Basic Stories...yeah right.

As I was reading along in chapter 13, I realized that the stories News Reporting and Writing calls “basic” I have a completely different definition for. Excuse me, but how am I supposed to find that writing a story about someone’s life or death is basic. I think it’s actually quite intimidating, actually.

The crime story is probably the most straightforward of all of the categories described. Yes, I think I can keep the who and what and when straight, but what about the unknowns? I think it’s funny that the book tells its readers that they may have to be obnoxious to gather needed information. I can certainly understand this…but I’m not intrusive or obnoxious by nature. I have no desire to dodge police tape, bombard investigators who are just trying to do their job or speak with shaken up witnesses. No thank you.

Humph. Reason number 576 why I have no desire to be a hard-news reporter.

Another example of the madness of reporting on deadline is accident and fire stories. I can relate to the chaos of a fire because a few years ago we had a fire on my farm. My dad’s machine shop started on fire and it was absolutely terrifying. My parents felt so helpless as homeowners. I can’t even imagine the grief my family would have gone through if it was our actual house or has spread to other areas of our farm.

The most frustrating thing about the whole experience was that there were so many unknowns. What started the fire? How much damage was caused and what did we lose? How do we go on from here and pick up the pieces?

These questions ran through my mind about my own property and a reporter has to answer these and many more that rise in the minds of readers. I’m sure it’s really difficult to think of all the questions you need answered as a reporter and then answering them is another challenge.

Court cases pose another challenge for reporters. I can’t imagine trying to keep all of the facts straight for a lengthy high-profile trial that takes place over months or years at a time. The legal mumbo-jumbo alone is enough to make my head spin.

I think it was really good that the reading brought up the point that even changing one word when reporting about crime or arrests can lead to libel. Substituting arrested “for” instead of arrested “on a charge of” could be the difference between libel and the reporter’s own trip to court.