Beat reporting tips

For new journalists, the concept of covering a beat may seem foreign. At first reference, it may seem to be just another piece of jargon slung around to make the more experienced reporters and editors seem cool or in the know.

Not true.

A beat is a specific area of campus given to reporters to cover. It's that reporter's (or team of reporters') job to find out what is happening on that beat and write stories related to those findings.

Where do you start?

I'm glad you asked! I've thought about printing a handout to give out to all of the reporters, but I'm pretty sure almost all of those get thrown away (or hopefully recycled). I'm not going to do that. This blog post will layout some tips and tricks of good beat reporting, which all of you lovely staff members can use as a reference.

Let's get started.

Know who the players are -- One of the most important things you can do on a beat is found out who the players are (leaders, workers, administrators, secretaries) and any other people involved in the department. Find them, meet them and tell them who you are. Don't wait until you have a story to talk to them. Get to know them a little bit. They will provide great insight into your beat and will be valuable resources when generating story ideas.

Research websites -- One of the most important things beat reporters can do before heading out to a story, or while trying to find a story, is to scour the websites of the beat they are covering. If it tougher for some of the other beats, but most of the time a reporter will have a website they can reliably use to gather information. Most of the time, this will be used to gather background information, sources and documents will provide the good stuff.

Know your topic -- Working on the financial aid beat? Read about scholarships, loans and grants. Writing about crime? Read other crime stories and learn how other newspapers cover the issue (a lot of time, it isn't good, but sometimes you see a great trend story). Writing about academics? Read The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Actually, everyone should be reading The Chronicle of Higher Education. It is a great resource to learn statistics about university and what other reporters are writing about on a national scale. We got linked there one time. It was pretty awesome.

Talk to students -- This should be obvious. We write for the students. They are our audience and our content MUST matter to them. If we don't know what they are talking about or what matters to them, how can we know how issues are affecting them? This doesn't mean you need to talk with students with your notepad out all the time. Sometimes, when you are in line or at lunch or just doing your normal day-to-day thing, talk to people!!! You don't even have to tell them you are a journalist at first (once the conversation moves into an interview for the story, make sure they know who you are and where you work, or course). 

I don't have the time or energy to list a lot of the other things that make great beat reporters, so I will link them below. What I want everyone to understand (and this goes for every beat on every desk) is that you can't find stories by staying holed up in your office or home. Yes, we can use tools in our office and home to find information, but we won't really know what is happening in our community if we don't get outside and talk to people.

Beat Reporting: What Does it Take To Be the Best

This link is a great tool to understand some of the other tangible and intangible skills beat reporters need. Use it to your advantage.

It may seem this may have a focus on the campus desk (I am a hard-news guy), but these tips can be applied to every desk.

Please, if any of you have questions, don't hesitate to come to my desk or call or email me. I am MORE than happy to discuss any aspect of reporting with you guys.

Happy reporting!

Misery loves misspellings

Alright. Two days in a row of easily avoidable spelling mistakes.

Let's get this together editors.

A quick rundown of misspellings Friday and Monday:

• Too was spelled two
• Fayetteville, Ark. was spelled Fayateville, Ark.
• half was spelled haf
• discrimination was spelled descrimination
• Center's was spelled centter's
• samples was spelled smaples

This is unacceptable. Every person submitting or editing content needs to be spell checking. It isn't hard, and it doesn't take up much time. On these Apples computers, it's a quick Apple +I. These are easy mistakes that make the paper look unprofessional and uncredible.

We must avoid them. So please make sure you are spell checking EVERY piece of content you submit, edit and place in the paper.

MEETING DEADLINES


A lot of the desks are improving their response to deadlines. Reporters are turning in stories in a timely manner. This makes for an easy production night for the unsung heroes working the copy edit and night worker trenches. Even more amazing, the Campus editors went home at 7 p.m., which is one time! Great job to everyone that is making their deadlines.

Keep it up, the editors notice this and appreciate when everyone comes through.

Don't be a megaphone

Thursday's story about the new Chuy's restaurant was well written and, for lack of a better term, interesting.

It's tough to write about new things opening because, when it comes to news, the only thing really worth reporting is what it is, what they sell and when it will open. So, are stories like this really worth a full story? When we are generating story ideas (on any desk) this is something we need to take into consideration before committing ourselves to writing something.

Why?

Well, what is the impact of this Chuy's story? Is it informative? Sure. It has good quotes from students and even the marketing assistant (code word for business cheerleader). So, Mark Simpson did a good job. But, I think there is more that could have been considered here, and if that information wasn't available, I would have cut this story in half. In fact, I would have made this a brief.

Look at the 7 graph of this story (I'm using the online version). Once this graph begins, every other graph is a quote and almost every graph before the quote is a paraphrase of a conversation. This means you (the reporter) are being a mouthpiece. We have to let the sources give us the information for the story, but we must avoid letting them do all the talking. If we let the source do all the talking, we are nothing more than a glorified megaphone.

That's not what we are about.

Granted, at The Oklahoma Daily, we tell all of you to attribute everything. That's a good starting point. As you are learning to write, I would rather you tell me where you got everything. But, as we move forward, we can start becoming mini-experts on subjects and providing generally accepted facts without attributing them to websites or press releases. Sometimes we can even provide some sense to particular situations once we are comfortable in our role as mini-expert (read seasoned journalists' work, they have a tendency to explain issues while providing information from sources).

Our role as journalists in this post-gatekeeping world is to process and make sense of information we gather. Not necessarily to repeat it. A quote's job is to add emotion (see: human element) to a story. It isn't a vessel to bolster your word count. Using them effectively enhances the story, but too many will bog down a story.

OH. Don't run to city politicians for quotes unless it's absolutely necessary. Sure, interview them and see if they provide you with any information, but don't be prepared to use their quotes. Politicians at ANY level are going to lie to you. Plan and simple. They are rarely programmed for truth.

PRAISE!

The online desk has done a great job tweeting/Facebooking stories, coding infoboxes and being advocates for a stronger website. Great job Juan Sanchez and Katherine Borgerding.

Ana Lastra and her video crew (which I'm pretty sure is still one other guy) have done a great job producing content on an almost daily basis. The content is varied and well edited. I'm routinely impressed. Great job.

Janna Gentry and Zachary Carrel wrote a nice point/counterpoint on Joe Paterno's legacy. Both editorials navigated a complex issue with thoughtful debate. Is there a decision so wrong that it could eradicate everything we have ever worked for? There may be no "real truth" to that question, but this editorial combo positively contributes to the discussion.

The photo desk has done an awesome job at turning photos around last minutes, making an effort to plan ahead when possible and taking some good photos. It was a rocky start, but there has been a marked improvement. If all the desks can improve communication when planning stories, the photos are only going to get better. Special shout out to Astrud Reed for some AWESOME men's basketball photos. Great stuff.

Keep up the great work, everyone.

The Great Content Strikes Back

Today's paper had awesome content. There was impact in the stories, almost every story had a good lead. Just, wow. I'm so impressed with today's paper that I'm going to link to the whole damn website (today's PDF isn't up for some reason).

Boom.

Great job. You know what, here is some more praise:

PRAISE


Sean Lawson's story about the gender gap of high level employees was great journalism. There are less women in power than men at OU. This statistic alone could have enormous impact on the way the campus is run. Furthermore, it puts OU on a hot seat because they haven't figured out how to maintain diversity at the higher levels when applicant pools are dwindling. Now for the next step: How much are these women being paid compared to the men? Remember, we do journalism not to be entertaining, but to make sure people have the information they need to be free and self-governing. Showing readers this part of OU is important.

(Interesting note here: Applicant pools are dwindling but more people are looking for jobs. This prompts a question: Why isn't the applicant pool increasing when all we hear about is how we need more jobs? Shouldn't people be lining up? I don't think because the job is tough right now -- as Mergler said -- is really the reason. It's something to think about.)

Chris Miller's coverage of the tobacco story has been excellent. He even drove down to the city to cover the meeting in person. What a swell guy!

Jake Morgan wrote perhaps one of the best TedxOU features yet. The humor and charisma of the twins was evident in their quotes. What does this mean? Jake was probably prepared and he asked a lot of questions, and he asked good questions. Being attentive and curious during an interview will exponentially increase the quality of your quotes.

The leads of stories were excellent today. I'm not sure if that's because you all absorbed the knowledge of my lead post, but I'm going to say it was anyway. Awesome job.

RJ Young's men's basketball gamer was top notch. He used imagery to make me feel like I witnessed some of the plays. He made a story about a game of basketball (one that we lost) compelling and interesting. That's tough to do in a formulaic story form (the gamer) and on a tight deadline.

Mary Stanfield gets a little shout out too. She wrote two great editorials on her own! (Normally, I'm the jerk that thinks we should write two.) Both pieces were informative, and she saved a reporter's butt by doing some fact checking and correcting statistics before one of our p.1 stories went live.

Ricardo Patino's photos in the dance story were awesome. It's pretty tough to make the back of a person's head compelling. Ricardo's use of space, perspective and lighting in both of the life and arts photos make that page a piece of eye candy.

FINAL THOUGHTS


Today was awesome. There are some things to complain about, but I will leave those for later. For now, enjoy being part of a quality product.

The importance of being accurate

We had another error in today's paper.

This column about Sharia Law incorrectly reported that most of the U.S. Court of Appeals' 10th circuit had  judges were selected by George W. Bush, which means the court will have a more conservative lean. That isn't true. The truth is that George W. Bush had a decent run of selecting judges, but out of the 19 judges, only six were selected by George W. Bush. The court may still have a conservative lean because a chunk was selected by Ronald Reagan and one was selected by George H. W. Bush (W's daddy).

We have to be careful with the way we phrase things, even on the opinion page. Jess Eddy, the columns author, called me and admitted he made a mistake, and he talked about how he intended to say that Bush had a decent run in selecting judges during his presidency. That's true, and I value Eddy's accountability and honesty. He didn't blame anyone else. That's a quality every reporter, editor and any other employee at The Oklahoma Daily should have.

VERIFY, VERIFY, VERIFY


Take a look at this statement:

We have the worst roads in the nation; we are ranked 43rd in the nation in K-12 education spending; we have the third-highest incarceration rate, and we are facing a $500 million budget shortfall for 2012. Those are some pretty serious issues.

Now, looking at the "worst roads in the nation" phrase, this can be interpreted a few different ways. At first, it can be taken pretty literally, and if that was the author's plan, it's not accurate according to this U.S. Public Interest Research report. There is also this blog (which I'm a bit more skeptical about) showing other states with a larger percentage of their roads in disrepair. Looking at it this way, I would say this isn't really true.

The other way to say this is it could be the author's opinion (based on hopefully his knowledge base of others thoughts on our roads and his experiences traveling the states) that Oklahoma's roads are the worst. We are all entitled to our opinions, especially on the opinion page. However, I would caution all of you to take a moment and think about your statement when considering to say something is the WORST. Making those types of statements aren't valuable if they can be proven mostly incorrect by research groups using, hopefully, objective methods to gather that data.


FINAL THOUGHTS

While I've picked on this column a bit, my reasoning doesn't stop at that section. Every section of the newspaper must champion the values of truth and verification. Our news, sports, opinions, multimedia, photography and life and arts content will be better if our practices contain our core, journalistic values (Yeah, totally taking that from my recent capstone class).

If we do that, everyone — including our readers — will be better citizens.

Thinking about impact

Things are going to be a bit different with today's post.

Today's 1.1 (the lead or most important story of the day) was a good story idea about a new study abroad program.

However, the lead in this is story is pretty weak. Take a look at this:

The College of International Studies is offering students a new chance to journey to the Middle East.

Doesn't that just scream, "READ ME!?" Not really. 

There is no impact here. Yes, there is news. A college is offering something new. But what is it? The lead of a story is the MOST important sentence in the story. It should encapsulate everything about the story that is valuable to the reader, and almost ALWAYS, impact is the most important. How does this affect our readers?

Sometimes that means considering what parts of the story have more value.

If you take a deeper look into the story, you will notice that there is some tidbits buried deep down about an application process.

Course participation is limited to 20 students, and all students who apply will be charged a $35 non-refundable application fee that does not guarantee a spot in the program, according to the College of International Studies website.

Now we are cooking. This sentence, combined with what we know about the fact that the program is new, is what we need to make a pretty good lead. Let's cut these sentences up and put something special together.

 

Here is the new lead:

Students are an application and a non-refundable $35 fee away from being considered for a new study abroad program in Turkey and Israel.

Boom. Nothing fancy, but this lead has a bit more impact than the first story. This sentence is telling students that if they fill out an application and pay a non-refundable fee they could visit Turkey and Israel (Middle East is a bit vague, I say if you know where they are going and it fits, use it). It also is getting the news to them, that this program is new. Nobody cares at the beginning who created the program, you can answer that later. What matters most is how this program affects students. It means they have to fill out paperwork (fun!), pay money and THEN they will be CONSIDERED for the trip.

Now, this lead means you will have to restructure the entire story. Information about the application deadline plus the other fees necessary if selected will have to be moved up. Then you can start breaking down what the trip is and what exactly students will do. Hell, we could have created an infobox itinerary.

IMPACT IS KEY

Of course, there are plenty of other stories that will have more impact than this one, and we need to make sure we are looking out for them. Whenever you are writing your lead remember, how does this story affect someone? How does this story impact the university, a student, a faculty member, a staff member or the grass? 

If you keep that in mind, you will already be on your way to writing better, more informative leads.

Week one complete!

Sorry this post is a little late guys. I will do my best every week to get Friday's paper comments posted on Friday.

Chris Lusk has started posted his thoughts on the blog, which is great. Lusk is a veteran of newsrooms, so he knows his stuff. He will be attempting to post twice a week. One on Friday and another on Sunday. Make sure you read it.

Anyway, on to the paper!

PRAISE


The photo illustration on Friday's front page was awesome. It was an idea born out of a discussion between the editors, but Kingsley Burns executed the idea well. This photo goes to show that we can have great ideas, but without proper follow through, ideas maintain their intangible state. This goes for any desk. No matter how great you think your idea is, it is nothing if nobody executes it.

I want to throw some praise back to the sports section for Friday and Thursday. On Thursday, RJ Young and James Corley wrote two excellent features about players. These are always interesting stories because most of the time athletes have to surmount certain odds to achieve glory. It's conflict at its best. Humans LOVE conflict. Friday's sports section was filled with some newsy content (Venables left) plus great coverage of the smaller sports. Check out the sports page, it has some great stuff.

Rachel Cervenka's Pinterest story was great. It was fun and it had students getting married talking about their experiences with the website. I love music and movies a lot, but that isn't the only thing we should be writing in the Life and Arts section. We need to get more stories about the lives of students and their struggles and triumphs. This story is a good start.

Ana Lastra and her multimedia desk have been doing an excellent job getting videos up on the site. There are even some audio slideshows! I love slideshows like nobody's business. Keep up the good work and keep that content rolling in. Using videos and slideshows effectively will make our web presence stronger.

All in all, and Chris covered this in his post, but this whole week has been filled with things we could praise. I can't believe how smoothly (even though there were some bumps) this week has gone. Let's keep it that way.

MULTIMEDIA HOUSEKEEPING


While the multimedia desk has been doing a great job, there are a few things that could be cleaned up. During the puppies on South Oval slideshow, the there are no nameplates that help people figure out who is who. I think there were some attempts to do so in this video, but the wide shots made it difficult to orient myself and figure out who was actually talking. Sure, they say their name, but being able to read it at the same time might help. This also means the slideshow needs to have easy to define shots of the people talking when there is audio. Make sure whoever is taking photos and whoever is taking sound are coordinating so the editor can  line up the photos and audio of any slideshow to produce a more entertaining, clear and informative product.

Also the "man on the street" videos need a bit of work. I understand the concept of running around and making a fun video, but what is the value to the audience? Are we trying to entertain them by being funny and off the cuff ? Or are we trying to inform them about the resolutions of their peers? I think the video attempts to do both, but the mash-up is awkward and doesn't seem well planned at all.

DON'T TELL ME HOW I FEEL


Friday's caffeine column tried to tell me I was addicted to caffeine and I and everyone probably needed it to function. Who are any of us to tell people what they are addicted to, how they should handle things and how they feel? If you are writing a column about anything, try and relate to situations (and this column did this to some degree) by telling your story or a story you are familiar with. I would bet that people respond better to new information when they can relate to it, not when they are being told they feel or think a particular way.

FINAL THOUGHTS


Tomorrow starts a new week. We've all read our syllabi and had to sit through those frustrating intro where everyone wants us to play icebreakers and hold hands. Now it is on to the nitty-gritty of math problems, essays and a myriad of responsibilities from our professors. Remember to balance your time and communicate with your editors and co-workers when you need to take care of schoolwork or if something is causing problems with your stories.

My capstone professor encapsulated democracy in a five-word phrase that I think works well when thinking about our organization and its mission to its readers and its workers.

When you are feeling like its too much or you just need to talk about your work or anything else, don't think of it as "What shall I do for you or me," but think of it as "What shall we do together."

We are all in this together.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

First week wrap-up

Well, the first week of the spring semester is in the books and I must say, I am thoroughly impressed. The quality of work we did together this week far exceeds any other first week that I've been a part of at The Daily. As I write this, there are eight people in the newsroom diligently working away — on a Friday. This is how we stay on top of things and keep cranking out high-quality work on a consistent basis instead of rushing (and stressing out) at the last minute to complete our assignments.  Kudos to everyone.

The editors have heard me say this since they were hired in mid-November, but I am so excited for this semester. Each section this spring is headed up by a lot of talent, and each desk is staffed with lots of eager, sharp people. This strong foundation rooted in the people at this organization is going to allow us to do some excellent work.

I know Judy and Chase have already done this throughout the week, but there are some people I'd like to point out for their particularly great work so far:

• Sean Lawson — Sean, our crime reporter, was on the ball on Sunday, before our first day of work, and got the story about the incoming OU student who was killed by his grandfather. This initiative and fast work is exactly what we need at The Daily.

• Kyle Margerum — Kyle is our copy chief, and he has been a beast at working with the copy desk (which is mostly filled with new employees) and patiently helping everyone learn the ropes while at the same time, getting the job done accurately and successfully. Headline writing is always a tough skill to learn, but I am impressed with how solid our headlines were this week.

• Katherine Borgerding and Juan Sanchez — These two are our online editor and assistant editor, and they kicked ass this week. Although both were new to the online desk, they already have taken OUDaily.com and elevated it to an exciting level. While the visible results of their efforts might take a few weeks to really start showing, Katherine and Juan are putting our website in position to make some great progress. As you all continue working on your assignments this semester, remember to include the Online Desk as a way to beef up your work. This is easily the best online team I have seen at The Daily.

• Laney Ellisor — The first week of work is always a tough one, especially for the campus editor. Think about it, we are off work and out of classes for the entire break, but when we come back, the Campus Desk is expected to have enough strong content to publish a week's worth of newspapers and fill OUDaily.com every day. Well, Laney rose to the occasion in spectacular fashion. Seriously. Go re-read the news content this week and you'll find a great mix of profiles, features, breaking news, informative pieces and much more. I can't say enough how proud I am of Laney. I hope all of you recognize her hard work and keep helping the Campus Desk be a pillar of our organization.

• Ana Lastra — Ana is our multimedia chief, and I hope you all have taken notice of the content she and her small staff have been pumping out this week. Between the proactive approach the multimedia team has taken to challenge the editors to think of supplemental audio, video and slideshow content, Ana has produce a handful of extra content on her own. I hope all of you — from the editors to reporters to photographers — work with Ana and her team to produce more multimedia content.

Once again, great job everyone. You make me proud to work with you all, and I'm excited to see what we accomplish in the next four months!

Quotes and paraphrases

I'm beginning to notice a trend on quotes and paraphrases. Today's blog post will touch a bit on when to quote and when to paraphrase, but after I tell you how awesome you guys are.

PRAISE


A shout out to Chris Miller for putting together the tobacco recommendations story. It was well written and informative. Students care about this issue and getting that information to them is paramount. What's even better? The story had an infobox! Great stuff.

Ajinur Setiwaldi had an interesting story about a floundering class in the aviation department. Finding stories about low enrollment courses are great stories. Think about this, if this class disappears, does the professor risk losing their job, do the students risk wasting their time? I wish the story went into greater detail, but it was a great start nonetheless.

WEAK-ish NEWS CONTENT


Besides the tobacco story, the main, full-length stories in the newspaper were pretty weak. Two profiles? You guys can do better than that. Think of this (something I'm going to steal from my class today), News is something you wanted to know seconds ago, right now. Yes, profiles are important, but we need to make sure we are asking the important questions too.

The retention rate story took a lot of information given by the university at face value. It may be accurate, but I would much rather you guys quote reports rather than people when it comes to statistical information (a point I will touch in more in a few graphs). The story about retention rate is interesting, but there is more to it than the university is doing alright, did you know our first-year retention rate is lower than the year 2000?

Sure, we increased the rate a little bit from the last data set, but we still aren't as high as we used to be. Having this statistical information ready would have produced better questions and could have even changed the entire nature of the story. Make sure you are arming yourself with as much information as possible to create the best story possible. If you don't check it or know about it before you go into an interview, sources could lie to your face and you would never know (not saying that happened here, but this is a teachable moment).

QUOTES AND PARAPHRASES


This is easy, ladies and gentleman. If you see statistical information in a press release, find the source of that information and attribute it to that source. The press release didn't just come up with the information. You want to make sure the press release is accurate because, well, a person wrote that release and we are all capable of mistakes.

Also, don't quote statistics from a source. If they start dropping numbers, ask them where they got them. Double check those numbers. Be skeptical. If they can't provide the source of their information, how did they come up with it in the first place?

When it comes to quotes, they are the human element of a story. Quotes should be emotional and unique. If someone says, "I like it because it's great." Don't quote that. How lame is that? People don't say it, but EVERYONE is far more interesting than that. Get emotion and uniqueness in your quotes and your story will benefit greatly.

Never, never quote press releases. If you have to use a large section of a press release, paraphrase that bad boy. Press releases are boring. Have you read an awesome press release? See? They are boring and nobody cares what is quoted in them. Paraphrase.

FINAL CONCLUSION


Everyone seems to be learning quickly. Yet, there is still a lot to learn. Hell, even I'm learning, and I've been here forever (not really forever, but damn it feels like a long time). Mastering the use of quotes and paraphrases can be difficult, but if you follow some of the tips above, you will be on the right path.

Keep up the great work! I'm loving this semester more and more every day.

Great news day

I don't know about you guys, but I really enjoyed the news section today. It was informative and (mostly) well-reported. There were some areas that needed touching up, but we will get to that later in the blog. News is one of the most difficult things to produce for the paper, and today's front page was one of the best. Excellent job for just the second day.

PRAISE

Great job to Sean Lawson on an interesting story about the .xxx domains. I never even considered OU would be part of the institutions (it makes sense now) trying to protect their image. There also was a great quote from Nash that referenced .xxx domains attached to coaches. The implied use of this was humorous. More importantly, the depth of that answer (getting information regarding SPECIFIC people attached to the .xxx domain) was a wonderful addition to the story.

Hillary McLain's lead in her Tedx feature story was awesome. It set the scene and wasn't afraid to do something a little different than The Daily's norm. Remember, if you are writing a feature story, don't be afraid to get a little creative and descriptive. Use what you see to set the stage of your stories and describe situations to the reader to make them more meaningful. Keep these words in mind when writing: don't tell me what happened, show me what happened.

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT


There were a lot of stories jumping online today. A lot of this has to do with space restrictions and design. However, it can be a bit of a bummer to write a story and have it get cut off halfway through the print product. This is going to happen. Sometimes editor's have to make tough decisions. But, if you want to make sure your story is well represented in the print and online products, communicate with your editors when you have a long story. There could be a print version of the story written out (most commonly a summary of the longer story) and the full story placed online. This satisfies both audiences (you might be surprise to know that the people that read the print don't always read the online product). Doing this will make you happy, your editor happy and the readers happy.

The life and arts story about books turned movie was an interesting read, but the design was a bit cluttered. I'm a big fan of non-linear storytelling (and this story provided a bit of it), but the jumbled nature of the design made the reading difficult. This could have been alleviated with a more spaced out design and a more prominent opening paragraph (I didn't read the lead paragraph until I had already read two of the movie bits). Something to think about.

FINAL THOUGHTS


Apart from still adjusting to the work schedule and figuring out when and where to plan, the paper is shaping up well. Today's paper didn't have any fact errors (that we know of yet) and there was strong content all around. Remember to keep communicating and keep planning. We will do great things.

The first day is in the books

The first day is over! Hurrah!

All of you should give yourselves a pat on the back. This will be the first of many, and we will only get better from here.

That being said, there are some issues that arose in the first issue. This blog was created for me (the managing editor) and Chris Lusk (EIC) an opportunity to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of our journalism.

First things first:

PRAISE

Great job to Paighten Harkins on an excellent story about OU shoring up its defenses against winter weather. This is an informative story regarding an issue students, faculty and staff may not have at the forefront of their minds.

Sean Lawson's story about Donnie Crawford's death made it into the paper today. Lawson did a great job getting the story on a Sunday at the request of campus editor Laney Ellisor. Excellent job.

I really enjoyed Kayley Gillespie's column on food facts. It was informative and well written. However, while we are all entitled to our opinions, we have to be careful and make sure they are accurate. Gillespie said "every American who is persuaded..." to eat crap has the same confused brow and oblivious look. It may be true that a lot of American's don't understand what they are eating, that's the point of the article, but be careful attributing that to every individual.

VERIFICATION

The very first paper had a large error that really reinforces our need to verify our information. From the reporter level, through the editors and the copy editors, nobody noticed the Winter Welcome Week schedule was 2011's schedule, not 2012. This is a mistake that could have been fixed if somebody took the time to verify the fact. Mistakes happen and this is the first week, but we all must remember that EVERY fact in a story needs to be double checked. Don't take anything at face value, check it out. Be skeptical. It isn't an insult to the reporter or the source, it is just a fail safe to minimize mistakes. Verifying every fact will ensure a more accurate, valuable story and newspaper.

OTHER AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT

The unique resolutions story could have TOTALLY benefited from alternative story form. Instead of writing a narrative arc, this could have been a Sooner Sampler with a small story about the amount of people that keep resolutions. Get photos of those people and get their quotes next to those faces! Students love to see themselves in pictures and in the paper. The quotes and the information in the story were good, but taking that extra step to think of other ways to deliver that information could have developed a much better package. Hell, we used a photo from another newspaper, that's a bummer. Make sure you plan!

The feature story about Ken Parker was good and informative, but once the story started getting to his background, I started snoozing. Take out bio information from a story and move it to an infobox. I understand the reasoning behind having an infobox about the Tedx event, but the feature is about him and his bio information is more important. In fact, after cutting that info out and putting it in a box, I'm sure there still would have been room for the Tedx box.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is one of the best starts I've seen since I started working at the paper. We have such a great group of people working hard to produce an excellent product. There are going to be growing pains, but that comes with any new endeavors (and when you get old, my ankles hurt for no reason sometimes). Just remember, planning ahead and communicating with the visual desks and the editors will always produce a better product. Keep up the great work. I will have more thoughts tomorrow.

Obligatory first post

Hello my fellow journalists!

The first day of production is underway, and tomorrow marks the first day of the spring 2012 semester. There is much work to be done.

After the excellent training session we had Thursday and Friday, I'm confident completing all that work is going to be easy. We have a motivated group of journalists/editors capable of handling anything.

This (cleverly named) blog will be keeping track of all that work. After I read the paper (in its entirety), I will take critiques and praise of that work and post it on this blog. This will consist commentary on the content of the paper, execution of packages and anything else I notice. I also will be posting thoughts and musings on anything else happening in the newsroom.

Chris Lusk, our fearless leader, will be posting on here as well. He will have his own tab, but that content will feed through the home tab.

Judy, our adviser, has a blog that critiques the paper, but I wanted to create a blog that will offer a platform for the editor-in-chief and the managing editor (fellow students) to talk to everyone at the same time. You should read both of the blogs. Judy is a veteran of the industry and has awesome insight.

The next post (you know, one that will have some meaty information in it)  Make sure you sign up for email notifications so you receive an alert when the blog is posted.

Here is to a great semester of journalism and academics!