Installment+4

South of Denver

Chapter 4 - September 20, 2004

Taylor had spent about 15 minutes interviewing Hannah in class on Monday, and was excited about her story, a brief, focused profile on a Journalism classmate. This was designed as practice for the "real" profile assignment, due Sept. 20, for which they can choose any Rock Canyon student (beyond our class).

The best of these profiles will likely appear in some form in our first issue.

But our class alone has plenty of stories, that is clear.

Here's how Taylor's profile began:

"Hannah is a fun-loving girl who loves running track, writing poetry and playing tennis, but one of her strongest interests is politics.

" 'I can't stand George Bush,' Hannah said, as her fist pounded the table.

"Hannah's cousin William is a Marine and has been stationed in Afghanistan for almost seven months. He will be returning home at the end of September."

My first (selfish) thought was, "Yes! Hannah seems like a passionate young woman, and I might just have a Democrat on staff in this enclave of suburban Republicanism (not that there's anything wrong with that!).

Imagine my surprise when I got to the end of the story, only to discover that Hannah will still be supporting President Bush, saying we shouldn't have a rookie as president while we're in the middle of a war. Sigh. Well, at least Hannah is passionate about her beliefs, and passion is perhaps the most important attribute I look for in staff members, along with curiosity and attention to detail.

I look forward to some political discussions while working after school on that looming first issue. And I'd love to have Hannah find some way to tell her cousin's story in our pages. All politics aside, it appears that we have plenty of connections to current military operations, and that will help us localize our coverage.

We spent quite a bit of class time this week discussing how we can include the "voice" of our profile subjects in our stories, and I was happy to see that about half of the class seemed to have a good handle on the concept of letting a source "speak" on the page, particularly through interesting, focused anecdotes. The other half of the class will require some additional attention.

I shared one of my favorite interviewing "tools," which I borrowed from journalist Clarence Page: "Why do you say that?" Most interview subjects don't just yak away without being prodded, and asking, "Why do you say that?" or "Can you give me an example?" are great ways to indicate that the interviewer really is interested in what is being said.

What I assumed would be the big discussion topic of the week-the naming of the paper-turned out to be anticlimactic. After just a few minutes of further discussion on Tuesday, the consensus was clearly in favor of The Rock. A good name. Not one I've seen elsewhere. Sounds strong. Sounds trustworthy. I can hear Bob Seeger and see huge Chevy trucks.

"One thing," says Natasha. "There's that wrestler The Rock. Won't we get possible confusion there?"

My answer: "Well, it's possible, but I think it's up to us to avoid the cheesy references to him. Unless you'd like to start our editorials with, 'Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?!' "

Natasha didn't seem to get my Rock imitation, but she laughed, perhaps out of pity.

Most of the staff seemed relieved to have the decision made. After all, issue number one hits the halls six weeks from Wednesday, and we just got our Adobe Creative Suite software installed in the lab.

We need to kick things into high gear.

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon HS

Highlands Ranch CO 80124

jkkennedy@comcast.net

jack.kennedy@dcsdk12.org

Note: This is part of a series of columns on working with a completely untrained staff. It is cryptotherapy for me. It may occasionally provide something positive for you. It's all uncharted territory, that's for sure.