The news industry isn’t all that glamorous for everyone, especially if you happen to get a job with your local, community newspaper. It must be hard to feel inspired writing about broken water mains, so when a piece shows up in print that takes an ordinary event, mixes it with humor and manages to stay within newspaper parameters, it’s worthy of a second look.
On a lighter note this week, The Beaches Leader had been following a story involving the discovery by the Atlantic Beach Police of chickens in the front yard of a resident’s home (the online articles cited are dramatically reduced from the more descriptive print versions). This Atlantic Beach couple was trying to teach their daughter about responsibility and about being creative during a recession by using the chickens’ eggs for food. The reporter details how the family presented a slide show to city commissioners, explaining the benefits of “urban chickens,” in an attempt to bypass the ordinance banning livestock.
And before you laugh, there is a wealth of material out there about urban chickens—the article on transgender hens is especially enlightening.
The reporter straightforwardly goes on to say that the “chicken controversy” couldn’t be addressed initially because the ordinance prohibiting chickens was not on the commission’s agenda.
If this is the most controversial thing happening in Atlantic Beach, life is good.
Anyway, of course the inevitable happened, and the commission rejected the family’s request to keep the chickens. Did I mention that this involves just TWO chickens? While the reporter started off with a straight hard news lead, the headline for the print version read, “Clucks Out of Luck in AB.” The reporter quoted Mayor John Meserve as saying, “We can’t see a way to do it, that it won’t create a mess.” Ok, a bureaucratic mess or a literal mess?
Then the reporter probably skipped a few "in-between" quotes from Meserve and ended with, “I don’t know if people thought about what would happen if people don’t take care of chickens properly.”
Whoa! I had not thought about that! Something worse than Iraq?
It’s good to know that even if you work for a weekly paper, there’s still some fun to be had as long as style rules aren’t bent to breaking. The value of interjecting humor in print is not just for entertainment but also for humility, to keep us laughing at ourselves. Here's a nod to The Leader for giving me my laugh of the week.
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Thats really funny. It makes Jacksonville seem really uneventful if thats all the newspaper has thats intresting to write about. But if I heard a story like that I would want to have all the fun reporting on the funny issue too. As for the chickens, I guess their finally getting their 15 minutes of fame.
ReplyDeleteThey should have been able to keep their chickens, they were not hurting or bothering anyone. I think that is a good way to teach a child how to be responsible at a young age.
ReplyDeleteIt also helps the family overall save money because the cost of eggs does add up over the course of a year. They should have never bothered to bother this family at all.
This family is very creative with their ideas. It makes sense to raise chickens so you won't have to worry about eggs. I work at Winn Dixie and every two customers that comes through my lane buy a dozen of eggs. This story gave me a good laugh, great post.
ReplyDeleteMy Aunt used to have chickens that she received her eggs from; of course that was in Tennessee in the middle of no-where.
ReplyDeleteI understand the reasons why Atlantic Beach has that ordinance law in effect. If you allow livestock, maybe there will be an abundance of livestock among residents in Atlantic Beach. That can cause' filthy living conditions.
Either way, I would have let them keep their chickens, and have some fun.
P.S.
ReplyDeleteI miss the chickens in Key West!