I write this post on Roy Peters Clark’s Writing Tools blog yesterday, and his post “When Journalists Use Archetypes” reminded me immediately of a time when I had to make the same choice that student did: Do I go with the touching, cute story or the warts and all version?

I took one summer course other than my internship in college. It was feature writing (at 8:30 a.m.!), and it was the summer I was serving as managing editor at the Stater. I liked the class for two reasons:

First, unlike feature writing in the fall or spring, we turned around a story a week instead of a story a month with endless revisions. I have a tendency to grow weary of a story I work on too long, favoring instead a more immediate turn around and revision process. Because the semester was shorter, we pitched the idea to the professor, reported and wrote it that same week. We pitched the next story and worked on both the revision and the new story simultaneously. It was more time consuming each week, but it was a more newspaper-like than feature writing in spring and fall.

That was my second reason for liking the class. I had been a magazine major because I wanted to do these feature stories. It wasn’t until my professor, Mitch McKenney (who was then the deputy metro editor at the Beacon Journal and has since become the features editor), had us read newspaper feature after newspaper feature, many from his own experience where he could elaborate on the reporting and editing processes, that I realized you can do those types of stories at a newspaper. You can do those types of stories better on a beat because you understand the material and the people and the issues that much better. I also saw that you can write interesting features in a non-traditional form or in very few words. Until that class, I had never really been exposed to that. So it was a turning point for me. It was after taking that class that I changed my major from magazine to newspaper (though, obviously by my status as ME at the Stater, I had already established myself in both newspaper and magazine student media, so I was poised to go either way, both with the intent of doing online in the long run).

I pitched the idea of riding around with the ice cream man for my final story. It was an idea stolen from one of the stories we read where the reporter rode for a day with a dog catcher. I also liked the idea of being able to do all — or almost all — of the reporting in one sitting.

It was both one of the most fun and miserable stories I’ve ever done. Fun because the woman was hilarious and you really do hear and see a lot of cute things from the window of the ice cream truck. But miserable because the truck didn’t have air conditioning, and I hadn’t thought to wear light clothes or put on sun block — my legs and arms were sunburnt on half of my body after baking for 12 hours(!) in 97 degree sun. Oh, and then there was the prolonging of the 12 hour day by the truck breaking down half an hour away from the company base. It was, eh hem, an interesting day.

I met the owner and he put me on a truck with the woman with whom I had struck up a conversation outside.

It was the first of many contradictions that I experienced that day. This was an ice cream woman. That followed with many more: before doing this she had managed an adult bookstore, she swore like a sailor (though not around the kids), and she profiled the neighborhoods in the opposite way you would think: lower- to middle-class were better. As she drove through the neighborhoods, she went on about her theory (the upperclass kids were playing video games, their parents were too cheap that’s how they got so much money, etc. and the poorer areas where she did her best business, the parents could spend a dollar and totally make their kids day.) I was able to see this play out as we drove through much more affluent areas and sold not a single popsicle, and then as we drove through “the projects,” she had lines halfway down the road.

When I got home and sat down to write, I was confused. Do I write about the feel-good stuff, the cute kids counting their pennies and stopping at Wal-Mart to buy sugar free popsicles for the nursing home she visited because many of the adults were diabetic yet her boss couldn’t sell enough sugar-free items to stock them? Or, do I write about the more real-life stuff, the empty yards and sidewalks in the affluent areas, the kids who wanted the ninja turtle but could only afford a freeze pop, the other driver invading her “turf” and cutting into her business, the annoying song that must have played 1,000 times, the lack of air conditioning, the truck breaking down, the excessive use of “damn” and the like?

I struggled with that, and then called Mitch the next day to ask for his advice. I had decided to go with the warts and all version, even though it wasn’t what I set out to report or to write. But I wasn’t sure how to treat it when fully half my best quotes included an expletive. He helped me work it out so it wasn’t offensive and it wasn’t sugar coated. It was what it was true to her character and my day in the life of this ice cream truck driver.

Sadly, as it was written for class and it wasn’t of immediate appeal to the Stater audience, it never ran, and I have long since lost the copy I had of it. But it is still one of my favorite stories. I know Mitch really liked it, too, because the last time I saw him at a function last fall, he mentioned it as he introduced me to his boss and he has told me he uses it as an example in his classes.

Something tells me this story wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable if I’d gone with the cliche, ideal of the ice cream man.

I’ve been out of school for six months now.

How do I know? Not by the calendar. I don’t actually own a calendar. No, I had a decidedly more “Welcome to the real world” reminder: My first student loan payment is due.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how your whole life people tell you “wait until you’re in the real world.” I always hated that phrase. When I was in high school, when I was in college, even now, I always wanted to ask what I was living if not my real life. There is no alternate universe. Life is the real world. You only get one shot, and there is no do-over. You don’t get to try door number two if you don’t like door number one. You have to find a new door somewhere along the road.

College is a bit of an incubator though, protecting you from a lot of the realities. My parents were never the “let me pay your rent” type. I’m a stronger person because of it. I’ve always had to pay for what I wanted or needed, whether it was taking my ACTs or AP tests, buying my laptop or my digital camera, putting gas in my car or just buying dinner. I had to work to make the money for it. So it is. Everything I have, I earned. I’m thankful for my parents not prolonging the “real world.”

But still I’ve been catching myself lately thinking “So, this is the real world.” The job I have, the apartment I’m furnishing bit by bit, the car I drive, the loans I have to repay… This is the real world. This is what I’ve been working toward and waiting for. This is as real as it gets. And the scary thing about it is, one thing leads to another and they’re all tied together and interelated.

And six months has passed while I’ve been adjusting. That means I’ve been here in Lafayette for five months. It seems like I started last week and simultaneously like I’ve been doing this forever. Even Abbey’s been here three weeks already.

I guess that’s the part of the real world nobody warns you about. I had expected time to slow down. I thought it just seemed to pass quickly because I was so busy trying to pack too many experiences into too few years during high school and college. But now six months seems like six days. What do I have to show for myself? Next month I’ll be 22, which seems like such an odd age. Twenty-one seems youthful, the world so full of promise and new beginnings. But 22? It’s just the year after 21 and on your way to cheaper car insurance and, several seasons later, on to 30. The sad thing is, I’ll still be paying back those loans long after college seems like weeks instead of months ago.

Check out the Soul of Athens project. (Via Multimedia Shooter.)

I don’t know what class or group or what prepared this package of videos/stories, but seriously, each of the stories is amazing. Together, they really do give you an indepth understanding of the soul of the city where Ohio University is based.

This package is amazing. Well done!

A few to definitely check out:

• Jenny’s Story — if you only watch one, this is the one to watch. It’s a pretty raw and honest capture of that girl’s apprehensions and ambitions for life beyond her school and city. It’s also universal. I can hear this girl’s voice echo through millions of small towns.
• Love in the First Person — I love the intimacy of this video, which is shot mostly from the fiance’s camera lens. It’s the basic idea that young love can conquer anything, and this is a testament that even through the tough times, this couple is ready to try.
• Be Not Afraid — A woman in Iraq to help as a member of a Christian organization is abducted. Listening to her recount the tale is incredible. The way the video is shot and edited also works so well with this story, the stops and starts and unpected turns it brings.

I saw an interesting piece on Romenesko: “Colleges keep turning out optimistic print journalists despite the newspaper industry crunch”

Most interesting point: On the students still enrolling in j-school in huge quantity…

“These students are young, and I’m not sure they’re particularly concerned or cognizant of the industry’s problems,” Kirkton said. “I think they just expect a lot of change in their lives and that if they go out of here with a good skill set, particularly the ability to communicate well, that they’re going to find a place in life.”

and later on:

“They see this revolutionary change that we’re in now as simply a matter of course. I find them looking forward to helping write the new business model of the newspaper industry,” said Fink, the author of nine journalism textbooks and a former executive vice president of Park Communications, an East Coast newspaper and broadcast company. “I find them intrigued with the online dimensions of the industry.

(My aside to that comment is it hits spot on on how I feel. I accept and embrace change. That’s why I always hated the “where do you see yourself in five years” question. I don’t even know what crazy new way of telling or producing the news is going to exist in five years. But I see myself there, wherever there is.)

Most depressing part: A comment made to a recent grad by human resources for one of the newspaper chains…

“She was like, ‘You know, I don’t want to discourage you, but if you can use your journalism degree to get into a different career path, I would recommend doing that,’” Rancer recalled. “It’s a really, really tight market for recent college grads in journalism.”

(My aside to that comment is that person should get out of this business pronto. There are enough nay-sayers and doomsday predictions from the peanut gallery. We don’t need people hiring and inspiring the next generation of journalists trying to deflect them from pursuing their goals.

To recent grads, my friends from KSU and elsewhere, there are jobs. Yes it will suck to do a job search. No you won’t start out at the Chicago Tribune. Yes you will be paid poorly. No you won’t get the holidays and weekends off. Maybe you’ll luck out, and it won’t be a long drawn out process, somehow I did. Maybe you’ll spend the next six months wondering why you didn’t major in engineering or considering grad school. Stick it out. You were drawn to this profession because you had a passion for it. If you don’t have that passion, spare yourself, your eventual employer and all those other kids who do have a passion by removing yourself from queue of people desperate for a job.)

Most encouraging part: On getting the future of “newspapers”…

“Newspapers might not be on paper some day, but these students, I think, believe that there will be some kind of newspaper industry,” Fox said. “I think what we have to do is really teach the core values of journalism, to be able to understand what is news, how to write it, how to get it ethically and accurately delivered. Past that, I think that we’re in a time where we need to teach that and then get out of the way. We need to let them lead and let us mentor.”

I was quoted in a similar article in the Beacon Journal last summer: “Journalism still a popular major at college”

My quote then still holds true today: “I didn’t pick it because it was well paid,” said Meranda Watling, a senior at Kent State who is interning at The Courier in Findlay. “I picked it because I can see myself getting up every day of my life and being excited about going to work.”

OK, to the next person to come to Indiana from Kent I need to ask a favor: bring me a copy of the Burr. (I have a suspicion this will be Abbey since she’s slated to start work as an intern at the J&C on the 21st. I’m not sure when Ryan is starting in Indy, but I think I remember he said the 21st as well.)

I don’t know why, but for some reason although I’m interested in reading the stories, I can’t push myself to do it online. (I did read Abbey’s speed-dating story, and it was pretty interesting and well written.)

The Web-exclusive stories, several of which I was pretty interested in, don’t seem to be posted yet. There’s just a place holder for all of them that “This story is coming soon.” It was kind of annoying, but hey I’ve been there. When you’re the only person putting together the online magazine, and you get ALL the content dumped on you the last few weeks of school when you’re as busy as the next person, all you can really do is hunker down and pull a few all-nighters to get it up in time for the magazine’s release. I remember the semester I did Fusion I had to get the site up the same weekend I was down in Memphis. But I injured my right arm working. It hurt just to lie there, but still I sat there with my laptop every night that weekend coding the pages, resizing the photos, etc. all with one hand. Man, that sucked.

I don’t know if it’s the colors on the CyBurr (I really hate browns and oranges.) or what. Though looking at the cover, the colors seemed to have carried over. Or if it’s just the overwhelming nature of long feature stories in small type that just seems to scroll on forever. (I’m a fan of breaking up longer stories into a few pages. But that’s me.) I’m guessing based on my personal preferences, it’s actually quite a bit of both.

I could read the “e-book” but I have a strong dislike for long PDF documents, too. And I never really understood the point of the e-book. Thankfully it was an idea that came after my tenure as CyBurr webmaster. However, I guess for now it helped me see how everything was laid out and flip through the pages in about two minutes to survey what’s inside. (P.S. guys, I love the new departments and all the color. Has it just been awhile or is there really a lot more color this semester?)

Either way, though if you’d have asked me when I was a student I don’t think I’d have even considered it, but I may pay the $12 to get the magazine mailed to me each semester and support the student media cause while I’m at it.

Last week, a school board members introduced me to another community member as, “This is Meranda Watling, she’s with the newspaper.”

The woman said, “Oh the Exponent!” And I shot back — probably a little too quickly — “No, the Journal & Courier.” I think she thought I was offended, and I was just a little. Though, I take student media more seriously than most people, so I don’t know why I was so much.

I think I still feel I have something (OK a lot of something) to prove, and I guess that’s normal right. To feel inadequate at times, especially in the beginning?

There was a post in the journalists community at LiveJournal the other day about things you wish someone had told you when you were just starting out. And one of the comments was, “You will feel like you suck every single day for at least six months.” I was so relieved to realize it’s not just me.

I do have my moments where I surprise myself or when sources tell me I’m doing a good job or they enjoy my work. A few weeks back, a teacher randomly told me I was “doing an exceptional job” and that the paper had been needing someone like me for a long time. I don’t take compliments well, and usually just laugh and say, “Well, I try.” But honestly? Stuff like that makes me smile for a whole day, maybe even a week. I don’t know if it’s normal or if they’d say it to everyone, but every time it happens, it makes my day because I feel like my hard work actually makes a difference to at least that person that day.

After the “No, the J&C” comment, the woman commented, “oh, well, I just assumed, you look so young.” And then I realized she was entirely right. I don’t just look young, I am young. Most people my age are still in college, in which case I probably would be reporting for the Exponent (Purdue’s paper). I forget that. Though I get a lot of “you sound young” or “look so young” and I have to explain, well, yeah, I’m 21.

There are people who say, “she’s only 21, what does she know?” And one person in particular who calls me “kiddo.” (Note to anyone who has a young person in their office: Do not do this. It’s demeaning, and it only serves to undermine the experience I do have, which if you bothered to look or ask, you would see is nothing to be ashamed of, especially considering my age.) It’s crazy, because I work as hard if not harder than most of them. If anything my age is a great asset because I can do the hard-nosed, shoe-leather reporting, but I also have no trouble navigating new media or talking to students on their level.

I work for every bit of respect because I am new here, and then double because I am young. I haven’t established that track record yet. I’m definitely still proving myself, not just to them but to me. This is true of my friends across other media outlets with whom I’ve discussed this.

You don’t have to cut me, or other young people like me, slack. We don’t need it or want it because it won’t make us any better. Yeah, we didn’t come out of j-school ready for a Pulitzer, but most of us did come out ready to do good journalism, in multiple platforms, without delusions of grandeur about this industry and the changing media landscape. We came ready to work hard and make a difference. Regardless of my age, I applied for and was hired for this job. As long as I’m doing it well, whether I’m 21 or 41, I should still get the same respect.

OK. I know I talk a lot about the Daily Kent Stater, even now. For a long time, my life revolved around it, and watching StaterOnline continue to bloom is a favorite hobby of mine, especially as I watch students I worked with, and in many cases hired and trained, grow into awesome journalists.

I also know many of them are reading this blog, and therefore I’m going to preface my discussion below with the disclaimer that my criticism is only to help me understand what I did and didn’t like about the Ward By Ward project, and also perhaps give you a little guidance on what could be improved upon for next time.

(more…)

At least, the heads up on the Purdue presidential appointment came with a bit more than the less than 24 hour notice we got last spring when the new president was named at Kent State.

Still, in a similar move to Kent State, students will be long gone before the person who is to become their leader and their school’s ambassador to the world is publicly named. But I’m hoping I’ll get to throw my hat in the ring for a little bit of reporting, at least on background. See, covering presidential appointments is actually something I have, get this, experience in.

At the time of Lester Lefton’s appointment, we knew what to do. Kind of. OK, mostly, we made it up as we went along. I still remember the race back to campus from breakfast in Akron after we got the call that the board of trustees was meeting the next morning. Ryan drove and we brainstormed, drafting a rough budget during the 20 minute drive. We were both on our cell phones trying to get as many bodies for those assignments to the office as possible. Most of our editors were graduating and while they’d been following it, they didn’t have the time or concern to jump on the story. If we had run a masthead in the two extra editions we put out during exam week, it couldn’t have been more random than if we’d pulled names from a hat. But still, we threw everything and everyone we had (and probably more than we thought we had) into that story, breaking the news with context and impact. Hell, we put a reporter and photographer on a plane for Tulane, where the president was coming from.

To say we were excited and overwhelmed is an understatement. It was the biggest story of our fledgling careers, and something we’d been waiting and waiting and chasing and chasing. The Stater’s motto, “we cover Kent State and more,” had nothing to do with it. This was about getting the information out there to a campus that was slumbering under the weight of final exams. It was also about pride and our unofficial credo, “We cover Kent State like nobody else.” Damned if someone else was going to get that name first.

They didn’t. We dominated the story and had the name online before I took my statistics exam that afternoon. The following day every news account that said “Lester Lefton is expected to be named …” was preceded or followed by “According to the Daily Kent Stater” or “The student newspaper reported …” It was also our first true test of breaking news online. We posted several breaking news updates that day, adding details as we got more information. Our first post was simply a president was being named. Then, when and where. Then, bit by bit as we got more information and a name. Then as we got more comfortable we were right with that name, who he was. Each bit of biography we could cull from the Web, from phone interviews, from off-the-record conversations, from his neighbor’s dog groomer… OK maybe not that much, but we exhausted pretty much everything.

Earlier this week, I was talking to another reporter who happens to be the editor of his college paper (not at Purdue). I mentioned that Purdue would probably pull off what Kent did and name someone at the most inconvenient time to deflect as much media attention and scrutiny as possible. I mentioned that I had failed an exam as a result of our announcement, which in turn caused my GPA to drop below magna cum laude. My editor laughed and said I probably made the right decision. He’s right, and I didn’t feel even a twinge of hesitation when I made the decision to drop everything and focus on getting that story. That moment was the defining moment when I knew for certain nothing else mattered, I was a journalist first.

I was sad to see that the Purdue paper, the Exponent, has nothing posted on the impending announcement. It doesn’t even have as much as our story today (and the TV story that followed) about the woman who has identified herself as a candidate. Although technically I work for a competing media outlet, part of me wants to see the college paper blow everyone else out of the water.

Here’s to another exciting presidential announcement. Though, I do have to say, once it’s over, the excitement you’ve built up starts to dim almost immediately. As much as it’s awesome to get the story out, as we learned last year, the chase is actually the most fun part. Though, the payoff of getting it first and getting it right is definitely worth it.

Tuesday night, as I was driving home from NW Indiana I was listening to NPR and a story came on about Kent State and May 4. I rolled my eyes as I heard the same mouthpieces drone on and on about the events that unfolded nearly four decades ago. The same voices I’ve heard, telling much the same story I’ve been told.

Tonight, another reporter pointed up to MSNBC as they were doing an interview with some guy about Kent State and May 4. I rolled my eyes as that reporter, like many a person before him, proceeded to hum, “Tin soliders and Nixon’s coming … Four dead in Ohio.”

I suspect — nay know — this will unravel the same way for the next week or so. It always does.

It’s like clockwork. And though related to the events of the same day, it’s even more predictable then the inevitable look of recognition I get when someone asks what school I attended. It’s a look of, “Oh… I know Kent State” And it’s because of May 4. You want to shout, yeah, but they have a great journalism program and fashion school. And they developed liquid crystals (you know like the laptop screens) at the university. And and Aresino Hall and Drew Carey and Devo all attended. But usually, I simply nod, resigned to the one pop-culture reference that will always be associated with the university.

And for the first time since I became a student (and consequently student journalist) at Kent State, I will not be there to watch the silent candlelight march around campus and then the prayers and candlelight vigil that follow this Friday. I will not read the thoughts of peers scribbled in colorful sidewalk chalk beside crude drawings, with labels like “Flowers are better than bullets” written across the Taylor Hall parking lot as it’s emptied of cars for one day of the year. I will not be witness to the annual call to (or I suppose against) arms, when liberal students feel it’s their duty to hold some anti-war protest, as if to prove to the army of media and visitors who descend on campus that those who died did not die in vain, their spirit lives on.

Those are things that made an impression on me, the things that, like the memorial and the song, “Ohio,” I associate immediately with May 4.

But this will also be the first time I’m not exposed to conspiracy theories. I will not, for the first time in several years, be made to listen politely to the barrage of several dozen spectators who feel the media was as guilty as the FBI, and as guilty as the governor and the national guard for covering up whatever happened. And they all know what happened, even if all of their facts conflict with each other and the “official” record.

To stem the tide of people who will inevitably stumble upon this post and want to harass me for my ignorance or my apathy toward the topic, I will say this, I don’t know exactly what happened on May 4, 1970. Neither do you. Nor anyone else. There are as many versions of that history as their are daffodils blooming on Blanket Hill. We will never know. And I accept that. I’m just thankful, I don’t have to explain that to anyone else this year.

I can sit comfortably, several hundred miles away, and roll my eyes at every Vietnam and Iraq war parallel I see or hear reported. And I will probably take a few seconds on May 4 to acknowledge the lives lost in what, no matter what happened or who’s fault, was a terrible tragedy, even if it was several decades before my time. And I’ll continue to nod with a hint of resentment everytime someone recognizes my university for nothing more than a fluke of history.

I’ve heard some ridiculous things about people’s photos on facebook and myspace or other sites causing them to lose a job they have or otherwise would have received. I’ve even heard of police and school administrators using the sites to track underage drinking, on-campus violations, etc.

But THIS is the first time I’ve heard of a college denying a student her degree over an “unprofessional” photo. (There’s a picture posted there, and to be honest, compared to a lot of photos I’ve taken or even been in, that is really tame. You can’t even tell she’s drinking alcohol or that she’s drunk except, apparently, a silly caption. She’s also of legal drinking age.) To read the full story, go here. She was apparently given an English degree in lieu of her education degree and certificate.

PERSONALLY, I think it is more than fair for a company to use any means necessary to screen a candidate. Once you become an employee, for better or worse, you are representing that company. If you’re projecting an image that they don’t want to be associated with, then they’re better off knowing before they take the time and spend the money to bring you on. (Though, I still don’t think this image alone would or should be enough for anyone to rule out a candidate. Any company that takes itself that seriously is probably not the type of place you’d want to work.)

As for a college, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to judge a student based on their photos. Administrators are just being hypocrites for trying to ban students from using these sites or posting their photos. Whether or not they are posted or taken, colleges should and do know that students will drink and have parties. Forcing students to go underground isn’t going to change that; it’s just going to make it harder to enforce legitimate rules and push kids towards more dangerous behavior.

I blogged in detail about this earlier during my own job search: Managing your online identity

(I also posted this on a livejournal community of college students to see what they thought. If anything interesting pops up there, I’ll update it here.)