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

In-depth and special projects reporting

This is another area of journalism that is very attractive to me, but I didn't know you could balance working on a long-term project while still doing your job with other stories. The key is time management.

Chris Adams, the speaker who is a special projects reporter, suggested blocking out so much time each day to spend on your project and also keeping a list so that when you have a break in your regular day you can automatically go do the top thing on your list. He said to "start small, but start doing something." He also stressed talking to your graphics and photo team ahead of time so that they can prepare something that will really go well with your big project.

The speaker said some really interesting things. A student asked about how persistent a reporter should be, especially when some people just don't want to talk. One thing he said that I loved was: "Be persistent; don't really worry about pissing them off." He really topped it of when he said: "We're reporters; we're supposed to be annoying."

Leigh