New York Times reporter Jayson Blair '99 knows the reality. The reality
is what summons him from sleep on a Sunday morning and sends him on a
futile search for a parking spot in a crowded Puerto Rican neighborhood.
It is the day of the Puerto Rican Pride Parade, and on that morning an
old woman had wandered out of her apartment, stabbed a stranger in the
back, and walked away. Blair had been asked to provide background
information for another Times writer.
The 10-year-old Capital News Service is like bungee-jumping for
journalists; they're hurtling towards reality, but the collegiate rope
keeps them tethered to the protective world of classes and dorms and
dining halls.
|
Reality means trying to convince neighbors to reveal the woman's name;
the Times could not run the story without it. "None of my cajoling
worked," says Blair, "until I saw that her daughter had returned home."
Blair approached the daughter and explained his intent: He was a
reporter trying to put her mother's motivation for the stabbing in the
right perspective. The daughter revealed to him her mother's
schizophrenia, and the fact that the city had cut off her medication
because she had not completed some crucial paperwork.
Reality has its triumphs. The story turned into a lengthy, detailed
piece for the Times, and Blair's name appeared as a byline along with
the writer of the piece. "They have a strict storyline policy," Blair
explains. "You can't have a byline if you're just a contributor to a
story--you have to be the author. To get your name added to an article
you haven't written is a big deal."
Aside from the occasional rewards, Blair's reality as a journalist still
means irregular hours, no true weekends, few holidays and a family
accustomed to seeing less and less of him at home in Virginia. This is
the life most journalists will lead; and yet, many students at Maryland
are immersing themselves in classes, student publications, internships
and special programs in anticipation of this future.
The Who, Why and How of Journalism
Before he became a graduate student in the College of Journalism, John
Croft '00 spent 15 years as an engineer with NASA. He was well paid,
admired, and basically miserable.
"I majored in aerospace engineering at Maryland because I loved
everything to do with flying," he says. "I thought I'd care about this
work." He eventually found that he did not. "I was inactive; I was
sitting around, waiting for lightning to strike."
Croft was always interested in writing, art and other creative pursuits,
but wasn't sure how to make a living that way. In 1996 he perused
Maryland's course offerings and began to seriously consider journalism,
which he refers to as "the engineering of art: it's more scientific than
pure art, because it applies a set of rigid principles to the genre."
In January 2000, after four years of part-time study, Croft quit NASA to
work full time at Capital News Service, the cornerstone of the master's
program in journalism; CNS has bureaus in Annapolis, Md., and
Washington, D.C., where students get a taste of life as a daily public
affairs reporter. Croft received his master's in May, and hopes to
combine his two loves by writing for an aviation publication. "I've
never experienced this kind of fulfillment before," he says.
It seems that most journalism students today are guided by their own
desires for personal and professional fulfillment when choosing majors.
They don't have a catastrophic, riveting news event like Watergate to
influence their decisions, as did Chris Callahan, now associate dean of
the College of Journalism. "I was a child of Watergate," he explains.
"It was a time when we saw journalists doing the ultimate good: keeping
an eye on the powers that be, making sure that they were doing their
jobs and exposing them when they weren't. It was romantic in many ways."
Callahan remembers an anecdote told by journalist and author Bob Greene,
one of the founders of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE): While
speaking at a college seminar in the 1970s, he asked the students, "How
many of you want to be investigative reporters?" Virtually everyone in
the room raised their hands. "That was clearly an outgrowth of
Watergate," says Callahan. "I suspect if you took that same
cross-section of students today, you'd have less than half of those
hands. Today the reasons are all across the board; you have people
interested in government, people who are inquisitive, people who love to
write."
The love of writing holds true for many Maryland journalism students,
some of whom grew up, literally, with pen or pencil in hand. Erin Medea
'00, the daughter of an English teacher, remembers putting together a
mini-newspaper to "sell" to her childhood neighbors. Graduate student
David Abrams was looking to study creative nonfiction when an
acquaintance suggested that he apply to the College of Journalism. Mara
Gottfried '01, editor in chief of the Diamondback student newspaper,
told stories even before she could write; her decision to be a reporter
was clinched on a sixth-grade class trip to the offices of the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel in Wisconsin. "Something clicked in my head when I saw
those newsrooms," she says.
Natural curiosity, so fatal to cats but so vital to reporters, also
attracts inquiring minds to journalism. "I was interested in the 'why'
of everything," says Jayson Blair. "I like digging for information." And
Adrianne Flynn, director of the Annapolis Capital News Service bureau,
admits: "I like sticking my nose in other people's business."
While their reasons for choosing journalism are widely varied, students'
expectations of the career are even more diverse. Lee Thornton, who
holds the Richard Eaton Chair in broadcast journalism, finds that many
broadcast students--especially freshmen--have a skewed vision of what
their futures will hold. "I think they grow up watching certain figures
on television who have become larger than life, and are paid more than
God, and they think that's where they're headed. They don't stop to
think about how hard you have to work to get there." Thornton visits
journalism orientation classes every year and outlines the demands and
harsh realities of the broadcast industry: intense competition,
notoriously low salaries, weekends and holidays weighed down with work.
"That's when e-mails start to fly from students saying things like 'Lee
Thornton has destroyed my hopes for a career in broadcast journalism,'"
she says. But Thornton has 27 years of experience, rising through the
ranks from a local station in Cincinnati, Ohio, to CBS News to CNN, and
she knows the business like a caring but truthful friend.
"The sooner students get a realistic idea of what it is, the better
they'll know whether they will fit in or not," she says. "They need to
be prepared by way of sophistication about the field, not only by way of
skills."
Those skills have changed considerably from 60 years ago, when
journalism was considered a trade rather than a profession. It was not
unusual for (male) high school graduates to work as apprentices at
newspapers and work their way up to editorial positions. But as the
industry expanded and editors practiced selectivity, more
college-educated writers were attracted to the field; there was a basic
knowledge set required for all ambitious journalists.
"In the most fundamental way," says Chris Callahan, "journalists need to
know what news is, how to collect it and how to present the information
in an interesting, compelling way." But above all else, he says, future
reporters need to provide concrete evidence of high-level performance.
"Editors are some of the most linear people you'll ever come across," he
says. "They want to know what you can do for them if they hire you this
afternoon. If you have to go out and cover the police beat tonight, how
will you perform?" The primary measure of this performance, he says, is
tangible proof of past experience: clips. "The people with the best
clips still get the best jobs."
Writing ability is integral to broadcast reporting as well, says Lee
Thornton: "You have to be able to write to pictures, and to write in a
voice that people can understand." With broadcast, however, comes a set
of concerns foreign to most print journalists. "You have to be able to
go in front of the camera and present news with poise, composure and a
clear voice," says Thornton, who sees more emphasis now than ever on
performance; technology allows reporters to be broadcast anywhere in the
world. "I tell my students, 'If you're terrified of that live aspect,
then it's unlikely you'll want to pursue this.' It's such a public
thing; people in print can hide behind a byline for years, but in
broadcast you're out there from day one with everything--your looks, your
intelligence--on display, and therefore attackable."
As terrifying as this seems, print journalists also have their share of
knee-quaking encounters, especially when they are struggling to overcome
lifelong shyness. "When I first decided to major in journalism, I
worried that I might not be bold enough to do it," says Jamie Skinner
'00. "I have learned, though, that sometimes a less aggressive manner
pays off; you don't always have to be the 'eager-beaver' type of
reporter." Still, she believes there needs to be classes in
assertiveness. Evidently, one of her former professors agrees with her;
he once tossed his students out of their newswriting class at 7:30 p.m.
and told them to find a story on campus in 20 minutes. "It was bizarre,
but it was a good thing for us to do," says Skinner, who found some
perplexed passersby willing to talk about both safety issues and
financial aid. "We are going to have to do it in real life, and we'll
take it a lot more seriously when our rent checks depend on our
stories."
As a fledgling professional reporter, Steve Crane '81, who now heads the
Washington, D.C., Capital News Service bureau, also classified himself
as shy: "I had trouble picking up the phone and talking to strangers,
asking them questions that may not have been comfortable for them to
answer." His college internships helped prepare him for this
inevitability; he was forced to attend local city council meetings and
approach council members afterwards to get their opinions on the
sessions. "You get used to it eventually," he says. Some classes do
discuss interviewing techniques, such as how to coax reluctant subjects
out of their shells and whether to use a pad and pen or a tape recorder,
but no amount of lecturing, says Crane, quite prepares journalists for
the first time doors are slammed in their faces, or phone calls are
abruptly cut short with a definitive click. "But you have to keep going
back to ask questions," he says. Courage can't be taught, but it can be
learned--usually by simply doing the work, at an internship, a student
publication or a simulated newsroom.
Behind the News:
Inside Capital News Service
It's a quiet day in Suite 950 of the National Press Building in
Washington, D.C., where graduate student Sandy Alexander watches C-SPAN
as Congress votes on a bill that would increase the minimum wage. This
isn't her usual beat, but unfortunately, nothing's happening in health
today.
Each of the six students in the Washington bureau follows a different
legislative beat: and a congressional delegate. Two months into the
spring semester, they're at a slightly discouraging midpoint: No new
bills are being introduced, and they are waiting anxiously to be
evaluated by their directors. The high point of March was Super Tuesday,
when the reporters were sent to local papers to assist with campaign
coverage. Sandy Alexander and Erin Medea even got to attend victory
parties for county delegates; Alexander enjoyed a live band, while Medea
sampled an unremarkable deli spread.
The 10-year-old Capital News Service is like bungee-jumping for
journalists; they're hurtling towards reality, but the collegiate rope
keeps them tethered to the protective world of classes and dorms and
dining halls. Still, the directors, Steve Crane (Washington) and
Adrianne Flynn (Annapolis), try to create as much of a professional
newsroom environment as they can--except that "instead of a
seven-day-a-week operation, we work four days a week, six months a year,
and our reporters turn over every three months."
The student reporters arrive by 9:30 a.m. with an understanding of
what's happening on their beats that day. Throughout the day they must
be constantly chasing stories or pitching ideas to their editors. They
usually hand in their stories between 3:30 and 4 p.m. to be edited;
deadline for final drafts is anywhere between 6 and 8 p.m. The bureaus
operate as a wire service, and their stories are distributed to the
Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun and community newspapers.
"Before they apply to the program, students know that they'll be working
in a somewhat professional journalistic capacity," says Flynn. "They
expect it to be rigorous, but they have no idea just how rigorous until
they get here." Her Annapolis-based students are always shocked, she
says, at the amount of work laid at their feet during the spring General
Assembly sessions.
Mainly, Flynn believes that the students appreciate how closely the
program parallels real life. "It makes them feel that they can handle
their first job," she says. "They're knocked off their feet by their own
confidence." Erin Medea echoes these sentiments: "I recognize the
amazing opportunity I have; to be this young and to report on Congress
and national affairs."
But just like reality, there are hardships to be borne. The hours are
uncertain; on particularly newsworthy days reporters may not return home
until 11 p.m. The pressure of balancing work, classes and sleep is
intense. And sometimes, legislators use their positions of power to
intimidate the students.
"Politicians are difficult to interview because they like to beat around
the bush," says Medea. "They don't always take us seriously, because
we're students."
Capital News Service provides valuable and vital experience for its
intrepid journalists-in-training, but also clarity. "I tell students
that after they spend a semester here, they will be much clearer in
their career goals," says Chris Callahan, one of the program's founders.
"If you don't think you really want to be a journalist and you don't
have the passion for it, then it's the worst field in the world to be
in. The pay stinks, the hours stink, the lifestyle stinks. You have to
have the passion." Callahan reports that usually, five to 10 percent of
the reporters will decide against a career in journalism after Capital
News Service. "And," says Callahan, "they'll be saving themselves years
of heartache."
Endless Days, Endless Nights:
The Lives of Diamondback Editors
Think the Capital News Service hours sound dismal? To the editors of the
Diamondback, they would seem like a gift from the media gods.
The 10-year-old Capital News Service is like bungee-jumping for
journalists; they're hurtling towards reality, but the collegiate rope
keeps them tethered to the protective world of classes and dorms and
dining halls.
|
Mara Gottfried and Jayson Blair, former editors in chief, tell tales of
days that begin early in the morning, at around 8 a.m., with a quick
stop in the newsroom before class to tie up any loose ends from the
previous night's work. Breaks between classes are also spent in the
newsroom, planning for tomorrow's issue. By 3:30 p.m., the section
editors arrive; between 4 and 4:30, the copy starts filtering in. At 6
p.m. the editors gather to share summaries of their section's articles,
and discuss what page would best suit which story. By 6:30, everyone is
editing copy. At 7, they are planning for the following day's issue. By
9, they are beginning to read print-outs of the designed pages and
dealing with any late-breaking news. The last page prints out between
midnight and 1 a.m.; the editor in chief stays around until the pages
are transmitted to the printing plant at 2 a.m. Homework is completed in
fits and starts between editing. Sleep comes in crumbs. Fridays and
Saturdays are cram days for studying and papers, because there is no
Diamondback on weekends. Editing the student newspaper is a seven day,
80-hour-a-week job.
"You are insane by the end of the night," says Blair. "You're blind to
everything. You need to rely on and trust the people you work with."
But insanity aside, Blair always considered it an honor to work for the
Diamondback; he was aware of the paper's national reputation for
excellence long before he decided to attend Maryland. "I remember when I
was a freshman," he says, "by the end of my first week, I had three
stories on the front page."
When Mara Gottfried was a freshman (and Blair was editor in chief), she
faced her greatest challenge as a general assignment reporter: the story
of a fraternity brother who had died suddenly of a heart condition.
Gottfried was in the Diamondback newsroom when the bulletin was
broadcast over the police scanner, and was immediately sent down to the
fraternity house, where all of the brothers--who still did not know that
their friend was dead--were gathered outside. "As I watched them from
across the street," Gottfried recalls, "I was keenly aware that I knew
what they didn't." She will never forget the shock and dismay that
collectively dawned on their faces when the police broke the news. "I
was torn," she says, "because on one hand I was a journalist covering a
story, but on the other hand I was just a student like them."
Gottfried would go on to cover the police beat her sophomore year and
eventually worked her way up to the top position; today, she values not
only the rigorous on-the-job training the Diamondback delivers, but also
the basic skills she's accumulated. "I've learned new computer
programs," she says, "and I've picked up editing techniques from some of
the older editors. Now I've had the opportunity to give back to the
reporters in the newsroom, and to teach them the things I've been
taught." She's proud that she was able to use her leadership position to
"keep the lines of communication open"--even on three hours' sleep.
Appearance Isn't Everything:
Breaking into Broadcast
Like many broadcast journalists both famous and undiscovered, Adam Longo
'00 worked his way up in the field, from tele-prompter operator and copy
boy, to weather forecaster, to reporter and anchor for "Maryland
Newsbreak," UMTV's daily news spot.
As a reporter, Longo, a self-proclaimed "political junkie," has found
his own personal heaven in Annapolis, Md., interviewing state
legislators and "soaking up the political climate." He's also had the
opportunity to sample roller coasters for a feature story; it was just
another day on the job. And once, while researching a piece on students
and their pets, he discovered a mini-zoo inside a student's house,
teeming with dogs, cats, ferrets, fish and even a gecko.
On the other end of the camera, Longo has become accustomed to wearing
makeup when sitting in the anchor's chair: "I was initially intimidated
by it, as many men in the business were. But you can't go in front of
the camera without it." And he has become his own best and worst critic,
examining tapes of himself after the broadcast and lamenting a foolish
facial expression or an odd vocal delivery. "Every time I see myself on
television, I'm my own worst judge," he says. "But I become
exponentially better every time I go on the air."
Like Longo, all aspiring broadcasters in the College of Journalism cut
their teeth at UMTV, the new name for the university's Flagship Channel.
Students serve in every capacity, from anchors to roving reporters to
editors and writers to camera and audio board operators. The control
room is identical to those of local and national news programs: "It's an
exact duplicate of the one I worked in when I was senior producer of the
"Jesse Jackson Show," says Lee Thornton. The staff receives thorough and
professional training in every aspect of broadcast news, and comes away
with impressive resumes and tapes to present to prospective employers.
Past experience is crucial to future success in broadcast, according to
Mike Dunston '93, a reporter and anchor for Channel 9 in Washington,
D.C. "The business is about what you know in terms of experience," he
says. "Employers want to see what your tape says about you, if you
present yourself well, if your voice is distracting or not, and if you
can tell compelling stories to draw the viewers."
Appearance factor aside, there are many similarities in the hectic lives
of newspaper and television reporters. Both often start out in small
markets with meager salaries. Both must be on call and ready to cover
breaking news as it happens. Both have their own kinds of deadlines;
Dunston has often known the frustration of trying to prepare a 4 p.m.
broadcast while waiting for a necessary source to return his calls. And,
in both fields, writing skills are required--although the nature of the
prose differs.
"Writing for television is more conversational," says Dunston. It's
about connecting what the viewers say with what they hear to bring them
into the stories.
Longo holds a part-time writing job with News Channel 8 in Northern
Virginia, and is learning firsthand the value of brevity and clarity in
broadcast news. "You've got to be smooth, solid and to the point," he
says. "If I've written something the anchors aren't comfortable saying,
they'll tell me themselves." This, Longo considers another unexpected
job perk: constructive criticism.
"It's very important to have your peers judge your tape package for
you," he says. "You're so much better for it afterwards." Longo is
ready, and surprisingly eager, to get out there and begin his career in
a small-town station with even smaller pay; there's nowhere to go but
up, he knows.
At the End of the Day...
"Serial rapists make me crazy," says Jayson Blair.
He had been following the story of a man charged with four rapes--three
of them 12-year-old girls--when he left the office of the New York Times
one Friday evening. The first thing he noticed was a child's shoe, white
with black trim, lying innocuously on its side in the plaza surrounding
the building. Blair regarded the abandoned shoe for a moment, then
raised his head to see its twin on the steps. Then, under a sculpture,
he noticed a pair of child's black pants. Had this been a movie, the
symphony of imminent danger would have reached its crescendo.
"It wrenched me," recalls Blair, who called the police with his
discovery. No crime was associated with the lost clothes, but the stress
of the serial rapist story had strained Blair's perception of reality;
he found reason to be suspicious of the most mundane things.
But Blair can match every harrowing moment of his career with a memory
of a long-savored achievement. Besides the story of the schizophrenic
woman in the Puerto Rican neighborhood, there was the time when, as an
intern for the Boston Globe, he wrote an article about an unregistered
sex offender who had molested a boy in his neighborhood; through it
Blair indirectly helped change registration laws for sex offenders. At
the end of the day, there is still light.
"We, as journalists, give the police a voice and reveal details and
information that most people might never hear otherwise," Blair says.
"There is always a positive return."
For now, there is more sleep to be lost, more truth to be revealed, and
more frustration and satisfaction for Blair to experience. The life of a
journalist is a never-ending story.
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Online Journalism: Forget (Almost) Everything You've Learned
Do you know the difference between "repurposing" (taking content from an
old medium and reformatting it for a new one) and "shovelware" (a term
for pasting "old media" products onto a Web site without substantial
change)? Can you write in short, clean sentences, using frequent
subheads and lists? Could you enhance your story with graphics? Can you
evaluate the appropriateness of the hyperlinks you add to your article?
And will you be able to deal with a deadline of "right this minute"
instead of, for instance, "4 p.m?" If you answered "yes" to any of
these, you may have what it takes to be an online journalist.
As popular as this medium has become as a source of news and
information, it is still in a transition period, according to Ph.D.
candidate Donald Brazeal, the founding editor and publisher of Digital
Ink, a precursor to washingtonpost.com. "It's mostly editing right now,"
he says, "but there is a growing number of Internet news reporters."
For the moment, however, Brazeal focuses on the editing in his online
journalism course, where students are responsible for maintaining
Maryland NewsNet, a Web-based version of the Capital News Service.
To work as an editor for a Web site, you must have a set of technical
skills in addition to traditional journalistic aptitude, according to
Chris Callahan, who taught Maryland's first online journalism class in
1997. "Newspaper reporters think about a limited number of things; they
think about what the news is today, how to collect information for that
news, and how to write it. That same story for an online journalist is
in a multimedia environment, so they're really thinking out of the box.
They have the words; now how can they enhance it? They can use audio,
video and graphics at little or no cost."
Drew Weaver '95, a product manager for AOL's Digital City, Washington,
D.C. edition, finds that online writing is more playful than newspaper
writing. "There are so many other elements besides text competing for a
reader's attention," he says. "In a newspaper, there are no animated
things dancing across the screen to draw your eyes away from the story."
The act of reporting for an online publication is similar in many ways
to newspaper reporting, but the new medium, says Callahan, exacerbates
the issues. "For a newspaper you have a hard and fast deadline you can't
miss. For online, your deadline is as fast as you can get the story
done. There's tension between speed and accuracy; you want to get it out
fast."
Weaver sees disadvantages to online reporting in the lack of a
substantial style standard. "Newspapers have had centuries to establish
protocol and grammar guidelines," he says. "On the Net, the writing and
editing can be sloppier. We're trying to exercise more quality control."
But despite this, Weaver relishes his involvement in the construction
and refinement of this new medium. "It's exciting to be part of
something that's growing every day," he says. "We still don't know how
far the Internet can potentially go." --Brenna McBride
Radio Waves
by Dianne Burch
Who's in Control?
Story by Judith Bair
New ingredients in the Newsroom
Story by Carl Sessions Stepp
