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.

Week 8

I thought doing the video news project was fun. A lot of work, but still fun, especially editing in iMovie. I like gathering information for a story. I always feel I can never have enough. Emily and I overheard a group saying they had three sources. We had 13. We interviewed eight students, two dining hall employees (one student and one full time cook) and the CDS marketing director, in addition to talking off-camera with someone from the Office of the Registrar and another Campus Dining Services rep to get statistics. I think with all this information, we were able to put together a strong story on something that could have been superficial: Dining halls are crowded, boo hoo, say students. I hope you agree.

With such a busy week of midterms and the video project, I haven't had the time to scour the news as usual. (I just sat down with Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's NYT when I realized I had to write my blog.) So the best story I've read this week was actually one we were assigned for Cross Cultural. It's a Washington Post article from 2004 by Anne Hull, "In the Bible Belt, Acceptance Is Hard-Won." It's a strong immersion piece since the reporter spent hundreds of hours following around a gay 17-year-old in rural Oklahoma. It truly gives an inside look at what is like to be...well, a few things...a gay teen, a gay Christian, a gay Oklahoman. It showed several sides of the boy. He was certain he was different, though he wished he wasn't. He was working for acceptance of himself and from his mother, but he didn't want to flaunt his homosexuality. This complexity is something most reporters cannot always get. They strive for the human angle, but can't get it unless they dedicate the time and have the right state of mind to really understand someone's situation. Then it's a matter of relaying everything you learned and telling a good story:

"Michael Shackelford slides under his 1988 Chevy Cheyenne. Ratchet in hand, he peers into the truck's dark cavern, tapping his boot to Merle Haggard's 'Silver Wings' drifting from the garage.
Flat on his back, staring into the cylinders and bearings, Michael fixes his truck like he wishes he could fix himself.
'I wake up and I try so hard to look at a girl,' he says. 'I tell myself I'm gonna be different. It doesn't work.'
Michael is 17 and gay, though his mother still cries and asks, 'Are you sure?'"

Week 7

The Los Angeles Times has been running parts of a series called "Vanishing Russians" about the declining population in Russia. I read all of Monday's article, which focused on the inadequate health care and multiple risks Russians face, especially in certain areas and if they are poor. Another story in the series focuses on disease, suicide and substance abuse, while the third part looks at loss of identity as the Muslim and minority population grows.
Kim Murphy, the Times writer, must have completely immersed herself in this subject. The amount of information she must have gotten had to have been overwhelming. She wrote three in-depth articles examining different problems, as well as one shorter story that focused on a specific town that she featured in the health care article. I am impressed with how she was able to organize everything and tell these stories compellingly. The lead on the health care article, "For the Sick, No Place to Turn":

"He was 40 when he had his first heart surgery, a quadruple bypass to correct damage caused by the swirling poisons of the ancient copper smelter where he worked. But that was a decade ago, when the decrepit Russian healthcare system still provided low-cost care to those who could wait.
Now, Mikhail Lychmanyuk has been told he will die unless he has a second heart operation. This time, it will cost him $5,000.
It might as well be $1 million."

The story is as heartbreaking as it is informative. The series opens our eyes to a problem we wouldn't otherwise think or know anything about, and I think it is amazing that someone went in and took the time to understand the breadth and depth of the situation and then wrote stories about the people in it. This was a massive undertaking—far beyond where I am now—but it is in line with the type of journalism I want to do. When I do a story, it consumes me. I want to take time to learn about all the angles of a topic. I want to talk to as many sources as possible. I want to learn about the history of something so I can better understand its present state. I want to be an expert. That is why I don't take on many stories for The Maneater, and why I don't think being a reporter for a daily paper is the life for me. If I can't do a great story, I'd almost rather not do it at all. Not that those papers can't do great stories. They certainly do. But for me, I'm very picky with the projects I take and I don't like being rushed to throw them together.
When I was a senior in high school, I wanted to do a story about teacher-student relationships and the gray area of sexual harassment. I had this idea early in the schoolyear, but I waited because I needed time to do it right. Luckily it was evergreen and I was able to get started in the spring when classes weren't as demanding. I spent weeks doing interviews, analyzing the situation with my cowriter and redrafting with our advisers. When it came out in the last issue of the year, I was completely satisfied. So since my senior year, when I did that story and other in-depth features like one about perscription drug abuse, I have been leaning toward magazine writing, which allows more time and space to delve into an issue.

Week 6

Grammar has mostly been the focus of class this past week. I feel pretty confident about the test coming up on Friday. I've always been strong in grammar because I'm actually interested in words and the rules of language. I'll probably do another practice exam before the test, but I think I should do well.

I read a really strong article in the New York Times, "A Farmer Fears His Way of Life Has Dwindled Down to a Final Generation." The piece is a great example of examining an individual case to tell a broader story. It has a very strong human element, one that is not superficial like "The Formula" stories I talked about in my post last week. Charlie LeDuff gives us a clear portrait of one man whose situation reflects those of other independent farmers who know a completely different way of life.
It's got a good lead:
"The heart of the heartland, the exact geographic middle of the continental United States, is owned by a middle-aged Kansas man named Randall Warner. He exports wheat, beef and soon his second grown son to the city. He stands in his boots in his field and wonders what's become of his way of life."
From that I kept reading and was pleased to find that the story didn't quickly segue into a general topic. Yes, sometimes hearing from many different perspectives is important, but in this story the strength comes from the singular focus. That is the type of human element that can be most effective in storytelling. We should be striving to find that perfect example to serve as a microcosm for the larger point we want to get across.
Plus the article had a great arrangement of four photographs that perfectly showed the two sides of the story—the conservative farmer who loves working the land above all things and the college-bound son looking for something new beyond the farm.
Good photography. Good writing. Good story.

Week 5

Unfortunately, I don't have much to comment on about last week's class since I was too sick to attend. This weekend I definitely started feeling a lot better so I did go to Monday's lecture. The Missourian editor had some good advice, but I could tell he was tired of lazy reporters. He seemed to get frustrated when he talked about finding sources and searching for facts. Journalism requires a lot of persistence and attention to detail. A reporter has to be willing to take the time to find all the information and make the effort to reach many sources. I'm sure that editor has dealt with plenty of students who haven't spent the energy they should have on a story.
Since all my classes have been focusing on how to write newspaper-style stories, I've been noticing "The Formula" of most stories I read. Reporters have an issue they want to talk about, but they need a human element so they find a specific person to embody the problem. That's how they come up with their lead. From there they move to the general topic and explain the wider significance, followed by a few more human examples or quotes from experts mixed in with the facts before finishing with a strong quote, maybe even from the original character we saw in the lead.
An example of this I found today was from the Wall Street Journal, "Pick Me," about rating systems on Internet dating sites. The article had a good punchy lead:
"The Internet lets people search billions of Web pages in a fraction of a second and instantaneously tap information around the globe. One thing it couldn't do: Find Brian Wolf a girlfriend."
From there it describes Wolf's situation as "one of the 25 million Americans who visit online dating sites annually." Then the writer moved on to explain more about specific Web sites and how rankings are affecting online dating hopefuls. And of course, it ends with a quote:
"I'm going to keep this up until I meet the right girl."
It's a solid story, but just follows the formula, which I am becoming increasingly aware of.

Week 4

This past week has been hard since I've been so sick. Last week started out OK. The fire story wasn't too difficult and I liked writing the reflection so you could see why I made certain decisions. By Wednesday night though I was feeling very tired and sick, and it's only gotten worse. I missed out on Friday's class, but as long as it was just a tutorial on iMovie, I think I will be fine. I've used the program before for fun and for a 30-minute class film. We will have to arrange something later this semester so I can make up the interview assignment. Let me know if you would like a doctor's note.
I also need to get notes from someone in class for Monday's lecture. I was in the emergency room with a 105-degree fever the night before so I was too tired and miserable to walk across campus.
I'm getting bored of being in bed, but I can't bring myself to do anything besides lie here. I have to take advantage of every small spurt of energy to get some work done.
I did find an interesting article yesterday online. It was called "Bye-Bye Blogger" and it was in the NY Times Sunday Magazine. It isn't a news article. Actually, it's a simple Q&A. It stood out to me though because we have been talking about interviews and how it is important to have good follow-up questions, instead of just a list that you ask in order. "Bye-Bye Blogger" was an interview with Lee Siegel, the New Republic writer who posted anonymous blog comments about himself and his enemies. I found the Times reporter's questions very hard-hitting.

Deborah Solomon asked: You yourself comfortably adopted a false persona when you had Sprezzatura comment about one of your critics that he “couldn’t tie Siegel’s shoelaces.” Doesn’t that show great immaturity on your part?

Siegel: I am too childlike to be immature.

Instead of accepting that answer and moving on, Solomon called him on it and asked, "Is that just doublespeak?" Another time after a confusing answer, Solomon asked, "What are you talking about?" I enjoyed the interview because Solomon kept slamming this guy. She proved herself as a journalist, while degrading one who made a big mistake.
In response to Siegel's explanation of his book title, Solomon said:

The title “Falling Upwards” seems to have acquired an additional and unintended meaning now that you yourself have taken a professional fall.

Siegel: Just a couple of feet. I didn’t fall out the window. I fell off my chair. I fell from my chair onto the floor.

Solomon: Which suggests you were not at a great height to begin with.

Oh, that's a burn.

Week 3

Over the past week we've talked a lot about interviews, in lab and in lecture. I think my interview with the manager of the Alpine Shop went pretty well. I picked him because I figured someone who worked in an outdoor shop would have a lot of experiences and maybe some interesting hobbies and stories. Jeremiah Wade didn't have any specific stories, but he did seem to have plenty of different experiences. I think I was able to put together the information fairly well, with the main theme starting in the lead and being repeated in the final quote from his wife—that Jermiah would always rather be outdoors.
One of the articles I read this week was "At $9.95 a Page, You Expected Poetry?" by Charles McGrath of the NY Times. It was an analysis of three different term papers written by three different Web sites. It was an interesting idea to order several papers then analyze them and show them to college professors. Overall the article was a good look at how terrible these services are and it had a fun style. However, one line stood out to me:
"It’s also written in language so stilted and often ungrammatical (...) that it suggests the author may not be a native speaker of English, and even makes you suspect that some of these made-to-order term papers are written by the very same people who pick up the phone when you call to complain about your credit card bill."
It was supposed to be funny, but it probably shouldn't have been included. I just know what my cross-cultural journalism professor would have to say about the stereotypical remark. But overall, I liked the piece and found it interesting.