Friday, February 15, 2008
How do you cover a beat better?
Hell has nothing on the week I just had.The School Committee postponed a vote on the teacher's contract. The teacher's union cut the board some slack and not pulling the work to rule card on the district as they had last semester. A suspected murderer was arraigned and sentenced on a parole violation. A dispised former fire marshal retired. The pension board saw its hands tied because the fire department contract guarantees the marshal's pension. The former town manager is looking to sue the town. Oh, and there's a blood drive to commemorate the five year anniversary of the worst fire in Rhode Island history.
My town is popping. And that's a good thing. But all that popping just leaves me pooped.
In between this rapid-fire week, I scheduled interviews almost every day this week, which meant my days were long and full. I just filed my last story of the week -- on the murder suspect -- and my back hurts from sitting at my desk.
Beyond that, I'm starting to kind of feel inadequate. (Way to bury the lede, huh?)
See, two of the stories I had to write this week -- the town manager suing the town and the fire marshal retiring -- I was beat on. Scooped, respectfully, by a local TV station (which was slipped the confidential document) and the Associated Press.
So not only did I spend my week essentially switching gears as news broke midday, but I spent most of it feeling crappy about getting beat. It really hit me today as I sat in Panera, eating a chicken caesar salad after attending the murder arraignment, because that's when my boss called me about the town manager threatening a lawsuit.
I put my head down on the wood panelled windowsill as the chorus to this song played over and over in my head. I found a pen and took notes on a recycled paper napkin. This week would not end. My manager said she could see if someone from the Metro desk could cover it, but that would only make me feel worse, like I couldn't handle my own beat.
So I cancelled an interview I'd scheduled for the afternoon, headed into the office, made calls, went back to the court house to see if any papers had been filed for the lawsuit and hounded the town solicitor.
I did the story. It's running tomorrow. But I don't know if I can keep this up. I don't like this feeling. So, I'm turning to you, Ten95 readers.
How do keep from getting beat in a culture where you're one of four reporters in a bureau that, in its heyday, had probably 10? I check the cop logs. I have good sources. But I'm competing against 3 reporters who cover my town for the local paper, TV and the wires. How do I cover my beat better?
Labels: burnout, dismay, Job survival, musings, the industry
continue...Friday, October 19, 2007
A quick note
I'm exhausted. Physically and Mentally.After a whirlwind weeklong celebration of my 24th year of life last week, I got thrust into this trial on Monday.
I walked into the office and my boss calls me into the office and tells me to haul tail to the Kent County Courthouse for jury selection. See, in addition to covering the town of West Warwick, I also cover county courts for my bureau. I was a little upset that I hadn't know this was coming down the pipeline, but I headed down to the courthouse and sat through two days of jury selection.
I've been covering the trial ever since. At each break and recess, I call the Web team at the paper and give them an update. After court wraps for the day, I head to the office (or file remotely if I can) and write up about 18 inches for the next day's paper. Yesterday, I crafted this tale based on the testimony of one witness.
Besides sitting on those hard wooden court benches all day, the case is just kind of trying. I have a heart, so to think that someone could hurt an innocent child like this is really upsetting. I haven't been getting a lot of sleep -- not necessarily because of this alone -- so that's been making things rough as well.
Today, I'm writing for tomorrow and after listening to testimony, I have absolutely no idea what I want to write about. I've spent the last 15 minutes trying to choke down cold Chinese food from lunch. I'm too exhausted (or lazy, take your pick) to go to the microwave in the conference room. It's 5:50 p.m. My story? Due in one hour and 10 minutes.
I have no focus. My head is blank.
This should be interesting.
Labels: 24-hour news cycle, burnout, courts, deep doo-doo, writing
continue...Saturday, July 28, 2007
Ew, girl, you funky
As I type, I'm currently entering my 12th hour of work today.I had to travel to Middleboro, Mass. this morning to cover the town meeting where residents decided to approve an agreement with the local Native American tribe to build a casino in town.
Great story. But I had to stand outside. In the sun. All day.
Saturday shifts are a witch, I tell ya.
Among the highlights of my day:
*waking at 5:45 a.m., drive an hour, to get to my assignment at 7:30 a.m.
*using a Port-A-Potty for the first time in my life (not an experience I'd like to make a regular occurrence)
*forgetting sunblock and ending up at least 3 shades darker
*Being herded into a "media area" by the local police, where residents took the opportunity to snap our pictures like we were a zoo exhibit.
*Getting eaten by a number of ants who happened to live in the grass where I sat near the speakers podium
*Shagging this quote from a white resident: "I'm a Native American. I was born here. I live here."
*Waiting while officials hand counted the votes of the 3,722 residents who attended the meeting. (they stopped when they reached 725 supports, a 2/3rds majority over the number of opponents)
*Sweating.
I am dead dog tired. Some newsroom friends have come up to me, making jokes, asking me why I'm still here because they knew I was working days today. I couldn't help it, but I gave them the stare of death and they slowly backed away. Then I went back to typing.
I'm waiting to be edited so I can get up and out this piece.
So ready for this day to be over so I can take a shower. I smell like all of outdoors. Sigh.
Note: I finally left the office at 9:20 p.m. -- after working for a total of 14 hours straight.
Labels: burnout, musings, the industry
continue...Sunday, June 10, 2007
Settling In To Chaos
Ever have that not so fresh feeling?No, I'm not talking about personal hygiene. I'm talking about not feeling like you're on point, organized and focused.
I've not really settled in to my new gig as managing editor of the campus paper's online site because it really hasn't sunk in yet. And I don't know at what point I will feel on course, organized and focused on my goal.
I've not heard from the faculty advisor, who I'm supposed to work with on a complete re- engineering of the online site. I'm not sure what my staff will look like, as many of the students who have turned in applications do not have online/new media skills. And on top of that, one of my hired assistant editors confessed to me that he might go to Europe in the fall instead, citing missing his girl from Finland (he studied abroad for an entire school year). This would leave me with one other assistant editor.
Needless to say, I'm feeling tremendous pressure. I don't have as large a support staff as the newspaper has. And since most folks prefer to work on the magazine staff, the online side of things often gets ignored. (Why? Most students come into the department thinking magazine writing means less work and longer deadlines. Oh boy, they in for a rude awakening!)
So, how will I do it? How will I find a new assistant, when most of the other qualified people have graduated and moved on to internships or jobs? How will I get the attention and interest of an at least capable multimedia staff? How effective would it be for me to train those who lack the skills during my summer, without any pay? And how will I move to a new place, pay bills, and leave to attend the NABJ convention for an entire week?
I wonder if an industry level managing editor ever goes through the same sort of feelings...
Labels: burnout, frustration, student press
continue...Thursday, May 31, 2007
My "Oh Crap" Moment
Have you ever had your heart set on something, arranged things so they'll turn out well and then had circumstance and poor planning just blow your plans to smithereens?Yeah, that happened to me yesterday.
I pitched a story about the practice of putting totaled cars on high school lawns for prom season a few weeks back. My goal was to have it run on June 1, the day of my high school's prom and just before graduation season began.
But when I walked into the office on Wednesday, my boss told me that we needed my story for the centerpiece today.
Crap.
I still needed to talk to an official, go to the school, see the car and interview kids. I'd planned to do all that today, but take some time to write it and give it some of my trademark detail and spunk.
Somehow, through the day, I got a hold of my town official (a feat in and of itself), and then trekked down to the high school, where I spent many minutes in the sun trying to pull quotes out of nonchalant teenagers. Then, I went to the SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) meeting and talked to some kids there.
By the time I got back to my office, it was 3 p.m.
I sat down and began organizing my story. I had some statistics and an interview from our local MADD (mothers against drunk driving) chapter so I began writing in chunks. Then, I pulled in the stuff from the interviews from earlier yesterday and did a clip search to find some teens who'd died in drunk driving accidents recently.
It was approaching 5:30 and I still didn't have my lede.
Normally, I wouldn't have been stressing. However, yesterday, my paper hosted a graduation day for all of the state valedictorians. They all came to our offices, got their picture taken and were available for us to interview. I was told I needed to be there.
The picture started at 6 p.m. I could get there at 6:30 at the latest.
So I hustled. I called some journo friends -- most of whom didn't answer. I needed to talk this story out. I IM'd my lede to a friend and got her opinion, and then finally got a hold of another friend to talk things through. I struggled through the lede, spell checked and CQ'd my names and sent it to the copy desk.
6:32 p.m.
Then, I rushed upstairs and found my valedictorian. We talked and I found out that in addition to wanting to be a brain surgeon, he was also a talented fire juggler and ping pong player. Who knew? By the time I finished my interview, I was so exhausted, I just left the office after stopping in to check with the desk.
All night I stewed.
I tried not to, honest. I know I did the best I could under the circumstances, but this was MY story. And I wanted it to be great. Now, the best it could be was good. I tried to shrug it off and instead told myself that I had another opportunity to get it right tomorrow. That is the beauty of my profession I said. But inside, I knew that I was hurt.
This morning, I got up and went to an assignment. When I came into the office, a co-worker pulled me aside and asked me why my story didn't go all editions -- it was that good.
I shrugged, told her that I was disappointed in the story and that I didn't even broach the possibility of having it go all eds to my editor. I sat down and as I placed my story for tomorrow's paper on the budget, my boss came over to me.
"I think your story came out good," she said. "Are you happy with it?"
I wanted to stop the words as they came out of my mouth but I couldn't.
"Not really," I said, looking at my keyboard.
"Why," she asked. "What wasn't in there that you would have wanted in there?"
"Nothing," I said, glancing up to face my boss. "But I don't feel I had the time I needed to finesse the story the way I wanted to. It turned out fine, but I'm not happy with it."
She stared for a moment and then walked away.
I turned back to my computer and continued typing.
Labels: burnout, Job survival, office politics, the industry
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