Covering the Unimaginable: The Collegiate Times Speaks About Virginia Tech Shooting

Amie Steele, editor-in-chief of the Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech gave tips on how to cover a major disaster at your campus. The tips included:

Remember why your’re publishing a paper. Keep the focus on the community.
Communication is the key.
Discuss what should and shouldn’t be published.
Make policies ahead of time for dealing outside media.
Don’t lower your expectations.

Chris

Finding the next campus-gate

This session was about investigative reporting, and the speaker was great. He gave me so many good ideas for investigative stories that I'm immediately going to start working on tomorrow. He also stressed accuracy, which can easily be overlooked when you get excited about a story, and giving all sides of the story the chance to respond. He showed us different Web sites and other places to look for good story ideas.

Although he stressed being polite, he also said: "If you're not pissing someone off, you're probably not doing your job." And I find that quite amusing.

Leigh

Watching the dogs

Kenna Griffin from Oklahoma was all over the place and in our face from the beginning of this session about better covering student government, but she came with a compelling message. She claimed that keeping watch over organizations in power is the primary role of a journalist. She gave several examples from her own school setting in which officials in charge of financial decsions and acted unjudiciously and at times even stole money. She said their coverage of this issue won several awards.

She gave a few vague tips for keeping an eye on the people in charge:
-don't just cover the administration, as they only release good news
-attend all meetings (which I recently found out we as a paper are not doing)
-know the law in the area
-rotate the beat, at least every semester, to keep ideas and perspective fresh
-remember students aren't always interested in political processes
-focus on related news
-avoid conflicts of interest

The last one was one she stressed for a long time and said that under no circumstances should people in the student government be involved in decision making that goes on in the newsroom.

Jim Mustian

Covering the Unimaginable

Covering the Unimaginable: The Collegiate Times Speaks About the Virginia Tech Shooting
Kelly Furnas and Amie Steele, Virginia Tech

This session gave pointers on a few things that all staffs should know in case a tragedy was to happen. Furnas and Steele also shared the stress of the week and things they had to think about before each deadline. I enjoyed this session a lot. I did not realize the impact a college publication can have in a time of crisis. The Collegiate Times had a big part in telling the story of April 16, 2007 and the days to follow.

Things to think about:
• Remember who you are writing for. Keep the focus on the readers and the community.
• Keep open communication with third parties. Steele had to be in communication with the printer because they missed the deadline by six hours but still wanted to the paper to come out as early as possible.
• Expect chaos, but stay focused. Stress and chaos isn’t a reason to get sloppy.
• Everybody needs a press pass.
• Have a policy in place concerning other news sources. The Collegiate Times shared their stories and photographs with other colleges and major news sources around the world.

Lela Coker

Covering the unimaginable: the Collegiate Times speaks about the Virginia Tech shooting

Two editors from the Virginia Tech newspaper spoke about how they handled the tragedy of the shooting and still got a paper out each day that week. They gave good pointers about staying in close communication with your printer about running late and why you're running late. Obviously, they had an excuse to be six hours late, and they were still able to get their paper out the day after the shooting. They said it was very chaotic and that the key was open communication with everyone: reporters, printers, authorities and staff.

They went through other problems, too, when their server crashed and they had to switch over to others around campus. Just getting to hear their story made me think about little things we could do even without a tragedy. They brought up the idea of having a current press pass for everyone on staff and also having policies about how to deal with outside media before any chaos begins. I thought those were good ideas, and I definitely think we should get the press passes.

Leigh

The Sum of All Fears

Hard news is sometimes a hard subject for reporters to cover. Especially when they are expected to interview people who have been deeply affected by tragedies. The three main examples speaker Ned Waugaman gave were Sept. 11, the hurricanes of 2004 and the recent wild fires in California. Reporters must be sensitive when interviewing subjects that have been through a crisis.

The company Waugaman works for is called Arbitron, which is an international media and marketing firm. Waugaman used examples from his company's firm to show the importance of radio in times of crisis.

When Sept. 11 occurred, Americans were left stumped and confused. What seemed like a country that was invincible had been attacked. All TV stations changed from their regular TV shows to the news of the current event.

According to Arbitron's survey, a million people in New York were listening to WINS (a local radio news program) around 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 11.

Mary Manno

Soggy Musings of Day Two in a Dimly-Lit Starbucks

Yesterday after our sessions had ended, a few of us wandered into the Church of Scientology. Needless to say, this could be one for the grandchildren. However, since this blog is principally for our sessions, this story shall have to wait for another post.

The first session of the morning was by far the most enlightening look into the current state of the recording arts industry that I've encountered since Lars Ulrich's legal assault on his Napsterite fans. Samantha Murphy's 10am "P2P: An Artist's Perspective" was quite inspiring in that many of the points she brought up were entirely relevant and at times eye-opening. Murphy, the host of one of the oldest artist-driven podcasts on the 'Net, is entirely free of record label influence and has turned down a recording contract. She is turning her website smtvmusic.com into a legal filesharing website for college students to experience new music from both signed and unsigned artists who have pledged their support of this project. The basic message of her session is that we as broadcasters need to fight to keep the Internet free so that artists can continue to release their art.

The 11am "Ins and Outs of Resumes" session was jam-packed with those eager to make their resumes better and more noticeable. In a fiercely-competitive job market, having a resume that lists your flexibility and willingness to venture into any avenue of journalism is a must as the profession continues its dramatic change. Basically, showing off your strengths can become a plus when you're being considered for a job.

The noon "Truth About Jobs and Internships" session dealt with your options in searching for either a job or internship. It was hit hard on us that experience when looking for both internships and jobs are an absolute must; I'm still unsure if I want to continue toward a Broadcasting degree or if I want to switch to News-Editorial, for I enjoy writing immensely but I also enjoy certain aspects of broadcast production as well. However, I think I'll go for internships in both areas just in case. In this session I learned that for print internships/jobs, campus experience isn't the only experience you should have. Time to get cracking ^_^

The 1pm "Sum of All Fears" session was quite informative, as it dealt with listener reactions to the September 11 attacks and the 2004 Hurricane season. Ned Waugaman from Arbitron (the radio equivalent to the Nielsen television ratings) stated that in general, listeners were very pleased with the radio coverage of the September 11 attacks and radio was the preferred source of information during the 2004 hurricane season.

More soon
-Richelle Stephens