See MeI ended my second year on staff with this story. At this point, I had become more confident in my interviewing and story-telling abilities, so I was itching for a story that would provide depth and an underrepresented perspective. I remember immediately transcribing after each interview, printing out the transcriptions to annotate, and writing follow-up questions for additional interviews. It took until after 10 p.m. on deadline night, bouncing off ledes with a first year writer for an hour until it felt write. This story reminded of why I love journalism and why I joined yearbook in the first place -- to elevate voices that need to be heard.
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A Second Chance at LifeI had been hoping to write to about this student in the summer, after seeing her many social media posts updating her followers about her health. I knew she had a story to tell and that it was nothing like we have written before. One of the biggest struggles of writing this story was ensuring that everything regarding her health was written correctly. This story only needed one 60-minute interview that once transcribed, wrote itself.
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The Buddy SystemThe week after the death of a principal at our neighboring school was a gloomy one for East Lansing. My original plan for the story was to interview our Associate Principal about his relationship with the Haslett principal because I knew they were close. However, it took a turn when he stated that he wasn’t ready to answer certain questions in my interview, the hard-hitting ones. As a Journalist, the timing for covering a story can be tricky. I wanted to get a raw story to allow students to get to know our Associate Principal better, but I was too eager as the death was too fresh. Even though the story ended up being different than I expected, I know that it will remind me in the future about considering the timing of covering a difficult story.
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EL Family ReunionAfter finding out that teachers would receive vaccines allowing for the return to school, I immediately jumped to cover this story. I always stress the importance of student coverage, but because this year is very different, I wanted to tell the story of what happens behind the scenes. Before my interview, I thought to myself, “In five years, somebody is going to wonder what it was like to plan a return to school in the middle of a pandemic.”
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A Growing TraditionBefore this story, I'd been wanting to write a descriptive lede that allows the reader to fully experience the moment. This was the perfect opportunity. Despite not knowing a lick of German, I joined his Zoom and noted every quirk of the meeting in my notebook. Within three minutes of the Zoom, I could tell how much this German teacher loved his job and his students, which is exactly what I wanted to embody in the story. With such a dark year doing school virtually in a pandemic, this piece brought a much needed light to our book.
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Boyds will be BoydsIf you couldn’t already tell the two Boyds were brothers, you’d think they were best friends. Any student at East Lansing probably knew one of the two brothers, and if you were close with them, you knew how much they meant to each other. So I thought the story would be quick and easy to write, hoping to correctly portray their relationship. But believe it or not, it was hard to get boys to talk about their feelings, making it take three to four interviews each. It wasn’t easy, but it was so rewarding watching them smile saying, “he really said that?”
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Circling BackThroughout my years in high school, our drama program has changed a lot. I was surprised to hear that there was a new temporary theatre teacher, so I reached out to a peer of mine and scheduled a Zoom interview. Because I knew my interviewee, I knew what questions to ask. After transcribing, the story wrote itself. While it’s not the deepest story, I enjoyed writing it and learning more about the changes in the drama program.
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DOMinating
I wrote this story my first year on staff. I struggled with the transition from five paragraph essays to Journalistic writing. I think the biggest obstacle was not letting myself find my voice while writing, I would write a story how I thought it should sound. I remember talking to Mr. Harrell for advice. He asked me to talk about the student I was writing on and I remember saying, “He’s probably the best bowler on the team. If he doesn’t bowl a strike, he at least gets a spare.” Harrell replied saying, “there’s your lede.” A lot of times my first year, I was making story-telling a lot harder than it needed to be.
From Supplies to Spells
This is another story I wrote my first year on staff and I remember it taking quite a lot of persistence. I attended around three of Table Top's club meetings badgering the students in hopes to understand their games. As it was one of my earliest stories, I had no direction or ideas for questions to ask. It took a thirty-minute conversation with the president of the club that eventually led to me to the story. When I look back on this story, I'll never forget the greeting I received walking into the third meeting for my last follow-up questions. "You again?"