Valdosta Daily Times reporter shares why she loves her job
Amanda Usher is a lifestyles reporter for the Valdosta Daily Times, where she covers a variety of subjects such as breaking news and event coverage. But, she said her favorite subject to cover is features.
“I feel like in journalism I get to be a voice for people who may not feel like they are being heard,” she said.
Usher graduated from Valdosta State University in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in English with an emphasis in journalism. While at Valdosta State, she served as the features editor for the school paper, The Spectator.
Usher has been at the Valdosta Daily Times since 2017. A recent piece she is proud of is a story on homelessness in Lowndes County where Valdosta is located.
She spent a month doing research about homelessness to answer the question: “Is homelessness a problem in Lowndes County?”
To complete the story, Usher said she talked to homeless people, people who used to be homeless, people who work at homeless shelters and a county commissioner.
“I did the reporting, I did the photography, for that article, for that piece. And it turned out to be one of our biggest pieces this year,” she said.
Usher said she thinks the most important skills for aspiring journalists are the ability able to know how to do a variety of things, such as audio editing, video editing and taking photos.
Usher also said she thinks it is important to be able to work on a deadline and to be flexible in case you have to cover breaking news.
“You’ve got to know how to meet those quick deadlines and be flexible in that aspect. You could be working on something, and then somebody gets shot, or there is a car chase or something, and you’ve got to go out and do that,” she said.
She said her day-to-day schedule at the paper is always changing. While she has some assignments that are done weekly, such as writing the front-page story for the lifestyles section, part of her job is covering local events and breaking news when needed.
Some challenges Usher said she has faced while being a reporter are being overwhelmed with the amount of work she has to do daily and balancing her job with her other full-time job, being a mom.
However, Usher said that she enjoys what she does because of the opportunities she has to meet new people, some of which are famous.
“I’ve interviewed two Harlem Globetrotters, one who taught me how to spin a ball on my finger. If journalism doesn’t work out now I have other things I can do,” she said.
Usher also said she was one of the last people to interview Burt Reynolds before he passed away in 2018.
Some other pieces of journalism Usher has seen that inspires her includes a story a newspaper did about their vending machine. She said the story was about where vending machines come from, how much money gets put in it and how often they are used.
While Usher said the story is a strange one to inspire her, it was the newspaper’s curiosity into something so ordinary that reminded her to be more creative.
“That along with some other stories helped me with my writing because after I read that I thought I need to step my creativity up. I’m not being creative enough with my content,” she said.
Some advice Usher would give to people looking to enter journalism would be to be patient, and that you won’t always be able to start your dream job right out of school.
“When that happens you can’t give up, you have to focus on why you want to go into the field, why you have this passion. And when you get into it, focus on why you’re doing it,” she said.
