Melissa Wantz: Notes from West Egg

I don’t want to say reality bites, which is the title of a really disappointing 1980s movie, and, actually, things are going pretty well in journalism class so far, almost one month into the school year and 10 days until we launch the online news site. I have 28 students, none of whom know what they are doing, which aligns pretty well with my own experience as a journalism adviser.

On the mythical eagerness scale of 1-10, they line up between the 4 and 8. I haven’t found the kid who lives and breathes journalism, who wants to come in at lunch and after school to work on a story or video. But I don’t have a bunch of slugs who just wanted an easy class either. They are mostly content to see me three times a week (block schedule) and take their directions.

Which is kind of a problem. I envisioned being able to give them a general idea of what journalism is, brainstorm some topics and off they would go like a pack of hunting dogs on the scent of a some prey. But they simply don’t know what to do. Their story ideas seem fine when they pitch them to the Editorial Review Board (the five section editors) but somehow become impossible when they start trying to track them down.

For example, one of my most promising students, a sophomore whose father is a journalist, wanted to do a story on how the economy was affecting the school. So she set out to our downtown area last Saturday and tried to interview merchants about how they were faring in the recession. Naturally, none of them wanted to talk about that, especially not to a high school reporter. She came back discouraged and lost. Naturally. We talked (whatever happened to the local angle relating to students? Not sure. She somehow lost the scent of that story and tried for something a lot bigger. I’ve got to admire the ambition, I guess.) We decided the story was too big and too difficult for her first story and found another story for her, on swine flu preparations.

I asked some students to come up with poll ideas today, possible questions they would want students to respond to. I guess I was thinking they might come back with a question on healthcare or even the cafeteria food. They came back with “Which Disney song is your favorite?” Um, okay.

Some students heard about the possibility that the school district is installing cameras in the halls to monitor vandalism, etc… Real news! Actual news! Their idea was to write an opinion piece on cameras and wait to see if they actually came, then do a news story. I had to explain that the idea of a news site is to actually break the news, to be the person who tells others something new, and later to write opinions about the news. The reporter who accepted the story looked like he might get sick over the fact that the principal might not want to talk about the cameras.

Today I had them write down their names, story slugs and what percent they had finished. They each should have two stories before next week’s launch. Each story should have at least three sources, two links and a photo or video. That’s 58 stories. I think two are ready. I’ll be lucky to get half by the launch date. And I think I care about that possibility a lot more than they do. Not sure how to change that. I don’t want to be too hard on them, or too intense, yet I don’t want to be embarrassed at our paucity of news on October 1st either. Most of the period my Editor in Chief–who should be sort of freaking out like me! –ran around with a cake he’d made, cajoling people into eating a slice. Did anything get done in 90 minutes today? I have no proof.

Creative Commons image “Bite Down” from Flickr by soartsyithurts