Newbie Notes: Saturday Assignment
What I learned on my Saturday assignment.• MapQuest is no substitute for good (ADC is my choice) mapbooks.
I got lost both going to the event and coming home. Hey, I might never have had the opportunity to see, or smell, the D.C. wastewater treatment facility otherwise.
• The truism “The early bird gets the worm” still works.
Two fledgling web journalists (Ken C. and myself) scooped Channel 4 by being there when the incoming police chief, who will make history as the first permanent female D.C chief of police, walked in the door unannounced.
The Channel 4 videographer arrived after the chief-to-be left, so he settled for a brief interview of Enrique Rivera, the coordinator of the event.(Sorry, couldn't find a link to their broadcast on Ch. 4's web site)
I learned two things here as well:
1. Know your subject. Without some help from one of the police officers I wouldn’t have had a clue about her as news of her appointment by Mayor-elect Fenty broke while I was in rural Louisiana (Third World and Proud of It!) far from Wi-Fi or newspaper stands (For more on the Louisiana escapade see my next post on this blog).
2. Keep your voice recorder handy. I wish that I had turned on my voice recorder while Ken and I had her all to ourselves instead of later, when she made her presentation (my notes of the interview with her are barely decipherable).
And, sorry if this is not PC or I’m showing my MCP tendencies but, I might have been flustered by the fact that she’s not bad looking.
• Some knowledge of the language helps if you’re covering a foreign-language event. Especially when the pocket-sized translation receiver you are given is chopping out every fifth word that is being said. At times I just took off the earpiece and mentally tuned into the Spanish, even though I am not fluent.
• Once you get over your innate fear of approaching strangers, most of them are very helpful. All of the police officers present were more than happy to talk about their community-policing efforts, the Mount Pleasant riots, etc., and are very proud of their roots “Soy Puerto Riqueño” (I’m Puerto Rican) – note tiny Puerto Rican flag on the butt of officer’s holstered automatic pistol.
All-in-all, great fun – except for the 5 pm deadline.
--- Michael H.
posted by Mark H. @ 12/03/2006 10:56:00 AM
2 Comments:
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I have to agree with Michael's assessment of the morning. It was a lot of fun, and it was great talking with everyone from chief-to-be Lanier to the pastor of the church.
My only regret was not being able to talk to any of the residents who were there. Oh, I tried, but no one spoke English and my Spanish is about as bad as it could possibly be. The meeting was for them, so it seems that not being able to tell whether they thought it was worth it seemed to be a hole in the story that I wrote.
I know we just did this for a class project (and possibly for the Observer), but it would be interesting to see how well the police department's efforts to reach out to the Latino community will be, especially because the police officer who started a lot of these efforts is now going to be the chief.
--Ken C.
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