Coming to New Orleans, or Nawlins as the locals
say, has been such a great experience so far. The editors took over Bourbon Street last night, seeing what the
nightlife is like in this city. Everyone enjoyed the time to just relax and let
loose. It was nice to see and get to know the other editors better and to see
what they are like outside of the CHIMES.
Today was more of an educational day, to learn more about journalism and some of the ways to improve the school newspaper; law and ethics of photography and journalism; and for me, looking deeper into the construction of stories. I thought writing a sports story was only a followup of how the team was doing or a feature on a key player. I didn’t realize that you should look more into the story and think outside the box.
I went to a conference called “We want Rudy.” Steve Fox was the speaker, and he talked about how he once covered a cross country story and was just going to get the key runner who crossed the finish line first, but could not because the last girl had not finished yet. Steve was getting very unhappy at having to wait for the last girl to finish, but then realized that her team all had finished, took a drink and went back out on the course to finish the race with the girl.
She had had a brain tumor in high school. She was so determined to cross the finish line in every race she ran, and Steve was so amazed that he did a story on the girl and not the top runner. Even though Steve got angry about having to wait, he was pleased that he got to know the girl, and was able to tell her story to other people.
Today was more of an educational day, to learn more about journalism and some of the ways to improve the school newspaper; law and ethics of photography and journalism; and for me, looking deeper into the construction of stories. I thought writing a sports story was only a followup of how the team was doing or a feature on a key player. I didn’t realize that you should look more into the story and think outside the box.
I went to a conference called “We want Rudy.” Steve Fox was the speaker, and he talked about how he once covered a cross country story and was just going to get the key runner who crossed the finish line first, but could not because the last girl had not finished yet. Steve was getting very unhappy at having to wait for the last girl to finish, but then realized that her team all had finished, took a drink and went back out on the course to finish the race with the girl.
She had had a brain tumor in high school. She was so determined to cross the finish line in every race she ran, and Steve was so amazed that he did a story on the girl and not the top runner. Even though Steve got angry about having to wait, he was pleased that he got to know the girl, and was able to tell her story to other people.
I was really happy that I got to learn about looking more into a story and to not only do the topics that people hear about every week or day but topics that people want to learn and get more knowledge about.
Another conference I went to Thursday was called “Chicken Salad.” It was about newspaper layout design. The presenter showed us that even top schools such as Columbia and even Cornell make big mistakes on the layouts of their newspaper. Putting too many pictures of topics that aren’t related on one page can throw the reader off and not want to read anymore. It helps to make the newspaper topics bigger, delete some pictures, and just be sure that if you are addressing a topic that you're covering the topics as well as you can. It was a really laid-back conference with great audience participation, and the speaker was really cool.
New Orleans has been such a great experience.
-Shelby Wood 15'
Co-Sports Editor
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