Newsgathering & Reporting.
There are countless stories out there that need to be told, controversial issues that need commentary and worthy subjects that need addressing. My time as a journalist has explicitly shown me that no great story exists without great sources, and intriguing topics for those sources to speak on. At The ReMarker, the initial stages of a production cycle — pitch-development, beat reporting, story slotting — are our utmost priority.
Beat reporting — forming relationships.
Everyone on staff has two or three members of campus they visit monthly throughout the course of a year to ensure that we cover a diverse range of topics, and that we find those stories that I like to call ‘hidden gems’ (huge events and interesting personalities we would’ve otherwise missed.) To get the run-down of all parts of campus — from the choir program to the development office to an English classroom — we have approximately 60 beats in total. I’ve always encouraged staff members to meet their beats in-person: nothing replaces the power of a physical conversation.
As editor-in-chief, I meet with our headmaster, director of Environmental Studies and student council sponsor, in addition to formulating a list of upcoming calendar events. Even outside journalism, I keep up with my beats — whether stopping by their offices during a free period or simply having a conversation when passing them in the hallway. These conversations — these relationships — allow me to keep a finger on the pulse of campus. This connection with my community is extremely important to me as a high school journalist.
A few days before pitch day, our team writes their pitches down on a Google document, following my instructions, seen below.
Pitch Requirements:
One Personality Profile
One Issue-driven (an on-campus issue, or an off-campus headline we can localize)
One Primary (highly covered topics, like gun violence or current elections, we can cover with a unique angle)
Write your pitch in the following format: a) your name b) One question you are answering through your article, c) Max two sentences with context and a proposed list of sources you’d interview or use for research d) One sentence explanation on why you have chosen this pitch or why this should matter to our readers.
Pitch day — developing powerful stories.
When pitch day rolls around, I’ll project the document onto a bigger screen in our newsroom, and we’ll gather around our Harkness table. “Screens down, guys,” I say during the early moments of every pitch day. I remind my team that this monthly meeting is a group discussion, where we have the opportunity to talk over a proposed idea and take it a step further. During pitch day for our February newspaper, for example, discourse surrounding artificial intelligence and its impact on our English program dominated the meeting. The angle many of our journalists suggested was artificial-intelligence-assisted-cheating. Immediately, I had a suggestion. We could acquire two anonymous essays on the same topic — one written by a student, one written by Chat GPT-3 — and our English Department Chair would analyze both essays, grading them and seeing if he could discern human from robot. Our class loved the idea, and this ‘experiment’ was a prominent part of the final package. I’ve always found pitch day to be enjoyable and engaging, and I hope my team of journalists feels the same way — we’re all present, we’re all participating, we’re all excited to hear ideas for the next edition.
Story slotting — finding inspiration.
There are certain, time-sensitive pieces any given cycle that we have a journalistic responsibility to cover. Beyond those, I like to give my section editors the autonomy to choose stories that genuinely excite them every step of the way — if a journalist on The ReMarker enjoys writing the article, I’m positive that the reader will enjoy reading it.
Once story slotting is finished, section editors and certain members of the Editorial Board will gather for a story direction meeting. While I give my team a high degree of independence when slotting, it’s my responsibility as editor-in-chief to ensure that our content is diverse, our sources are varied and our writer workload is balanced.
We’ve also carried on the precedent of previous years for section editors to create story description documents detailing their entire sections — including recommended sources, questions to ask during interviews, multiple angles and visual ideas (as seen left.) As a staff writer, I greatly appreciated the information in these documents, and as a section editor, I found that the very act of making these documents helped me grasp my sections’ content from a big-picture perspective.
The interview — creating a challenge.
The questions I always ask younger journalists when they’re preparing for an interview are, “What quotes from this source will develop your narrative?” and “How will you effectively steer the conversation in that direction, without forcing it?” Keeping the end goal in mind throughout the interview is important.
After having done hundreds of interviews, I’ve uncovered an interesting reality: people being interviewed love a challenge. In any interview, I set the tone by asking a few basic questions, and a few follow-ups to those. Based on their responses, I’ll often bolster my questions with a few comments or reactions from my personal experiences. Establishing a level of comfort and a personal connection is pivotal in gaining your sources’ trust. Then, I’ll ease into those difficult questions — those questions that make people stop and think for a minute, or chuckle and say, “that’s a really good question.”
Here are a few of the favorite people I’ve interviewed and the stimulating questions I’ve asked:
