International Reporting 2020

Class Agenda: Thursday, September 10

Discussion: Checking in on Beat Memos

Beat memos and community leader interviews are due today. Discuss any questions or issues that came up over the course of doing these. Who did you speak to? Was it useful? Are any of you reconsidering your beat for the semester? What’s the best way to approach a potential source for a story?

Upcoming Due Dates

Pitches for your first story will be due by class time next week, on Thursday, Sept. 17. We will workshop your ideas together as a class.

Your first story will be due on Thursday, October 8.

Story Guidelines

If you choose to do a print story, it should be 800 words and there should be at least one photo. You don’t have to check out a DSLR camera for this; your phone is perfectly fine. You just need some sort of visual to run with it. It can be a photo obtained by a source if necessary, as long as you credit them.

You may also choose to do a video. It should be a two- to three-minute video; whether narrated or non-narrated is up to you. You may also opt for a text “narration.” If you prefer to do something a little more broadcast (with a standup, for instance) and a little less web video, that’s fine.

If you choose to do a photography project, there should be 12-20 photos. This can be in slideshow form with strong, informative captions, or you can lay them out in a blog post where the photos are interspersed with text as you scroll down. Captions should be written in complete sentences, 1-4 sentences per image.

If you choose to do a radio story, it should be a three-to four-minute narrated package with sound bites from at least two separate interviews and one natural sound (plus ambi). Give yourself a sign-off: “For Baruch College, this is ____ _____ in ______.” Your scripted host intro can serve as your intro paragraph for the blog, and you should also include at least one photo.

Pitch Guidelines

You will send this pitch to me, but you will write it with a specific publication in mind. Find an editor contact at that publication and address it to them. Many outlets will list a public email address for pitches, but it’s usually better to identify the specific editor who handles the desk responsible for your beat/region and send it to them directly. It can help to name-drop mutual friends/contacts, especially if that’s how you got their contact info.

You can choose whichever medium you prefer for the story; make sure you address this in your pitch.

A good pitch accomplishes several things:

  • It tells the editor why the story is newsworthy and identifies your angle.
  • It shows that you have done your research and recognize that this story is a good fit for their publication. (Maybe you even butter them up a little by mentioning a story of theirs that you really admired.)
  • It tells them who you are and why you are the right person to deliver this story. Link to your website if you have one. (And if you don’t have one yet, you really should consider creating one if you plan to work in journalism.)
  • It is medium-specific. If you plan to do video, describe the treatment you have in mind. If it’s a radio piece, describe the scenes and the tape you have or anticipate getting, and write it in more of an ear-friendly style. Here’s an example of a treatment for a documentary:  Treatment Result

A pitch should essentially look like the top of a story. By that I mean you should have a clear lede and nut graph. (Quick review: what is a lede and a nut graph?)

  • A lede hooks the reader. It can take many forms: anecdotal, straight news, teasing the reader by inverting expectations, etc.
  • A nut graph puts the story in context and tells readers why the story matters
    • “So what?” — it tells readers why they should care about the story
    • It provides a transition from the lede to the rest of the story
    • It often tells readers why the story is timely
    • It contains the story’s angle

The length of the pitch should also roughly be proportional to the length of the finished piece you have in mind. For instance, if you’re planning on writing a 6,000-word magazine piece, the pitch will be a lot longer than a pitch you’d write for an 800-word story you’re proposing (which realistically might be 250-300 words, not counting the small talk.)

Once you have a relationship with an editor, the pitch process doesn’t always need to be quite so formal. Here is an exchange I had with my editor at Mashable while following up with him and Accounts Receivable about a payment on my previous story:

—

Emily H. Johnson <[email protected]>

to Dustin

Thanks, I really appreciate it! I know it’s not your fault!

Quick update about what I’m working on these days: Later on today I’m going to check out a story I’m pretty excited about—a Kenyan ice hockey league at the only ice rink in East Africa. From what I understand, it was started by expats about ten years ago but a good number of Kenyans have joined and are getting pretty good. Long-term, they hope to put together a national team.

Hoping my vision for an “African Cool Runnings” kind of story will prove to be apt, because I have a feeling hockey fans around the world will go nuts over it. They meet every Wednesday night and have told me I’m welcome to come tonight, so I’ll get some initial images and let you know what I find!

—

Dustin Drankoski <[email protected]>
2/17/16
to me


Still super sorry, it’s shitty it took them this damn long to get back to you. Also news to me that we pay net 30 now. Used to be 15 days.

I really really dig the ice hockey story! Let me know how it’s shaping up and send some images through when you check it out and I’ll see if I can find room in the budget.

d

—

Emily H. Johnson <[email protected]>
Attachments
2/18/16

to Dustin

No worries, I appreciate you stepping in! Cutting things close sometimes is part of the freelance deal. It’s just crucial to know how close in advance so I can minimize the damage. ????

Hockey night was awesome. There were five Kenyan guys there last night and they were really pretty good; I spoke with most of them and they’re totally fine with being interviewed/photographed.

The team was recently invited to Morocco for an African ice hockey tournament but they couldn’t raise the funds to go, so they’re trying to organize a similar event later this year and host it here in Nairobi. The hotel where the rink is located currently sponsors skating lessons for some Nairobi school kids, so I definitely plan to go one Sunday morning and get some images of that, because c’mon, little kids learning to ice skate!

I’m attaching a handful of images: Some of the players wear awesome hockey jerseys with the Kenyan flag and the letters “KH” for “Kenyan Hockey.” There’s also a room full of rental skates and other gear that had to be imported from Canada. It’s pretty dark in there so I’ll need to go back with a different lens and a flash to get some decent action shots.

But there’s potential for visuals beyond the rink as well. A couple of the guys I spoke with said they initially got their start playing roller hockey and invited me to come check it out—they play every Sunday in a parking lot. Street hockey out in the bright sun of Nairobi would help drive home that we’re on the equator and be a nice visual counterpoint to the darker, colder rink, which has alpine murals all over the walls.

Let me know what you think! And I’ll actually be in New York next week for a short visit. Would love to come by the office and say hello if you’ll be around!

Kenya’s first ice hockey team has Olympic dreams

Here’s a more formal pitch I sent to an editor I had worked with before but not recently.

 

Emily H. Johnson <[email protected]>
Attachments
Feb 8, 2017, 12:54 PM
to Jennifer

Hi Jennifer,

It’s been awhile! I hope you’re doing well. I recently returned from a reporting trip to Uganda with a story that I think is really important, and would be great for The World.
—

When most people think of the world’s biggest refugee crisis, they think of the people risking everything to reach Italy and Greece by sea—a crisis that is staggering in size. In all of 2016, there were over 360,000 boat arrivals in Europe.
They may be surprised to learn, however, that 445,000 refugees have crossed into northern Uganda just since July 2016 as they flee the brutal conflict in South Sudan.
“It has been unrelenting,” said Nasir Fernandes, UNHCR’s senior emergency coordinator overseeing the Uganda crisis. “It has been a massive scale emergency.”
Six months ago, the world’s second-largest refugee hosting site, Bidibidi settlement, was a sparsely populated expanse of scrubland. After topping a quarter of a million people in December, it was closed to new arrivals. A second camp, Palorinya, is already well on its way to being filled and UNHCR is preparing a third to accommodate the steady flow of people. About 2,000 are crossing the border on average per day, most of them on foot.
There has been very little coverage of this situation, which is hard to believe having just witnessed the scale of it. I spent a week reporting there at the end of January, and while the situation is desperate, there’s also cause for optimism. This is because of Uganda’s surprisingly humane refugee policy that relief workers are touting as a model for the rest of the world.
Refugees are given freedom of movement, the right to work, and plots of land to live on and to farm. The relief effort, though stretched, is nonetheless highly organized. And in this age of fear and suspicion toward migrants, Ugandans in the surrounding communities have been refreshingly welcoming toward the refugees. Many are former refugees themselves, and the influx of people has created business opportunities.
This feature will be sound-rich. I visited the border and recorded refugees crossing into Uganda on a squeaky, rickety wooden bridge as rebel soldiers watched from the other side. I went to Palorinya settlement area and recorded the sound of more than 3,000 people being herded onto buses and trucks and driven to an inhospitable patch of desert where they will make their new homes. I also have tape of women singing and drumming at a women’s center, and of dozens of children playing at a playground—a full 68 percent of the refugees in this crisis are under the age of 18.
I have interviews with quite a few recently-arrived refugees: For the story obviously we’ll have to pick only one or two to focus on, but we have options depending on the angle we want to take:
Some had terrifying accounts of watching their families and neighbors be killed by sadistic government soldiers, while others had happier tales of being reunited with loved ones once they arrived in Uganda. There’s also a 21-year-old girl who helped five orphaned children escape over the border. UNHCR’s Fernandes spoke to me at length about the scope of the situation and how Uganda’s progressive policy has helped the relief effort run immeasurably more smoothly. Finally, I interviewed Ugandans from the surrounding community about why they’ve been so welcoming to the South Sudanese. “You never know when this might happen to you,” said one.
I have images to accompany the story online; I’m attaching a handful to give you a sense of the visuals. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Best,
Emily

Jennifer Goren <[email protected]>
Feb 10, 2017, 3:39 PM
to me

Hi Emily,

Nice to hear from you. We did do a digital story on this this week on PRI.org, but I would still be interested in a radio piece.

I’m especially interested in the part of your pitch about how the community in Uganda responds to the influx of refugees, and that Uganda has an unusually humane refugee policy. Perhaps we could choose one refugee, and one Ugandan to focus on.

What do you think?

Jennifer

Emily H. Johnson <[email protected]>
Mon, Feb 13, 2017, 9:51 AM
to Jennifer

Hi Jennifer,

Glad you want the story! Yes, I think that would work well structurally. There are a couple of pairings I’m thinking of that would work. I’ll go through my recordings and get started on a script today. When would you like to see that by?

Emily

Uganda has been a welcoming place for South Sudan’s refugees

 

Discussion: What makes a good story?

What is news?

There are a number of different, oft-overlapping factors that can make a story newsworthy. Most good stories have at least two or three of these.

  1. Novelty: Is there an element of the unexpected? A twist of the usual narrative?

  • Timeliness: In breaking news, you’re quick or you’re dead. But it’s important to be first AND to be right. Timeliness is also relevant when it comes to something called a news peg. Have a story about climate change that you think is great but which has been rejected by multiple editors? Try pitching it ahead of the global climate change summit. Have a story about the public health crisis caused by open defecation in India? Wait until World Toilet Day rolls around, then pitch it.
  • Impact/Consequence: Is it about something that will have a direct effect on someone, especially the outlet’s readership/viewership? Contaminated water, public school funding, etc.
  • Proximity: The above mentioned contaminated water isn’t particularly big news to a small town newspaper in Connecticut if it’s happening in Ukraine, but if it’s happening right in their town, that’s huge news.
  • Conflict: This is why people often criticize “the media” for being so negative, but it’s unavoidable to some extent. The millions of people who don’t get murdered each day aren’t news. The few who do are. Conflict doesn’t have to be violent or super dramatic; it just means that tension has arisen between people who want different things. Lawsuits, NIMBYs getting mad about vendors in their local parks, etc.
  • Human interest:  This is a little tricky to define, but generally speaking, people are interested in other people. Looking into someone else’s life as part of a well-told narrative appeals to human nature. Ideally, a human interest story will have some other news element to help it get some traction (a news peg of some sort). Some stories, like this one, are pegged to something that happened awhile ago but it was such a huge, news-cycle-dominating story when it happened that people remember it well and tend to prick up their ears when they see some sort of follow-up.
  • Prominence: Imagine this headline: “Area Woman Announces She’s Expecting Twins.” No one cares. Now try this: “Cardi B Announces She’s Expecting Twins.” Prominence is obviously a subjective thing, and it can sometimes be tricky when it comes to ethics because it plays into who is fair game as a public figure. That’s why this Gawker story was so controversial.

Asynchronous Learning: