Pink Think: “It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is all about.” – Tom Brokaw
Photo by carsonpr.com
Got a story assignment from my editor to cover a mock disaster drill this morning. I asked for an angle, and he gave me the charge, basically, to make a rather dry topic interesting. Um, sure. No problem.
Although I have worked as a journalist for two decades now, I have usually written features as opposed to hard news. This morning, I felt like a “real” journalist hanging out with TV reporters and other journalists. I tried to make friends with the local reporter and photographer, but they just kind of looked at me funny. *shrug*
At first it was kind of exciting. The first drill involved a high school that had a “lab explosion”, and some students looked convincingly ill, complete with fake blood, on the school front lawn. Funny thing was, we all watched the fire truck zoom past and then, nothing happened for a long time. It turns out, the firefighters had a real fire they had to attend to.
***
I went home midday, spent and hungry. Over lunch, my husband asked me how it went, and I truthfully said, “I don’t know. I think, I hope, I have a story.” There was a lot of waiting, you see, to the point that the photographer from my paper left early, saying, “This was a non-event.”
Gosh was I scared of facing the computer screen. Would I have a story?
I started writing nonetheless. Two hours later, I polished my story and e-mailed it.
How could I have doubted that there would be a story?
That is what I love about journalism. It’s writing by the seat of your pants. It’s capturing those memorable lines that turn an annual event into a portrait of people. It’s writing short, with maximum impact. It’s finding a story even in dry topics like mock disaster drills.
At least those are my goals each time I craft an article.
Click here to read my story.
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