure. “I was like what the heck what poinsettia farm? It is the biggest poinsettia farm in Georgia that supplies all of the Home Depot’s in the South East.”

McClure in The Lake Oconee New’s hall of awards.

An interesting factor of McClure’s job at a small newspaper is that there are not really any beat reporters.

“You could more or less say my beat is Greene county,” said McClure.

Unlike at the Morgan county office, McClure is alone in her beat, so she has to cover all aspects of Greene county. During the short period they had an intern, McClure said she generally covered breaking news while her intern, Erica, covered features.

Because of the small staff, McClure is the only reporter at her office, however at a bigger office she said it is not uncommon to have several beat reporters, such as a board of education reporter, a crime reporter, a breaking news reporter, etc.

When McClure interviews an average person, she prepares the questions differently than if she were interviewing a major public figure. McClure has to do more research when interviewing a public figure. Additionally a public figure is more well-spoken, so when interviewing an average person you have to phrase the question to where they cannot answer with a yes or no and have follow up questions ready to get a more elaborated response.

McClure with her recent big purchase, a red mustang.

At the end of the day, McClure says that people recognizing her and thanking her for the coverage she is doing is the most rewarding part of the job.

“I had the mayor in the city suing the county case walk up to me and tell me he thinks I’ve been doing really fair reporting on it and wanted to thank me for that.” said McClure. “What I usually say is I’m glad you picked up the paper and I’m glad you enjoyed it. It is so rewarding to have someone point to specific article and say I enjoy the paper.”


“Elements of Journalism” Questions

Q: How do you fact check stories?

A: So for example, right now we are reporting on one of the cities in the county suing the county. They basically will never be in the room with each other, and I heard a rumor that it was because New Points lawyers didn’t want them to. So I just went back and saying this person said this, is this true? And they would say oh no this is what really happened. To a certain extent, that isn’t really fact checking, but I was at least able to get quotes from both side. For fact checking you just ask enough people who know and not go off of what one person who has a vested interest says. Also basic facts you can research.

Q: How do you balance speaking the truth and public perception of the newspaper? More specifically, do you sometimes hold back articles because of how it might affect ad sales or because it might cause readership to go down?

A: No. I have never had a reason. That was actually a question I had during my first interview: what is the impact of the ad publisher on the editorial side and is there ever a reason why they might have something to say on what we are writing in the news? He said no. One time we did one massive investigated story at Eatonton and we had an advertiser call the publisher and the publisher asked the editor. The editor explained and the publisher went back to the advertiser to be the buffer. So I would say there is a good barrier between advertising and editorial. The only time there is something is in B section. A section is staff produced content. You might find one press release in here but it mostly staff produced content. B section has a lot of press releases in it. Usually the front is a staff produced feature along with B2, and maybe B3. We do not have enough content to fill the paper so after that it’s press releases.

As for reader perception of the paper, our paper has a very good reputation. I have had people say to me ‘oh you’re the real paper in the county.’ The other paper in the county run press releases on the front page. That’s all I’ll say about that…Our paper has a good reputation of being the ‘news’ paper in Greene county. There’s always going to be your government bodies who are going to think you’re out to get them, but in general our paper has a good reputation. Usually the reputation of the paper is not my concern, it’s the quality of the journalism.

Q: How do you personally hold powers accountable with journalism?

A: I ask about stuff. I’ll be curious about something. For example how much the city has spent on that lawsuit. This lawsuit has been going on since 2013. I called the mayor and said I got my open records request back and saw you spent X amount of money on this lawsuit and asked why they spent so much more money than the county had. He had no idea they had spent that much more money. He just thought everyone was spending the same amount. So I asked people how they feel about the city spending that much money on this lawsuit. I would say it’s basically translating the stuff that not everyone knows and putting it out there. Also just being there. I show up to meetings and hear what they are doing and getting the facts.

Lindsay Stevens

Written by

Junior English and mass communications major at Georgia College and State University

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