Reflecting on the First Deadline Story of Tom Baden

I found this first deadline story to be very difficult to craft out of the wealth of information I gathered from the interview during class. I had an idea for a possible way in which to take my story going into the class, but after all was said and done I knew that my first idea would not fare well. My goal for the piece was to tell how Baden described the absence of college and high school student readers among the usual consumer populations of printed journalism and detail how they were attempting to attract them. I wanted to show them what steps are being taken and how someone with vast experience in the field of journalism feels about the current situation.

I knew going into it that this would be challenging because it is a novel experience. I felt like I was trying a bit too hard to include so many details, so I omitted what was borderline necessary. I tightened up the background information and only included a few facts I thought were key (what I thought would seem interesting to the reader and prevalent to what was already mentioned in the article.) The writing of the story was easier than the actual consolidating of the information and the choice of arrangement.

I felt that I was successful in creating a bit of conflict to lure the reader in to the rest of the story, a concept that the book mentioned in Chapter 2 if I remember correctly. The video on interviews that we watched in class was helpful to everyone who asked a question and then a follow-up to clarify. I believe that the question I asked Tom Baden was a solid one, but unfortunately it did not fit into how I ended up depicting this event. Having the background information already prepared made life much easier.

It was very interesting and rewarding to have had the opportunity to hear from one of the “gatekeepers” of the news and experience his take on this component of the media. I learned that I need to have a Plan B in terms of how the story can be written. I ended up having to rethink the way my story would go and that proved to be the most challenging aspect of writing this article.