Stories: Can you please write about chainsaws and sexual dysfunctions?

Sometimes I get some weird stuff from public relations people.

Details and depth in stories

A story can be good for several reasons. The subject matter can be compelling enough for people to read, like someone embezzling tax dollars. There are, of course, the timely stories like a car driving through a war memorial. And sometimes it’s the details.

The way someone smiles, grimaces, dances, walks, sits, sighs, laughs could be the difference between dull and awesomeness.

Obituaries and empathy

I once hugged a source. His wife died the week before and we had talked on the phone twice before about her life and how she lived. He was dropping off pictures of her and I met him outside the office. I hugged him partly because I got to know him and partly because he was still grieving.

It’s not the norm to hug someone you interviewed, in case you’re wondering.

My handwriting is notoriously bad

I’ve been told that my handwriting is notoriously illegible. But also nice. Pretty like a little girl’s nice.

So you can only imagine what it’s like when I write down notes during an interview. Here’s a sampling.

Lesson: Having standards about what you write

An idea for a story always starts out vague. Someone mentions something that’s happening somewhere else and that sparks a thought: Well, that’s interesting. That thought is developed through research and making a few calls to discover more and then, boom, you have your idea for a story.

That’s generally how a story idea comes about for most things. But the execution of said idea, now that’s different. That takes training, experience, charisma. All that jazz. But what differentiates novices (read: beginners) and some of the older hands is having your checklist: your standards for what will make an idea into the genuine article.

Penning a personality: Having fun with a story

A lot of the stuff I write about is serious in nature: sickness, health care reform, deaths. Stuff like that. While there’s some wiggle room for adding a voice and personality behind the words, generally it’s meant to be objective.

All that fits in well enough with my persona. I’m a serious, reserved fellow with some personality if you give me a chance.

But when I’m asked to have fun with a story, I blanche a little bit and panic.

Building trust instead of demanding it

When I started my job at the American News, I had notions of the stories I would and could write. Notions of bringing fresh stories to the paper that neglected to staff more than one reporter under the age of 30.

Boy was I in for a surprise.

The surprise came in that no one ever told me sources can say no to a story. It sounds like an obvious fact, but I’ve always been used to being in a city with tons of people. Tons of sources. Tons of companies willing to talk. Tons of paths to take to do a story. If one person/company/expert didn’t want to talk, there were seemingly endless experts elsewhere across the nation.

Not here. The area I cover is quite specific: health and higher education. There are two hospitals in town (one with a rich history and another that just opened) and there are two higher education institutes (one public university and one small, Catholic college). So there’s not a lot of avenues to go to when I write a story. More than that, I focus on the institutions instead of the issues. In short, I’m building relationships with the public relations people at this institution. If that relationship sours, then so do my ideas and my role as a reporter at this newspaper.

Any idea has to be finessed. Any no is almost always final. And anything I do my affect newspaper revenue since all of the institutions advertise with the paper. It’s a precarious situation to be in.

In my first few months, I thought I could pitch a story and it would get done. Nope. Relationships have to be forged and trust needs to be built.

My first job: Humbleness in South Dakota

It’s been more than a year since I packed my life in southern California into a SUV and drove to South Dakota for my first job in journalism. In truth, I never thought I’d get this far because I never planned this far ahead.

Life just sort of happened…

Guns, universities and the story

A lot of times, I try to come up with stories without being prompted to. I’ve done an article on doctors using smartphone apps to help their lives. Another on doctors and where they practice medicine in Aberdeen, S.D. Also one on student housing.

In November 2012, I was looking into the gun policy at the one university in town for a general story about how it deals with students who bring guns onto campus. Then the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School happened and there was some serious re-evaluation needed.

Don’t call it a comeback

It’s more like me realizing I have a blog that needs to be cared and nurtured for throughout the year; not whenever I feel like it.

As is the excuse most people make, my life has been consumed by my job and I got busy. Being a full-time reporter is no easy gig. It’s like I’m being asked to come up with paper topics on a daily basis and then write several mini-essays throughout the week. Procrastination is not an option since I get paid to produce quality work. One thing I know now that I didn’t realize when I was a journalist in training: They cut trees down to print stories. They cut trees down to print articles that journalists write. They cut trees down to print the stories I write.

In essence, what I produce needs to be worthy of a tree sacrifice. No pressure, right?

So I’ve thrown myself into my work a tad too much. But since I’d like this blog to make it in the world wide web, I guess there’s needs to be more effort on my part.

Luckily, I looked in my drafts folder and found 10 perfectly good ideas that I left stewing.