Pedestrian Bridge Anniversary-Falls
Church News Press
Over the years, editors have sent my stories that I’ve found
superfluous but a job’s a job. If anything, I like churning out stories I
personally am not invested in, because it allows me to make the case that I’m
not an avant-garde Bohemian just following my own personal whims. It’s also
worth taking stories you aren’t interested because you often can be surprised
by how interesting a story can be when you dig into it.
In this case, the story was about a pedestrian bridge that
was completed 25 years ago. The story was submitted to the editor by one of the
people instrumental in creating the bridge (which reeks of self-promotion) and
didn’t even bother to peg it to a current angle. I met the guy and was impressed
that he, like so many people in Falls Church, was passionate about civic
participation. He made the process of getting the rights-of-way and
coordinating with different agencies about the bridge sound interesting. In
terms of the news peg, he told me that he was going to put up a balloon to
commemorate the 25th anniversary which didn’t seem like an actual
thing as far as news is concerned: A person can’t just say I’m throwing a party
for the express purpose of having the newspaper capture it. We at least want to
believe it’s an actual party that has a reason for existence other than press
coverage. But I did believe that this person did genuinely think that putting
up the balloon was an act in its own right.
In fact, I decided, even after I turned in this story, to go
to the bridge for the celebration and see if more people would show up and
about three of the other people instrumental
to the original project were there too. I was flabbergasted. I did not
actually think that there would be one person who was passionate about this
bridge when, in fact, there were four people!
Possible Termination
of DACA Amnesty Program Causes Community to Rally-Falls Church News Press
This is one of the most comprehensive and most significant social-impact
stories I’ve done and it definitely involved interviewing a lot of people. I
was most proud of weaving together a number of elements to present a localized
tapestry of this important issue. My story also was helped by having a guy feed
me great quotes: Lawyer Simon Sandoval-Mosheberg who was passionate, forceful
and articulate. Sometimes good articles get great assists.
CITI Open-Current Newspapers
A friend of mine from a course I took at GMU got appointed
to be the editor of Current Newspapers and he was looking for articles (Lesson:
Keep in touch with your fellow journalism students).
I had been a spectator at the CITI open for years. Not a
humongous tennis aficionado but it’s fun to watch live tennis and it’s a good
event. This past year, I was there on the first day of the main draw when there
was a torrential downpour that delayed festivities for six hours. People were
forced to wait around because refunds couldn’t be issued until the game was
officially declared. Seeing the people around me in various states of
frustration and knowing that the weather forecast was rain, rain, rain and more
rain, I decided to pitch it.
The very next day, I was fortunate to get media credentials.
As someone who had been a spectator for years, I felt like I was getting a VIP
treatment. In addition to being able to sit wherever I wanted (within reason),
having extra printouts and access to the press rooms, I could also see the
athletes lounges, attend press conferences with athletes (press conferences are
where the most newspaper-y stuff goes down in a juicy way), and was treated to
free meals while I was on the site. Considering the pay we get in journalism is
rarely a living wage, I personally think these perks are not just something we
can accept free of guilt but something that’s somewhat necessary to make the
wage sustainable. It enables a newspaper to attract a better quality of
freelance reporter if they knew they’re going to get on-site catering and free
tickets to the events. And we earn our pay through the articles we write and
strict vetting procedures.
In any case, my story was nearly pulled at the end of the
event due to feelings by people on site that I was writing too negative of a
story and my editor almost pulled the article. However, I immediately dropped
what I was doing when I heard the news and went on site to assuage all parties
on site over whatever concerns they had and smoothed things out but it was
scary in the middle. A lesson here is it’s always possible to smooth things
over though you cannot allow access to your story. It also helps if an editor
backs you. What I loved most about the final copy of this story (although the
editing still needs touching up) is that it captures such a wide tapestry and
paints a scene of this sense of frustration at something that’s not easily
fixable. Tournaments generally can’t change course that quickly and their
directors only have so many resources to fix things on the fly. But more importantly, rain just happens.
https://currentnewspapers.com/spectators-citi-open-volunteers-have-mixed-reactions-about-rain-delays/ (this article wasn't edited the way I suggested it should be written and hopefully it will be fixed at some point)
Is Being in a Symphony
Orchestra Anything Like Mozart in the Jungle-DCist/Gothamist
One of those experiences where you start to get butterflies
(from excitement) in your stomach for weeks before the interview. I've long had
a distant fascination with what it must be like to be a classical musician,
working tirelessly to improve your musicality by 0.002% to be able to edge out
another similar sounding oboist in an audition to get that job security. The
extremely exciting TV show "Mozart in the Jungle" and subsequent book
awakened that interest and gave me an immediate idea. Fortunately, the editor was also a fan of the show which helped get it greenlit immediately.
Unlike a couple of other interviews of high-profile people that were administered directly by PR people with time constraints, the natural rapport
between me and the two NSO musicians became so well-established
that any sense of constraint quickly evaporated. We soon became three people
engaged in a casual but deeply informative conversation and when the time limit
was up, no one really minded continuing.
This would have all been a great experience EXCEPT for one awful stroke of luck. My new recorder did not work. I generally take notes and record but I don't always have the capacity to write word-for-word when the recorder is on to preserve the flow of the conversation. I ended up having a couple back and forths with the PR officer of the NSO and some of the lines got cut. On the bright side, I got positive comments and actually gained a fan in Blair Tindall herself who wrote the freaking book that "Mozart in the Jungle" is based on, as well as the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra (a line in my interview references whether I would tell the difference between the NSO and Pensacola).
This would have all been a great experience EXCEPT for one awful stroke of luck. My new recorder did not work. I generally take notes and record but I don't always have the capacity to write word-for-word when the recorder is on to preserve the flow of the conversation. I ended up having a couple back and forths with the PR officer of the NSO and some of the lines got cut. On the bright side, I got positive comments and actually gained a fan in Blair Tindall herself who wrote the freaking book that "Mozart in the Jungle" is based on, as well as the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra (a line in my interview references whether I would tell the difference between the NSO and Pensacola).
Arlington’s Other
Cemetery-Northern Virginia Magazine
Some articles take a long
time to materialize and you put them on your back burner. This is one example. I
originally got the idea for the article from a guidance counselor who had a
strong interest in local affairs. He thought I should write a story about a guy
named Ned Thomas who runs a local cemetery. He didn’t know it but Ned was my
next-door neighbor. The Thomas family moved in towards the end of my college
education and I never got to know them too well, but I stopped by the cemetery
and found some fascinating facts. Columbia Gardens Cemetery was initially
founded in 1917 to receive the overfill of Arlington Cemetery, but that plan
never came to fruition. Instead, the cemetery remained in private hands with
one family continuously serving as the caretaker for four generations. This
particularly family goes back nine generations in Arlington County and has a
history that is even intertwined with Robert E Lee.
The article was originally researched in 2013
and pulled because the original subject of the article was nearing retirement
and didn't want the status of the cemetery publicized. When I called a couple
years later, the new cemetery caretaker (Ned’s sister) was actually welcoming
of publicity as she was planning for the 100 year anniversary. I also got an
assist from a local cemetery historian who gave me a tour.
Blind Hockey
Team-Falls Church News Press
Underwater Hockey Team-Northern Virginia Magazine
Underwater Hockey Team-Northern Virginia Magazine
Another
article that took a couple years to materialize was the GMU underwater hockey team and their sister club that comprises of adult players. Rather than explain this awesome and rare sport, why not show you a picture?
I read an article about how this obscure sport was being played at George Mason several years ago. When I took a journalism course in the Fall Semester of 2016 at GMU, I thought I'd check it out. The people offered me a lesson and the closest I got was watching the sport through a snorkel while people played in the next lane. But then tragedy struck! When I had most of my article complete, the members of the GMU team seemed to flake on me. I was thinking of making the 16-mile trip over to the campus to personally try to talk them back into cooperating for the finish of the article but let it go after a while. In a later stretch when I really needed an article and remembered how nice the offering pay was on this particular piece, I inquired again with the activities office and found out they had been suspended and wouldn't even be at the pool if I showed up there. Additionally, neither the sister club or GMU team had any web presence to speak of.
A couple months after that a lightbulb went off in my head. The Georgia Tech team was referenced in my article so why not contact Georgia Tech and find out what happened to GMU's team. I ended up on some national umbrella page with a link to a club that sounded similar to the old one. I ended up finding out that the old team (Beltway Bottom Feeders) rebranded as Capital Region Underwater Hockey and contacted them. The new president of the group was very amenable to continuing my story. I just turned it in three hours ago.
In an unusual turn of events, this was my second story this year that focused on an unusual variation of hockey. I experienced something equally incredible in the wide world of sports this past Spring when I saw a group of blind people playing hockey. This particular story was assigned to me by the trusty FCNP.
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