An Entertaining Way into the Magazine Business

When I first sat down and Michael Koretzky started talking, I was looking at his tie-dyed t-shirt, his suit jacket and the whip he was holding in his hand. Not typical attire for a speaker, I would assume. Little did I know this was probably the best workshop I would attend all week; this man is a genius. Even the way he talked was interesting, because he knew his audience. This is what he stressed through the whole workshop: if you are writing stories  no one cares about, it is because you don’t know your audience.

He talked about entertainment journalism. He asked us questions to see what we knew. He asked how many newspapers there were; he said 1,800 newspapers are published daily and 7,600 weekly. He then asked how many magazines were published. The answer is 19,000 nationwide.

He stressed knowing your audience, but the subject he felt is most important is collaboration. You need collaboration in order to maintain a great publication. The designers and writers need to collaborate. When collaborating, staffers throw around ideas and debate them in a constructive way. He said not every one of our ideas will always be used, and that’s okay.  We need other people’s ideas to influence our own. 

Design has to influence content; he made a point to emphasize.

Writing like you would normally talk is how he says to write. Trying to sound cool doesn't work and no one wants to read it. If you are writing about pop music, you need to write about an artist that everyone else likes. People do not want to read about the people that they do not know. He talked about music, film and food reviews and how to make them more interesting. A lot of people write boring review statements such as “this is good because” or “this was horrible because.” He said to write how you would speak to someone if you wanted to tell them that it sucked, or was great, in your own words. People want to hear or see things that stand out to them, or that they can relate to.

DON’T FEAR ASKING DUMB QUESTIONS! He laughed and yelled while saying this, and he was so right. After asking what you think is a dumb question, you may find out other people don’t know the answer, either. If you don’t know what something means, other people probably don't, either. Your 'dumb question' could lead you onto something great.

The last few things he mentioned were:

1) Covering crap – some silly things may be big topics to others. You never know.

2) Take credit for everything you are involved in. This includes managing a project or helping someone find sources for a story. You did that!

3) Previews are always better than reviews.

4) Broad is not interesting; specific is fascinating.

-Catherine Flood, ‘13
Editor-in-Chief

Writing Magazine Features and Getting Them Published

I had every intention of trying to figure out the secret of getting a feature article published in a magazine. Little did I know that I already have the skills to do so. When I attended this workshop, I quickly learned that I had learned most of the information in my specialized writing class and from Brian McDowell in my news classes. The man who spoke was a well-known published reporter whose articles have been featured in a variety of magazines. Everything I have learned at Morrisville, he said, will give me a good chance at getting published. 

The skills I learned are: Writing a feature story, sometimes losing structure to create something great, being dedicated, using creativity, solid reporting, accuracy, and writing about something that you are interested in. Sounds easy, huh? Well, in order to do so, writers need to understand the basic format or structure of a news story in order to branch out and write a feature story. The speaker explained that feature writing is the type of writing most magazines want, so it's important to have that basic knowledge or structure support. 

It is also important to use a lot of graphics, photographs, or video. People like visual things; the presenter said the visuals will help craft the story narrative. He also said that the editor in chief, as well as section editors, should always be writing in addition to their other duties. This is another thing that my staff does already. I was proud in that moment. 

He said a 'nut graf' should be the first 3-5 paragraphs, and the writer should follow it with support, such as quotes. There should be an ending that refers back to the lead of the story. A writer should never start an article with a quote, because it is rare that a quote lead works. The best thing to do for a feature story, he said, is to find out information about the person that other people do not know already. 

“Don't be shy and let people push you around,” he advised. This was his best suggestion throughout the whole workshop. He's right: you can’t get anywhere or get anything published unless you are out there--and aggressive. When you are submitting your article to a magazine, he said, have someone look it over first. It's your only chance for them to look at your work. He said if it's bad, they will never look at your work again. He said to learn the masthead and focus on the section editor and not to bother the editor in chief.

So basically, It was pretty cool to learn that all of these skills that are required, we have because of the Journalism program at Morrisville. It was a good workshop because it reminded me that I am a journalist who loves writing.

-Catherine Flood, '13
Editor in Chief, The CHIMES

Narrative Lives! Storytelling and Your Career

In the session called Narrative Lives! Chelsea J. Carter, a reporter for CNN, discussed the art of writing a narrative. 

Now imagine yourself working the overnight shift the night of the Aurora, CO shooting, going home to bed and waking up with about 1,000 emails. Now I thought I got a lot of emails from campus activities and professors, but nowhere near 1,000. 

Chelsea started replying to emails and phone calls while watching an interview with one of the people who was in Theater Number 9. She knew within the first 15 seconds of the interview that she wanted to write a narrative on this person who had been a witness to the horrific shooting. Now it isn’t always that easy to know that your story could be a narrative but here are some pieces of the puzzle that are crucial when telling a narrative:

1. Your story must have a definitive time period in which your story takes place, with a beginning, middle and end. Now you may not think that these types of stories are easy to find,  but you can find them everywhere. For example, a fatal car accident on campus or a student needing a transplant.
2. Your characters are crucial! The first character will normally be your storyteller. But in some cases a character may not even be a person. In the case of the Aurora shooting, the theater itself became a character. 
3.  Your scene must tell the story itself, so don’t over-attribute by saying “shots rang out” authorities said. Instead just say shots rang out. By doing this your reader is going along on the journey with you. 

A final tip that Chelsea mentioned was having your sources tell you their story multiple times. The first time without interrupting them and then ask questions. Also, don’t forget that flashbacks can be an integral part of your story.                      

Courtney Cook, '13 Managing Editor                

The Access Game

When I participated in “The Access Game” seminar with Ted Geltner, he spoke about how to obtain information for your sports stories. He spoke of the difficulties some schools have in reaching out to players and coaches because of their Athletic Director and their rules.

Some reporters and editors aren't even allowed to ask questions of athletes without asking the Sports Information Director. Hearing that other journalism programs have this issue got me thinking about how lucky we are as sports writers and editors to be able to communicate with head coaches and players directly. We are able to develop relationships with them without having the athletic department controlling what we can or can’t do. Having a relationship is big for our beat writers because they can actually meet with coaches and players on a personal level which allows them to obtain information that they normally wouldn't get if the SID had more control.

Geltner gave advice on how we can develop close relationships with the directors so that trust can be developed. He also gave us a heads up in looking into whether or not our First Amendment rights are being violated if we are denied access.

Never settle with the SID, player or athlete saying no. If you can’t get access it isn't the end of the world, you can always go with a story without a certain quote from players or coaches. Look for interesting angles to take when situations like this occur.   

Daniel Moreno-Gonzalez, '13 | Sports Editor

We have the technology!

As a newspaper committee, you and your team of editors have the obligation to work closely with the staff writers on keeping things interesting. No one is going to want to read something that you wouldn’t want to read.

            From the newspaper layout to the online edition of your paper, it is each editor’s job to make sure people are interested in what they’re looking at. Avoid front page stories that aren’t interesting. It is so easy to find a story on page 8 of your paper that might be more interesting to the readers. We’re writing the stories, but we’re writing them for our readers, not ourselves.

            Social media is booming.

            We need to get on a similar level with our readers and connect with them via Facebook and twitter. From quick posts that help advertise a story, to world events or facts that readers might like.

            Following tips like these can help any newspaper. By abiding by advice like this, we can turn any dull paper into one that people are eager to read.

           

            Jeffrey Dwyer, ’15 | Online/Campus Co-Editor

            

Writing for the iPhone generation

In this generation, we have an attention span of a goldfish; due to the ever-changing technology, the iPhone generation may be the unluckiest generation yet. Our attention can only be captured for minutes at a time, which is why as a journalist, this convention has helped me realize the importance of capturing a reader’s attention.

Entertainment journalism is the closest type of magazine-style-writing a newspaper has. In the seminar “Magazine Features and Getting Them Published,” we learned that all magazines have a targeted audience. Gossip magazines such as Star, target young college females, while trash-talk magazines such as Globe target the older generation.

These magazines work overtime to capture their reader’s attention. The current generation has a fear of commitment, as far as reading goes. If the artwork for the article doesn’t capture their attention, the page will be flipped and the article will remain unread.

As a journalist, it is our job to capture their attention with a headline or the first few words of the lead. Most writers have the habit of reading their local newspaper’s articles, whether they’re features or reviews, and attempt to copy their writing style. That’s mistake number one; the point of writing is to create your own style within guidelines.

Writing music reviews is an underrated task; many think it’s easy to listen to a compilation and write their thoughts on it. But music reviews is more than just a track list and some opinions. It takes more than clichés to convince your reader to pick up an artist’s album. “Soaring singles” or “funky beats” is over played. How many artists can have these funky beats? Chances are you don’t want to plan your career as a journalist around your local newspaper, so do yourself a favor and don’t write like them.

The current generation has an obsession with writing things that are “obscure.” They want to write about unheard of bands and artists. Part of the job is writing about things you may not personally like. Your job isn’t to like what you’re writing about, it’s simply just to write it.

Collaboration is extremely important in this field. You must be able to sit down with a room full of editors and not be discouraged when you’re idea is turned down. Perhaps only one in nine ideas will be used, but it doesn’t mean all nine weren’t excellent. Collaboration begins with simple layout ideas but can reach other areas as well. Many times, editors will have to sit down to discuss the direction of a story or how to interview the subject.

College journalism is tricky. Your audience is still growing and developing. Creating stories for your targeted audience is key. They want to know about their campus and things that relate to their home. They want to know more about what they have little knowledge on.

If you’re going to write about movies, be sure it’s a movie your audience will see. Try and tell the difference between a flop and a blockbuster. Anyone can Google a movie review, so set yours apart from the rest. This is where your own writing style comes into play. If you’re going to write about food, write about food in their area; even if you’re doing pizza reviews, convince them the pizza you’re eating is the best. If you’re writing about fashion, college kids can’t afford to buy the latest Paris trends. They want to know where they can buy cool, cheap t-shirts that match their Converses.

Knowing your audience is a challenge sometimes, but it’s easy when you relate to yourself as your audience. Ask yourself what you want to know more about, then write about it.

Brittany Tuft '15

Lifestyle Editor

Don't be a jerk

When you are editing first-year journalism students' stories, you occasionally get some bad feedback. 
Some staffers can be pretty stubborn and not like what you have to say about their writing. This can sometimes make you want to be overly bossy or just ask these students to leave the major.  I attended a session today called, “Wrangling Bad Habits out of your Eager but Inexperienced Staff.”

The main thing I learned in this seminar was to “train and trust your staffers.” This means that editors really shouldn’t think of themselves as teachers to their staff, but more as coaches. A lot of staffers want to write about their opinions right away and you have to find a way to tell them that they have to put their opinions on a shelf for the time-being while they are trying to tell a story. 
Basically, a good editor should not be a jerk about this; they should sit down with their writers and coach them through making their story better and how to write objectively.

Some of the pitfalls first-year journalism students will make are using too few sources or wrong sources. Some will make promises they can’t keep, (such as promising to show the source the story beforehand). They will procrastinate; use weak leads and awkward quotes or too many quotes. The solution to this is to be diplomatic with the writer. 

Mollie Carter '14 | Online/Campus Co-Editor

Tips from How to Come Out of College and Kick Some A...

I've got a year or two before I end up worrying about internships, but it feels like it’s just around the corner. Heading into Chuck Clark’s and Melissa Harris’s seminar “How to Come Out of College and Kick Some A…” I learned some important tips about the internship process and how to get a job afterwards.

Some helpful tips from Harris and Clark:

1.   Never turn down a story.
2.    Make the best of a story.
3.    Be curious about everything.
4. The best ideas come from the reporter, not the editor.
5.  Accept criticism and learn from it.
6.   Find sponsors; they give you jobs.
7.   Market yourself (dress appropriately).
8.   Don’t leave your first job before getting your next job.
9.  A great internship doesn’t have to be at a big-named company.
10.  If you won’t work for free, someone else will, BUT…
11. You don’t have to take an unpaid internship.
12. Ask questions about your internship.

Even though the internship process is still a little ways away for me, it was interesting to hear two professionals discuss their experiences about the process.

Michelle Bagnall, '15

Associate Diversions Editor

Editors exploring Chicago

Most of the editors of The CHIMES outside Chipotle
from left to right back: Courtney, Jake, Briana, Silke, Brittany, Brendan,
Danny, and Jeff. Front: Mollie and Michelle
Photo by Brian McDowell

The male editors in Chicago
Photo by Brittany Tuft, '15 Lifestyle Editor

To speed up the interview, SLOW DOWN....

Speed Interviewing

Don’t rush your story until you verify the truth.

                For first-semester writers to pros in the field, everyone has good and bad interviews. Being nervous and uneasy can lead to an interview going bad and the interviewee being turned off. Following certain steps can help with making an interview a less stressful environment and a friendlier meeting.

                Going into the interview prepared with previous facts wastes less time and gives you, the interviewer, a head start on getting the facts you need. Also by using a combination of primary, secondary, neutral, leading, and open and closed questions, can help produce the facts for a good story. Also finding common ground with your interviewee helps make the situation less nerve-wracking.  By stating the topic of your story, how long the interview will take, the process for writing the story, and asking if it’s ok to record, will also make the interviewee less nervous.

                Keep in mind when entering your interview that you follow certain steps:

1.       Make eye contact.

2.       Shake the interviewee’s hand.

3.       State your name clearly and slowly.

4.       Be honest, direct, but do not attack your source.

5.       Ask your source to take their time while you catch up on notes.

6.       Give your source opportunity for thought.

7.       Use the mirror technique with quotes.

By following these tips, you’ll have no problem with your interviews.

Jake DeRochie, '15
Diversions Editor

Need 200 plus story ideas?

We all have the problem of reporters saying they don’t think a story is interesting. That is the problem with finding a story and making it interesting. This is exactly what Lori Brooks and Dan Reimold talked about in the session “200 plus story ideas;” Ideas ranged from odd news, student life, behind the scenes stories and a day in the life of an interesting person around campus. A new trend on campuses is the idea of a News Mob instead of a Flash Mob, which covers all aspects of one story, from video and photography, to stories and first person stories. You could come up with stories of popular trends, vanishing trends, or alternative lifestyles. 

One of the things that I would definitely enjoy bringing back to The CHIMES was a story idea of taking every letter of the alphabet and create a story about it. So look forward to reading these in upcoming issues of The CHIMES. 

Courtney Cook, '13 Managing Editor

Better Living Through News Design

I attended a session about design and how important it is. I enjoy design and find it very challenging so this session was great for me. The speaker was Ron Johnson, a six-time editor of The Best of Newspaper Design. He was informative and the designs that he showed us were very unique.

Some of his examples used pictures that emphasized the story. He stressed the fact that pictures should be blown up. White space is something that we’re always taught looks bad when there is too much. But Johnson disagreed, and said that white space can be used to accentuate content. He showed us a cover that the Indiana University student media had created. It was completely white with black letters that said “Clean Slate.”

 It made me, a reader, wonder what else was in the issue. Something else he talked about that I found interesting was his theory on stories above the fold. He said there shouldn’t be a lot of text, instead a large, strong, dominant image. In many of our CHIMES editions we put important stories above the fold, but they had lots of text with medium sized images. Johnson also said that dramatic crops draw attention to the story. The ID paper cropped a picture so it was horizontal and thin, the content of the image was a man’s chin in an army uniform.

Johnson also discussed the issue of illustrations on the cover as well as within stories. His students wrote a boring, routine story but jazzed it up by using an illustration of a man walking with an umbrella and a piano falling from the sky. Simple things like illustrations can enhance a story. The CHIMES has been using more illustrations within our print paper. Like Johnson said, certain topics can only be shown politely in an illustration. 

~Briana Foisia, '13 | Executive Editor

Nothing to write about, you say?

As an editor for the Campus News section in the CHIMES, I have often dealt with the, “There is nothing to write about!”  and the “Can you give me ideas pleeeeease?”  So when I walked into the “Finding Features on the Two-Year Campus” seminar at the Journalism Conference in Chicago it was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one facing this problem. Tom Pierce, the speaker, gave us a whole list of ideas that staffers can use just by asking faculty and other staff on our campus them. It could be a story on who on campus is hiding a litter of kittens in their closet. Or, who gives you a refund when the vending machine on campus steals your money? Pierce explained that you can talk to students, alumni, staff, and faculty about their lives or interesting hobbies they may enjoy. For instance, you could interview someone who is a veteran and find out more about their lives. Or maybe, you have a faculty member who likes to wrestle alligators in their spare time.  Pierce also explained you have to decide whether a story follows news values, (impact, timeliness, proximity, prominence, etc.) or it follows reader values, (sex, scandals, humor, celebrities, etc.). Some of these stories are interesting, some are important, some are both, and some are neither. What an editor has to do is make sure the staffers are out there looking for stories so they don’t have to hear, “Nothing ever happens on this campus,” at every meeting.

Mollie Carter, '14 | Online/Campus Co-Editor