Week 10

Since the day I was assigned the business beat, I’ve been working on this sign ordinance story. I still am since I want to have a story for The Maneater. I’ve been calling people over and over all week. The Special Business District board director still hasn’t called me and I have a lot of questions for her. My one source on the SBD gave me some good stuff, but he wasn’t involved in the most recent meeting. Everyone else on the board said Carrie Gartner is the one who is handling the press on this issue.
It was easier to talk to business owners, but still not without some challenges. I mentioned in class how a few wouldn’t talk much because they were afraid to cause problems with their landlord who is on the SBD board. I’m not sure if I should have used the example I did for my lead. I asked her questions and she answered some, but didn’t want to be on the record for certain things. I didn’t quote her on anything and just explained her situation without overplaying the controversy, but I’m not sure how she’d feel about being mentioned. Since it wasn’t going to print, I used her as an example, but I’d have to ask her before I publish a Maneater story.
All the examples I would want for a similar lead don’t want to talk. I couldn’t go with a straight news lead for this either because the sources I needed to tell me about the most recent meeting didn’t get back to me.
Basically, I feel my work is never done.

There was a good example of a story in today’s Times that was done with visuals in mind. In the sports section, there was an article about skateboarder Bob Burnquist’s Mega Ramp that included photos, a large informational graphic and a link to an online video demonstration. When I saw all this, I thought about all the people who were involved with putting together a very visually compelling layout and story. There was of course the writer and photographer, but also someone who filmed the video clips and another person who put together the composite image from the film, plus the graphic designer who cut out the mini photo of Burnquist and organized the entire package with images, lines, text and a good amount of white space. This likely wasn’t a last minute effort. It was the product of a reporter who thought about a story visually and had a team to help him put it together.