MY STORIES:
MY BLOG:
This class has really helped me become more aware of the civic duties of journalists. I felt a tremendous responsibility while writing my two stories. I was an ambassador between the message of the terrific businesses I interviewed and the public.
I found a pressure to making sure I got the right messages across. Luckily for me I found two standup businesspeople and was able to portray them in a positive light, which helped amplify their stories, which is really what I was hoping to do.
I think what I have learned about myself is that I can be flexible. Things didn’t always work out on the beat. I had one of my stories just not work out entirely. I never heard back from my sources and had to put something else together on the fly. I worked with one of my other classmates though, to figure out a new story. I was given a nice lead that I followed up on and eventually was able to find a great story with my discovery of the Versatile Image story.
I also worked on deadlines well. I really forced myself to stay within a timeline for my interviews and drafts of my article. I also wanted to give myself enough time to meet with my editors, and understand why they made the edits they did so I could try my best to adjust to them in the future.
It wasn’t always easy, but I really did try to push myself to improve from story to story and cut down on my mistakes. I didn’t necessarily always succeed but I made a real effort to improve and I think I did as the semester went on.
I do think that finding a way to continue to do community reporting might be fun. I have my own blog, I see no reason why I couldn’t find things within my community that interest me and report on them. I have learned this semester that journalism, in large part, is just asking the right questions.
I think I can find things that interest me in my community and pursue them. I really enjoyed writing business profiles, but I think I might also like to try my hand at more food journalism. I love restaurants, I love going to restaurants and I love writing about them. I see no reason I couldn’t do more pieces on them.
Overall, I had a really good semester. I came in wanting to stay away from sports and learn how to write something different.
I also wanted to learn how to become a better interviewer, how to become a better self editor and I believe I have accomplished most of those goals. I think I have learned that I am an effective writer who can get my point across. I need to work on becoming more concise, using commas more, and reading pieces out loud. If I keep working on those things though, I do think I can continue to grow as a writer.
ABOUT ME:
Eric Jensen is a radio producer at 1280 The Zone Sports Network in Salt Lake City. He also writes for The Daily Utah Chronicle website as a sports writer, covering University of Utah women’s basketball.
He is the host of the Endzone podcast, a football podcast over 350 episodes old. Eric will be graduating from the University of Utah in 2022. He has been doing writing and journalism since the eighth grade.
Eric has a passion for writing and telling stories. Though his first love is sports, he is interested in a variety of things including global events, poetry and literature, music, and culinary arts.
He recently found the desire to write profiles on local businesses in his community, including restaurants. He is also open to the opportunity to do journalism abroad.
Filed under: African American, Blogs & Bios, Student-Journalists |
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