Community Notes list has a new look

How many times have you said: "If it had been a snake it would have bit me."

Well, we had one of those moments in the newsroom earlier this week.

We're always looking for ways to improve the newspaper, and a conversation started by staff writer Anna Rochelle resulted in the way Community Notes are now formatted.

The Community Notes -- formerly called Area Notes, Column 1 and Mine Run -- have been formatted the same way for the 20-plus years I've been associated with the newspaper. The newest item is typed on top, pushing the others down the list.

So, if you wanted to know what was going on on a certain day, you had to read down the list.

Anna suggested putting them in order by date, thus making it more organized and easier for our readers.

How simple! A huge pat on the back to Anna for sharing her idea.

It also will make it easier for staff writer Timberly Ferree, who is in charge of Community Notes. In the past, she would have to read all the notes to take out the previous day's events. Now, she knows exactly where they are and can delete them in a few seconds.

The second issue with Community Notes is that the list is extremely long and not all of them get in the newspaper every day. The complete list, of course, can be viewed at www.gcdailyworld.com . But we don't have enough room in the newspaper every day for the complete list of Community Notes.

The list, as of Thursday morning at 9:30, contained 4,194 words. The average news story, for example, is 500-800 words.

To help get more Community Notes in the newspaper daily, we will try to use them as fillers throughout the newspaper. If you noticed Thursday's paper, there were Community Notes on Page 2, Page 3, and Page 12.

This may not be the perfect solution, but almost 75 percent of the Community Notes made it into the newspaper Thursday. That's a much higher percentage than what normally would get in the newspaper.

The Community Notes list is important part of the newspaper. It allows nonprofit organizations to announce their events at no cost. And if you're looking for something to do on a certain day, Community Notes is the place to look.

Thanks for reading the Greene County Daily World.

Chris is the general manager/editor of the Greene County Daily World. He can be reached by telephone at 847-4487 or 1-800-947-4487 or by e-mail at cpruett79@hotmail.com .