As a reporter for The D, I was assigned to cover the Winter Trustees' meeting and to summarize the results for a lead story in Monday's newspaper. This was an extremely rare and special opportunity both for myself and The D, as the Board of Trustees had never granted such a privilege to reporters.
The President's Office gave me an advanced copy of the Trustees' meeting agenda. A few days before the meetings, I conducted background research by reading previous D articles to learn what had transpired during the past couple of Trustee meetings and to grasp a better sense of issues that were likely to come up during the winter meeting. In addition, I discussed with my editors the key points to which I should be paying particularly close attention.
As I focused on the key points that I had discussed earlier with my editors, I was also strategizing my "lead" for the story. I was able to interview the Trustee Chair after the meeting ended in order to clarify some of the topics discussed and ask further questions. When I returned to the newsroom, I reviewed my notes and determined the organization and content of the article.
The finished article was edited twice -- first by a news editor who helped me to restructure the article and check quotes for accuracy, and then by a senior editor who simply tweaked and refined the article.
The campus was "abuzz" when they saw the article on the front page the next morning. I took pride in the fact that I was given such a rare opportunity to sit in at the Trustees' meeting and in the fact that I had succeeded in succinctly and accurately capturing the essence of the meeting. I was pleased that I was able to tackle a difficult subject, absorb facts and figures quickly and produce an easy-to-follow piece under deadline pressure. The editors has assigned me the follow-up story on students reactions to what had been discussed at the Trustees' meeting.
