If You Have to Ask, You'll Never Know

“It’s one thing to fly in and cover a news event and fly out. To understand the full context, you have to live in the community…There’s no nationally distributed heartland perspective.”
--Victoria Ekstrand, Asst. Professor of Journalism at Bowling Green State University

If you aren’t finding a satisfactory answer, maybe you’re asking the wrong question.
The notion that “there’s no nationally distributed heartland perspective” is patently absurd: that dated logic is about as useful as a card catalog.

Didn’t you get the memo? The World is Flat and the digital age has obliterated time and space.
What precisely is it that you’d like to know about us little ol’ “Midwesterners” anyway? (We’re downright flattered thatcha care enough to ask).

Turns out we’re not as shy as you might’ve imagined.

Of course, you can always get a decent bird’s eye view of the landscape by checking out the major regional newspapers.

But it’s not tough to dig a little deeper for some local flavor.

Want to know “what’s up with Missouri?” You can find out what’s poppin’ in Branson, if you’re interested. Curious about the latest in politics in the Ozarks? Gotcha covered. Missouri republicans have their own community site as well. Missouri Democrats? Local politics in the greater Kansas City area? Random thoughts on Missouri politics from a self-described “grassroots guy?” Check.

What are farmers from the heartland thinking?

And while we’re at it, What’s the Matter With Kansas? If you don’t want to take the time to read the whole book, you can always check out one writer’s thoughts on the whole “science, evolution, education, religion, politics and more” debate. Or check out what a grad student at KU is thinking.

If you want to know what’s going on in any Midwestern Podunk town, you can probably find it—sometimes in places like…“A Town Called Podunk.”

The days of wasting human bandwidth by pounding the pavement are over.

The days of leisurely immersing yourself in a pseudo-ethnographic study to learn the inner-workings of a group of people are over.

You can learn a surprising amount about anything without leaving your living room. You just have to know what you’re looking for, where to look, and the correct questions to ask.

It’s part and parcel of Journalism 2.0.