Story Ideas

The hardest things about reporting is coming up with a story. This past Friday class did an excercise that ended up giving us a ton of story ideas. This is great for me beause while i have a fair amount of ideas I am always afraid that it won't hit our target audience. As a college news station you would think that our target audience would be the students. While i do know a bunch of people who watch The County Line, there are just as many if not more more community people who watch the news show as well. For the stationx this is great because it means that we are reaching out to more then just the college. unfortunately for the reporter it is hard because then you have to try and find things that are more community related then college related. Granted the people who are watching The County Line outside of the Westminster are probably watching to keep up with new things going on at the college, we would still like to keep up with the event s of the community as well.
So back to our class discussion. I technically wasn't there because i was working on a package... surprise, surprise. But i talked to one of my classmates and asked her how class had went. She said it was one of the best classes yet. I just thought it figures i miss the best class because of a package. But wither way it got me thinking. I started thinking of all the different angles you can go about finding a package and filming a package. When you stop and think of doing a package most people think "oh i need a person or an event." They miss out on the fact that a news story can be about ANYTHING. For instance, one girl in my class told me she wanted to do a package on how to pronounce the word "VOLANT." As silly as it sounds when you think about it, it is very informative and entertaining at the same time. This story didn't call for an event for or even for a specific person it is based of of a community. I love it because it kind of brought things to a new perspective for me. Telling me i didn't have to do a profile or find an event was very invigorating for me . While i love to film events, it is hard for me because i am usually participating or running the event so its kind of hard to do both at the same time. This new way of thinking about reporting has given a new outlet.
Now as a broadcaster finding a story is apart of what we do. For those outside of our field, they love to ask questions about it. And my favorite question is "how do you come up with he stories?" It's not such an odd question but it is hard to answer. I like to think that we have to be "in the know" about most things in and around campus but what it oils down to most is communication. Communication between peers and faculty between the reporter and the rest of the world. WE talk to people and we ask questions and sooner or later we'll find something to spark our interest