Community: Unconventional training helps journalists feel at home

As a requirement for all new newsroom employees, the community daily "The News-Enterprise in Elizabethtown, Ky., conducts road trips covering businesses, government buildings, the community college, volunteer fire departments, grade schools and even refrigerator shelf factories. Brown bag lunches are also organized, featuring an all-volunteer corps of community experts: a historian to discuss the area's history, a retired businessman to talk about the economic and commercial interests throughout the region, and a local leader who profiled the characters that actually run the town. The return on investment for the daily is proving to be immeasurable. Specifically, the tours and lunches are helping add depth to coverage and improve accuracy in reporting.