Reporting is like your umbrella...

Today's post is fairly work-centric, so for those who don't care about the everyday life of a small-town journalist, feel free to stop reading. And for those who work with me, I already sort of expressed these thoughts at lunch today. As those two groups compromise basically all of my readership, I hope that no one really enjoys my pithy musings.

BR, the mythical former head of the j school at W&L (only former because on time he broke his arm and it was this whole big thing - and because the current head is an amazing human being whom I love, but still, BR runs that shit) has a favorite axiom he likes to share with us student reporters, be it at the start of Journalism 101, Beat Reporting (curse you, Rockbridge Report!) or In-Depth Reporting, otherwise known as journalism capstone, otherwise known as the spring term you only heard about because you'd sold your soul, time and life force to the gods that control the j lab.

Anywho, the words he like to share are these: "Reporting is like your umbrella. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."

The point, dear no one, is that you're way better off talking to way more people than you'll need, gathering way more information than you'll use and generally knowing more things than you tell your readers. All good advice, especially for those of us who are secretly lazy. (So, everyone.)

BUT, the problem with putting this into practice is that I tend to worry about the umbrella's feelings. Not on a day-to-day real-world basis, of course; if we go weeks without rain I'm happy not to have disaster hair all the time and don't care one bit how my umbrella feels about its lack of use. But in the metaphorical sense, I find myself feeling bad that I can't include everyone who made time to talk to me, especially if they were easy to work with and excited about the prospect of being in the paper.

Although it isn't exactly like the situation I'm dealing with right now, the best example of this came when I was an intern in Charlotte. I was asked to work on Fourth of July, "if I was free," and though I wasn't at all free and had planned to spend the weekend in Lexington, I said yes because that is what you do when you're an intern.

(Side note: As an intern, I never understand why editors asked me if I could do something, like it was a favor. Of course I can do that story, I am literally sitting her reading television recaps of a show I don't even watch.)

My assignment for the big day was a parade in a Charlotte suburb. The concluding phase of the celebration was pretty legit; all the kids had the opportunity to participate in a tug of war involving like a fire hose and this big ball filled with water. I don't really remember exactly how it worked, but it looked super fun and the kids all loved it and everything was great.

Afterward, I did the usual creepy thing of scouting out a kid who liked he'd be good to talk to, and approaching him in a way that looked the last like I was trying to nab him for maniacal purposes. Luckily his mom was with him, so I told them I'd like to ask him a few questions for a newspaper story I was doing about the event.

The mom was so jazzed, she wholeheartedly agreed. But when I asked the little boy what he thought of the tug-of-war, the best he could muster up was "It was good." Good. Not even fun, or exciting, or refreshing, or basically any other adjective.

So, that sucked. I tried to get him to share something worthwhile, but that was just not going to happen. Disappointed, I thanked him and his mom and walked away. But then I heard her on the phone a few minutes later, excitedly telling someone that "Noah is going to be in the paper!"

Of course I tried my damnedest to fit that little boy in the story. Sadly, it just didn't work. (Looking back, I think as a real reporter now I would've put him in and stuck with it and been fine. But as an intern, and since the editor that day was a notorious hacker who would basically rewrite your story, I knew Noah was not long for this world no matter what I did.)

The situation I'm in today isn't exactly like that one, nor does that one even really line up with the umbrella analogy. But it's a more active story and I like going on tangents, so deal with it.

No, what I'm dealing with today is an overabundance of reporting for a story I'm doing on internships. The story is one that had just a vague enough idea I could talk to basically anyone and get the same information, as long as I covered, colleges, students and businesses that hire interns.

I was having a hard time, initially, lining up some of those - especially the interns - and finding photo opportunities. So I put out a ton of feelers, way more than necessary, and now find myself with a dozen pages of typed notes and several college students, intern coordinators and even businesses hoping to see their name splashed across the front page come Sunday.

I generally don't feel very beholden to businesses, even if they have really helped me out, because I know they're just invested because of the whole free advertising. But this time I really think a few of them just want to talk about how much they love their intern, and I don't want to take that away from them - and they said some interesting stuff. And there's a handful that didn't say anything too great, but are one of the places we're getting photos from, and it would look less than great if we have random photos from places not even touched on in the story.

Overall, it's not the end of the world and I'm not even that concerned. I've written a 60-inch story that will likely get chopped down by my editor this evening, and I supposed I can always blame her and a lack of infinite space if these people don't get the big screen treatment.

Still, it's a bummer. Maybe it would've been better if I just let my hair get wet.