MEMOIR

How I researched and wrote my first front page newspaper story: Part One

I was ridiculed for my news tip suggestion. I carried on anyway.

Print Journalism training was more interesting than my studies the previous semester in television, in spite of the work writing it was for me, and writing for me was hard work. In Print Journalism I kept late hours, struggling to string words together. I prayed for the day when writing would become easy for me as it seemed to be for others.

The pressure was on in our second semester.

Second-year students would graduate in four months.

We First-Year print students would take over the campus newspaper, the Endeavor, in the fall.

In this semester we were to become published writers for the first time.

To prepare, we novice First-Year’s had to submit story ideas to the Second Year’s for comment. We did. And they ridiculed us.

They promptly returned every one of our suggestions with harsh scribbled feedback: “Don’t you read the paper?” Another: “This has been done and redone.”

I thought I’d try again with another story idea. Since observing that first Student Association meeting, our instructor, Georgia, had arranged the Student Association meeting take place in a lecture theatre, and we filled the hall watching. I had been curious about a few items on the agenda.

The cost of SA business trips.

There was a rumour more money had been spent than we were told.

I stayed for the whole meeting- a lot of students didn’t- and I asked one question: Where did you stay in Ottawa and how much did it cost?

One trip to Ottawa, nearly cross-country, was a few nights at a resort, and I wanted to know more details.

We First Year’s wrote on Mac Classics in the First-Year room. The larger computers were in the Endeavor, the room for Second-Year students. We First-Years punched out what we could on the little cube computers we were provided, saving our results on floppy discs.

At that time First-Year’s didn’t work in the Endeavor, the room where the Endeavor newspaper was paginated. We edged in there as the semeseter went on, but so far in this school year the Endeavor was a Second-Year bastion.

I, like most First Years, went into the room only to check mail- all of it paper mail, email didn’t exist then for students- and we never went into the Endeavor to work.

The Endeavor was not a classroom in the traditional sense.

It was designed as a working newspaper office and production room.

There was no teacher’s desk.

Students ran things in the Endeavor.

Twelve teacher-sized oak desks were grouped into three computer work stations of four desks each, butted up against each other.

I entered the Endeavor, likely my first time in the room, and approached students sitting at the middle computer workstation. I told whoever was sitting there I thought the SA travel budget might be a good story.

A female student walking by said travel budgets were “old news.” A seated student told me what I was suggesting had been “done and redone.” Another said, “There’s no story,” adding the issue had been researched.

I left, glum. Obviously I had a lot to learn.

A week later, at the top of page two in the first Endeavor of the semester, a headline read: “SA not overbudget”. The lede: “For those of you who have heard the rumour $20,000 was spent on travel by the LCCSA this year, it’s just that, a rumour.” The article quoted the SA financial coordinator as saying, “about $7,500 has been spent on travel and the SA has two more conferences to attend this year.”

The group that ridiculed my story idea declared, in print, it was rumour without foundation. But reading the article, I didn’t see any investigation at all. They hadn’t checked the numbers they were given by the SA. They had merely accepted them. I was taken aback. That’s not what news reporters do. We have to investigate.

No one was supportive of my investigating this story. I’d have to learn how to do it on my own.

Upset, I asked where the Student Association offices were.

There, I asked the receptionist where I might find the travel budget expenses since the last SA election.

“They’re unavailable,” she said.

“Unavailable?”

Everyone in the office stopped and looked up at me at my surprised and startled reply to this ridiculousness.

Of course they were available, I said. The SA served the students. It was the Student’s Association. Like any other college student, I paid student fees, so I was an SA member and I wanted to see them.

Taken aback, she suggested the SA president could talk to me.

End of Part One. Thanks for reading. I’ve broken down this story into three parts as Medium may not be the most ideal platform for longer articles. I’ll post Part 2 tomorrow. This really is how I got my very first front page newspaper story.