Spot News

I had to do my first spot news the other night. I got a call from the volunteer fire chief about a fire that ignited on a semi-trailer on route I-90. By the time I got the call, it was over, so I simply had to write the story based on what he told me. Not really all that exciting, but there is something to be said for the thrill of having to write a story quickly.

Still, spot news has never really been my forte. Even in college, I tried to avoid it. I avoided it mostly because it usually required a lot of running for a non-story. A few one-mile sprints down to Kenmore from the old FreeP office only to find out that a phantom fire alarm had gone off, and I quickly realized I never wanted to do that again. When I was editorial page editor, I used to snicker quietly whenever I heard sirens, knowing full well I wouldn’t be the one to chase them.

But more than just not wanting to run, I never cared about spot news because it’s not really what I’m about. I’m not about the quick thrills. Some people get a rush by getting to a disaster site and reporting the story as fast as is accurately possible. To me, that’s not what I enjoy. I’ve done it, and am happy to do it, but it isn’t my preference.

In my mind, that kind of journalism is superficial. It’s bang, bang what happened. I’d rather delve deeper. I want to know why, who this impacts? Could it happen again? What’s the human element?

I think you can classify journalists in part by how much they enjoy spot news. There are those who live for it. They want day after day to chase the scoop and report the facts. It’s an important job.

But then there are those who would like to take a moment to reflect. They’d write the day-after feature trying to make sense of it all. I think that’s more where I fall.

But when you’re young, you have to do it all. And I think that’s good. It takes doing it all to know what you prefer.

With that, here's another story I wrote for this week's paper. I wrote a bunch more that I will put on the Web site soon. Once I do that, I will link them from the blog. My favorite story is one about the Lolo National Forest receiving stimulus money without being able to guarantee that local contractors will get the work.

Comments welcome,
Andrew