News-gathering necessities
Covering news in unexpected moments
One of my literary inspirations other than Calvin and Hobbes is Sherlock Holmes, and when it comes to the news it reminds me to pursue every lead, research every person involved in a topic, and finish something all the way through. After all, in journalism, there is no time to waste. Every day is a deadline. Even my varsity senior soccer night. After the Friday game, when we won and started celebrations with cake and other festivities, my advisor Sara-Beth Badalamente (who is also the freshman men’s soccer coach) told me that there was a men’s football piece we should report on. I still remember running with my cleats in my backpack, to the Huron Athletic Director, Tony Whiren, asking if I could get an interview. Since it was about 9:00 p.m., he said to give him a call on the weekend– and that’s when I finished the post. It’s on-spot interviews like these which have taught me that sometimes building an immediate connection with the interviewee can lead to more fruitful results, than weeks of preparation for a remote interview in which a connection is harder to establish. (To see the post head to the law, ethics, and news literacy tab). Picture of me and my advisor Sara-Beth Badalamente at our end-of-the-year soccer banquet. Fun Fact: We received an email from Washington Post reporter Valerie Strauss about having a talk with our editorial board minutes after the banquet ended. I guess whenever we are at soccer, journalism becomes jealous and doesn’t wish to leave us alone. |
Letting the person talk
It can be said that journalists are intermediaries– we assimilate quotes from people and lace them throughout a story without compromising the voice of the interviewee. Therefore, interviewees should dominate interviews. The journalist should make it feel like an everyday chat. Have the patience to listen. And most importantly, elicit the interviewee to exhibit joy, acceptance, or whatever fits the realm of the subject and places them in their true element. Attached is one of my pdf transcripts of an interview. Running this through a word processor, the ratio of the interviewee speaking to me talking is about 3:1. Or 2.7741:1 if we want to be accurate to the hundreds place.
maggie_transcript.pdf | |
File Size: | 59 kb |
File Type: |
Flexibility with deadlines, flexibility with pieces
Now that we aren’t prior reviewed, it opens up space in our deadline schedule. This means that in certain cases, we can write closer to the issue deadline, about breaking news– which is unpredictable by nature. It does have its pressures to execute a piece on a shortened timeline, but more than anything, we want our pieces to reflect what affects our community, and school, the most.
Example extension email I granted due to inclement weather and other schedule conflicts.