the pink politic

Columbia J-School: Day 37

So I lied about the frequent posting thing. Now more than two months have passed since my last post (when I vowed to post more often) and I'm trying to get in the groove again. Anyway, Andrew has a blog now and he's already made about two dozen posts (!!!), so I have to catch up!

A month of my 10 months at Columbia is already over. I feel like I've already learned so much, especially about finding stories and thorough reporting, two elements of journalism I felt I was most lacking. It's jarring to realize that there are some parts of this work that I'm not so great at (ie. standing up for myself when PR people yell at me, walking up to strangers and just chatting, etc.), but I'm happy I'm learning all this now and not when my job depends on it.

Right now I'm working on a story about a waterfront park that's in development in my beat neighborhood (Sunset Park, Brooklyn). My professor wants ambitious pieces, which is great, and he's really pushing me to get better. Instead of just writing about the park, he gave me the challenge of finding two other parks in the city, one that was successfully completed and another that was promised and never built. My story (if all goes to plan) will be a cautionary tale about how just because the money is there, the battle for the park might not be over. This definitely isn't my dream story. I much prefer writing about specific people's lives than city planning and governmental funding, but obviously this is something important to the community and will affect people there in the long run, so I know it's a story worth writing.

I'm also on the hunt for a subject for my Art of the Profile class. I need to find a person who will give me significant access over the course of the semester and begin meeting with them, interviewing them, and watching them as they do what the do. I'm hoping to write about someone in the arts (a writer, musician, artist, or actor), but I'm not sure where to begin to look for one. The person has to be in New York and not a celebrity (my professor is quite vocal about her opposition to celebrity journalism, the "I'm sitting at lunch with Angelina Jolie, look at me, I am so wonderful" kind of stuff). Any suggestions would be helpful!

In the meantime, I'm also compiling info for my Master's Project. That's the long magazine-style piece we have until March or April to write. I'm pretty sure my piece will have something to do with religion, but I'm not certain on the specific topic quite yet. I've already conducted one preliminary interview, and I'm starting to read a book on a certain religion I'm not familiar with and may end up writing about.

My other classes - Law and Critical Issues - are also surprisingly difficult. Law is a huge lecture class taught by two Columbia law professors, in which we discuss Supreme Court cases having to do with journalism. Slogging through cases the night before class is not fun, but I am glad we're forced to learn this stuff. Critical Issues is a part lecture, part discussion class where we talk about ethical issues for journalists. Last week, the topic was the relationship between a journalist and source, and I have to say the class left me with more questions than answers. Every journalist has a different set of ethical guidelines they adhere to, and so many people in class voiced their divergent ideas.

But I still feel like I have no clue what to do when a source asks me, "What do you think?" or "Who told you that?" Any thoughts on that - journalists and non-journalists? When you think about the ideal journalist, one who is fair and ethical, how would that journalist respond to questions like that?

posted by Tina @ 2:49 PM