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How do you write a story about...

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by rpmmutant, Oct 27, 2009.

  1. 21

    21 Well-Known Member

    Every story you ever do on an individual should have personality in it, that's not the question.

    Clearly SHE'S interested in the game, and the opportunity to get on the field...why would you not ask about that? You don't think she's been asked by everyone she knows, 'So where do you change? Are the boys nice? Do your friends think you're weird?' Why not make it about the game, and how she feels about making this huge commitment, breaking the local gender barrier, etc, and not getting on the field? You can still ask all the predictable stuff, just seems very trite to focus on only on that.

    rpm--hope you'll report back here after you talk to her, it would be interesting to know what she has to say. Good luck.
     
  2. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    Nobody is saying focus only on that, just that there is nothing unique about being on a football team but barely getting to play.
     
  3. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Play the story straight. Obviously the angle is that she is a female playing football on a bad team. Go from there and you should be fine. Good luck.
     
  4. Some Guy

    Some Guy Active Member

    Frankly, it wouldn't hurt to know a little bit about everybody on the roster. Obviously, that's near impossible. But I wouldn't draw boundaries.

    Again, you don't know that. You could take a cursory look at Barack Obama and say, "There's nothing notable about this particular president except that he's black." And you'd be wrong. He has a pretty decent backstory to go along with his blackness.

    More deserving? Possibly. I don't know how intensive this beat is, but if it's like mine where you have to write every day, you tend run through story topics pretty fast. I once found myself writing a daily story about all the goofy haircuts on the team I covered. I would have killed for a "girl kicker" story that day.

    That said, maybe it's a function of geography, but the "girls playing football thing" is still enough of an anomaly where I live that the story hasn't been overdone here. Or, that I can recall, done at all. I've never been to a game that involved one. I guarantee you, if you're a fan, and you go to a game here, and a girl trots out to kick the extra point, you're going to wonder, "What's up with that?"

    And isn't that part of our job, to tell our readers, "What's up with that?"
     
  5. Some Guy

    Some Guy Active Member

    I still say this is worth a story. I know we all want to be politically correct and not point out that this particular player is (gasp!) different because she (gasp!) has ovaries. (Guess what, folks? She knows she's a girl. I'm assuming she's fine with it).

    Uniqueness -- whether one-in-a-million or one-in-the-league -- is what makes a topic, you know, newsworthy.

    I don't have a problem with pursuing this story. I'm not thrilled with it. I doubt it's going to win any Pulitzers. But neither am I aghast by it.

    Generally speaking, the only (girl, midget, one-armed quarterback, 85-pound lineman) in the league is usually worth at least exploring for a story angle.
     
  6. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    I agree with this. (I've noticed that Some Guy and I are often on the same wavelength)...

    The thing to do is report the heck out of it and try to make it as good a story as it can be -- whatever that entails and how ever it turns out. Once you talk to her, you never know, it might turn into a better story than you anticipated.

    It can be like that with literally any, and every single, kid on a team. Whatever the assignment subject, our job is to find the best angle/story and write it to the best of our ability.

    Sometimes, the story is not right there screaming out for us to do it. But that doesn't mean it isn't there.

    You've got the assignment. Do your job, and see what happens and what you can come up with. You don't necessarily always have to have a preconceived idea of how it should go.
     
  7. EE94

    EE94 Guest

    Write the story regardless of her sex.

    Here's a player that, by virtue of her team's inability to score touchdowns, and her own limited ability, has been in just two plays all season for a total of what, five seconds?

    Could be an interesting perspective piece
     
  8. rpmmutant

    rpmmutant Member

    I like the angle of writing a story about a football player who has been in two plays in seven games more than a story about a girl kicker who plays football for a team that has scored three touchdowns in seven games.
    For some reason the first idea doesn't go over well when I suggest it. Go figure.
     
  9. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    I dunno if the coach is being too wise putting a girl QB in the game to throw 3 TD passes with a 28-0 lead. I know if I were a defensive player for Ribet Academy, after she threw the first one, I'd say "she ain't walking off the field again." You're getting asskicked by 28-0 (and worse), a girl is throwing multiple TD passes on you, who'd give a shit about a 15-yard penalty and getting thrown out of the game if you bulldozed her about 10 seconds after the whistle? "You wanna play football, sweetie pie? Well, here's what playing football is about (WHAM)."

    Although it doesn't appear the Ribet Academy defense has the ability to do much of anything about it.

    Of course, I have always been an outspoken proponent of "the winning team can do whatever it wants" in runaway games and pretty much dismiss out of hand the need for the winning team to worry about running up the score, I think the thought would occur to a smart coach "if I send her out there to throw TD passes with a 40-point lead, somebody on the other team is gonna want to take her head off."
     
  10. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    One of the worst high school football programs in California probably didn't mind this positive publicity.

    Wonder what happened to her in the wake of all that . . . .
     
  11. If I was coaching and any player of mine ever did that, it would be the last time he ever saw the field.
     
  12. golfnut8924

    golfnut8924 Guest

    Going to the backups when its only 28-0? Geez, I have asshole coaches in my area who go into their no huddle offense and pass the ball -- with their starters mind you -- and use timeouts to stop the clock ............ while up 42-0 in the third quarter. Needless to say, I'll be "objectively rooting against them" when I cover them in the playoffs. Good for that coach to put the girl in. I don't know about having her throw the ball all over though.
     
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