Stepping away from one role ...

... and into another. A day after stepping out of the IBJ newsroom, I spent a couple more days going back to my roots as a sports reporter, covering the Brickyard 400 for our local community newspaper.

Always look for different angles. I tried to find a few.
Post-race:
Menard family paid its Indy dues
Sidebar: Fuel-mileage racing here to stay 
Pre-race (from Friday's practice session):
Lots of parity in NASCAR field
Notebook: Drivers like Lucas Oil Raceway

Calling it a day

I've spent half my summer waking up early (OK, 7:30 a.m. is sleeping in for a teacher) and driving to downtown Indianapolis to represent my school and the IHSPA, and most importantly, learn something about another side of the craft I've been entrusted to pass along to my students.

Less than two weeks from now, my staff will convene and the things learned here will be seen in what they do. The deadline checklists, the way to utilize multimedia as an alternative to daily publication, the idea of editors working with writers to craft stories, a more detailed story idea form ... all of that will be incorporated into our class and our staff.

We have more than doubled the number of intro to journalism students at New Palestine this year, and I'm excited about the future. They don't know it yet, but they'll be gleaning a lot of good things from this experience, too. It has helped focus me as a writer, as a writing coach, as a teacher and as a leader.

I'm very, very grateful to Dennis Cripe and Diana Hadley for allowing me to be a part of this, as well as the Hoosier State Press Association and the Indiana High School Press Association (and, in a great coincidence, one of my sources is an ex-IHSPA president). Also, I'm grateful to IBJ editor Tom Harton and online editor Andrea Davis, with whom I worked very closely to craft some of the stories that will be posted in the future. This experienced pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me a better journalist -- which will make me a better journalism teacher.

I have a bunch of stories in the hopper, so as noted yesterday, I'll keep writing as they are published and tell a little bit about them and how they came together. Tomorrow, I head out of here to a more comfortable place for me, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where I'll be covering the Brickyard 400 for our local paper. No doubt, I'll be taking the lessons learned here into covering the race this weekend.

Thanks for reading!

Nearing the end

Four and a half weeks ago, I nervously walked into the newsroom here not quite knowing what to expect.

You can read past posts to see some of my stream-of-consciousness thoughts, feelings and joys from throughout the last month. Some have been great. Some have been pretty depressing. But the main point of this internship was to learn something. And I've learned quite a bit, about a different side of journalism, how a successful publication with a high-quality staff and a metropolitan focus operates, about how to keep stories fresh when you don't have a daily deadline. The most important thing is being able to take these experiences back to our classroom when our staff convenes two weeks from today. Between now and then, I'll be reworking our staff manuals and trying to carry forward the lessons learned here into the future.

A few things I'll take away from this experience.

• You don't have to be daily to have a daily presence. The Internet has revolutionized journalism, and it can revolutionize high school journalism. Use your print publication for timeless, bigger-picture stories. But have your reporters' ears open to *report* on the daily stories. Your website doesn't have to have a tons of bells and whistles to be the go-to destination. 
• Social media can be wonderful. IBJ.com had more than 10,000 hits from Facebook and Twitter in a month. That's an easy way to push your brand and get stories out there to the general public, another gateway to your readers. 
• Multimedia is our future. Teach your students to be "backpack journalists" and how to use and edit video to enhance stories. This next year, we have eliminated the position of staff photographer and we will have all students shoot their own stories because we had too many issues where things didn't quite match up, and also because students need to be more well-rounded. It doesn't have to be a slickly-produced TV package. It can be as simple as recording and putting a 5-minute interview with the principal or a postgame chat with the football team's running back online.
• Source your stories. I learned it the hard way, but don't be too afraid to ask the simple question. Those questions are vital in making sure the story is accurate and right. A lot of times, young reporters are so nervous and afraid to interview people, they ask a minimum amount of questions and get out of there, and then don't follow up. Also, don't be afraid to call the extra source. 
• Get out of your comfort zone. It's not a surprise that a simple three-source story on a focused topic took me less than 90 minutes to do. It's also not a surprise that I had little trouble putting together an education story, and went into an extreme amount of depth with it (I talked with the principal, a teacher, the superintendent, two outside consultants, a guidance counselor and the custodial staff, a few more sources than were probably necessary). But those stories were in my wheelhouse. Doing stories about urban issues -- redevelopment, urban planning, urban gardening, food trucks and the like -- are way out of my comfort zone, but they've made me a better reporter.
• Keep the BS meter high. When a source tells you something, go check it out. I was doing a story on an urban planner, and so I altered my route to work to see exactly what he had planned. It checked out pretty well, but not all stories have. 
• Facts and numbers are critical. Try to boil generalities down to exact numbers.
• Your sources usually want to tell their story. Give them a chance. Don't assume you're being intrusive. Sources also understand the power of the press.
• Edit, edit and edit some more. There is value in editing a story with an editor. Require your editors to do that. 
• Every source is important. In this assignment, I've sat in on a chat with the Pacers coach, had one-on-one interviews with the Ball State University president, a federal administration department chief, talked with the superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools. But other than the Frank Vogel story (a video story that one of our other reporters did and I sat in on), the other sources were not the focuses of the stories. The stories focused mostly on the other people involved. I quoted contractors and teachers as much as I quoted the presidents and superintendents. 
• My students hate meetings -- and all reporters, I think, do. But getting together on a regular basis to discuss story placement, art, what's going to happen in each edition is important. Your section editors need to check in on their reporters every day to determine progress and offer suggestions.
• A weekly or bi-weekly deadline cycle isn't a hindrance. You have to teach your writers to think big picture. The IBJ is one of the area's most respected publications, and it is a weekly publication that is finished on Thursday and dated the following Monday. How? By focusing on timeless, longer-form stories. 
• Don't try to overdo it. I've been working on the same story for a week, and it's given me writer's block, headaches, and I come home from the newsroom tired every night because I just can't get the story quite right. I've got one more day to do it, and I'm going to keep looking for inspiration, but keep it simple. The process of writing is a long one, but it doesn't have to be an overboard one.

As stories appear in the newspaper, I'll keep writing. There are a few items we've done that I've worked on, but I feel an ethical desire to not scoop myself and the publication that has entrusted me with their work.

The dreaded email

In scholastic circles, we know the grading scale -- 90-100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, and so forth. Of course, on such a grading scale, that means you can be wrong 40 percent of the time and still pass. It cracks me up when students laughingly say "D means diploma," as if they're proud of being wrong 40 percent of the time and just barely skating by.

I want my students to aim higher than 60 percent -- I want them to try to attain excellence and succeed up to, and even beyond, their potential.

But in journalism, it's vital. A 95 percent grade isn't an "A" in our profession, it's failure.

Today, the latest edition of the IBJ hits the streets, and my story on the Hoosier Momma company -- the first one I wrote for this publication four weeks ago -- is the Page 3 centerpiece. I had quite a bit of pride in seeing such a story on the page on Thursday when it was getting ready to head to production, one of the top stories in a well-respected publication.

Then, I came into the office this morning and saw my inbox, with an email from one of the company's owners.

Usually, that means one of two things -- they're praising you for a job well-done, or they're telling you that you got something wrong.

It's the latter. Two mistakes that shouldn't have made it into print did -- one was a misunderstanding from the interview, one a clarification that got inserted in the editing process that wasn't checked out in time. Either way, such things are unacceptable, because 98 percent right isn't good enough in journalism. We have to strive for 100 percent accuracy 100 percent of the time. NASCAR driver (and now TV commentator) Darrell Waltrip used to say "I don't care what you write about me, as long as you spell my name right." In other words, the facts have to be perfect because that's what is important to our source.

Needless to say, I sent the corrections to our editor, immediately identified the problem and set out to make sure it didn't happen again. But having to write a correction ruined my morning, knowing that I had an imperfect story get through a pretty ironclad editing process and into print. I feel like I've let my editors, my colleagues and my publication down, as they have entrusted me with the opportunity to uphold their high journalistic standards, and I didn't do that.

Our young high school journalists have to understand the same. Whether you're a 14-year-old freshman working on your first published story or a 75-year-old grizzled veteran who has written thousands of published stories, the zeal for the truth and 100 percent accuracy is important. Any slip-ups, no matter how minor, are grave to your credibility with your readers and your sources. And if you mess up on that front, make it right with a correction and come up with a plan to make sure it doesn't happen again. It doesn't have to ruin one's day, but there has to be a consequence -- whether brought on by you the adviser or internally -- for mistakes.

In journalism, only 100 percent is passing, 99 percent is a failing grade.

Time to admit something

... I have writer's block.

A really, really, really severe case.

I've spent much of the week starting two stories, pulling together a couple of others and putting the finishing touches on our Page 3 centerpiece, which will be running in Monday's IBJ.

And when you write, edit, write, edit, tinker, interview, tinker, refine and keep writing, you hit a wall.

Everyone goes through it. I often tell my students to "start with the middle of the story" and then go back and write the lede. I've done that -- to the point where my story has a smattering of random notes, quotes, orphaned paragraphs and offshoots for where I want to go with this masterpiece.

I've tried to read -- everything from stories from our publication to stories from other publications -- just to try to make it work.


When all is said and done, the story will get done. It'll be printed and it's got enough good material that I hope I can tell the story well.

And that's probably why I'm sitting here with writer's block. Daily journalism, which was my M.O. for years, is a lot of what I call "three sources and the truth" stories. They involve quick stories. Pull together three key sources, report and write. Two of those were previously posted on the blog -- one of them done from start-to-finish in about two hours, which included about 15 phone calls. Both were among the top 10 most-read stories in their respective weeks according to our web data. Those stories are the bread-and-butter of journalism, but a weekly business publication like the IBJ requires more in-depth stories, more sources, more research -- essentially, better journalism.

That's exactly the "spread-your-wings" challenge I was looking for when I arrived here a month ago.

But when you're not quite used to such journalism, you tend to overwrite. You want to make it so perfect, you tend to cram. The drive for perfection leads to ... well, it leads to writer's block. To stories that are fragments of notes. To a lot of frayed ends with an abstract sense of direction. To a lot of sentence fragments that nobody will notice. As I coach others to do, I'll step away, read something else, write a few mid-story paragraphs, look at it with fresh eyes and then eventually pull it together. Writing a blog post certainly helps. Either that, or it will postpone the inevitable :).

Incorporating multimedia

Journalism in 2011 is a lot different than journalism in 2009. Our industry is still trying to harness the power of multimedia. Television stations naturally have an advantage in this arena, as it's easier to add a written-word component to a TV site than it is to train us ink-stained types to do video & audio. However, those things -- podcasts, embedded video -- can enhance our work.

It can be as simple as sending your reporters out with Flip cameras to record their interviews or cover an event or as elaborate as recording a 30-minute podcast.

The IBJ does a pretty good job of this, with a regular series called "Leading Lines," where multimedia producer/reporter Mason King talks with different leaders about leadership. I got a chance to go in with Mason on an interview with Pacers head coach Frank Vogel, helping set up lights, check camera angles and watch the interview take place. This came from a one-hour process of setup, interview and tear down. About 30-45 minutes of interview was torn down into three short videos from the Pacers coach. Despite my best efforts to do anything possible to stay out of the camera shot, I show up here as Vogel demonstrates the basketball-spinning skill that he once displayed on Late Night with David Letterman. He spun a basketball on the end of a pen while writing the word "win." I'm holding the notebook.

Here's the link to the interview with videos.

The value of in-person editing

As a journalism student back in the days before I started popping gray hairs, I used to dread “editing.” I had just crafted a masterpiece. I was certain the Pulitzer committee was going to laud my latest work on intramural volleyball or the college women’s soccer team.

And then, I sat next to someone older and wiser than I and watched my story be torn to bits. The stories would be full of Associated Press Style mistakes. Being masterpieces, they would be fitted with some strangely awkward sentence constructions, which caused their demise. And the passive voice constructions which were paramount in my stories was very noticeable.

Of course, they weren’t noticeable when I wrote it. Nor were they the 20 times I read it.

But very quickly, my AP style mistakes were corrected right before my eyes. We smoothed out the awkward sentence constructions and rid ourselves of passive voice.

They were very painful. To my 19-year-old self, it felt like my handiwork was being mercilessly ripped to shreds by some ruthless, cold, heartless heathen making two bucks an hour.

However, it was very valuable. I learned more about how to write good, clean, tight stories from those editing sessions, and ever since, I’ve believed very strongly in editing stories with your staff. Early in the year, I require my page editors to do just that, often with myself in tow.

It’s painful. We’re teaching young journalists how to learn the craft, how to write and how to create a voice. I tell my students that every editing mark, every comment on a story is meant to be constructive and build them up. It’s to help them become better writers, better reporters and better journalists. In one of my first instances, a budding editorial writer put together her first column. It was a screed that had little context to back up the points the writer was making. It had some good ideas, but wasn’t focused and didn’t back up the points the writer was trying to make.

As our editorial team – with myself joining them – calmly pointed these things out in the edits, the writer nodded and agreed with us. And I looked up and saw tears rolling down the writer’s face. The process was painful – but with a happy ending. The writer focused the column, backed up the fewer points that were being made and put together a great column. That writer became our go-to columnist the rest of the year.

Yesterday, the shoe was on the other foot. For the first time since those college days, I was sitting in the chair next to the editor, watching my finely crafted work torn to shreds.

OK, it wasn’t finely crafted. It was terrible – full of awkward transitions, needless quotes, redundancies and, quite frankly, too many words. It was the first story I had attempted to write since coming to the IBJ four weeks ago – a business feature that is slotted for next week’s publication. It had gone through about 20 drafts and revisions as I tried to fix, hone, craft and re-work the story into a masterpiece. Instead, I subconsciously thought “I’m in the big leagues now, I have to write a masterpiece.” So I overwrote and instead of impressing everyone, I impressed nobody. That’s often what happens when you try to overwrite Those things happen whether they be using too many big words and overexplaining things, masking overt opinions as analysis or other common mistakes students make when they know their friends are going to see their work.

Despite all of those drafts and revisions, I didn’t see all of the story’s problems – the passive voice, the awkward constructions, the awful transitions, the redundancies and repetitiveness. That is, until I sat down with an editor and we went through the story line-by-line. We tightened things up, rewrote several paragraphs, reworked the lede, turned passive into active voice and suddenly, I was doing the editing. I was telling the editor all of the problems and mistakes that I saw.

The result turned into a much better, cleaner, tighter story that I hope is worthy to be published in a publication of the IBJ’s caliber. And it helped me see some of the problems in my other stories, so they too can be better, cleaner and tighter.

Sitting next to someone with fresh eyes sometimes does wonders for your ability to see your own work in a different light. It’s an important part of the editing – and educational – process. Edit stories with your writers at first, and train (and require) your editors to do the same.