Friday, November 7, 2014

Media Participation - Niree Turner

     
              For my media participation project, I wrote an article for a campus newspaper, Stories Beneath the Shell (SBS). This was a great experience because it was my first time writing an article for anything. I have experience on script writing and video experience but none with writing articles. This taught me a lot about the journalism world and writing about something to make it sound interesting. Writing requires more talent because although there might be pictures to go along with the story, there is no actual footage so the language has to be descriptive enough to be interesting. This is the part I struggled with the most.

               My article was a feature covering the overall concept and the challenges of small dance companies on campus. My main focus was on Forward motion Dance Company. This company is a small dance program that struggles with recruitment and funding. The same conflicts were presented when I interviewed other dance companies. I chose to write an article for SBS because I like the idea of showcasing everyone. The newspaper is dedicated to letting everyone’s light shine on campus. Most magazines and newspapers on campus cover large sports teams such as football, basketball, and soccer. They fail to recognize other organizations such as smaller sports teams and new clubs. I especially like this feature because people only hear about Maryland Dance Team and they strive to be a part of that but there are other dance companies that have unique styles and dance abilities that dancers could join.

               Writing this article did influence my journalistic aspirations in two ways. The first thing made clear to me is that I do not want to focus on print journalism. Throughout high school, I was leaning more toward broadcasting because of the internship I held at a television news station but I still was not completely sure. However, now I realize I do not like to cover stories through print. I love the excitement of video, video editing, camera work, etc. For me, video is way more exciting than print. The second thing I realized is what kind of stories I want to cover if I go into news. I would rather cover feature stories or sports. Things such as charity work, sports, and celebrity news interest me. I would rather 3work for a tabloid than a news station that covers serious news because it does not capture my attention enough to dedicate my full potential to it.  

 

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