Coverage Reporting intensive getting the real story What

Coverage &Reporting [intensive] getting the real story What you are going to cover and how you are going to get information about it.

Spread = Double page layout which consist of a Coverage of an Event • One event can have many angles to choose from: • Ex: Homecoming Spread – – – What can we cover? Lunch Fashion show Homecoming Rally Game Crowing of the Queen Dance Which angle will you pick?

What to do to get prepared • Conduct background interviews – Meet with the people in charge to get a complete understanding of the event or activity – Get key dates of events • Prepare fact lists • Create timelines

How to Select your Angles • Think about what happens before, during and after an event. – Weeks before, the day before, right before – What happened during, what else happened? – What happened right after, the day after, when all was said and done? Example: Prom – Before: shop for dress/tux, make up, hair, transportation/limo, date – During: venue, music, food, dancing – After : after party, late night meal, distribute pictures, talk about what people wore…

Reporting • After you have picked your angle you know what you have to focus on. You know what types of pictures you need and what information you need for your article. • You need to get other peoples views to include in your article. That’s were reporting comes in. You will need to develop questions for interviewing others.

Key Questions • You want to ask the subjects questions that: – Focus on a key incident – Ask them to tell you what they did and how they did it – You’re asking for a narrative with a beginning, middle and end – No one word answers. So you need to setup your questions to avoid that.

The key questions • • You want to start your questions with: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? ”

• BEAT SHEET

The key questions • • What were you thinking? What were they doing? How do they feel? Why? PREPARE THE SUBJECT: Tell them exactly what you are looking for. Tell them to explain their experience thoroughly. NO ONE WORD ANSWERS!!