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!