For the past few weeks I have been away at a pre-college program, but I have still been working on a few things for New Canaan News.
One: Fourth of July photographs.
These photos needed to tell a story of what was going on with New Canaanites and the events going around. I walked around taking pictures and actually ended up getting a few shots of the fireworks themselves.
First off: I went to the play area. There were a ton of kids and parents around and I tried to get shots with a ton of people in them so everyone could see how crowded it was.
Second: The band. The band plays every single year and I tried to incorporate visual interest by capturing not only the conductor, but the American flag. Around them were a ton of people sitting and eating their dinners with yet another American Flag.
Lastly: I was able to snap photos of the actual fireworks which was amazing because I have never been able to do that before!
The photos used on Page A3 of the July 9th edition of the New Canaan used consisted of all of these: mostly the fireworks. In total there are seven photos all taking up one page.
*This might be interesting to do next year with the paper because online has so many slideshows. If we were able to put a huge event on one page (if space allowed) it would be very interesting and would break up the texts well. Later on I will be discussing why these photos were chosen with Ashley and see why they these seven were better than the rest (I took probably fifty to choose from so this will be interesting.)
My Toy Story article did not come together very well. The quotes were not strong enough because my question asking was very basic and it was difficult to get a good story out of it. Because of this, I ended up reading a book over vacation called: The NPR (National Public Radio) Interviews 1994 edited by Robert Siegel. Even though this is radio reporting, it was interesting for me to see the kinds of answers specific questions would draw out of people. Also, it helped me to see how to incorporate research into question asking. (I have executed similar things in previous articles, but I needed a little check up after my Toy Story fail.)
One good example:
Liana Hansen's interview with Joe Franklin on August 1,1993
Hansen had gone through some previous interviews that Franklin had done with other people [Montel Williams] on his own show and used that information to interview him.
'Hansen: You asked Montel Williams, who now does his own dailey show. You asked him what he thought the role of a talk show host was in these days and how much influence a talk show host could have. I want to ask you the same question. What do you think the role of a talk show host is? How, maybe, that role has changed over the years."
With the Toy Story article: I should've gone through and found memorable quotes about 'growing up' or other main themes in the movie and used that to ask people questions. Then the question would be more specific.
In the end, I turned that article into an opinions' piece which did not run because of complications and much editing. (getting a critique later)
On the note of opinions' and columns - I started a column about my summer in the city which on part ran on August 6th 'to my fellow commuters'. Things that were edited were mainly technical: No. 1 instead of Number one. (Once again I will be receiving a critique later.)
Live from the News Room,
Sara
(Toy Story: 7 hours including interviews, writing, and movie itself, Fourth of July: 4 hours, Column 1: 2 hours, Column 2: 2 hours, NPR: 10 hours)
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