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T h e A d v e n t u r e s o f C h i c a g o J o

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How to be a Reporter

2004-07-28� � 10:50 a.m.
Yup, that�s right. I�m sharing part of my $45,000 education with you for nothing in an attempt to make sure that anyone going into journalism gets a few things right.

I�m not a reporter. I�ve never been. However, to graduate from school with a degree in professional writing, there were a few classes I had to take that were of no interest to me. There was a creative one that was utter bullshit, and there were two journalism classes where I had to fake interest in school and current events to maintain a decent GPA.

Shoot, I even went so far as to join the school�s paper. I reviewed CDs, merely saying stuff like, �It sounds like Prince doing piano rock with Bryan Adams� romantic flair,� �This sounds like the artist is choking a cat,� and �Worst. Album. Ever.� Being musically challenged, I certainly didn�t know what I was doing. But I listened to the CDs, said what I thought (no matter how ridiculous it was), and contributed to taking up space in the paper.

My extracurricular role wasn�t exactly journalistic, but I did learn a few things in my few years at that school and at the dinky school paper.

First off, a journalist should observe the scene, not be the scene. For instance, it you�re attending, oh, say, a presentation given by a videogame guru and there�s a large RSVP list and you�re not on it, you shouldn�t throw a fit about how important you are. You should merely ask to sit in, offering to relinquish your seat to those who followed the same reservations request that you received.

Second, you should not think that your publication is hot shit when in fact no one knows of it. If you write a Chicago-specific daily tech mailer, you don�t have a huge audience. Three million people live in the city. Half of those are kids, cutting your available audience to 1.5 million. Half of those people don�t own computers, narrowing it down to 75,000. Two-thirds of those don�t work in the computer industry, tapering your potential audience to 24,750. Five-eighths of them are too busy, reducing you to 9,281. 36 of them would prefer to read Chicago�s Tap Magazine, dropping you to 9245. And, oh yeah, you being a boring jerk takes away the rest of the audience except your mother, your cousin Sparky who loans you his cable modem access to spam it out, and you-you-you, sinking your audience to basically nil. Don�t go throwing around that you�re a journalist. You�re only a journalist if someone pays to read your drivel.

When people are snickering at you being so persnickety, you really should shut the heck up.

You should not go around the room and demand that people comply with giving you their names and email addresses. Some people don�t want to talk with you, don�t want to be quoted in your article, and don�t want to be added to your subscriber list. Don�t be a jerk when they nicely say, �No thank you.�

If you come to an event on videogames, know at least a little about the industry. Do not ask what a �Next-Box� is when someone mentioned developing games for the X-Box. Your ignorance automatically diminishes your journalistic integrity.

Do not ask the presenter personal questions. Especially do not ask him what he makes. Approximates of such information are available on monster.com, and you could likely just privately ask him if this information is indeed a representative approximate. When the presenter stands a little awkwardly in front of sixty people when asked this personal question and responds, �It sure beats flipping burgers,� let it go. He doesn�t want to answer you. It�s similar to the people who wouldn�t give you their info. Let. It. Go.

If you find an audience member in the field and he doesn�t want to give you his information, don�t exclaim, �Well then I�ll find someone else to give me your information.� After such a show, everyone there will know not to relinquish your information. Heck, the presenter is inclined to give him a fake name and refer to that audience member as such from there on out.

Whatever you do, after people ask to be left alone, don�t follow them down the hallway while yelling at them. Don�t follow them through multiple hallways. Don�t stand outside their elevator and continue to shout. Shoot, the party might actually be telling the truth when they say they aren�t involved in the industry whatsoever. Your yelling and misplaced focus to get mere contact information from them (in the name of journalism, no doubt) indeed has nothing to do with the presentation you�re supposed to be reporting.

Dear readers, when those of you with hopes of a journalism career are able to take these pointers and turn it into your Pulitzer, I hope you thank me. �



Miss something?

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