Reflection Catch Up!!!

I completely forgot we were supposed to be blogging and I actually wrote these blogs before seeing how long most other people's blogs were...so they're kind of long and much more formal than they should be. But on the up side they're also very in depth! I see I’m not the only one who has forgotten to do this so excuse my tardiness as well. I promise to keep up from now on. Well, on to the reflections!


Week 2:

This week Erica Zucco and I completed our first team assignment. I learned quickly that convergence reporting is a whole lot of work. There wasn’t a single day since we were assigned the project that I was not working on the story in some capacity. I must say that I really enjoyed the story we chose to do, so I did not mind spending so much time on it. Erica and I did our story on the Modern Whig Party, focusing on the membership base here in Missouri. Everyone we talked to was very cooperative and eager to talk to us about the party, which made things really easy. We were even able to get all of our interviews done early in the week, which gave us a lot of cushion for completing the rest of the assignment. We were very prepared for this story and had really great interview subjects, which made it a wonderful experience.
I ended up doing the voice overs for our NPR style story for KBIA, but apparently I have a “lazy voice” (says Karen and Lynda) and I am a P-popper. So much for my broadcast career. But I shall overcome. It was really cool that KBIA wants to air our story, although we still have not gotten around to getting the extra material we need in order for it to air, although we plan on doing that very soon.

Week 3:

This week I began working at the Missourian. For my first shift I covered a story that dealt with the construction at Brady and the way it has affected pedestrian traffic at the new bookstore. Since Brady commons is being remodeled, students without a meal plan have nowhere to eat on campus except for the small cafeteria at the new bookstore. The problem with the cafeteria is there are inadequate seating accommodations. The small seating area cannot handle the high volume of students that choose to eat there, meaning that students must eat on the floor, in the book stacks, or simply take their lunch elsewhere.
This assignment was a greater challenge than I thought it was going to be. I expected to be able to shoot video for this story in about half an hour to an hour, and edit it in about 3 hours. But things didn’t work out that way. First of all, I was at a disadvantage because I took 4802 over the summer, and that was before we started using the new video cameras. So in order to cover this story I had to quickly learn how to use the new video cameras, including how to calibrate al the settings. When I finally got to the new bookstore to begin shooting, it was halfway between classes, so there weren’t that many people eating there. I had to wait another half an hour for classes to get out so that the cafeteria would fill up with people again. Then the issue was getting people to talk to me on camera. Some people were willing to talk, but not on camera. Others just wanted to be left in peace while they ate their lunch. Many of the people I talked to said that it was their first time eating there so they could not speak to the issue I was asking them about. I finally collected about five solid interviews and then went back to edit my piece.
It took me a little while to get my Avid feet back under me, but when I did it was just like riding a bike. I picked out clips, b-roll, and wrote a script. Then I discovered that I had made a crucial error. I lost the names of the people I interviewed! I was so angry at that point I thought that all was lost. Fortunately I remembered the name of one of my interview subjects and was able to use her for my story. This setback (and may I add bonehead move) significantly shortened the length and strength of my piece, but overall I think it turned out decent. Valerie Chew, the convergence editor who helped me put my package together, provided an invaluable service. She really helped me salvage my story after I discovered my mistake. I learned to be absolutely certain that I have all of the info I need before I leave an interview or site. It was a difficult feat to complete this assignment, as it was my first day turn. I believe that I learned a great deal though, and it definitely gave me a taste of what it was like to work under a tight deadline. I am looking forward to my next shift at the Missourian.

Week 4:

This week I completed my second team assignment. Right off the bat I had more difficulty with this team assignment than I did my first, simply because of the story ideas we came up with. Our story ideas were not as well researched as they should have been, and because of this Jordan and I left the story pitch meeting without a clear idea of which story we were going to pursue. It was not until Monday that we actually had a clear idea of what our story was and even then we ended up changing it Monday night. Essentially, this gave us about two and a half days to complete a weeklong story.
The reason we changed our story is because when we interviewed a union representative (as our original story was about unions) she told us that MU’s new pension plan was severely impacting the lowest paid workers in a very negative way. Jordan and I were not very familiar with the pension issue at this point and thought that we had come across a great angle to the story. Upon further examination we realized that perhaps we had gotten swept up in one side of the story and we were not approaching it in a very objective way. Nonetheless, we were running out of time and had to turn something in, so we went with a reaction story to the change in MU’s pension plan.
This story proved to be very difficult for the sole reason that we could not get any of the workers this change was affecting (i.e. custodial and maintenance) to talk to us about it. It seemed that they were scared to say anything about the issue to reporters for fear that they would lose their job. It seemed like there was definitely something deeper going on in the story. Several employees said that they were told not to comment about the issue, which seemed very suspicious. I felt that we did not really have enough time to fully explore the issue, however, since we got such a late start on the story.
I learned quite a bit from this assignment. First of all, a strong story idea is key to turning a good story. Our story ideas were not strong to begin with, and it hurt us in the long run. Second, persistence pays off. We thought our story was dead in the water when we couldn’t find any custodial or maintenance workers to talk to but we didn’t give up. Thursday morning we were able to find a few people to talk to us and we ended up with a decent final product. Unfortunately the piece failed to give very much additional insight and context to the reader that had not been covered by other news sources already. I do think it raised an important issue though, and if reworked could make for a good story.