Wednesday, April 8, 2009

A Columbia business owner fired up

Last Friday was my first real reporting shift at KOMU. Nervous and excited like every B2er else. I found a bunch of story ideas from newspapers and internet. By a coincidence, nearly all of them are related to legislation and laws. Later, I was asked by Matt Jeffery that, “Don’t you know all the legislators are not in the office on Friday afternoon?” I really have no idea about that. But, lucky enough, before I talked through my story ideas with Randy, the assignment editor that day, he printed me an email he received that morning and passed it on me as a story idea.

It was a letter full of anger and strong words, with pictures and pdf files as evidence. It was written by Arnie Fagan, a business owner in the downtown Columbia. He complained about the director of the Columbia Special Business District Carrie…. He thought she didn’t do a good job as an ambassador or representative of them. So he called on the media and other owners in his shoe to compel Ms. Gartner to resign. The pictures he sent to us were taken by Fagan’s cell phone when he found Gartner wrongly parked her car on the street during office hours.

So, here is my first story. I felt like cheered up in the heart by such a controversial story as a journalist. Boring and lame stories are nightmares for ambitious reporters. I started contacting the owner Mr. Fagan and the other side of the story Ms. Gartner. As imagined, the lady was ill out of office that day, but I can talk with Ms. Wilkerson who is the chair of that group.

All the shooting and interview went pretty well until I got back and started writing. There were so many facts in my head that I didn’t know where to start with and what to include in my package. Whether to put the pictures Fagan sent to us as a graphic? Which sound bites from 20 minutes’ interview to use? In what order should I fabricate the confrontation? ... I spent at least one hour to figure it out and make it clear in my mind. But the final piece I made was still a little bit longer than I was expected to feed. That recalled me the classic saying, “I am sorry for writing this long, because I don’t have time.”

Here is my ultimate pkg link. Please check it out and let me know what you think about it. Thanks!

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4a2248490100di3m.html

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