Week 9

Doesn't it seem like a long time ago when every one of my blogs was saying, "I can't wait to get started?" It seems like it.

I think it was only two weeks ago that my advanced reporting duties at the Missourian were still on queue as I waited for the men's basketball team to start up for the season. Now, all of a sudden it is in full force and things are exciting again!

On Wednesday, John and I woke up and were on the road by 5:30 a.m. to get to Big 12 men's basketball media day in Kansas City. The date loomed on our calendars for a while; wake up, drive far, listen to people spew cliches, drive far, write much. Instead, it turned out to be a really fulfilling trip and, in my opinion, a successful one as well.

John and I have talked a lot about what we want to do with this beat already, but being locked in a car for four hours together we really got to pound a lot of stuff out. I think that showed in our stories from media day. Combined, I think we put about 60 inches on content into the paper on Thursday, and I thought our coverage was more complete than some of the other newspapers. Of course it wasn't perfect, but I felt good about what we did and know we can continue to build upon that.

Besides media day being in a posh hotel with catered food and lots of big-name basketball people walking around, it was also a really good way to introduce John and I into the league this year. I am at a slight disadvantage because I was abroad second semester of last year, so besides listening to the Kansas game on the radio and reading newspaper Web sites I was kind of out of the loop. I felt like I had a good understanding of Missouri's team coming into the year, but after listening to each Big 12 coach stump for 10-15 minutes about their teams, I feel like my understanding of everything increased dramatically. Now, I feel like I know who the big players are going to be, which teams to really look out for and all the major storylines to follow throughout the season.

What I have started to learn about writing lately is that it really shows if you have a good understanding about your subject. I wasn't too pleased with my first couple articles this year because I felt like I didn't do a good enough job reporting, so in the end it became more of a "Here are the quotes, now I find stuff to put around them." But after media day, I was able to write both of my stories with relative ease and felt like I had a real good understanding about the content. I think that was a really big boost in terms of my general knowledge of everything that is going on, and I see myself improving significantly now.

It is a shame that the Big 12 media day is not always in Kansas City. It is not a big or important enough event to send Missourian reporters when it is in Texas or Oklahoma, but when in close proximity I think it was a very beneficial event.