News gathering
A lot of preparation goes into each article, even before one can begin writing. To get articles out on time, journalists learn to start on projects well in advance. Most of the time spent on each article is spent gathering news and information to make the writing process as easy as possible. Newsgathering mainly consists of research to gain a general knowledge of the topic, outreach to find potential sources, and interviews to obtain quotes.
Research
Ideas for stories can spark from any number of different places. I have started beats based on word-of-mouth stories, websites, advertisements, social media, and even posters. In my first semester, I covered news around the community. But it was hard to know what was happening around school and Belmont as a whole when many places were closed and school was not in session. This is when advertisements and social media started to play a big effect on which beats I decided to cover.
Over the 2021-2022 school year, I covered mainly sports in which I would discover most games by scrolling through my school's athletic calendar. However, I would also have friends invite me to games or tell me about possible interesting angles coming up.
The sports calendar gave me easy access to games Carlmont was playing in.
I was biking around my neighborhood when I saw this flyer. Thinking it might be a fun story idea I took a picture. I ended up running a story on it, read more.
Promotional material and an opportunity to see Marvel's "Wakanda Forever" created my desire to write a review article on this film. Read more.
Once I choose a topic, the research doesn't end. I then need to familiarize myself with the concept. For sports writing, this usually includes understanding the terminology for each sport along with the general rules. Although one can never fully be prepared for a given news situation, walking into any event without any prior knowledge is usually a bad idea.
Along with the research of terminology and rules, I would watch professional competitions. I watched this Olympic water polo game to get an idea of how the game flowed.
Outreach and Interviews
Good quotes and good interviews are paramount in the writing process. Finding good sources for these interviews is hard and I usually send many emails to people involved in my article. The main way of interacting with potential sources is by email, phone, or attending an event. However, the amount of people I actually interview is only a fraction of those I reach out to.
During the interviews themselves, I take many pages of physical notes along with a digital recording of the interview. For sports games and other live events, it is common for me to record a play-by-play. As you can tell, journalism burns through notebooks extremely quickly.
My digital recordings are kept through Otter.ai, so I can access quotes and read over them again. Although I don't use Otter for email interviews or some off-record reporting, my call history gives a general idea of my interviews. This can be seen below.
Yet beyond the actual interview, I spend a lot of time looking for and vetting appropriate sources to see if they will fit into my article. One notable article where I spent a lot of time on this was my story on America's Silent Genocide, the representation of the systematic oppression and murder of native women. To find good sources, I reached out to countless sources and researched even more. I recorded every contact I stumbled upon that could possibly have helped my interview. My spreadsheet for this newsgathering process is shown below. (some information is edited out to protect the privacy of sources).
