Reporting in general isn't easy. Well, or at least getting people to talk to you isn't easy. Case in point: police reporting. All I heard before taking this class or Journ 2 from my friends who were Journalism majors was "talking to the police is like pulling teeth." Turns out they were right. For our first story on the police beat in this class, I had to email the chief twice and visit public safety twice just to get one quote from McSheffery. So, that was a pain.
Speaking of pains, covering a meeting seems to me like something that could be a pain, too. Luckily, we were blessed with elite people who gave us notes on the meeting and stuff. What I got out of covering the meeting was you need to remain focused and make sure to develop some sort of shorthand. Without it, you will miss pertinent information.
However, reporting in this class wasn't always annoying. The one thing I learned about court reporting based off of my experiences in this class is to expect the unexpected. I never would have guessed I would have walked out of the Brownsville courtroom we attended writing a sort of feature-ish story on what happened in court that day. From what I saw, if you get a job covering court, make sure you develop a good relationship with the judge and DA. If you do, you have a much better chance of getting background info on cases, etc.
And honestly, developing relationships with people is important no matter what you are covering. I would say that in and of itself is what I learned about reporting from this class and my work at the Times. Believe it or not, people want to talk. You just have to give them a reason to. And that would be my advice to future students. Try to develop relationships with counselors, police, and professors on campus. They can be extremely valuable sources that can either save your story or ruin your grade.
Speaking of pains, covering a meeting seems to me like something that could be a pain, too. Luckily, we were blessed with elite people who gave us notes on the meeting and stuff. What I got out of covering the meeting was you need to remain focused and make sure to develop some sort of shorthand. Without it, you will miss pertinent information.
However, reporting in this class wasn't always annoying. The one thing I learned about court reporting based off of my experiences in this class is to expect the unexpected. I never would have guessed I would have walked out of the Brownsville courtroom we attended writing a sort of feature-ish story on what happened in court that day. From what I saw, if you get a job covering court, make sure you develop a good relationship with the judge and DA. If you do, you have a much better chance of getting background info on cases, etc.
And honestly, developing relationships with people is important no matter what you are covering. I would say that in and of itself is what I learned about reporting from this class and my work at the Times. Believe it or not, people want to talk. You just have to give them a reason to. And that would be my advice to future students. Try to develop relationships with counselors, police, and professors on campus. They can be extremely valuable sources that can either save your story or ruin your grade.