The reporting for this piece was tough for me. When I was a kid Sesame Street taught me not to talk to strangers, but now I have to do a whole lot of that! For my last piece, the interviews were set up ahead of time, so I knew that I had a subject willing to talk to me. In this case, I just had to go out and try to find some smokers. I was pleasantly surprised in that people were eager to talk to me, so that was encouraging...I think it just takes a lot of effort to step outside of my comfort zone, so hopefully I'll get used to that as I continue to do some reporting for this piece.
The actual writing went pretty smoothly compared to the last two assignments. I had a clear idea of what points I wanted to make and what description and quotes I wanted to include. I think the writing was easier because I spent a lot of time thinking about the article before I sat down to write. Plus I was really curious about the issue and I found out some interesting stuff and met some interesting people, and I wanted to write about it all. I put myself in this piece as a character, which is something I haven't really tried too much, but it was fun to include all of the awkwardness and ridiculousness that happened while I was reporting.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Reporting is definitely all about stepping out of your comfort zone! It's something that I've really struggled with a lot during my journalism time at K because I have a hard time just walking up to people and asking them to talk to me--even after three years, I still sometimes have to work myself up to call someone or walk up to someone. And sometimes I really just have to remind myself that the worst that person can say is no--the world won't end. But it does get better, and really, journalism (and Marin) has probably been really good for me that way.
ReplyDeleteHah, I agree with you about the not talking to strangers. I can have a hard time having an easy conversation with someone that I don't know myself and interviewing is particularly hard for me because I feel that all of my questions are asinine. Hopefully, it will get better or it's just gonna suck.
ReplyDelete