Meeting 16

This week my meeting had a slight twist to it's usual format. It took place at the normal time and place but this time Alex Colman returned to hold my ideas meeting.

1. Kony coverage event- As a tie-in with the viral video concerning Joesph Kony I want to report on the planned promotion event which is happening in April to see if it has the desired effect it outlined.

2. Finding the most interesting displays at the local museum- I propose the idea of going to the local history museum and compiling a list of the most interesting displays they have.

3. Bug wildlife- I've heard from friends their has been a bizarre shift in wildlife in the local area so I propose investigating to see if the shift in weather which is unnatural for this time of year has caused this.

To add to the twist we decided we'd keep the Kony story in the pipeline but the other two we decided to put on hold until some research and some extra planning had been done.

The twist deepens as we decided this week I would follow up a story on graffiti art. The angle is 'is it art ?', the essential part of this story is to be keep completely balanced which has been my downfall in the past especially with my ice cream shop story which read more like an advertorial piece rather then balanced journalism since I essentially had one shop and no other supporting to opposite interviewees.

To ensure this doesn't happen again I will speak to two opposing sides of the debate. One will be the authoritative side so I plan to speak to the council to see what their views on the subject are and the police for what punishments they have for graffiti artists. One the opposite side of the debate I will speak to someone who works at an art gallery to see if they see graffiti as art work and finally I will speak to someone who does graffiti.

For the last interviewee I wish to find it may be difficult since it's criminal offence people may not be inclined to talk to me. This means I may have to exercise some journalistic traits, namely the subject of eaves-dropping. Chris Frosts thoughts on the subject is that 'a good reporter is interested in everything and sometimes can't help over-hearing interesting conversations or seeing something out of the ordinary.' This has helped me before but never to the extent is could have resulted in un-ethical journalism like the phone hacking scandal. This helped when I was looking for interesting stalls at the Christmas market (http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2011/12/top-10-stalls-at-lincoln-christmas-market/).

However a further skill I'll have to add to my story gathering especially for this story is I 'should immediately identify him (me) or herself (not me) to the speaker.'

Critque- (http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2012/03/lincolnite-on-lost-city-search-for-charity/)

So this week I had another story published. This one was the Inca walk story. I was quite happy with the interview as I found the woman to produce some extremely memorable quotes and had quite an emotive back story and special motivation for doing the walk.

I think I have met my editors requirements of finding an interesting person. This is also critically valuable in terms of academics as I found an off diary story and as Chris Frost says 'off-diary stories are more difficult to come by.'

Of course I found this story be following Chris Frosts advice of 'keeping your eyes and ears open for unusual happenings.' Thanks to me using my eyes I found this unusual happening in the form of a poster in the University atrium which wasn't connected to the Student elections. So it stood out.