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Where Sime and Gen Meet, Creativity Happens
Workshop: "Not What I Wrote" part II, Finding the Journalistic Formula.
An Addendum to Not What I Wrote:
Finding the Journalistic Formula
Or the continuing adventures of Anne Pinzow, girl --
ahem, woman reporter.
by
Anne Phyllis Pinzow
When we last left our intrepid journalist, she had just saved Superman's life by throwing the Kryptonite... oh, sorry, wrong universe.
As you might remember from my previous essay on writing in the "real" world, I was complaining about the chop job done on one of my articles. A lot of other people had complained about it too. It was reported to me that the paper received over a hundred letters to the editor, only one of which was ever printed, commenting upon the lack of coverage of the event.
That's the nicest way to put it. Actually, it was whispered to me in the darkest recesses of the lady's room, that they (the writers of the letters) wanted my head and they didn't care if the platter was silver or not.
So, it wasn't my fault, so it was the editors'. Actually, that doesn't really change anything. Another lesson in the "real" world is that if your name is on it, you are the one to get the blame. But, as a true professional, I wore my body armor all the way to the bank as I cashed my check and wished that there was a Superman to set things right.
But there isn't, and life goes on.
A few weeks and stories later I was assigned a graduation story. What can I say, it's June and every graduation in the county gets, hopefully, equal coverage.
Unfortunately, one of these graduations started at 8 p.m. and of course, I got that one. There was only one problem, no one told me that the deadline was 10 p.m. So, at 10 p.m., after watching a thoroughly enjoyable and picturesque graduation, I was walking to my car, thinking of my lead and organizing my story.
At 10:15 I strolled into chaos.
"Anne, I figured you weren't told that you had to have your story shipped by 10 p.m. or you would have been here. They're holding the page for you. I wrote out the formula, you fill in the blanks with quotes."
Hugh? Holding the page, that costs tons of money. Okay, fill in the blank journalism.
And that's exactly what it was. According to the editor, since all graduations are the same (and I thought it was our job to show how each one was different), the editor just got the basics from the photographers notes and wrote an outline. As it turned out, I had quotes from people who she didn't know I'd get quotes from and so the story did come out a little bit better than it might have.
But, it was still a fill in the blank story.
The formula was:
Physical description of the location in 25 words or less.
Quote from happy graduate.
Theme of graduation
Quote from Valedictorian
Quote from Salutatorian
Quote from Principle
Achievements of school
Quote from happy parent.
And this has to be done in 10 inches. Newspaper articles are not measured by words but by column inches. Ten column inches are approximately 300 to 350 words, depending on the length of the words and size of print.
Here's the story and I've put in bold the parts that were written by the editor and in italics the part the editor did not expect to get. Everything else was "fill in the blanks." However, to give credit where credit is due, the editor did have to have a certain amount of faith in the intrepid reporter, that I would get the quotes she wanted.
Nyack High grads, music teacher honored at festive ceremony (headline is not mine)
ANNE PHYLLIS PINZOW
Special to The Journal News
NYACK - There was certainly no forgetting this was the class of '99 lined up on McCallum Field last night. The scoreboard was lighted with the year, surrounded by 9's all around.
Under the watch of the old high school's clock tower, 186 graduated from Nyack High School under a perfect three fourths of a moon. There was low humidity, but high spirits in the football stadium.
"This has been a great year. I've made lifelong friends," said mark Cooper, 18 of Nyack. He plans to go to Pace University and study sports business.
The students of the last class to leave Nyack in the 1900s heard from their counterpart at the midpoint of the century, James Sterns, class of 1949.
Sterms reflected on how different things were when he graduated, yet how much they are the same. He urged students to remember the past and use it to change the future.
Several past students of retiring music teacher Bert Hughes sat in when the jazz ensemble performed. David Quintane, graduate of the class of 1983, drove from Colorado to play in the band. "A lot of the kids love him. He is that kind of teacher," he said of Hughes. "He made a difference in so many lives."
Hughes found that the students, in turn, had touched his life. "What a great job a teacher has. This has been the most wonder life a person can have," he said with tears in his eyes as he saw all the alumni who came to honor him.
Ira E. Oustatcher, principal of the school, spoke with pride as he remembered many of the things that made the class stand out. "We were named in U.S. News & World Report as one of the best schools in the nation. This senior class gave 140 pints of blood during a blood drive and won the Chairman's Award from the Hudson Valley Blood Services. We had volunteers in the volunteer fire department, ambulance corps and hospital."
David Dickson of Upper Nyack was there to watch his daughter Jane, graduate. She's going to Tulane University for Latin American studies and music.
"This has been one of the most remarkable classes," he said, adding that all her studies, especially those with Hughes, are going to help her in the future.
You can see how much of the space allowed is wasted on description of the area. Well, the editor had to "fill" space because she didn't know what I'd come back with, of if I would come back.
Again, from the deepest recesses of the ladies' room I found out that they actually called the hospitals, sent some people to look for me and called the police, sure that my not being back could only mean that something dire had happened to me.
Now, the whole idea of fill in the blank journalism might seem a bit repulsive to anyone with an artistic soul (or thought that they actually do get to read the facts in a newspaper). However, remember, I'm doing this for the money. As I said in my previous essay, the more stories I do the more I get paid so it behooves me to do more. If all I have to do is fill in the blanks, that makes my life immeasurably easier.
And, if you think about it, it makes the editor's life a lot easier too. I only have to write one, two or three stories. The editor has to edit the entire newspaper. It's quite a job, reading each article several times, dealing with several score of egos and making sure that everything said is substantiated. That is the only way to get a newspaper out by deadline every single day.
Yes, occasionally there is room for art, and I've had a chance or two at those types of stories. But most of the time, it's formula.
This is very much the same as writing a television show. There's a formula and you follow it. Certain things must happen at certain times. A new script must be ready every week and in order to do that, week after week, after week, the writers follow a formula, or fills in the blanks. That's why many television shows seem to look so much alike. They are.
Well, back to the fill in the blank story.
I filled in the blanks. Personally, I don't think the story was all that good. And despite all this cynicism, I do try to make the stories good.
However by the next graduation I had to cover, I finally had caught on. It did make my life easier. For one thing, I didn't go running around interviewing everyone I could grab. Once I got the 'right' quotes, I was out of there, back to the office to write up the story.
Ramapo grads a diverse group (again, the headline is not mine)
ANNE PHYLLIS PINZOW
Special to The Journal News
SPRING VALLEY - Flags from 56 countries waved in the hot breeze yesterday as 399 graduates, whose hermitages the flags represented, marched onto the Ramapo High School football field.
Students of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds came together to help one another with their studies.
Matthew Seltzer, 17, of New City, is one of these students. Graduating with honors, Seltzer suffers from Tourette's syndrome. "I feel honored to graduate with this class," said Seltzer in the principal's office before the ceremonies. "My friends really helped me."
Seltzer is going to Albany University and plans to become a financial administrator.
The spirit of diversity was exemplified by the salutatorian, Roger Cheng, 17, of New City, and his cousin, Tzu-Huan Lo, 18 of New Hempstead by way of Taipei, Taiwan.
"Walk into the school and look around," Cheng said in his speech to the crowds overflowing the bleachers. "You would probably be surprised to see so many Asian, African, European and Hispanic students in the same building."
Lo, who tutored English as a Second Language students, said in his speech, "We should be emissaries of peace. We should make sure that the Ramapo legacy lives on."
Cheng will be studying electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University, and Lo will study microbiology at Harvard University.
"Ramapo is about helping individuals," Steven Unger, principal of the school, said in his office before the ceremonies. Many of the senior students participated in peer mentoring programs. "Of the seven National Merit finalists in the county, five of them are from Ramapo and of those, three are winners." Ramapo graduates received more than $2 million in scholarships this year.
Maria Claude Jean-Charles of Spring Valley, by way of Haiti, spoke with pride of her daughter Marlyne, who will be studying medicine in Georgia. "I was waiting so long for her to get to this point. I'm very happy. She stayed in school. She made it work."
On the second story you can see that there is little wasted space. The very good reason is because I did catch on to the formula. Once that is accomplished then the artist in your soul is challenged to work within the commercial framework and still come up with something interesting.
Okay, this isn't high art, low art or even art. But the second story, where I learned the formula, is smoother and has more of a theme.
So as Anne Pinzow continues to build her career covering scandal, crime and wars, Clark Kent wishes she would just notice...
Oops, sorry... back imagination, back. Make the money, then you can come out and play.
SEE all of Anne Phyllis Pinzow's Writer's Workshop articles. Go to the Workshop top page, on the left click Choose A Teacher, then click Anne's name for the index to all her articles.
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This Page Was Last Updated 03/09/01 12:59 PM EST (USA)
