Week 14: Done!

This was our last week of the semester besides finals, so the name of the game was finishing everything by the end of the week. Courtney looked over our chiropractic script last week, so we were all ready to go on Monday. I went into KBIA on Monday to work on editing the clips of our story and Jen and I got together on Tuesday to finish everything up.

We showed our story to Janet and she actually seemed to really enjoy it. She was so interested in it that she thought our story would be a nice introduction to a series on chiropractic care. The story will hopefully be aired soon, so I’m excited that this is another good clip for me to use. I thought what Janet said was very flattering, although neither Jen nor I will probably get to complete that project because Jen isn’t taking a convergence class next semester.

I am moving onto my final college semester and taking the convergence capstone course, so I hope everyone has a good break and I’ll be ready to go on my capstone when I get back!

Week 13: Chiropractic Adventures

Jen and I made remarkable progress on our chiropractic story this week. I am very confident that it’s going to be a great story when we finish.

During Thanksgiving break, I managed to track down a chiropractor that graciously agreed to be interviewed and be followed around for a morning. His name was Dr. Maxwell and he met all our requirements—his office was outside of Columbia in Fayette, he marketed himself as a family chiropractor and I particularly was interested in his practice because he had a picture of his wife and kids on the front of his website, which emphasized to me that he was committed to the idea of family chiropractic. Of course his website did not say that he had recently set up another office in Columbia, but we didn’t know that when we called.

He seemed willing to let us come and I assured him that we would just observe him for a few hours and not talk to any of his patients or identify them in any way in our story.

Jen and I met on Tuesday to prepare for the interview and headed out early Wednesday morning for the interview. I have to admit that I was kind of nervous going into it because I didn’t know if it was going to be awkward to be in the same room as patients and if I was a patient the last thing I would want was a reporter in the exam room with me. However, it all turned out to be just fine. The patients we met were nice and they went about their business as if Jen and I weren’t there, which is what we wanted. It was a very successful morning.

On Thursday, Jen and I went to our normally scheduled shift and wrote the script of our story. It was actually a bit harder than I expected, because we had a lot of information that we wanted to include, but still had to remain focused on the subject of our story, which was family chiropractic opposed to the controversy surrounding children and chiropractic and pregnancy and chiropractic. But we finished writing and hope someone will look over it before our next shift on Tuesday.

Next week, Jen and I will voice the story and put the whole thing together. I’m very excited about it. I think it’s a great trend piece that touches on a lot of different areas of holistic medicine that will interest listeners.

Week 12: Chiropractors!

Jen and I dove into our chiropractor story this week at KBIA. After talking with Janet, we narrowed down the focus of our story to a trend piece about how chiropractors are attempting to attract families, with a side angle of how chiropractors who treat infants and children is controversial.

Janet suggested that we get a quote from a national expert, then find a chiropractor around mid Missouri who we could follow around for a few hours. It was very good advice, but we’re still worried about finding someone who will give us that kind of access.

Tuesday was okay, but was a bit of a disappointment. We put out a ton of calls to try and find experts. We also put out calls to chiropractors but we didn’t get into immediate contact with them either. We did get find a lot of articles and blogs on the controversy subject, so those are all helpful resources.

However, our day picked up, because we lined up two interviews for later in the week with experts from all over the country and from various organizations. I even talked to a nationally known chiropractor on Thursday who gives presentations all over the country because she’s known as a specialist who treats children and babies. It was pretty cool. She was an amazing source.

Our week went well, but we are very focused on getting a chiropractor that will give us access to their practice and patients for a few hours. That is getting to be a real challenge that Jen and I are getting increasingly concerned about because we don’t have a whole lot of time left to finish up this story. We put out a bunch of calls Thursday morning and will continue to call people over break because our goal is to go to a chiropractor’s office early in the week we get back from break.

So, I think this story is coming along nicely. We already have part one done—talking to experts. Now, it is all about finding the perfect chiropractor that will give us the access we need, and we’ll work on that during break.

Week 11: Success

This week at KBIA, Jen and I were confident that we had all the information we needed and were ready to finish up our deer/car accidents story. Easier said than done. We finished writing on Tuesday and cut all of the soundbites, but it was not until the end of our shift that we got a staff person to look over our story and give us changes. The hostage situation in Jefferson City made the newsroom go crazy, so a lot of people were tied up.

By Thursday, somebody had looked over our script and we were ready to finish up. We voiced and the story was running a little long, so we cut a lot and added in our natural sound and other formatting things for radio stories. Janet listened to our story and suggested that we cut out all of the nat sound because our interviews were phone interviews, so she said it didn’t flow naturally with the nat sound in it. I’m a little resentful that a spent a Saturday afternoon getting the nat sound that is now useless, but that’s okay.

Janet really liked the story and it’s going to air soon! I’m excited that our three-week effort has not gone unrewarded.

Jen and I apologized that the story took so long to complete and did lack a focus when we initially began. Janet acknowledged that it did take longer than normal, but she said that since it was our first feature story it was okay and that our next story will be easier since we’re more experienced.

Jen and I also pitched a trend story about the fact that chiropractors are reaching out to families and children. Janet told us that Kirksville is a big area for chiropractors and actually founded the practice of chiropractors, so maybe we’ll be able to get out of the newsroom for this story. We have a lot of phone calls and research to do in the next couple of days, but hopefully this will be a nice second feature to keep us busy during our second half at KBIA.

Week 10: Getting Stuff Accomplished

Jen and I continued to work on our road kill/deer story this past week at KBIA, and I am proud to say that we are making progress.

On Tuesday, I was finally able to pin down somebody from the Missouri Department of Transportation who actually picks up animals on state maintained roads. We had been doing the run around with them for about a week, so I was so happy that we finally got a contact who gave us some good information.

We’ve talked to a lot of people for this story, and I doubt we will use everyone’s interview, so know it’s all about narrowing down that information. We’re still waiting for a few calls back from the last of our sources and are hoping to get some specific statistics from the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Last weekend, I went out and got nat sound from Rock Bridge Park and from cars on the road, so hopefully that will suffice for our nat sound. I also have an interview this weekend with a biologist, so hopefully that’ll shed some light on the more scientific aspects of deer/car collisions.

On Thursday, we did a few more interviews and put some phone calls out there, but we also started writing, which I am very excited about. I do think that we have a lot more information than we need, so we’ll have to be conscious of that when writing or this story will be insanely long.

Anyway, after a slow start I think we’re going in the right direction and hopefully we can finish up this story during our shifts next week!

Week 9: Road Kill

It was another stressful week at KBIA. After last week, I decided that pitching a longer form feature story was a better way to go than doing day turn stories that take more than one 4-hour shift to complete.

So, Jen and I teamed up to do a story on road kill. It was my idea—I did a little story on it at my internship over the summer and thought it would be interesting to do for KBIA. Janet seemed a bit skeptical about it on Tuesday because we admittedly didn’t have a relevant news angle to it, but we kept pursuing it with her approval.

I feel like doing stories in one shift period is very difficult just because getting a hold of people and having them call you back is difficult. Tuesday was a bit of a disappointment. We made a slew of phone calls and ended up with only one interview. Thursday was much better. We got two or three interviews done and decided we would each go out separately over the weekend to get some good nat sound of cars and wildlife.

I think we’ve made the decision to narrow the focus of our story to be just on road kill involving deer because there’s a big safety hazard involving deer. October and November is also the high season for deer accidents, which are much more prevalent in Missouri than most other states.

Our original concept was to follow someone who picked up and disposed of animals on the streets, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen because of people not wanting to talk to us. It is also interesting because we keep getting pointed in different directions to the people that actually collect the animals. It seems like no one knows who’s in charge of the animals on the street, which seems like it could be a story within itself.

Anyway, I think the story is going in a good direction, slowly but surely. It’s hard because I’m still feeling the constraints of working within two 4-hour shifts just because I’m so busy with other things. KBIA is nice because they do have a laid back environment and seem to trust reporters to make the right decisions on our own, which is refreshing.

So, I think our story will be up to par eventually, although it may take a little while, so I hope nobody rushes us, since we are working as hard as we can. It will be a good story eventually.

Week 8: Stressful First Week at KBIA

This week, I started work at KBIA, our local NPR station. I came in ready with a story to pitch bright and early on Tuesday morning. Janet, the main person at KBIA who’s in charge of us students, liked my idea about doing a wrap-up of the Citizen Jane Film Festival and how it went.

I’m finding it very difficult to do a story within the time limitations of my shift. My shift on Tuesday was from 8-12 a.m., however, the story meeting didn’t start until 9:00 and wasn’t over until 9:30 and I had a midterm at 12:30, so it didn’t give me and my partner much time to work on the story from start to finish. We got one interview done on Tuesday morning, and we didn’t get in contact with the rest of our sources until either late Tuesday or late Wednesday.

I came in for my next shift on Thursday morning with the goal of finishing up the story. I was concerned that I didn’t make a very good first impression because the Citizen Jane story seemed outdated on Tuesday, and even more outdated on Thursday.

We got the rest of our interviews done and were able to finish up the story that morning and Sara, the other person in charge of students, seemed to like the story, but I’m not sure when it’s going to air.

I decided that the best way to use my short time at KBIA productively was to pitch a longer form feature that I could work on during my own time instead of waiting around the studio for people to call me back during my shift.

I came up with the idea of doing a story about road kill and how it’s increased in some areas over the years. It would also be a human-interest piece because I plan to follow a public works person around as they pick up dead animals. I pitched it to KBIA and they seemed to really like it and gave me the go-ahead.

I’ll be starting on that next week with a partner, Jen, so I’m excited to have more freedom with the story and my time. Hopefully next week will be less stressful than this past week has been.

Week 7: Last Week at Newsy

This is my last week at Newsy, and I have to say I’m not overly sad to say goodbye to it. All in all, Newsy was not a terribly experience. I did enjoy it a little, however, I don’t think I learned that much I didn’t already know. The people I worked with were nice for the most part, but I never felt fully welcomed or appreciated by Newsy. Many days, there was no physical space for me and I often sat up front in the waiting area on my laptop.

I did get some good experience with research in the newsroom. Although I was given very little direction at the beginning, I figured it out on my own, and in that way it was a good learning experience. Next week, I’m onto KBIA-FM, our local NPR affiliate, and I don’t know quite what to expect, but I’m excited for what will hopefully be a productive challenge.

On Tuesday of this week, I pitched the story about how Governor Schwarzenegger signed the Harvey Milk Day bill into law on Monday. There were obviously lots of strong opinions about Schwarzenegger and whether he was a flip flopper (he vetoed the same bill a year ago) or a good guy, etc. It was an interesting story.

The only problem was that I only managed to find one video source that I could use. I didn’t think that this was a huge problem, however, Tanya, our supervisor, threatened to cut the story after I put two hours of work into it if I didn’t find another video source. I was determined. After much searching, I did find videos, but none that were precisely on the subject of the story. I think that’s a flaw of Newsy’s. A story still has potential and importance if it only has one video source. It ultimately got passed onto a higher editor so who knows if it’ll get published or not. However, the story I produced on Thursday had ZERO videos and only one audio piece, so I guess that’s just a contradiction at Newsy.

Since I finished my story early, I was assigned to help another girl with her story, and when that was done, Tanya taught me a new skill of finding photos for the website. It was nice to learn a new skill.

On Thursday, I was put on production, even though I was prepared to pitch a story. FinalCut always challenges me, so it was nice to get to know the software better and see a story somebody else started through to the finish.

Onto KBIA-FM next week. I’m not quite sure what to expect, but I’m always up for something new!

Week 6: Supervising

It was another busy week. The group I was in charge of project managing somewhat successfully completed their story last week. It is a very interesting, eye opening experience to be on the opposite side of where I was last year. It was cool to sit in on the grading meetings and really get an insight into what the professors are looking for in our stories.

My group this week got off to a bit of rocky start because they changed their story on Monday, which I kind of anticipated happening. They seemed to work really hard and pull the new story off though. I just hope they were able to make it compelling enough to be interesting, so that they get a good grade.

At Newsy on Tuesday I worked on my own story idea about the farmers protesting in Brussels over low dairy prices. It was actually a quite interesting story. The only problem is that I couldn’t find a lot of sources that presented a good argument on the issue, but I think I found enough to make it a concrete and substantial story. Here's the link: http://www.newsy.com/videos/crying_over_spilled_milk

On Thursday, I pitched another story that got approved about the Supreme Court cases involving a cross on federal land in a Californian national park. It’s an interesting case, and it turned out to have a lot of complicated layers. I don’t know if it’ll get published or not, but if it does I’ll post a link.

Next week is my last week at Newsy before going on to KBIA, an NPR affiliate.

Week 5: Busy

This week was unique from what I usually do because this week I am also supervising the reporting students with their stories, which is a nice change and challenge.

My group is working on a story about field trip budgets being cut. Overall, I am incredibly impressed with how ambitious they are. They opted to do a KOMU story opposed to a Missourian story, so I admire them for taking on the challenge. They talked to a ton of people, but they were able to pull it all together.

At Newsy on Tuesday I was assigned to continue on a story another student had started. It was on the Facebook poll put up asking if President Obama should be killed. I hadn’t even heard about it, but it is as awful as it sounds.

Anyway, despite coming in with pitches of my own, I finished up the research on the Obama story and was surprising assigned to start producing it in Final Cut. Going solo on my first production story freaked me out a little, however, I used it as an opportunity to figure out once and for all how to use Final Cut. It turns out that just sitting down and messing around with Final Cut is very useful.

It took me a while to produce the story and I’m sure someone could have done it better, but I did it and I’m excited that I was able to produce something on my own. Here’s the link: http://www.newsy.com/videos/hate_in_the_facebook_age

On Thursday, I had the idea to do the story about President Obama being in Copenhagen to schmooze the Olympics committee into choosing Chicago for 2016. However, apparently somebody had already pitched the idea and it was rejected because Newsy didn’t think they could turn it around in time before the Olympic city was announced, which would trump this news.

I understood that. So I teamed up with my fellow convergence colleague, LaurieAnn, to work on a story about China’s 60^th anniversary of communism celebration. It was an interesting story, so we wrote a script and found a lot of different perspectives. Check out the link:

http://www.newsy.com/videos/celebrating_60_years_of_communist_rule

My group finished their story somewhat successfully. It was cool to be on the other side of the reporters and see what goes on behind the scenes that you don’t necessarily get to see in the reporting class. I have my last group next week (project managing shifts seem very short), so hopefully they’ll do just as well.

Week 4: Published??

After receiving a positive evaluation for the first half of my time at Newsy, I felt more confident walking into the newsroom on Tuesday, knowing that at least I was doing the right thing, even if I wasn’t getting published.

On Tuesday, I pitched the story about Juanes’ big concert in Havana, Cuba over the weekend. He said it was a peace concert, but many Cuban Americans were very, very angry and thought he was promoting communism, so it was a great “Newsy” story with lots of different perspectives.

I wrote a script for it, and then revised it and the editor seemed to like the story, and to my great surprise it actually got published! I’m so overwhelming happy and proud of myself.

On Thursday, my fellow convergence colleague and me put the entire script together in FinalCut. It took a long time, mainly because both of us knew just pieces of what we were supposed to do, so I’m sure other people could have done it faster, but we figured it out ourselves and I was able to see my idea through from start to finish.

I was so excited and thought that I had finally found my footing at Newsy. Check out the video!

http://www.newsy.com/videos/tune_of_peace_or_communism

Week 3: Finally Settling In

After two unsuccessful weeks at Newsy, I was sure that this had to be my week. I knew what I was doing now. I had thoroughly researched a story on the Elton John adoption issue the night before. I was convinced that it was perfect—lots of video sources and various opinions. This would be my Newsy story, I thought.

I got to Newsy and got started writing and doing more research. To my great surprise, the graduate student in charge of supervising us actually liked the story. She seemed impressed that I actually achieved something. She even passed it on to another person to put it together so that it can be published!

Finally, after two weeks I was getting published. I am very proud of myself. I remained optimistic despite some bad experiences and I was determined to do something right and I guess I succeed. Hopefully it’ll be published soon, but it hasn’t yet. Sometimes, it seems like it takes Newsy a while to get stuff up on their website.

On Thursday, I was not as optimistic walking in because although I had a story idea ready to pitch, I wasn’t very confident about it.

Regardless, I pitched my story about how the Senate passed the bill that would allow guns to be checked on Amtrak trains. It was a good Newsy story because it had a lot of different viewpoints, however, I was able to find no video sources for it, which is a major problem at Newsy.

I eventually found one video source, and a ton of blogs on the issue, so I wrote my story and the editors seemed to like it, so it’ll probably go to another person to finish writing it and see if other video sources appear in the next few days. I was happy and relieved that this week at Newsy was better than before, and I hope it continues that way.

Week 2: Frustration

The word of the day on Tuesday was frustration. If there were a word stronger than frustration, I would use it, but for now frustration will have to do. I was overwhelmed before I walked into my Newsy.com shift on Tuesday, because I’m taking Intermediate Writing for my print concentration, which is turning out to be more difficult and time consuming than I initially thought. I walked in with what I thought was a great idea and many sources for the story I wanted to write. My pitch idea was about the journalist in Sudan who was arrested for wearing pants. Newsy had not done a story on it yet, and I knew it was something that would be a “Newsy” story.

I walked in confident and ready to finally succeed at Newsy. My idea got the okay. I was pretty proud of the final product, and I was sure it was a “Newsy” story, unlike the ones I produced last week. It had a lot of video sources, which Newsy likes, and a lot of layers so I was very hopeful.

I turned in a first draft and made those changes and then turned in a second draft. And then history repeated itself. I was told it was not a “Newsy” story. I remained calm but grilled the graduate student who was in charge of us about what exactly qualified as a “Newsy” story. Apparently, my stories had to have more controversy and be less about the actual news, but more about the controversy surrounding it. I was supposed to use information from just blogs, columns and editorials.

Knowing what was expected of me, I remained hopeful that the story I wrote on Thursday would be closer to being published.

Thursday was also discouraging. Me and my fellow convergence editing students were supposed to “shadow” a fellow, which is all well and good, but I had written three scripts. Failed scripts, but still scripts nevertheless, so I didn't see the point in shadowing someone else.

So we just sat in pretty much silence and observed her edit a script and then write a new one that didn’t get finished because her first priority of editing took so long. We helped her find video and text sources for her story idea about the new Hubble telescope photos that had just been released. I had spent over an hour Thursday morning and Wednesday night researching story pitches, which no one asked for at Newsy. But the Hubble story was interesting, however, I still just don’t understand—this story is not at all controversial. Who would say anything controversial about telescope pictures? We got a lot of different angles to the story, but no controversy, which seems to be what Newsy wants. I'm pretty sure the story never got published. Who knows what happened to it. So that is what I did on Thursday.

Week 1: Unpublished

I began my convergence editing class this past week working at Newsy.com. Newsy is a unique website that focuses on national and international news. They take hot-button issues and discuss what other news sources/blogs are saying about the issue to make the news much more well-rounded than what someone would get from a traditional, single-perspective news source. I really enjoy the concept of the site.

Newsy, in my opinion, has changed significantly since I worked there nearly a year ago. The site itself has progressed and more stories are being produced daily, which is good, however, I have doubts that my work experience will be as successful as it was last year.

Me and two other convergence editing students were thrown into Newsy with no direction on Tuesday. We were assigned to work together and we wrote a script on the Michael Jackson hoax video, which basically shows MJ alive and well and caused quite an internet scandal, even though the German television producers disclaimed the video as being completely false.

It was an okay story that we came up with, but I knew immediately that this was not the kind of thing that Newsy would normally publish, despite the controversy. We wrote drafts of the story with guidance, but he story was not published. I figured that this had been assigned to us for practice, which I understand, but we were given no explanation in regards to format (Newsy has a pretty specific script format) or anything else. I walked away a little disappointed.

I didn’t know what to expect on Thursday. I walked in hopeful that I would be assigned a hard-hitting news story, even though I brought in pitches of my own. I started researching my own pitch, but I feared it wasn’t hard-hitting enough to get published, so I stopped pursuing it and joined another convergence editing student to help her with her story. We worked on the story and put together what we thought was a pretty decent story, but apparently it wasn’t “something Newsy would publish.”

I understand this. I understand that some stories are just not exactly what a site is looking to publish. Not everything can make the cut. However, I knew that this story wouldn’t be published at the beginning of my shift, but I still spent the full 4-hour shift working on it.

So, I’m a little frustrated with Newsy right now. It was an enjoyable experience last year and although I’m glad the site seems to be progressing and becoming more professional, my first week has not fulfilled my hopes or expectations for the experience. However, I will keep my hopes up for a better experience in the weeks to come!

Welcome!

Welcome! If you're reading this now, then you are probably one of my professors, but on the off chance that you aren't a professor of mine: welcome!

I am a convergence journalism students at the Missouri School of Journalism. Convergence basically means that my journalism education revolves around learning many different skills about print, radio and broadcast journalism.

This semester I am taking my third convergence course, Convergence Editing and Producing. I am working 8-hour weekly shifts at Newsy.com for the first half of the semester and KBIA radio, an NPR affiliate, the second half of the semester.

So, welcome to my blog and enjoy.