The most valuable lesson I learned from this class and that matches my timeline is chasing down the story. The past few classes, including this one, have been taxing in terms of finding a story. The original beat of my website was human rights and social issues. But I have had to expand my scope to cultural events and issues. I wasn’t expecting so many organizations, like homeless shelters or organizations that help refugees, to say no to interviews. None wanted to cooperate. I used Facebook to find one homeless shelter that would participate in an audio interview. But, for the most part, most organizations have said no. I also reached out to small businesses to ask about the rise in minimum wage starting in 2020. They refused interviews but wanted restaurant reviews or other types of reviews. With stories due nearly every week for class and with my work schedule and other commitments, it has been difficult chasing down the stories. Somehow, I didn’t imagine this at the beginning of the program. I assumed people would want to tell their story in my original beat. However, in our current political system I could see how some organizations might be fearful of publicity or making any statement that might jeopardize government funding.

Another lesson I have learned, but have been slow to pick up on, is the importance of social media. I generally don’t like social media and don’t push my articles on Twitter or Facebook. I post but then don’t engage or follow up. At this point in my timeline, I thought I would be more adept and sold on social media. Yet, I remain aloof. This is primarily because social media takes so much time for so little benefit unless you have a lot of active followers. I need to find a way to be more active on social media and engaged.

Well, the headline might be misleading. I’ve written a lot of stuff over the years but most of it has been creative writing. With the article I just wrote, I interviewed a source via Skype and reached out to a second source via phone and email. I was very careful when I wrote the article as I didn’t want to mislead or misquote anybody. Despite not taking the “Law and Journalism” class yet, I knew a misquote could be fatal.

My sources were great and were excited about my project and the two articles I created about their work. They emailed their appreciation and one source said “you nailed it”. Woohoo! While accolades are great and I got a boost of confidence, my professor had critique and through her comments I saw where I didn’t properly attribute every quote and I could have worded things differently. I was careful with the links to research and confirmation of what I was writing. I was just sloppy on doing proper quotes.

This was a great learning experience and showed me where I should grow in my skills moving forward. I wasn’t expecting the professor to say perfect. That might have harmed me. Instead, I wanted the professor to say, “Good, now work on this.” I still have much to learn in journalism and I treat it like creative writing and my pursuit of polishing my math skills so I can evaluate political polls and macroeconomics – the learning never ends and there is always room for improvement. I’m appreciative of Professor Cochie who gave some valuable insight as to how I can grow as a writer and a journalist. She even gave pointers and references to refer to for grammar. Yes. After all these years, I still stop and wonder should I use a colon, semi colon, or hyphen. There are rules and mostly I choose properly but sometimes…there is a hyphen in this post and now I’m wondering if it is well placed. Also, should I have used ellipses?? Ahhh. Good writing is a hard thing to achieve. Thankfully, it’s a daily practice for me.

My writing hero and All-Star is E.B. White who wrote some of my favorite books and wrote a book on writing with Strunk. I have two copies. One for the upstairs computer and one for the downstairs computer. Often I write something and I wonder if White would approve. I also have a book of his letters and I marvel at how clear his writing his writing is while also being poetic in spots.

I met my goal for my class on writing and I learned that I need to keep growing. How? Write every day, read everything I can get my hands on, refer to writing heroes, and practice math. Why math? Math is logical and it tends to make my writing clearer and my approach to subject matter more concise.

My goals for my first journalism class was to learn what new media is, learn about multimedia storytelling, and learn how to reach an audience. I hit all these targets in my class. I learn the social media is critical to spreading stories across the internet and gaining a following. But it is a time intensive endeavor.

The mastery journey is not a quick journey. There are no shortcuts. I see on Facebook ads for writing a novel from start to publishing in ninety days or how to create an online class in thirty-days. It seems everyone wants to do something quick and fast with the expectation that they would sit back in glory as adulation, followers, and buyers flood in. Maybe this happens once in a while. But in constructing my Mastery Timeline based on Greene’s book, I realized that mastery takes time, focus, and constant practice and revision. 

What I learned from my recent journalism class was how to take an idea, break it down, and then follow steps weekly to begin my project – Uncut Report – which is a progressive news site with human rights at the center. However, that idea is like going to a buffet and piling everything on the plate. I have narrowed my focus on Arizona (Phoenix specifically). But I still have the big picture in mind. For instance, I live in a state facing a border crisis and that has detention centers, including those just for children. My plan is a series of articles and videos focus on the Northern Triangle – El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala – and the history with the US. Then I will focus on the rise of MS13. Then I will focus on the economies of those countries. Then I will explain why people are fleeing these countries and why their countries do not care. Then I will research the original impetus for detention centers and then the decision by Trump to split children from their families. And then I will talk to aid centers in Phoenix addressing the detention centers and try to find a lawmaker or policy maker in Phoenix to interview. I will also explore the community to do human interest pieces. Basically, I’m still at the buffet but I examine each item and narrow the focus as I progress to the human-interest perspective. Call that the dessert if you will. 

Another thing I learned in my journalism class is to focus on the ‘so what’ and ‘now what’ rather than just the want. I have to editorialize rather than present few facts. I have to make people care and that can only be done by interjecting opinions based on facts. A straight factual article can be gleaned from any news site. However, increasingly I am seeing editorialized articles on websites and TV/YouTube. This is what gets clicks, likes, and followers.