Tonight I went down the Collegian to do some work and got roped into attending their semi-annual “Meet the Staff” night. They get a bunch of current staff members to go up and talk to the new reporters about life at the Collegian. It’s actually a pretty well run thing, as the news coordinator is a former journalist and manages to ask interesting questions that keep the discussion going. Among topics covered were how to handle tough interviews (like the parents of dead students) or the difference between being a football fan and a football writer. We got a moment to plug our web project and share our advice with the candidates.
The event got me thinking back to my own experience as a writer with the Collegian. I started as a sports writer, focusing on women’s tennis for a semester. I think I enjoyed the work environment of the Collegian a lot, but I didn’t like being a reporter as much. I probably blamed the subject matter a lot, but truth be told I was a bad reporter. Hindsight is 20/20 and I can see a lot of the mistakes I made back then. I ended up quitting before the start of the following fall, only to come back later that year to start the web project.
The surprising theme of the night was that a lot of the staffers all had similar feelings when they’re started. Sure its tough being new in any organization, but I think being a reporter takes extra getting used to. It seems kind of unnatural to walk up to strangers and ask lots of questions, but that’s what needs to be done. It’s also difficult to take an event a part and tell it as an interesting story while being accurate. I ended up advising those who struggled with reporting to consider trying other things such as copy editing, design, or even web.
The other thing I noticed was how much of an impact being there really is in an organization. Chris and I did a lot of development outside of the Collegian’s offices last semester and struggled, but this semester we stayed on site and got a lot more done. There were other factors, but I think being there and having people to talk to helped keep us motivated. Interestingly, they mentioned that the photo staff was cut off from the rest of news up until this year. The reason was the photo people had their own corner and stayed away from the newsroom. This year they started bringing photographers into staff meetings and suddenly everyone started working better together.
Anyway, I find the night to be much more worthwhile than I thought it would. Hearing people talk about their experiences also reminded me that there’s still I would like to do with our project and that time is running out. So that will keep me motivated towards getting something done sooner.