Blog Entries

Blog Entry One: Reporting on things you’re passionate about

           

            I think we can all agree, cranking out the story about lunches at the school board meeting wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. We all moaned and complained about writing it before actually writing it, possibly during and definitely afterward. Why? Please name one person in the class who cared about whether the middle school served chicken nuggets from a bag. Yes, the topic is important to those involved. And yes, someone's gotta report on it but it's kind of a pain when we have to write about it but don't really care. 

            It’s not always easy to report on something we’re not passionate about. I found it much easier to write my depth story. I consider myself religious so writing about evangelization on the CSU campus was interesting to me. I even kinda looked forward to interviewing my sources.

            If only this was the way real newspaper reporting worked and reporters only wrote about things they wanted to write about. Not a single school board meeting would be covered. Oh, in a perfect world... 

Blog Entry Two: Improvement!

           

            One great stride I’ve taken in this class over the course of the semester that I can confidently say I’m quite proud of is not how I found sources, but I how I confronted them.

            Last year on College Avenue, I used to absolutely dread having to interview sources. Embarrassingly enough, I was very timid and scared to ask people questions. It used to take me maybe a couple days to write someone an email or a few minutes out in the hall to pull myself together before stepping into someone’s office. But now, the more I've had to interview people for this class, the easier it got. Plus, when you’re on deadline, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Blog Entry Three: Interviewing notes

            For interviewing purposes, I have never used a voice recorder to take notes. This is quite embarrassing; I don't even feel like a real journalist saying that. I mean, most people use one of those, right? More accurate quotes, not rushing to jot key words down.. However, I’ve always relied on a pencil, notebook and my speedy handwriting. A couple days ago when I was interviewing a source for my depth story, the guy even commented on how fast I was writing. Yet, most of the time after an interview, my notes are random, one-word scribbles. Moral of the story, I think I really should invest in a recorder.

Blog Entry Four: Whew, done!

           

            It’s quite a relief to be finished with reporting class. Don’t get me wrong; I’ll miss it. But without a doubt, I spent more time writing, editing and stressing about this class than I did for any of my other classes this semester. But again... I enjoyed it all (minus the stressing out part).

At the beginning of the semester, I was really unsure about how strong my writing was and whether or not writing is what I wanted to do with my journalism career. At the end of the semester, I am pretty sure I answered both of those questions. My writing has certainly improved drastically since January, thanks to Donna and the rest of my class. Also, writing may not be for me. I’m thinking I’ll head in the direction of public relations. Or at least that’s what I’ve decided for today.

Blog Entry Five: Importance of research

            Before I really got into my depth story, I was a little lost. I knew who I had to interview, but didn’t know what to ask; writing out interview questions was tough. That is, until I did more research about the art of persuasion. I went to a communication studies professor who teaches persuasive tactics and he gave me a handout talking about Social Judgment Theory. I could relate everything I read in the handout to evangelization; how persuaders should tailor messages depending their audiences’ views and how message discrepancy can predict an attitude change in audiences. From there, questions for my interview came pouring out. This shows how important it is to research before interviewing sources. First, you don’t want to look dumb in your interview and second, without research and good questions, you won’t be able to get the information you need for your story because you’re not asking the right questions.

Blog Entry Six: Tracking down sources

            During my first beat story for this class, I realized how difficult it is to get in contact with sources for your story. It was a simple story about the new minor the School of Global and Environmental Sustainability was offering but it took me way more time to track down sources than it usually does. First, I emailed a student and coordinator from the department. After a couple days and still no response, I called them. No answer. Deadline was quickly approaching so I went to the department center in person. Neither of the people I needed to talk to were there. I persistently returned for a few days and eventually got interviews. Next time I’ll keep in mind sources for your story are just as busy as you are.

By Corinne Winthrop