EPTThe purpose of this blog is to teach you guys what I am learning. I want to share what little bit I know.
According to the senior reporter who I was shadowing, there are 5 rules new recruits are encouraged to learn when joining the writing team.
1) Be nice to the janitor.
Aside from common courtesy, having the janitor on your side is always a good thing. Also, sometimes they own the building.
2) Always show up to work late.
If you establish yourself as someone who shows up early in the beginning of your career, you will always be expected to show up early.
3) Lunch should be taken early.
No need to wait for 12 noon to eat lunch. Always try to dip out a few minutes early to maximize downtime.
4) It's always the IT guys fault.
If you are late on an assignment or you have missed an email, you can always blame it on electronics. Try these easy phrases out on your boss in a time of crisis:
"I don't know what happened, our system seems to eat messages all the time. I'll have to call the IT guy and see what's going on."
"I sent that email yesterday. It should be in there. Damn system is always messing up. I'll have to call the IT guy and see what's going on."
5) Always try to go to the scene of the story in person.
Two main reasons. First, so you can get details of the story and get down to the nitty gritty with on-site interviews. Sometimes stuff will come out that adds to or totally changes your story. Second reason is to maximize time spent out of the office.
The next thing I will teach you is how to write an obituary. This was the first skill I learned, and it is something that I still do constantly. People die every day. If you can write an obituary, you will always have a steady job.
At first, I tried to read the notifications from the funeral homes and looked at each one as a small story. I carefully constructed the deceased's info to make it sound like they had lived a full and healthy life. Unfortunately, this is exactly what not to do in an obituary. Space in a newspaper is a highly valued thing. If you have obituaries running over two full pages, then it better be because the plauge has just killed thousands in your area. You must be concise and as robotic as possible to avoid any mistakes that might anger the surviving family.
In order to achieve this tone and structure, I created a template that I use for each obituary that I write. It looks like this:
[Name]
[Town]--[Name], [Age], of [Town], died [Date], at [Place of Death].
Service will be held at [Time] [Day] at [Location] with the Rev. [Reverend's Name] officiating.
[Preceded in death by spouse]
[Brief Bio; 2-3 sentences max]
Survivors include [Survivors].
The family will receive friends at [Time][Day] at [Place of Visitation].
Memorials may be left at [Location].
Condolences may be left at [Location, Usually Website].
Arrangements are by [Funeral Home].
Just plug in the relevant info. After I made this template, the entire obituary process exponentially sped up for me. I was now able to do three times as much work in the same amount of time it would have taken before.
What this means is that by using this template, I now have more free time to spend doing other things at the newsroom; stuff like pretending to hunt down some contact for another story or watching basketball with the sports guys.
Since this discovery was such a huge success, I decided to make another template. This time, I would tackle the Blotter section. For those who do not know, Blotters are the little stories that you write about people who have been arrested for felonies that are not main headlines. They are short little things about stuff like possession of drugs or larceny. These arrests are all documented in paper at the local magistrates office, and it is my job to go down there and look at them all to pull out the interesting ones. In addition to providing juicy details for blotter, the whole process serves as a way to keep a check on our police force. We are able to see that people are not getting unfair punishments.
Anyway, the template looks like this:
[One word for the crime; ie. Drugs, or Theft]
[Name], [Age], of [Street name], [Town name] is charged by [Police Department] with [List of every charge against criminal].
[Last name] is accused of [Brief explanation of the crime here. It can be a couple sentences. Use the information written in the police report to get details and specifics], according to warrants.
Bond was set at $[Amount].
Blotters are just quick little mini-stories. They get published once a week, so when deadline rolls around I usually write nine or ten of these buggers. It's kinda cool to have access to all the warrants down at the magistrates office. I get to hobnob around with important officials, while at the same time I feel like I am keeping a pulse on the criminal underground.
The thing obituaries and blotters have in common is that there is no 'written by' line. This so that survivors and angry drug lords wont get mad at the messenger (aka me).
Ok TL, that's it for now. As always, I'll be monitoring this for a while to reply to you guys :D Use the skills I just taught you and you will go far. <3
