Speed — Deadline Sat., June 7
June 3, 2008
Hello Scholars! Welcome aboard, Princella and Elida, Candace and Chloe, and Sharahn and Brian. I think with this week, everyone in our group has started — anyone not? I wish you a rockin’ start with the stories!
For our first blog discussion, I’d like you each to share one thing that you do — reporting- , editing-, writing-, photography-, research-wise — that saves you time and makes you more efficient on the job. (Chloe, you can resend the great tip you e-mailed us last week.) Also, for the scholars who are starting this week, please also tell us what skill(s) you’d like to work on this summer.
Deadline: Saturday (because we’re getting a late start this week). If someone else has already taken your tip for working quickly, you gotta think of another one. No repeats!
Have a great week! Colleen
As a reporter, I always tell my sources that my deadline is the day before it actually is or generally, just earlier than it actually is. Knowing that people always wait to the last minute, I didn’t want to get frazzled and super frustrated 10 minutes before a deadline to come up with a story that would turn out mediocre. It’s not fool-proof, some people still call you past your fake and real deadline, but it helps.
My response to an e-mail:
Stories in five hours aren’t as tough as they seem. First of all get organized and make a list of who you need in this story and prioritize it. Make all your calls right then and there and while you’re waiting for callbacks look up the history of the storyand try to answer some questions with old articles or official web sites. If the offices are near, go there after you call. Also If you’re already friendly with fellow reporters, they might have a cell phone number versus an office number you could use. Make sure sources know your deadline and If you have to do an impromptu interview that you’re not prepared for make sure you can follow up. If you’re honestly not going to make it, let your editor know so you can do a backup. Oh and forget about lunch
First off, thanks to everyone who responded to my question last week. One thing that I do (more efficiently now) is prioritize my notes. I tend to produce long stories, so in order to meet daily deadlines I really look through my notes with a careful eye. I’ll pick out the most relevant quotes and information, rather than trying to include the less important details. This also gives me plenty of time to look over my story before filing and gives me less anxiety. My tip may seem standard to most of you reporters, but it has really helped me transition from weekly to daily.
I agree with Kelly, and I’ll just expound with specifics.
I have started to take my laptop to my often 5-hour evening Council meetings. It makes it easier to scroll down and transfer direct quotes from my notes later that night or early in the morning. I also type much faster (not to mention neater!) than I can write. Ofcourse I also take on a note pad for my one-on-one interviews. It would be hard to chase someone walking out of the council chambers with my laptop. Haha.
During and after the meeting, what I usually do is bold, italicize and/or star the quotes and facts that seem to tell it best and shortest. I then copy them to the top of the page or another page where I’ll write the story. That helps me recall the main points made and also assures that I tell all sides.
I try to pare down the copied information by clarifying in my mind what to say before I write, usually by means of a loose outline of a few short sentences. I try to identify the essence, point and significance of my story and hopefully the first and last quote. Though it takes a few extra minutes, I trust it saves time in the end by keeping me from getting lost on the tempting path to detail minutia.
I am still working on perfecting the outlining process and have been testing the outline style suggested in the book, Writing for Story, a book I recommend. The idea is to point out a complication at the top, a solution at the bottom and three developments in the middle, making sure that each sentence description includes an active verb. Though I think he meant his idea to be applied to narrative, I suspect it could help bring life to hard news stories.
I am not the fastest writer, and I want to get faster. But I always meet my deadlines with varying time to tighten the story at the end. More than raw writing speed, I think being a good reporter is about being efficient with resources and learning what deserves the most play both in the story and in your day, something I guess we will all learn through experience.
One thing that really helps me is for stories is when I interview over the phone I type down all the notes I’m taking on a computer. This does seem like a no-brainer, but it’s something I’ve only started doing recently. Since I’m able to type decently fast, I can get full quotes and organize the information in a way so I’m able to go through it quickly while writing my story.
Well, it seems like you guys covered a lot. I do a lot of the same things. I know how important it is to make calls right away, but I think it is equally important to know exactly where your going with the story. Of course, some things can always pop up last minute. But, I’ve found that stories are the most organized and the most focused when you’ve decided what your angle is going to be before you right it. One of my professors told me that he hates it when he asks students how a story is going and they say the focus has changed a bit. The focus should never change. I try to have questions ready before an interview that I know will link together to make a good story. There’s nothing worse than when you have a bunch of answered questions and no story.
I’m chiming in kinda late here, and I think a lot of what I would contribute has already been said. BUT I haven’t missed a deadline yet—and I’ve had to write two stories a day (albeit, they are rarely longer than 15 inches. And I’ve only been on the job three days).
I guess my deadline-looming suggestion is to think about the difference between pragmatic and normative sourcing. Sure, it might be great to interview five people about Ohio’s new, heavily restrictive, payday loan law. But can you really fit all those sources into a story? Especially when you have to work really fast?—I know it might be nice to, but it isn’t always realistic. Additionally, a quote or experience relayed by a person off the street is purely anecdotal; it’s not supposed to be empirical. Get your quote(s) and start writing. A crusty veteran reporter I once worked with used to lecture me: “This isn’t f@#$^%$ Watergate. Get a quote. Write the damn story. And get it off your plate so you can do the next thing.”
Excellent ideas, everyone!
I’ll throw in two time-management tips:
— Before you leave work at the end of the day, prioritize and list the things you need to accomplish the following day (or at least the following morning). Remain flexible, however, and step right up to the plate if there’s breaking news or you see a local angle to a national story you read that morning online or in the paper.
— If you’re new to covering cops, fires and the like, and a little anxious about it, make a checklist and keep it handy at your desk and in your car (good for photogs and copy editors, too). Make the checklist as wide-ranging as possible and update it with questions as you gain experience. Then instead of having to devise new questions for each emergency, you can whip out the list. This saves time and reduces the chances of your forgetting to ask something. (PS. did everyone get my “cops” attachment in an earlier e-mail? Anyone need a resend?)
What other time-saving tips can we come up with? What about the Snapshotter and Copyreader among us — what have you got for us?
Hi all,
Being efficient is really important as we all know. A few things I do to keep things going smoothly when I start interviewing and writing is making lists of sources I need to talk to and sources I haven’t gotten a hold of. This helps me to keep track of the important interviews. I also check off names as I begin to write to make sure I’m on track and not leaving anyone out (unless they need to be left out because they don’t add to it). It just helps me write a little faster.
Another thing I learned the hard way today is to simply ask for directions if I’m not quite sure where a location is. It may seem obvious, but I lost an hour circling downtown to try to find a new thrift store that was no where near downtown. It was super frustrating, especially on deadline, but luckily I had left early enough to not screw myself.
On a side note, I took my own photos for an assignment for the first time today, and I’m really excited that two came out really nice and will hopefully publish tomorrow!!
Good luck everyone! Week one out of 10 down!!!
Making a checklist of what I need to accomplish the next day is definitely something I’ve been doing and it has really help me be organized and efficient. For half of last week and this past week I was given a list of 7 high schools all at once and had to write a graduation story and a valedictorian profile for each. Obviously I was getting calls from people from different high schools all day long and making lists of names, titles and phone numbers on my computer really prevented me from driving myself crazy. Also, what Aaron said about typing up the notes really works, especially if you’re making calls from your desk. I didn’ t do it the first two days and regretted it because I have so many notes now that it takes me a few minutes to flip through my notebook and find the source I’m looking for from a particular high school.
One thing I do when I’m actually writing the story that helps me save time is that I write it in parts, not necessarily from beginning to end. I do the whole going through my notes and making circles and stars and animals near the important stuff but I pick out stuff that absolutely has to be in the story and write that first. That way I can get the often boring but essential details out of the way and spend more time coming up with the lede etc. Of course I am flexible enough to where I can go back and change stuff I’ve written but this approach seems to work for me. Thoughts? Ideas? If you do things differently, I’d definitely like to hear about what works for you!
(wow! mine is long. I would have posted it friday, but i spent all day staking-out the Obama residence for the AP) As a photojournalist, I have a tip related to “speed” when reporting in the field: Bring a chair to the bullpen (and send the intern)! This actually sounds like the opposite but it eventually leads to the initial. Example: This week, I patiently waited two full workdays while sitting in a black canvas fold-up chair to get word of the 20-minute advance media warning from a federal judge that the jury had come back with a verdict. As I waited, I read, and reread the Tribune and the Sun-Times, ate peanut butter-and-honey sandwiches, and became gratefully exposed to the colorful array of Chicago’s major print and broadcast journalists. Once the 20-minute warning came, I made the call to my editor; he sent, in a cab, veteran AP photographer Charles Rex Arbogast, to confidently capture, in a paparazzi-style along with about 20 other photographers, the accused, once-powerful fund-raiser Antonin Rezko as he walked in the federal court building. We, who patiently waited in our fold-up chairs on the inside, nervously stood together crammed at one end of the bullpen, and documented Rezko’s every move through security and pre-verdict stride to the elevator lobby.
My photos didn’t even get uploaded let alone sent out on the wire; hands down Charles photos were superior. That night, Charles’s court exterior photos ran all over the internet, and in every major newspaper I picked up in the news room the next day.
Interestingly enough, Rezko was found guilty on 16 criminal counts, which include fraud, money laundering and bribery. His influence-peddling scheme involves Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Rezko has also played a big roll in propelling the career of Senator Obama.
I guess the other tip I have on top of this one is, bring some aspirin; to ease the discomfort from the lack of lower back support in fold up chairs.
Super, super late here, but…
On reporting, before I go out to do an interview, I always research the subject first to see what information has already been reported, which kind of gives me a sense of what I need to ask that hasn’t already been discussed before. A Lexis Nexus search or a search of your paper’s archives is a great way to start - knowing what has already been done on the topic will help you manage the direction of your interview, and save time on asking less important questions, which is key in the case of subjects with very little time to give you.
On writing, I agree with what most of you have said. I first go through my notes and grab the best quotes, then fill in the details around the quotes and connect them together. For me, it works best to just type the first ideas that come to mind and get out all the facts and figures, then go back, re-read the story and edit it down to be more concise and tight.
Also, if I’m covering an event in the afternoon or the next day, I try to pre-write as much of the story as possible. If there’s an event, for example, I try to write some basic info about the history of the event and it’s purpose and perhaps even talk to the program’s coordinator before attending (sometimes it’s not much, but the more you can get done before deadline the better). Then, after I attend the event I can color the story with vivid descriptions of what happened and reactions from people who attended.
Not sure how many of you have had to do video for assignments yet, but one thing I know is it’s hard to take notes and shoot film at the same time. What I try to do is ask the interview subject a few questions to get some hard facts first (”how long have you been doing this?”), then video record that person answering questions that would make good quotes (”what is the most rewarding aspect of what you do?”). Usually, only one of the quotes will be used for the video, and I use other quotes that I recorded in my story. And since it’s on video, it’s easy t play back and get the quotes word for word.
Great tips, folks!
Checking the clips, researching in advance, inching up the deadline, outlining in a way that makes sense to you, keeping an organized system of note-taking, etc. — all wise and helpful.
A couple of thoughts:
Re: Mimi’s comment. I have a bit of an issue with the professor’s saying the focus of a story should never change. Yes, always go into the story with a working focus or central question or point. But a reporter’s or photographer’s or copy editor’s job isn’t to simply stick to the script. Your job is to LISTEN to your sources, to SEE what’s going on at the assignment, to THINK ABOUT what you’re reading. If someone tells you something that actually is more interesting, more newsworthy, etc., than you’re original focus, then you have a duty to pursue that line of inquiry. So the story, the photo, even the completed story can change. And the minute it does, let your editor know. I suspect what your professor didn’t like was not being in the loop on the change. Remember — no surprises for your editor.
Re: Russel’s description of an assignment: Yea! to being a team player on an important story. My question: why didn’t your photos get uploaded? Was there no possibility that you got a good shot of Rezko or some good color or detail? My advice to everyone: Even when the veterans are with you on a photo or reporting assignment, always strive to have a piece of the published story. It won’t always work out that way, but don’t settle for less in terms of your own personal effort.
Re: Nandini’s comment: “…I write it (the story) in parts, not necessarily from beginning to end. I do the whole going through my notes and making circles and stars and animals near the important stuff but I pick out stuff that absolutely has to be in the story and write that first.”
This is a great technique for juggling stories in the short term — and for me personally, this technique is absolutely essential when I’m working on long form journalism or balancing short-term stories with a longer project. Many of you want to do some enterprise reporting this summer, which means you’ll prolly have to fit the enterprise in between the dailies. What I do when a story is going to extend over weeks and months is: whenever I have an interview, I immediately, before that day is over, turn it into a short news story in inverted pyramid form. The lede is the most important thing to have come out of the interview, I put in quotes, I put in color and relevant description, I make the story hold together. I do not polish it or worry about style. The point is to get the substance down in an intelligent way and while it’s fresh in my mind. When I’m traveling and don’t have access to a computer (or batteries or electricity), I write out the story longhand. This exercise saves time (some of these “stories,” with polish, might become sidebars) and makes your story more compelling because it has the benefit of freshness and of insight that is both immediate and that comes with later reflection.
BTW Nandini: circles and stars OK, but animals in the margins of your notebooks? What kinds of animals?
Anyone have different/additional takes on the above? Weigh in, please! As the summer progresses, I urge us to keep posting and responding to tips here.
And……while you’re at it, check our next topic for discussion…..
Hi guys,
I’m so sorry for being late on this — I promise I’ll be on top of my game from now on.
When writing stories, I find it easiest to just sort of throw up copy onto the page and then be ruthless about cutting. I look at every sentence and see if it’s necessary and try to combine/simplify as many things as possible. It’s a hard balance to strike because sometimes you just have to have that detail in there, otherwise the article just isn’t accurate. But most of the time, less is more.
This week I’ve been working on this long enterprise piece on hurricane insurance. When I finished my first draft, it was 50 inches. I was convinced that there was nothing I could throw out without compromising the quality of the story. After spending some time cutting, I got down to 35 inches, and it was a lot better!
I guess all stories are supposed to be perfectly tight — that’s impossible to do on a first try though. Just spit up copy really quickly and then shave off inches until your deadline. If your deadline comes and you haven’t finished shaving, all that happens is your editor does it for you. Better than having a half-finished, really tight story.
Regina, Colleen and few others have touched on something that saves me time, but that I don’t do nearly enough–start writing early. Another reporter suggested that I not wait until I have all the reporting completed before I start writing. Instead, write as I went along in the reporting process. Start writing parts of the story in between phone calls and interviews. Add to it after you finish your research. Basically the idea is that you are constantly “working” the story until it’s completed rather than trying to rush through the story in one sitting.
A tip to be more time efficient with video stories is to have your questions written out ahead of time, while writing new questions while the interview is taking place. It’s also good to write down notes of what they’re saying while interviewing because then you have a guide of where a quote is located once trying to edit the video.
I have also learned that it’s good to keep the interview down to maybe 20 minutes if possible and get about 20 minutes worth of b-roll. This can and will change depending on the story and who you talk to. It’s good to keep the interview short because it will be less work for you to edit through later.