Writing: still a journalist’s key asset

Take a look at a newspaper. Any newspaper. Even a newspaper’s web site. What do you see?

Writing is every newspaper’s foundation. Stories require writing, photos require cutlines, multimedia requires titles and usually uses written introductions. Are journalism schools beginning to minimize this foundational skill to make room for multimedia? I believe they are.

Journalism schools know it’s their duty to train students in all aspects of journalism: writing, audio, video, photography, layout and basic web design. But they don’t know how to properly allocate time so that a journalist’s most important asset remains at the top of the training planner while still instilling knowledge about and the value of new media technology. So every school fumbles with their scheduling decisions and builds students in the way they believe is best. Have they stopped to decide why? As far as I can tell, they believe multimedia skills will be instrumental in our future careers because many of today’s career journalists have a limited knowledge of these skills. Are we just obsessing over this stuff to show traditional journalists up?

I absolutely agree that I need to learn these skills, but I wonder how much time I should be putting into learning and practicing multimedia skills in order to keep my priorities as a student in line. The answer will be different for each student, according to their career goals, but most students don’t know what their career goals are until they are years into their education. This leaves the onus upon journalism schools to decide for students what they will want and need to learn.

I asked Kirk LaPointe, managing editor of the Vancouver Sun, for some feedback on what a journalism student’s priorities should be. He said, in an email, “It all starts with writing. The technical skills should only be sought once you’re happy with your writing and with the understanding of reporting. Practice that extensively before worrying about anything else. But once you’re ready, I think you should learn editing — text, audio and video. When you learn editing, you generally master creating, too. As for software, well, it’s changing almost every month. Learn social media, some SEO techniques, and probably Flash. Then just be open.”

“I’d also encourage students to get their own URL, to move heavily to Twitter and Facebook as information and distribution channels, and to blog extensively to get their voice,” he added.

What do you think? Are journalism schools losing focus on journalism’s most important skill? Where do you think a student journalist’s priorities should be?

 

Where’s a news maven to go?

We like customization. We like getting what we want, the way we want it, and fast. We have social media accounts, Google accounts and blogs for communication and organization. What do we have for news? Nothing.

Well, nothing doesn’t cut it anymore. Somebody needs to build a news haven that allows users to create accounts and build their own news home. We should be able to see headlines from all our favourite news sources in one place. We should be able to see how valuable those articles are through ratings. We should be able to search tags and scan categories for specific news. We should be able to find the latest headlines, top-rated videos and comment on whatever we want.

Why? Because that’s the world we live in, and because the media needs an extra push to step it up. Enough “me me me.” They need to feel pressured by the competition. They need to know where they sit against other news sources and what readers like or don’t like.

Check it out. I applied to Knight News Challenge to make this idea a reality because somebody needed to. Media, meet the digital age.

 

#Collegejourn’s first global reporting project takes shape

Let’s face it: people are cynical about the future of journalism. But the decline in public trust, relevance and interest wasn’t your fault, or mine. It happened over many decades of the media neglecting trends and allowing unreliable or biased sources to undermine journalistic integrity. It’s our job to revolutionize journalism. We have all the resources we need — and now we have a plan.

#Collegejourn, for those who don’t know, is a Twitter hashtag that college journalists originally used to identify their comments as being a part of #collegejourn’s conversation. Hashtags can entered into the Twitter search box for easy access to the conversation’s history. #Collegejourn conversations now take place weekly at www.collegejourn.com and through interspersed Twitter chat, always branded by #collegejourn.

The chat group decided to create an international reporting assignment during one of the weekly chats in August. We wondered, as all curious journalists should, what we could discover by studying one subject locally and comparing our results with those from all other corners of the world. Isn’t that the true meaning of “context” anyway?

So the brainstorming began. What would be internationally newsworthy and relevant? What would yield unique results for every location?

We decided to offer two variations on the same subject: one for features and multimedia, another for hard news.

1. The feature assignment’s subject is “What does health mean in your area?” With this subject, you’re at liberty to determine whether you want to report on mental health, physical health, healthy/unhealthy habits, local health news or anything else the word “health” connotes. Detailed guidelines are listed here, with a link to the Google group and the reminder to “be as location-specific as possible.”

2. The hard news assignment’s subject is “How does health care on my campus compare to others around the world?” Read the guidelines listed here and join the Google group to learn about the specific data we are collecting on each campus. The final product will answer questions like “What health services are available on-site?”, “How far away is the nearest hospital or clinic?” and “What ailments are most common at my campus?”

We are still determining where to collect completed assignments but have formed several web sites to share resources and continue discussions at.

Check out the Publish2 group, the Wired Journalists group, the Help Me Investigate investigation (contact us for an invitation to join), and the Google group.

Suzanne Yada wrote a blog post here,urging journalism students to “Take up the assignment. Use this opportunity for one of your journalism classes, produce a piece for your college media outlet, or just jump in because you want the unprecedented experience for your resume.”

Josh Halliday collected related links on the Online Journalism Blog, saying “We’re wanting contributors from all corners of the globe to join in.”

My next step is to contact various journalism schools with project details. Spread the word about the assignment and join in. We’re welcoming guidance from journalism professors and pros too, so don’t be shy!

 

Eye to eye: #Collegejourn crew is planning a global collaborative journalism project

Just north of the national border dividing Washington state from British Columbia lies a world of cultures stuffed into a package known as Metro Vancouver. In that area is a university that houses a journalism major. Inside the branch of the school with journalism classes is a small ground-floor library with a plethora of cubicle study areas housing dozens of minds, one of which may be me at any given time, single-mindedly constructing a journalism project.

Think bigger. Outside of my cubicle, outside of the library, the school, the province, the country and outside of my perception of ideas are a world of other journalism students. How strong could we be together? What could we discover about our world by dissecting, researching, reporting on and sharing one theme hundreds of different ways?

Earlier tonight, #collegejourn discussed the possibility of such a project. It will be a global collaborative journalism project: one theme, many stories, open to all. Two different approaches surfaced in the discussion, one being reporting on an internationally relevant topic such as the environment, and the other an investigation of a culturally-defined word. I love both ideas, though I suggested that the latter, using a word like “victory,” could offer some fascinating results. How cool would it be to see stories, slideshows and videos from all over the world depicting what victory means to one place? The key, of course, would be selecting a word that invokes emotion and would offer unique sociological and cultural definitions.

We want to include everyone we can. If you’re interested, pass the word around to fellow students and journalism instructors. If you have ideas on how to pull it off, please share them! We began sharing ideas for the organization of the project but the whole plan is in an early stage right now. What might be a good way to host our global collaborative project? Do you have any topic suggestions? Do you like the idea?

Are you in?! Suzanne Yada blogged about the idea here. Take a look at her thoughts; we’d love any input or advice.

 

Key to success: pretend you’re the editor

I won’t pretend to be a journalism expert. I’ve finished one year of my four-year journalism program, and after that I hope I continue learning better ways to be a journalist. For now, I’ll stick to pretending I’m an editor.

The interview questions are starting to come naturally. I can report, write, photograph and do a million other things. But while I’m working as a reporter, I’ve made a few sloppy mistakes that could have been avoided by remembering the editor’s job.

Imagine the editor sits down to read your story and you forget to include the date. That’s just made his job a whole lot harder – he has to find the time to call you, reach you and get the date while rushing to get the paper to the press. Not good.

Now imagine he reads your story and you did an awesome job. He is so impressed that he holds off on the story to make it bigger; the only problem is he needs more information and a photo. Photo?! If the event already happened, you’re out of luck. Don’t make the same mistake I did: take photos before they are requested. In my case, I was concerned that a photograph would look like an advertisement for the event’s sponsors. It would have been a much better idea to take the photos anyway and leave that decision to someone else if they asked for a picture later.

So this time he reads your story and checks out your picture. Nice work, he thinks. Then he sees the picture’s cutline. “A woman stands on the edge of the new bridge while a man tells her not to jump.” What woman? What man? Don’t tell me she forgot to ask for names…

I remembered before I left the event, but I couldn’t track down everyone I had photographed. It can be really hard to juggle photography and reporting at an event that is foreign to you but I probably could have saved myself some trouble if I had written down everything the editor might need before I began covering the story.

Do you know any other keys to success?

 

At the scene of breaking news

An eerie quiet strangles the deathly black swerves taking me from Surrey to Richmond.

Radio broadcasts replay a breaking news bulletin warning motorists to avoid No. 5 Road in Richmond. All power is out in a large grid surrounding the road, leaving a haunting darkness illuminated only by the occasional truck driver and NASCAR-wanna-bes. I drive faster.

Two passengers, radio broadcasters murmur. Maybe dead, they speculate.

It is 11:45 p.m. on Thursday, an hour and a half since emergency response teams were alerted to a fire. More than a fire, in fact. It is an airplane crash.

I cross over a hump in the road and find myself in a world where all eyes are wide open, watching intensely but solemnly still. Red and blue flashing lights pierce the darkness. At least a half-dozen emergency vehicles are visible East of the police tape littered across the intersection at Sweden Way and Bridgeport Road. RCMP car after car towards an unusually busy Staples and McDonald’s parking lot.

I collect my camera, notepad and tape recorder and head for the mass of people at the corner of the lot. Several curious onlookers dawdle uncomfortably behind large television cameras. Everyone talks in whispers.

The voice of the radio broadcaster fills the air again, this time barely audible as the CKNW reporter records a new update on his cell phone. He paces as he rattles through a disheartening statement from an RCMP officer concerning two confirmed passengers on the eight-seater Navajo aircraft.

The street corner is cluttered with photographers, video cameras and media crews. The occasional punk in an oversized t-shirt and baggy pants strays into the group and asks meekly where the airplane is. The RCMP act swiftly, sending all non-media people away.

There are no plumes of smoke, nor is the air overcome by fumes. It could seem, to the uninformed ear, like an unusually busy night at the local McDonald’s.

Click, click. Photographers capture lone pictures of police officers huddled together. Dark, grainy, useless pictures – everyone knows – but they offer a familiar job in the night’s quiet confusion.

The obnoxiously large Global TV van parked neatly in the corner of the lot nearest the action seems to mock other media gathered nearby. I am clearly the only person carrying a notebook. A slight chuckle emerges when CTV arrives on scene and begins unpacking. They are the last to show by almost an hour.

Richmond Fire Chief John McGowan walks forward with an RCMP officer. Fifteen, maybe twenty people rush to surround him. Most carry video cameras, digital cameras or microphone equipment. They hardly leave a metre of breathing space for the man as he begins a new update, the last for several hours.

McGowan spends the next several minutes relaying every detail he can confirm at this point. His voice, almost mute, barely rises enough to be heard above the sound of an airplane descending overhead. The plane was ripped apart on impact, he says. Both passengers are deceased. It is about 12:20 a.m.

Reporters begin spouting out questions, one after another. Was there any other injuries? one woman holding a TV station microphone asks. McGowan says fortunately, there were no civilians in the parking lot as the airplane skimmed the ground, took out several large buses and collided into the rear of a transmission shop beside IKEA.

A pause. The reporters, who were spontaneously creating questions on causes and consequences, have gathered all the available information. Name and title? someone asks. The group thanks the fire chief and he swiftly disappears.

An unnaturally wide man jumps in front of several media workers, saying that will probably be all the information given for several hours. The media will not be allowed closer to the scene until further notice. And cars begin vanishing into the night.

Police officers guide traffic away from a blocked-off area surrounding the Navajo airplane’s crash site.

Fire Chief McGowan reports the gory details of the airplane crash’s aftermath to a hoard of reporters.

I wrote this piece as a picture for other student journalists wanting to prepare for what to expect at the scene of breaking news. I read about the crash at about 10:45 p.m. and decided quickly that I wanted to see what being at the site of news with international significance was like. I hoped that I’d be able to market the information or photographs as a freelancer, but I realized shortly upon arrival that my pictures and notes would not be unique. Every media outlet was at the same location, receiving the same information. Still, it was an interesting experience.

 

More I’m learning from freelancing

I’m still new to freelancing. Two stories have been published, one was submitted yesterday and I have another in progress. I also have over a dozen investigative story ideas that I’m planning to find markets for. There is one big difference between writing for a paper and writing for a school assignment: story outlines.

When the editor and I discuss stories, aside from the story I pitched which required an agreement on the angle, there are no details given. I’m told this is what is happening or already happened, get some comments. Or maybe he says get a lot of colour, describe the scene. Another time I was given an event press release and that was it. To journalists, this sounds like FREEDOM!

And it’s a lot of fun. I decide when to go, who to talk to and what to talk about. I arrange it in an inverted pyramid but I don’t want it to be dry or boring so I’ll play around with descriptions and the order. I do the best I can and the editor will change it if it can be better.

It sounds easy. I take more notes than I ever have – maybe twenty pages per assignment. Then comes the hard part. Something happened and I have quotes that are important but boring… How do I make it sound interesting? How do I make sure the story reads well and makes sense? I will rewrite intros and rearrange sections to death. I know what I’m doing, but deciding where the lead becomes the nut graph can be overwhelming. Why? Because in school we were handed outlines.

Our assignments were dot-to-dot stories. One was a movie review. We watch the movie together and know exactly what we are writing about. We are given an exact word length and a sheet saying what to place at the beginning, what it needs in the middle and what we do at the end. It was almost a line by line instruction sheet. Almost every assignment was.

This time it’s different. Point is, we learned using outlines for a reason. The papers don’t hand out instruction sheets. So when you get to that place where you wonder what next, write your own instruction sheet. We learn using them because we need that guide. After an outline is down on paper, writing and rearranging takes seconds.

If you have tips you’d like to add, please do so. I’m still in the learning process and all comments and critique are welcome. If you’d like to see the stories that were already published, take a look here for “Blessed brutality” and here for “Award is Elicia’s ‘icing on cake.’”

 

A beginner’s guide to freelancing

I had no idea that Kwantlen had left me in the dark with freelance writing until I decided to try. A church nearby was hosting a Mixed Martial Arts fight, which raised several moral questions for me. I realized those questions could be a story if I could pitch it to the right market. I stumbled through a pitch – I’m still not sure I did it right – and sent it to the Vancouver Sun.

Step one: write a clear, brief description of the story with your angle outlined. Convince them that you know what you’re doing and estimate the time finished and a word count.
Step two: find out who reads the pitches at the market you’re interested in and email it there.
Step three: wait.

I had no idea how long to wait, but the event was in several days so I pitched it to The Province early the next day. I waited about four hours and I pitched it to the Surrey Now. The phone rang in minutes.

Step four: Be ready to answer questions you did not even think about. Have an opinion on the story (postive or negative) and describe your full knowledge of the situation. Answer questions about how you will approach the task and who you will interview. Be honest about who else you pitched to and be ready to commit.

The Now was interested in the story and I was asked to promise – three times – not to give the story to another paper. I was invited to the morning board meeting where I met other reporters and was asked to tell the room about my story idea. They loved it. They threw headline ideas around and discussed possible scandals in several story details. They agreed not to have the event shut down by informing City Hall beforehand and divvied up possible angles into several stories.

Step five: start the interviews without raising too much attention or giving away possible negative results. Ask permission for the Now to attend the event.

After this, I was in familiar reporting territory. I went to the event and took notes and conducted interviews. I wrote the editor over the weekend explaining how it went. I went to the office Tuesday morning to talk about writing it.

Step six: Know how you plan to write it. Ask questions if you have them. Offer a new word length estimate and clarify the position the publication has taken. Find out your deadline and meet it.

I sent it in that evening feeling comfortable with the piece. I was unsure about several necessary tense shifts and informed the editor that he may want to look at that. I received an email the next day with a second draft, rearranged but not that different.

Step seven: Read through the second draft if one is sent to you. Note the changes for future work. I noticed how important it is to keep sentences short. One idea per sentence. Also, the nut graph was moved to the middle of the story with the first half all present-tense description. This helped the flow later when past tense was required in the nut graph and when expanding on issues the event raised. I also noticed that several changes changed the accuracy or noticeably repeated the same word.

I replied to the editor noting those details that may need further consideration. I wasn’t sure if this was expected or if I should be saying “Why yes, this story looks perfect.” I certainly didn’t want to be difficult.

Step eight: be humble but honest if you are asked to read through changes in the piece.

I was later thanked for catching those details. The story ran front page and it set me up for future work. Better, though, was that I learned how important these principles are. If you’re given the opportunity to write a piece, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Stay firm and do the work. Meet deadlines. You’ll be surprised how big of a difference it can make.

Oh, and one more tip. Constantly check your email. If you are accessible and respond promptly, the editor might remember you for future stories.

 

A word on Twitter

For those who doubt the value of Twitter, think about how important a web presence may be to your career. Really important? You really need to use Twitter. Think about using Flickr, a blog and smaller social media web sites too, in that order. If you need help being convinced, search “Sarah Jackson” on Google. At present, there are 68,800,000 results. I adopted the name Sarah’s Odyssey for my web escapades, thinking my name was too common to surface through the many results. Several months later, my Twitter account is the eighth result in that Google search. My profile on wpj.ca, a school site featuring my class’s slideshows, is on the second page of results with this web site on the seventh page. Another site I plan to use for portfolio purposes was high in the list of results. I’ve only uploaded one pdf there so far. Check the site out: www.yudu.com. It will publish documents, audio and pictures of many file extensions. Use these resources. They are all free and they will put you miles ahead of other prospective workers. And I’m not just talking about journalism – any profession will be comforted by the effort you put into establishing an online track record. If you find enough value in yourself to do that, they’ll see the value too.

 

A first try at sports writing

That whole “sports” thing is foreign to me. And hockey? I’ve seen three games in my whole life. The third was a Giants game on March 8. I received my first ever press pass for that game. Following the game, I wrote a story based on game action for my beat writing class. For the first time ever, I found something that I really liked about sports: writing game commentary. Bear with me, as this is my first try. I’d love any feedback and feel free to tell me if I’m horrible. That’s the only way to know where my talent is (or isn’t).

A passing game almost as graceful as synchronized swimming clinched another win for the Vancouver Giants in the lead up to the Western Conference.
A crowd of 13,516 watched the Giants topple the Kamloops Blazers 5 – 2, bringing the opponents’ winning streak of four games to an end on Sunday afternoon’s game.
Giants goalie Jamie Tucker lost focus in the first half of the third period, giving two goals to Blazers forwards Kenton Dulle at 14:12 and Jimmy Bubnick at 15:43.
But Tucker shut the Blazers out earlier in the game, stopping 15 shots-on-goal by the end of the second period.
The two Blazers goals brought the score to 4 – 2 as the losing team ramped up the action to avoid an embarrassing defeat.
Evander Kane, assisted by Mikhail Fisenko and Brendan Gallagher, scored the final goal for the Giants with 53 seconds left on the clock.
The Giants were ahead 1 – 0 at the beginning of the third period.
Garry Nunn scored a power play goal at 1:43 in the third period, followed by Alex Rodgers at 8:10.
Blazers goalie Justin Leclerc let the fourth puck, shot by Gallagher, fly into the net at 9:39.
Referees Brett Montsion and Steve Papp were as distant as Leclerc in the third period, letting several offences go without penalty as players from both teams became increasingly hostile toward each other.
Giants player James Wright saw his share of the penalty box though.
Wright was penalized for tripping at 3:06 in the second period.
He was in the box for roughing at 8:11 in the first period too.
Ten seconds after completing that two-minute penalty, Wright scored the game’s first goal, putting the Giants in the lead for the rest of the game.
The Giants were on the offence from the start, playing on the Blazers’ side of the ice for most of the first two periods.
Both teams scored two power play goals in the game, and scored using multiple assists in all but one goal.
The multi-pass plan failed more times than not, however.
By the final buzzer at 8:15 p.m., the Giants made 44 shots-on-goal and the Blazers made 24.