A note for my friends in community newspapers

My dear friends. It is a lot different, at the State's daily, to that which you probably imagine.
I know this because when I was working in country and community newspapers, I held a certain view about "the daily competition".
I always wanted to beat the West to stories. I sat nervously for days in case they ran the big scoop I was working on. I bribed and begged contacts not to go to the big end of town with the story.
There was always a great deal of satisfaction in beating the West to a story. And when they did run it, I was convinced they had read my work first. Kudos to me.
What a naive twit.
Let me tell you darlings, it is not how you think it is.
I've been made the Local Government reporter. It happened at Christmas so I've only been in the gig a couple of months. I love covering councils - I've been doing it for eight or nine years - so I was thrilled with the appointment. The charm has worn off.
Here's why.
1. I can find and write the story, but there is no guarantee it will go in the paper, no matter how good it is - there are always State, Federal, international, police and medical stories which are much more important and get better coverage.
2. I can find and get the stories FIRST, but they probably won't run for at least a week, meaning the story has been broken elsewhere by the time we go to print.
3. I can find the stories first but chances are I will pitch them and the chief of staff wont be interested in them. Further, I could read the story on the front page of the Guardian, the Herald, the Voice, the Post, the Examiner, the Advertiser... pitch a statewide angle and it still would not get passed the COS.
4. I can find the story first and pitch it, be told we're not interested and then four days later - after it has appeared in the Post of the Fremantle Gazette, or the Kalgoorlie Miner - and be asked why we didn't get the story.
It's up to you how you interpret this. With the benefit of hindsight, I can't believe I spent so much time trying to beat the big end of town when the big of town either didn't give a fuck or wasn't even watching. I guess if I knew this information while I was there, it might have encouraged me to be more bold. I think I always gave the community the best and most rounded collection of local news each week, but I could have spent less time being competitive for no reason whatever.