REPORTING
Reporting equals “on site.” My best stories always begin with careful research, source scouting, and asking the right questions. Reporting is the core of of a journalist. Only as an eyewitness on site can you confirm what’s happening in order to write a truthful, informative, and captivating story worth reading. So how do I maximize my time out on the field?
Finding the News
1. Pitching
What’s relevant? Sniffing out the news: As a staff reporter for the Daily Free Press at Boston University, I scout out what is important and relevant to the community right now. Well, I’m in Boston, which coincidentally houses the country’s oldest and most prestigious marathon. Coupled with it being the 10-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, I knew this would be a story the editors wanted and our readers valued. Read the story here.
Presenting the pitch: As a first-year college student, contributing to pitch meetings are a fantastic way to approve your ideas with editors. Similarly, I drew on experience as the pitch-reviewer at my high school newspaper. Our strategic team—which consisted of my co-editor-in-chief and our four managing editors—created a four-week cycle in order to ensure that our site was always constantly populated with up-to-date news. The last week of each news cycle is dedicated to pitching for the upcoming cycle, a process that includes the perspective and ideas of every single staff member in order to obtain a comprehensive list of stories. For more detail on how our cycle assignments work, see Leadership and Team Building. Below is an example of the pitch form, which can also be accessed here.
This is the pitch form I send out on the last Friday of every monthly cycle to begin the nextt cycle of storiese. We look for at least two pitches from every staff member in order to create our cycle assignment spreadsheet. This pitch form was modified and perfected over countless hours over the summer by me and the rest of the online strategic team. For more on strategic responsibilities, see Leadership and Team Building.
2. Sourcing
Once I assignments are sent out, I flesh out a potential list of sources. Sourcing is incredibly important because they are the foundation of your story, lending both credibility and context. The people I interview and speak with provide the insight, the depth and the voice of your story. To find the right sources, I ask myself: who are the most relevant people to the story? What can I learn from them? How do these particular people fit together to create the narrative?
The image to the right shows the sourcing list I created for my Pulse of the People article (for more background on this social justice repeater, see Commitment to Diversity) on the rise of Asian and AAPI hate crimes in March of 2021. I reached out to social media activists such as Hailey Cheng, local student organizers making noticeable impacts (both on and outside of campus) and AAPI-identifying faculty at my school. I always also add in links that I know will be helpful to providing evidence for my story because sourcing isn’t just limited to the people I speak with. I included background info on the history of Asian-related hate crimes, public comments from politicians and White House press briefings to keep track of government response and definitions to the topics I’m addressing in the article, such as what the “model minority myth” means.
The full-length article was one of my most well-sourced articles, receiving praise from my then editor-in-chief and making it to the Best of Student News Online front page gallery. See the final article here.
A screenshot of the sources I compiled for the article on Asian hate crimes in March 2021.
3. Reaching Out to the Source
Sending the email: This is an email I sent out to a rabbi from a local congregation for a longform article for International Holocaust Day (for more on this “Pulse of the People” online package, see Commitment to Diversity). I standardize all email subject lines for interview requests as “Interview Request from Harker Aquila” for professionalism. I then introduce my full name, my role, my news publication and where our location is to authenticate myself to the source. Next, I give a brief overview on the topic of coverage and why I would like to include my source’s perspective. Lastly, I always provide specific times that I am available for an interview and ask which times would work best for my source to make it easier for them so that they can choose.
4. Interviewing
The back of my press pass.
When conducting the interview, I always make sure that I have my press pass on to identify myself as press, along with my reporter’s notebook.
I then ask the interviewee if they are comfortable with being recorded. For more on journalistic procedures, see Law and Ethics.
Before I ask my questions, I always ask the interviewee to spell out their full name, age (or grade level if I am interviewing a student) and pronouns, as well as their position/role depending on its relevance to the story.
During the interview, my questions have two levels of depth, making sure to cover the 5Ws and an H (who, what, when, where, why and how) in order to ensure that I can tell the story accurately.
The first level is the logistical questions. My second area of focus in an interview is the storytelling aspect. For example, in interviewing a political lobbyist for a story published on The Stanford Daily, I asked why he chose to support Joe Biden and what impact they hoped to make in supporting their campaign. In an interview with a senior dancer in an article on this year’s holiday concert at my high school, I asked what it felt like to perform on stage for the last time and why dancing matters to her.
My press pass from last year as thee A&E editor.
Pivoting for Breaking News
Jumping to action: One of the most common parts of news reporting is that, sometimes, you can’t choose when you want to tell the story. When breaking news hits, its the job of the editors-in-chief to organize coverage, either reporting and writing and/or delegating the development of the story. These stories require consistent communication and fact-checking, as well as an upload date the day of or the morning after in order to ensure timeliness and relevance for or community. Below are some examples of breaking news articles I worked on this year.
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COVID hits campus
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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Malware attacks school wifi
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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Wildfire causes decline in air quality
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
