Keeping the Beat

I'm not going to lie people...this whole beat thing is starting to freak me out. The idea that I'm going to be constantly thrown into topics -- such as the ever complex world of court reporting -- without having a clue is making my knees rattle.

But like Chapter 14 said, reporters who do well in the biz have a healthy appetite to try new things. And hey...I've always been game for new things -- it's just that my job never depended on it before!

Some of the principles discussed for coving a beat seemed pretty straight forward -- the ever popular "be prepared" was there. But I guess they can't beat that into our little journalism brains enough. Because whenever I think I'm prepared I suddenly am thrown a curve ball and have to stammer some form a of on-the-spot question. So yes...be prepared!

The author also brings up the very important point of how to connect with sources. I find in interesting in beat reporting how important your relationship is with your source. But that can lead to some tricky reporting if you think about it. But as the chapter pointed out you just have to remind yourself that you're not writing for your sources, you're writing for your readers. Also it is important and useful to find something in common with the person you are trying to get information from.

All of the beats mentioned we had read about previously except for schools and religion. The religion one made me scratch my head a little. Perhaps we could discuss that one in class more. I've never heard of the religion beat. It sounds complicated to me.

The school beat was one that I had heard of before but because I grew up in such a small community with only one...cough...newspaper...if you could call it that -- I never really thought about the newsworthiness of the school budget. But it's true, citizens are interested in what is going on in their town's institutions, epically in something that effects them so directly as their children's school.

Now onto the web information. These two chapters were a little harder to digest than the first three we read last week. Maybe because it didn't have all the excitement of a crime scene and more resembled a watered down version of Judge Judy. But I did learn a quite a bit though not much sank in because of the confusing legalese.

I did not know that motions were a good source to find out what was newsworthy. I liked that the author explained the different types of motions and what each meant. My personal favorite was the Mental Competency one, which asks for a psychological evaluation to take place. Let me tell you -- there are times when I wish I could pull that one out in everyday life!

The tip on being there for the jury selection was also very helpful. I always thought that those were boring, long, tedious and had no real advantage to going to. But as the author pointed out -- going to the selection can give you helpful tips on how to contact the juror after the trial is over to get an interview. Another way to be creepy and sneaky...I like it.

In covering the civil courts I was wondering how many papers actually have reporters on the civil court beat. As the author mentioned civil courts are not regularly where one finds a newsworthy piece. But as was mentioned there are those occasional "golden nuggets" that can make for an interesting story.

The tip about being careful of reporting damages being sought was a good one. So many times you read some outrageous figure in a news article and automatically you are basis against the defendant. But the reality is that we don't understand the actual damages that took place or what kind of strategy the legal team has using that figure.

Also I did not know that settlements can be public knowledge or kept a secret at the discretion of the presiding judge. Who knew? I certainly didn't. I do feel that sometimes when the figure is not given in high profile cases involving huge corporations it is not serving the greater public by withholding information about a company they may hold stock in or buy products from.

Just a thought...