Newsroom Madness

My first 9 to 5 workshop day.

I thought I was late for class this morning when I saw the usual cheery, older gentleman bus driver of the 15 Cambie bus. He always announces the stops and the stop I get off on to transfer buses is a major intersection so he wishes everyone a good day. When I saw him I knew I would arrive on campus at 8:55, and I did.

The journalism building is located in a very quiet and lovely part of the campus, but it is a nice 10 to 15 minute walk from the bus loop. I was practically jogging only to arrive at 9:05 and having the professor tell us that class does start at 9:30 and the 9 - 5 workshop is just theoretical - like a workday. Umm. Thanks for getting me out of bed early!

Class topic: Writing for the web and radio. At the end of class we had 15 minutes to break a story for the web in 75 words.
Prof: 5 more minutes
Anna: Panic
Prof: 4 more minutes
Anna: Hands begin to shake
Prof: 2 more minutes
Anna: Can you stop that
Prof: 1 more minute
Anna: Breaks out in cold sweat
Prof: 30 seconds
Anna: That's annoying

We got to discuss our 75 words of scribbled text with group members, so that wasn't so bad but this was waiting for us this afternoon in the newsroom.

Then lunch until 1:45. A bunch of us decided to eat outside. It is 25 degrees in Vancouver. Sunshine. Who says it rains in Vancouver?

Just up the street is a small rose garden with neatly trimmed grass and hedges. A lot of people had the same idea: Go there and read, eat or lie in the sun on the grass. Plus, the garden overlooks the mountains and ocean. It's a great place to calm down, except I was panicking.

At precisely 1:45 the prof walks in to the newsroom and says the next two hours are going to be tough and you'll be exhausted but if you are to make it in this business we are going to break stories.

We were provided with three stories on the topic of Harriet, the 176-year-old tortoise, who died this year of heart failure. We weren't allowed to search for more information other than what was given.

First assignment
Break an online news story in 25 minutes. 75 words plus headline.
(This apparently is 20 minutes too long for a breaking news story online, but he went easy on us the first day).

Second assignment
Radio piece. 30 minutes. 2 to 3 sentences for intro. 180 words for the body.

Third assignment
Newspaper story. 1 hour. 400-500 words plus heading.

If we were not printing in the last minute, our story would have been late and no longer acceptable by the editor. But, in this case by the professor. It was a zero.

If we were short 20 words on our radio piece, we would have dead air.

Talk about stress.

But, it was great stress. I found that I wrote my online story quickly. Had time to start thinking about my radio piece. It started off really serious and I decided to make it more accessible by the general public with common language and easy to read sentences.

By the time I got to the news story, I felt confident that I can whip something out. 350 words into the story and I was struggling. I needed to pull out 50 words from thin air.

Again:

Prof: 2 minutes you better be checking your spelling
Prof: 1 minute I am not hearing the printer
Prof: 30 seconds start printing
Prof: 10 seconds you are almost fired

It was challenging. This was not an easy assignment and this is exactly what the undergraduate program at York was missing. Deadline writing. It puts you on the spot and makes you think. Plus, if you had more time, you would procrastinate. Instead of I have 20 minutes to write this, I would be telling myself, I have 4 hours to write this.

I am looking forward to the next one...but maybe I should wait to see my grade first before I carve that into stone.