Things I learned- Hudson

I can't think of just one story to tell about the things I have learned in this class... So, here is a list of 10 things that I have learned from my experience in RTN 311/364.

1. Always be prepared with questions and lots of them. Try to be prepared the day before, cause that is always helpful.

2. Don't wait last minute to figure out what your story is going to be and who you are going to interview because you won't have a story.

3. No matter how flustered/nervous you are while conducting your interview don't show it and don't hesitate to ask too many questions. Its always better to have too much information, than not having what you need.

4. Same goes along with sound bites. Pay attention to what people are saying and listen for the clips you want to use. Unfortunately, they won't magically appear when you sit down to edit.

5. If people are mean to you/don't want to talk to you/won't give you the time of day, don't take it personally. They obviously don't know what its like trying to be a journalist.

6. Its okay (sometimes) to take things that are given to you for free such as coffee and donuts.

7. Be sexy.

8. Give yourself more time than you think you need if at all possible- it reduces the stress factor.

9. Write it, re-write it, and re-re-write it. And if you follow number 8, you can try for a fourth time.

10. Make sure that your equipment is set up properly and you are capturing good sound. And most importantly make sure you actually hit record.

landmarkfinal.mp3

Michelle Buchwalter OCCRA Story

Earth Day Wrap.mp3

Michelle Buchwalter - What I have learned in RTN 311 and 364

I have learned many things in RTN 311 and 364 this year. If anything, the one important lesson I learned is that everything is not as easy as it looks. I did not know that wrap reporters and anchors wrote their own scripts. I need to work on making my writing more active. I also didn't realize how hectic the news room is. I learned how to prepare and work better under pressure and deadlines. In regards to my Earth Day story with OCCRA when I was a day of reporter, I learned many things. Firstly, I should never try to sound preachy or biased in a story. Secondly, I should avoid doing question leads, which I have done twice this semester. Lastly, though my SOTS were good quality in regards to sound, I could have definitely used more NAT sound. It would have added to the essence of my story.

Earth Day Wrap.mp3

lauren's stuff

For my story I went to Curves gym in Dewitt. The story went really well overall. I followed the "diamond format" and found one person to make the story more interesting. Although she didn't illustrate the trend I was discussing, she went against the trend which worked well. I liked the diamond format of the piece, but the one thing I would have done differently was my use of nat sound. I had only a few seconds of nat sound at the very beginning of the piece, and it didn't even really help identify that we were at a gym. I could have been much more creative with the use of nat sound and the different types of sounds I got. I could have gotten the sounds of machines working, etc. Even though the piece was interesting because it focused on one person and then branched out to local trends, more nat sound could have helped set the scene a little more.

curvesfinalmixdown...

What I've Learned

From this story, I learned that it is imortant to be as prepared as possible before your interview. I did not estimate enough time to get to my interview and was not sure where to park when I got there. As a result of this, I was a few minutes late and that always makes for an uncomfortable start. This was my first time out reporting and I learned how essential it is to have enough time to write your script. I should have conducted a shorter interview so that I would have had more time to write. When I did sit down to write my script, I learned how to make a story that's been done before interesting by adding additional fresh facts. I tried to humanize the foodbank story in an effort to draw people in. I learned that writing a short, clear, and interesting script can be much harder than it looks.

zeranti- foodbank....

norino mirra

hello,
I learned a lot from the quaglia story. it was one of the first stories that I was able to go out and find a solid story idea and get a good quality interview. I gained confidence from working on such a solid story, because on a couple stories before they didn't work out very well. I was happy to find out how accomadating and nice this fairly influential person was, and i found that this gave me some great sound bites. I also feel like this story shows that i was starting to become more familiar with the writing of a radio story. It was cut out of a lot of the fluff, and highlighted the main information.

quaglia.mp3

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

I covered a story on the reopening of the Vernon Downs racetrack and casino following its closure due to financial troubles. The state legislature had passed a new law the night before allowing the facility to keep a higher percentage of its revenue from the casino. I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony held at the casino in the morning. In attendance were State Assemblywoman Roann Destito and State Senator Joe Griffo.


The event began at 9:00 AM, and I arrived around 8:40. To my surprise, I was the first member of the media to get there. WTVH and WSYR got there a bit later. Because I was the first to walk in with a microphone, Assemblywoman Destito immediately came up to me and started talking about the story without even being asked. When I had finished interviewing her, Senator Griffo approached me and said, "You know it's my district, too." The two of them had no idea that I was not an actual reporter until after the interviews had taken place; they never asked beforehand. If I had gotten there later, I'm sure I would not have so easily gotten the interviews.


Hear the story!

My contribution to Broadcast Journalism

The story I covered was about the transition from to the Bluray DVD format. I wanted to talk about the new technology that will be taking over the DVD world. Throughout covering this story I learned that including sound was a very important thing. I included sound from a movie that will be coming out with a bluray edition. I also included many SOTs from an interview I did with a newhouse professor that was knowledgable about the topic. I thought it was a very successful story but the ending was a little weak.  I could have ended talking about the future of the industry but instead I talked about the fact that there will always be something better that comes along. Until next time, Justin Leonard 

Conor says: Its all about SOT's

In March, the Poison Control Center of Central New York released a new study about the kind of people who need their services. The results found one in every five CNYers who contact the center are overdosing on over-the-counter pain medication. Immediately following the study, the Post-Standard jumped to interview the center's director. So in order to make my story "sexier" than the Post-Standard's, I had to find something that would seperate my report on pain killer overdoses, from the norm.

How did I do it?

I happened to be pitching my story idea around the campus when I came across a young woman who actually overdosed on over the counter medication. For about an hour, I sat with the girl while she recounted her experience with these medications. What I found from her testimony was far more interesting than any information I got from the Center's director, as she talked about how physically traumatic the experience was. To me, this made my story. I took the basic scientific information from the Post-Standard, and found a way to make it relevant and much more exciting to listen to.

Check my story out on this "mad cool" widget:

http://www.esnips.com/doc/972f166e-69e7-4e30-84e6-d99d2135c928/Final-Esnips-cut

Every Day, Something New to Report and Learn

Snow Romaniello.mp...

bigger better bottle bill

The second time we had to make a wrap for class, I had an idea for a great news story. However, I e-mailed my two sources the day before with expectations that it wouldn't be a problem. I was wrong. I got one angry, short e-mail back saying "No." Then the next morning I still hadn't heard back from my other source, so I woke up at 6:30 am to make sure I could get ahold of the person and be prepared for the interview. Finally at 8 am, I reached the source by phone. However, once again it ended in an angry "No." I didn't realize how controversial my potential story was. I guess both sources didn't want to disclose their opinions on the topic, even though the story wasn't going to be published anywhere. So, again at 8:05 am I was story-less. I started to panic considering I thought I had everything in the bag just the day before. So I remembered from my class about a new bill that was trying to be passed by a fellow student. So I frantically facebook messaged the student asking if he could possibly meet me for an interview within the next hour. I then friended him on aim and somehow he signed on 30 minutes later. I quickly rushed to im him and not take no for an answer. I was in luck, however when I looked at my sound recorder I realized the battery was Dead! So before he would meet me in Schine in 5 minutes I ran to the Newhouse rental center to check out another one. Then I ran back to get my interview and hope that the story was somewhat interesting. I did finish the story on time, but I think it could have been much better if I had prior knowledge about the topic and prepared questions. Overall, next time I think something is a sure thing, I have to remember nothing is for sure and to always have backups.

Ask for Directions

One of the things I learned early in the semester is to always ask sources for suggestions on who else I might be able to talk to. In late February, I did a story on the Shamrocks against Muscular Dystrophy campaign that some of the local businesses took part in. I originally planned to go to Lowe's Hardware because I knew that they actively participated in the campaign. The person I needed to talk to was not working that day, and none of the other empolyees knew the information I was looking for. I was about to ditch the story entirely until one of the employees sent me to Wal Mart. I went to Wal Mart, and the same thing happened. A Wal Mart employee told me that Price Chopper participated as well, and I was finally able to speak to someone who could help me at Price Chopper.

I was very close to just scrapping the story, but I found that even people who couldn't help me were more than willing to try to find someone who could.

http://www.esnips.com/doc/2bcbd2b8-63ad-45cb-8504-4e95bd8abec6/Shamrocks-McManus

RTN 311/64

What I've learned about my wrap (which I will post shortly)

-- I discovered some of the difficulties with going "live" from somewhere. First of all, the wind was blowing so ferociously that my papers were hard to hold on to, and I had to make sure that the wind wouldn't completely drown out my voice when I called in to the N-C-C Newsroom.

-- Also, getting back here to write everything was a pain. Writing good stuff in a short amount of time is always hard.

-- Also, going to a random truck stop and hoping that I could talk to someone at random was a little bit unnerving. Sticking a microphone in someone's face is an uncomfortable feeling to ask something like that of a complete stranger!

-- It's easy to stumble over your words when you've got a lot on your mind and you're nervous about trying something new. I did, so there's a section of the report before the first SOT where what I say kind-of changes some facts about the story... it sounds as if I spoke to people who were going to an informational meeting about a rise in toll prices; what I meant to say was that the people running the meeting were in for an earful if the attendants are anything like travellers I spoke to this morning. Oops.

Thruway Tolls.mp3

Lessons Learned

Last week, I was getting ready to contribute to our weekly morning newscast. I had found no interesting leads that could take time to speak to me. So I woke up very early the morning of my newscast to see if there was any breaking news. Lo and behold, a CSX Freight Train derailed at 12:30 that night and I had some material that could potentially be the lead story.

I got into the studio before everyone else including the professor and producer to try to make some calls to get the latest news. I called the Syracuse Post-Standard as well, but the editor who broke the story was not even at work yet. I decided that in order to get sound I would go to the
Geography Department at Syracuse University to get some sound for my story.

I left the studio before nine and quickly found out that the most knowledgable person about Freight Trains and CSX had left earlier that morning and was going to be out over the entire weekend. I went to another department across campus because I was told that this professor would know something. With my luck, it was a wild goosechase. My lead couldn't help me because he only took pictures of trains. He sent me over to his friend at Bird Library. That was a mess too because I jumped from the second floor, to the fifth, to the third, and then to the sixth. Ultimately, after going through three other people, I found someone who had worked for CSX 20 years ago, when I had just been born.

I came back to the studio with no sound that was worthy of broadcasting. So I called the editor at the local newspaper again and he gave me some updates. The soundbites were not great, but at least it was something that I could use as opposed to getting a lecture about how great it was to work at CSX 20 years ago.

I learned that when it comes to breaking news, it is best to go online, get some research, and find some phone numbers. Parading around a campus, when there is breaking news is not good. You must find out the number of the local police department and call them. If they can't help you, ask them who can and so on. When it comes to breaking news, few people know what is going on, and the key is to get into contact with them. So, don't try to get general info from a local source. Go to the source of the story and try to get the latest news.

http://www.esnips.com/doc/dd5ece78-a5e9-4d0f-8101-852370ceea2c/Train-Wreck

Don't Assume

A couple weeks ago, I covered a story about the re-opening of Memorial Hall during Syracuse Crunch games. Memorial Hall is a commemorative building for War Veterans in the War Memorial at the Oncenter.

I came to class prior to my interview and my professor reminded me to take a news angle to the story, not to make it a sports story. I got my interview, put together my story and I thought I did a very good job making it a news story. But after I talked to my professor a couple days later and analyzed my wrap, I realized the story would be very unclear and confusing to the audience.

So, how did a story go from being pretty good at first glance and pretty terrible after a closer look? Well, this is where I learned my biggest lessons as an aspiring journalist. First, always re-read and re-write. It doesn't matter how tight deadline is, always do it. Second, I knew the story pretty well because I read previous articles. But, I assumed that my audience had the same prior knowledge that I had. Therefore in my story, instead of telling the full story, I cut out half of it. There were a lot of gaps of missing information that would leave readers confused because the story assumed that the audience already had prior knowledge to the situation. I mean, how do you understand a 300 page book, if pages 1-100 are missing?

Never assume that the audience knows as much as you do. There are two groups to fulfill when writing a story; the audience that prior knowledge to the situation and the audience that has no prior knowledge about the story. Always find a new, fresh angle to a story, but tell the entire story every time.

It Pays To Pay Attention

Last year I covered a radio story about a Dog Voting booth a Manlius woman had set up, as part of a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. In a fit of madness, my fondness for quirky features possessed my soul, and I stopped by the event.

I interviewed the organizer, who was very friendly, and she was a great interview because she was so passionate about the subject (who wouldn't be passionate about dog voting?) She had a good sense of humor, and was willing to play along with me as we spoke about the "funnier" aspects of the story.

OK, I've been out of the business as a professor for a while now, but I DID spend many years as a reporter. Anyway, I did several interviews, got a fairly good amount of nat sound, and after less than an hour, I left.

So I put together a wrap that ran on WAER, and pitched the story to NPR. To my surprise they liked it. But they asked me to change just one thing: they wanted me to paint a better verbal picture of the dog voting booth, but take no more than another 5 seconds to do it. So the producer asked me to describe the booth. That's when I realized...I couldn't, because I really didn't pay that much attention to it. In fairness, at the time, I didn't plan to focus on the voting booth; it was going to be about the "Doggies For Hillary" concept. But as I reviewed my interviews, it seemed to me that the voting booth was a stronger/quirkier angle. I realized I couldn't remember what the curtain of the booth was made of; what the doggie treats inside were sitting on; what the inside of the booth looked like. I didn't pay attention.

Luckily, my interviewee was just a phone call away, and I was able to get the missing details. I'm still not sure I did a very good job adding the details in 5 seconds of copy, but it seemed to make NPR happy. But the experience was something of an embarassing reminder that a good reporter pays attention to EVERYTHING, and nothing beats good notetaking and observation at the scene of a story.

Click the play button on the mad cool widget below to hear the story...

Dog Voting-WAER.mp...