What did I learn in the first journalism classes that I took? Well, I learned that I could be a journalist. I learned to be efficient in writing a story. The fact that mostly shook me up is when Brad told us, the class, that any of our article should take no longer than 2 hours (from searching informations to editing the final copy). I am pretty sure I am still way above the 2 hours, but I know the time I take to write an article have significantly decreased since september. I was particularly happy when I managed to write a good enough obituary of Holt Murray in a few hours during layout day.
I think I made some progress in my writing: in the way I structure my texts and paragraphs in particular. I still have some problem with grammars and sentence structures but if I pay more attention, I know it is going to be easier.
About layout itself, I very much enjoy organizing the pages in a sound and esthetic way. InDesign is an intuitive program that I liked to play with.
I still have a lot to learn and I am looking forward to step into the newsroom next year to share another semester with a, hopefully, as crazy team as this semester.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Last article part 2
I eventually got in touch on the phone with instructor at the Adult Education, and could get more interesting informations about the course. Now I know more about the course itself than its long boring history.
With this experience I know I should not let someone go on on something that I am not interested in. And I think my mistake here was that I kept writing to be polite when I should have stop. I also should have interrupted him. But again, it was hard for me to do so because I didn't want to be rude.
During the interview, I would say to myself... "Ok, this is torture to listen to all of this... but wait until he is done with one idea, and then interrupt him to go on the next question."
The thing is that the idea never stopped... and I only got a chance to change the subject a few minutes before he had to go to teach. And even then it wasn't I who interrupted him, but a colleague, who came in the common room we were sitting in.
Anyway, I think this is a lesson I shouldn't feel bad about redirecting the interview, because I am the interviewer. I know what I am looking for to put in my articles.
With this experience I know I should not let someone go on on something that I am not interested in. And I think my mistake here was that I kept writing to be polite when I should have stop. I also should have interrupted him. But again, it was hard for me to do so because I didn't want to be rude.
During the interview, I would say to myself... "Ok, this is torture to listen to all of this... but wait until he is done with one idea, and then interrupt him to go on the next question."
The thing is that the idea never stopped... and I only got a chance to change the subject a few minutes before he had to go to teach. And even then it wasn't I who interrupted him, but a colleague, who came in the common room we were sitting in.
Anyway, I think this is a lesson I shouldn't feel bad about redirecting the interview, because I am the interviewer. I know what I am looking for to put in my articles.
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