Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

I have a hard time coming up with story ideas every week. A really hard time. I stay fairly current on events, especially when compared to the general populace. However, every week I struggle to come up with ideas for my packages.

This is a problem, as an aspiring journalist. I turn in story ideas every week, but usually halfway through the week an idea I think is better strikes me and I wind up doing that instead.

Take two weeks ago, for instance. I pitched a story about a study released saying Missouri ranked last in the nation in terms of childhood vaccinations. I wanted to examine the causes of this statistic.

On the surface, it’s a great story. However, I quickly realized that getting video would be a problem. They don’t separate vaccinated from non-vaccinated kids, and the places who would bear the brunt of the effects of non-vaccinated kids, schools, have fairly stringent policies with regards to cameras. Especially for someone like myself who does not technically work for any TV outlet.

So, I moved on from that idea onto one which struck me later in the week: the Republicans’ new strategy called a “Pledge to America.” (Fair warning, it’s a pretty large PDF)

I would make the story more relevant to viewers by localizing it–bringing the national policy down to the local level. What I found is that it’s a national policy for a reason. Both my Republican and Democrat source said it would have little impact on the local elections.

This gave me an angle into my story: Republicans and Democrats agree on something! However, my problem of bad video persisted. What video do I use when talking about a 48-page document which makes perfect sense? The answer: there really isn’t any.

I had to do with video from the county Republican central committee offices. I hoped to find, inside of 40 days until election day, a hive of activity. I discovered two guys barely working in-between swapping jokes about the ROTC. And a lot of bumper stickers and yard signs. And the obligatory quotes from Ronald Reagan. So, I not only had only tangentially related video, but it was BORING tangentially related video.

My grade on the project reflected these shortcomings.

So. Now to the hard part: If I was given a mulligan, what would I do differently?

For starters, I would shoot my interviews better. Both of them had bad lighting, partly because both sources told me to meet me at their house. One was backlit so badly they appeared more like a villain in a Bond movie than a representative to the state legislature.

In the B-roll department, I would stay longer at the Republican headquarters on the off chance that something interesting happened. I only had 15 minutes to shoot everything, and that showed in my story. I would shoot the two guys there, because they’re better than the map on the wall I used in my pad. And if the Republican video was so terrible, maybe a trip to the Democratic headquarters would have given me more interesting video. It would have been a juxtaposition for a story about the Pledge to America to have Democrat B-roll, but in hindsight my sources’ belief the Pledge would fizzle locally should have been a signal that I needed to change the focus of my package.

Everything’s better in hindsight. In hindsight there is enough time, the camera doesn’t have a 3 hour checkout limit, and people are always willing to talk to you and help you out. I’ve got to stand behind my work, because it’s mine and has my name on it, but that doesn’t stop me from admitting I could have done a better job with it.