Finally something to report. John and I went to our first basketball practice last Saturday - an hour long open gym session before the football game - and got the first men's basketball story of the season out. John wrote the story, so he should get most of the credit, but I felt like we did a good job working together and his final product turned out quite well.
We weren't really sure of what to write about, since the season doesn't start for a long time and this was a really informal practice, but the perfect story just walked in. Former Missouri basketball player Kareem Rush - arguably the best Missouri player in decades and now playing for the NBA's Indiana Pacers - walked onto the court and started shooting on an unused basket. After a few minutes he joined in the pickup game and soon after John and I approached him for an interview.
John and I both asked questions, first about what he was doing in Columbia, then about his season in Lithuania last spring and then about the upcoming NBA season. He was a very good quote and I think John and I got all of the information that we needed to. John also talked to some other players about him and then wrote the story. I thought the story in Sunday's paper was very well written, straight to the point and interesting for the readers.
Since we have two people on the beat, I can't take much credit at all for John's article. The only thing I did was come to practice with him and ask a couple questions in the interview. Nonetheless, I think this was a good sign for the upcoming season because John and I communicated very well at the practice, found a good story idea and then John executed it very well.
I'm excited for the next open practice so I can get my first clip of the year too.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Week 5
I think I finally have some news to report! After a couple weeks waiting for my beat to start, things are finally starting to take shape. The men's basketball team is now having open practices over the weekends and the season-opening Mizzou Madness event has been officially scheduled. The open practices kind of took me by surprise, but John and I are going to meet today to get some ideas of what to do there.
At this point - more than a month before the exhibition games even start - it is hard to know exactly where to go with these stories. On one hand, I don't think we should go too in-depth on the players yet unless there is something important. Since official practice doesn't start until Oct. 12, I think it is too early to say "Player A is looking really good in practice." From my understanding, these practices are more just pick up games and conditioning.
John and I will narrow it down at the Missourian this afternoon, but I figure the kind of stories we could work on during this pre-official practice season are angles like: feature on transfer Zaire Taylor - who is he?; coach Anderson's conditioning program in the second year; DeMarre Carroll recovering from the gunshot wound over the summer.
So overall, we'll talk to Greg and see what kind of stories usually come out of these pre-preseason practices and hopefully get off to a fast start!
At this point - more than a month before the exhibition games even start - it is hard to know exactly where to go with these stories. On one hand, I don't think we should go too in-depth on the players yet unless there is something important. Since official practice doesn't start until Oct. 12, I think it is too early to say "Player A is looking really good in practice." From my understanding, these practices are more just pick up games and conditioning.
John and I will narrow it down at the Missourian this afternoon, but I figure the kind of stories we could work on during this pre-official practice season are angles like: feature on transfer Zaire Taylor - who is he?; coach Anderson's conditioning program in the second year; DeMarre Carroll recovering from the gunshot wound over the summer.
So overall, we'll talk to Greg and see what kind of stories usually come out of these pre-preseason practices and hopefully get off to a fast start!
Friday, September 14, 2007
Week 4
Again, with the basketball team's not starting until Novemeber, I have yet to do any "advanced reporting." That means that the goals assignment is about the extent of my journalism experience for the week!
The assignment was due on Monday and I turned mine in on Sunday. Only problem: I forgot Greg doesn't work on either of those days. He doesn't come in until late on Tuesday, so the first time I got to sit down with him was on Wednesday, two days after it was due. Not only that, but I (along with I think four other people meeting with Greg that day) failed! I couldn't even come up with goals for myself! The problem with all of our goals is that they weren't specific enough. Greg wanted goals that we could look at in three months and determine if they were met. Therefore, something like "I want to write good stories" didn't cut it, it had to be something more along the lines of "I want to write a feature story on the team's strength coach."
So he sent us away to redo our goals. I thought at least two of mine were specific enough, they just weren't worded specific enough on my assignment. In the end, I basically came up with: I want to break a story, I want to write sports and sports news stories, I want to take too much play-by-play out of my deadline stories and I want to write with more of a voice in my stories (and Greg better not say that last one is too vague because somebody in class had the exact same idea and Tom liked it!)
So with my new, quantitative goals in hand, I will be meeting with Greg today for round two. Wish me luck!
The assignment was due on Monday and I turned mine in on Sunday. Only problem: I forgot Greg doesn't work on either of those days. He doesn't come in until late on Tuesday, so the first time I got to sit down with him was on Wednesday, two days after it was due. Not only that, but I (along with I think four other people meeting with Greg that day) failed! I couldn't even come up with goals for myself! The problem with all of our goals is that they weren't specific enough. Greg wanted goals that we could look at in three months and determine if they were met. Therefore, something like "I want to write good stories" didn't cut it, it had to be something more along the lines of "I want to write a feature story on the team's strength coach."
So he sent us away to redo our goals. I thought at least two of mine were specific enough, they just weren't worded specific enough on my assignment. In the end, I basically came up with: I want to break a story, I want to write sports and sports news stories, I want to take too much play-by-play out of my deadline stories and I want to write with more of a voice in my stories (and Greg better not say that last one is too vague because somebody in class had the exact same idea and Tom liked it!)
So with my new, quantitative goals in hand, I will be meeting with Greg today for round two. Wish me luck!
Friday, September 7, 2007
Week 3
Almost surprisingly this has probably been the least exciting week yet for me in terms of advanced reporting. We got our beats last week but since the men's basketball season doesn't start in earnest until November there isn't a lot we can do for that yet. I did talk to the sports information director Dave Reiter the other day though. I told him that John and I would be covering the team, talked a little bit about the upcoming season and he told me when would be good times to start coming down to practice etc. The first story idea, it looks like, will be when the team completes its schedule by announcing the regional draw for the CBE Classic. Dave said they are still waiting to confirm a fourth team, but that one of the other two teams is pretty good mid-major school and went 18-10 last year. He couldn't say who it was though.
On Wednesday after class John and I sat down and looked at the schedule and tried to figure out which mid-major team was 18-10 last year. We looked at last year's NCAA Tournament bracket and couldn't find any 18-10 teams so we assume it will be an NIT school. The NIT bracket didn't have the team's records though, and since we'll find out anyway in the next week or two we didn't put much effort into looking them all up. A few guesses though are Hofstra and Bradley.
We also talked about the scheduling and how things are going to work out. For the most part, the semester break committment isn't too extreme. We will have to stay a few days after finals week for some games and have to come back a week early for some games as well. We both plan on flying down to St. Louis for the Bragging Rights game against Illinois (since there isn't another game within a week either side of it). The only game that we are concerned about is Dec. 27 at home against McNeese State. Like Illinois, there isn't another game for more than a week, so that game will be kind of a pain, but that's why you do advanced reporting is to get experience so we'll be there.
Overall I am really excited for the season to start. If I wasn't doing the freelance work for St. Joseph I would probably be going crazy, because I have constantly been reporting at school since my second semester of freshman year. To not be writing, like I was the first week in Columbia, just feels wrong. This should be a good season to cover this team though because everybody is in their second year with the new coach and hopefully any kinks are worked out. John and I looked at the schedule and see three or four road games that we might be asked to travel to, which could be fun, Overall, I am babbeling but this will be a good year.
On Wednesday after class John and I sat down and looked at the schedule and tried to figure out which mid-major team was 18-10 last year. We looked at last year's NCAA Tournament bracket and couldn't find any 18-10 teams so we assume it will be an NIT school. The NIT bracket didn't have the team's records though, and since we'll find out anyway in the next week or two we didn't put much effort into looking them all up. A few guesses though are Hofstra and Bradley.
We also talked about the scheduling and how things are going to work out. For the most part, the semester break committment isn't too extreme. We will have to stay a few days after finals week for some games and have to come back a week early for some games as well. We both plan on flying down to St. Louis for the Bragging Rights game against Illinois (since there isn't another game within a week either side of it). The only game that we are concerned about is Dec. 27 at home against McNeese State. Like Illinois, there isn't another game for more than a week, so that game will be kind of a pain, but that's why you do advanced reporting is to get experience so we'll be there.
Overall I am really excited for the season to start. If I wasn't doing the freelance work for St. Joseph I would probably be going crazy, because I have constantly been reporting at school since my second semester of freshman year. To not be writing, like I was the first week in Columbia, just feels wrong. This should be a good season to cover this team though because everybody is in their second year with the new coach and hopefully any kinks are worked out. John and I looked at the schedule and see three or four road games that we might be asked to travel to, which could be fun, Overall, I am babbeling but this will be a good year.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)