Most communities know they need to tell their stories, and most of them start a newsletter. Then people ignore it, because it's a list of status updates and announcements: what happened, what's next, please sign up.

What people read is a story. Why did the thing happen? Where did it come from, who decided, and what will it cost the people reading?

Reporting is how you get there. You ask why as well as what. You check a claim before it's printed and say where it came from. You follow a story back to where it started and forward to where it's heading, and you write it so a neighbour wants to read to the end.

Most of us were never taught to do that. It can be learned, though, and the first lessons are small: one assignment and one person to call.

We were never born to read. Human beings invented reading only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we rearranged the very organization of our brain.

AI can help with the learning. In UnityUpdates it proposes assignments from your beats and the tips members send in, prepares interview questions, turns notes into an outline, and lists the claims in a draft that still need a source. A Reporter writes every word of the story, and the story says what help it had.

Some will say, "We don't have time for all that. We just need people to know the hall is booked." Keep the announcements, then. Put one reported story beside them in each edition, and see which one people stop you in the hallway to talk about.