![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My first real lab session as a Reporting teacher's assistant on Friday was great fun. The professor lets me get up in front of the class and talk, which is really cool of her, and she praised me for my answer of "we got it from a confirmed source" when she caught me in an elevator the day before and asked as to who told us that the Sun has no intention of running any stories critical of SG or the UF administration. I felt pretty cheeky at the time, but that's the answer.
The kids are... inexperienced. How did they not learn at the very least basic AP style rules in Writing for Mass Communication? Unbelievable errors. But it was cool to be asked all around the class, make suggestions and prod them to answer their own questions. It's like tutoring in the Writing Lab but with more kids and rawer material. I love it. I want to teach them things that they'll apply and write better stories and have a higher average than any other reporting class.
Paying tuition that afternoon consisted of the girl behind the Financial Affairs counter giving me a puzzled look and pushing my debit card back across the table, saying that I was all squared up even though ISIS has been telling me I owe the school $700 and change this semester. She chalked it up to Bright Futures, which I thought didn't apply after 124 credits. As it happens, I am not always disappointed at being wrong.
Lazing about over movies on Saturday, reading yet more things that aren't what I'm supposed to be and having Mike tease me with at every turn, cooking split-pea soup in a too-small pot and doing a truly toxic (or is that intoxicating?) amount of nothing for the rest of the weekend was heaven on a stick. Shopping at Old Navy and Target resulted in a ladies' mini trenchcoat, dark flared jeans with wide-stitch hems, and a T-shirt from the Feelin' Groovy Gelatin Factory. My faith in the fake-brand trend is sporadically restored.
My reason for sticking with journalism is thinking about going back to the Big Easy, where he grew up. The guy's a huge jazz music fan, too, knew all the little hole-in-the-wall clubs and met virtually everyone associated with the scene in the process. He loves that city like life itself, and it's all I can do to tell him not to go because it would break his heart more thoroughly than it already is.
I put my managerial foot down four times tonight. There was no reason for us to be at the office until past 1 a.m. last night, and there was even less of an explanation as to why we didn't have time to print flats of five pages tonight. Also, how many times do I have to say no single-source stories and goddamn it but direct quotes are necessary, or else. Don't these people know that our job as reporters is to give readers an accurate, thought-provoking story? What makes them think they can do that with only a few hours' research and supplement it by paraphrasing a couple of people? Those involved in what you're writing about tell it more compellingly, accurately and completely than you can ever hope to. Let them, and be a good little voyeur and take thorough notes.
Sidenotes:
-My pirated wireless Internet connection is good enough to smoothly stream my Microeconomics lectures.
-My hair has now grown to a shagginess and shape that make me look like Patridge Family-era David Cassidy.
-La Timberlake's album holds up well.
-It's now cheaper for me to fly home than drive.
-I am enraptured by the prospects of the fall movie season, though grow increasingly cautious of Goblet of Fire as Dan Radcliffe's hair gets more and more out of control with every new promo shot.
-New Metro Editor Jeff lamented having only two stories for tonight's budget meeting, and when I told him it's the perfectly natural order of things for University Editor Steph to come in with 2754289134809 stories, he said he knew but wanted to come in there with five stories and have to hold three, and I suddenly knew what Justin meant all those times he gave me the same speech during the Spring and I said the same thing back and all he did was look endeared. Jeff will be all right.
Quote of the Day:
"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."
-Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard
The kids are... inexperienced. How did they not learn at the very least basic AP style rules in Writing for Mass Communication? Unbelievable errors. But it was cool to be asked all around the class, make suggestions and prod them to answer their own questions. It's like tutoring in the Writing Lab but with more kids and rawer material. I love it. I want to teach them things that they'll apply and write better stories and have a higher average than any other reporting class.
Paying tuition that afternoon consisted of the girl behind the Financial Affairs counter giving me a puzzled look and pushing my debit card back across the table, saying that I was all squared up even though ISIS has been telling me I owe the school $700 and change this semester. She chalked it up to Bright Futures, which I thought didn't apply after 124 credits. As it happens, I am not always disappointed at being wrong.
Lazing about over movies on Saturday, reading yet more things that aren't what I'm supposed to be and having Mike tease me with at every turn, cooking split-pea soup in a too-small pot and doing a truly toxic (or is that intoxicating?) amount of nothing for the rest of the weekend was heaven on a stick. Shopping at Old Navy and Target resulted in a ladies' mini trenchcoat, dark flared jeans with wide-stitch hems, and a T-shirt from the Feelin' Groovy Gelatin Factory. My faith in the fake-brand trend is sporadically restored.
My reason for sticking with journalism is thinking about going back to the Big Easy, where he grew up. The guy's a huge jazz music fan, too, knew all the little hole-in-the-wall clubs and met virtually everyone associated with the scene in the process. He loves that city like life itself, and it's all I can do to tell him not to go because it would break his heart more thoroughly than it already is.
I put my managerial foot down four times tonight. There was no reason for us to be at the office until past 1 a.m. last night, and there was even less of an explanation as to why we didn't have time to print flats of five pages tonight. Also, how many times do I have to say no single-source stories and goddamn it but direct quotes are necessary, or else. Don't these people know that our job as reporters is to give readers an accurate, thought-provoking story? What makes them think they can do that with only a few hours' research and supplement it by paraphrasing a couple of people? Those involved in what you're writing about tell it more compellingly, accurately and completely than you can ever hope to. Let them, and be a good little voyeur and take thorough notes.
Sidenotes:
-My pirated wireless Internet connection is good enough to smoothly stream my Microeconomics lectures.
-My hair has now grown to a shagginess and shape that make me look like Patridge Family-era David Cassidy.
-La Timberlake's album holds up well.
-It's now cheaper for me to fly home than drive.
-I am enraptured by the prospects of the fall movie season, though grow increasingly cautious of Goblet of Fire as Dan Radcliffe's hair gets more and more out of control with every new promo shot.
-New Metro Editor Jeff lamented having only two stories for tonight's budget meeting, and when I told him it's the perfectly natural order of things for University Editor Steph to come in with 2754289134809 stories, he said he knew but wanted to come in there with five stories and have to hold three, and I suddenly knew what Justin meant all those times he gave me the same speech during the Spring and I said the same thing back and all he did was look endeared. Jeff will be all right.
Quote of the Day:
"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."
-Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard
