Religulous

I had to do it. I wanted to avoid it. But, after a few weeks, I realized I couldn’t. I mean there’s four of them in a town of 800 for Pete’s sake.

I had to cover the churches this past week. I wrote three stories for this week’s paper that were centered around religion. It took every bit of me not to scream when listening to what some of the people had to say, but I guess that’s good practice. I need to be an unbiased reporter even if I am covering people who I believe are brainwashed. One woman actually talked about wishing she could go to the Wailing Wall and convert all the Jews. I’m half and half, which really means I’m nothing. One religion is as crazy as the next in my eyes. But a quote’s a quote and the more devout someone is the better that quote just may be.

The whole process represents another piece of this whole journey. It is venturing into something that I do not know. If I can cover a rodeo, I can cover the religious. Although, I think I would have an easier time staying on a bull.

Anyway, here’s to new experiences and an open mind.

Comments welcome,

Andrew

Introduction

Here's an open letter that I wrote to the people of Mineral County Montana as a way of introducing myself. It appeared in this week's paper. Here's some more stuff to check out. (That's three links, btw.):

I am the new reporter here from Albany, N.Y. You may have seen my license plates. You may have also seen me traveling around Mineral County carrying a pretty expensive-looking camera. Don’t be confused. I’m not a photographer. I’m the one making this paper look worse than it once did.

I’m a reporter, a writer. I only take pictures because my editor and publisher make me. So I apologize for any blurriness that has ensued.

With that said, I do take my writing and reporting very seriously and hope that I can bring quality news and quality stories to the county. I graduated from Boston University’s College of Communication in May with a journalism degree and began my foray on Montana just seven short weeks ago.

On graduation day, I thought I was headed for an internship at a newspaper in a Boston suburb. Things change quickly when you are 22 years old. It’s important to be able to adapt in this ever-evolving industry.

My philosophy on community news is that it should be written in an engaging way. Let’s face it, a lot of the stuff that fills this paper is not earth-shattering or ground-breaking. That’s not to say I don’t also want to do some digging. But in many ways, we are all quite lucky to live in a place where carnivals, not carnage, are most likely to be the lead story in the paper. So regardless of what the news entails, I just want to engage the county in matters that people care about. I want to tell your stories.

Because I am interested in telling stories, I have to let you know that some pieces of information will not make it in between these columns. In a story about a cancer fundraiser, I really am not interested in who won every item at a silent auction unless I am trying to fill space. That’s an important part of the fundraiser, but not really a factor in the narrative arc of the event. I’m just trying to give you a sense of the way I approach town news. I don’t see myself as a stenographer. I’m sorry if you disagree.

Still, despite the fact that my name fills these pages, this is your newspaper. I am eager to hear what you think should appear in the Mineral Independent. If you think something is important, let me know. I can be reached at 822-0041 – yes, I live in Superior – or at awaite87@gmail.com. My editor and coworkers will likely think I am crazy for putting my direct contact information in here, but I think it is important.

I want a flood of phone calls. I want to have to reject five story ideas per week because I have too much else going on. This is a small but happening place. There are a lot of issues in Mineral County. Let me know about them so that I can fill our issues with yours.

Comments welcome,
Andrew

Writing-free time

So I haven’t been writing in the blog as much as I should. This sentence is usually where I would apologize for that, but I’m not going to do so.

One of my journalism professors sophomore year said that he originally got into journalism because he thought he wanted to be a novelist. I, too, am in this field because I like to write and it is the only practical way to make writing a career. Someday, I would like to write books (fiction or non-fiction). But that professor said he no longer sees himself writing novels. He never exactly said why, but now that I am actually working as a full-time journalist, I think I know what was holding him back.

Writing is a painstaking process. So when you write for a living, you don’t really want to be writing in your free time. It’s unfortunate, but it’s just the way it works. I’m still keeping a notebook of ideas and I am always thinking about what will someday make a good book, but I haven’t actually started working on anything.

And, as you can tell, I also haven’t been diligently posting to this site. It just becomes a bit of burden after sitting at the computer and composing pieces for the paper. In London, I was craving the chance to write. I loved working at the Observer, but as you may remember, I was excited just to get one crummy byline. I don’t have that void here, which I think is a good thing. All types of writing are good practice.

The other thing about being here is that I am not meeting people in the same way that I was in London. There, a big theme was familiarizing myself with the Brits. Here, my only real interactions are the ones that occur while reporting. I don’t see the need to comment on them on this site.

Anyway, I just wanted to offer a bit of an explanation. I still enjoy keeping this blog and I am always looking for material to put in here, but it’s a quiet life in Montana. Not much to sound off about. A lot of times I would just rather enjoy the scenery. I’m actually about to go body float down the Clark Fork River for a little bit. It’s a hot, sunny day here already. And I have two stories that need to be covered this evening.

Comments welcome,
Andrew

Just some stuff

Below is a link to a story I wrote. Again, I'm not pretending that this is hard-hitting journalism. My goal in covering events like this one is to try to tell people's stories and to ultimately tell the story of the event in a meaningful way. I have tried to do that here. Relay for Life is all about beating cancer. So my task was to tell the stories of the people fighting it. I've also learned that with community journalism, the more names you can get in the paper the better.


Relay for Life

And here's a little video of some pictures from my visit to Glacier National Park. I'll put up a more thoughtful post sometime in the next few days, but in the meantime I am working on a piece about local bars serving underage kids, which I hope actually will be somewhat hard-hitting.

Pushing the limits

I go for these bike rides every couple of days partially up into the mountains in order to sit by one of the many creeks that flow here. I find them to be very peaceful to sit next to and think. The noise of the flowing water makes me feel less embarrassed if I slip up and actually verbalize some of my thoughts. (There are not even 1 million people in this state, what the heck am I worried about?)

As I was biking away from Trout Creek the other evening, I thought to myself (or did I say it?) how beautiful of a spot that was. I never would have seen that spot if not for this whole thing. I never would have made it to such a remote and placid place. But then I thought that it isn’t that remote of a place because it is right off of a road. How remote can any place be if it is right off a road? I was slightly upset that this beautiful spot was not in the farthest away of locations.

But that’s silly. I’m in MONTANA for crying out loud. Everything out here is remote.

I think that’s one of my biggest issues. I have trouble being satisfied with the place that I am living. Last summer I lived in Boston. Well, actually, I lived in Allston. Allston is a neighboring town of Boston, but you could walk between the two and not know you were in differently named places. But see, when I was living in Allston, I always had the desire to be more down town. I would be happy to make it as far east as Kenmore on a walk because that actually felt like I was in the city.

This past year I lived in South Campus (right near Fenway). Walking to Kenmore from there did NOT feel like I was in the city. It was too close to home to be really down town.

In London I was unsatisfied to hang around South Kensington (the richest section of London) simply because it was where I was living. I wanted to be “out” in the city. Whatever that means.

When living in cities, I always seem to desire to be more in “it.” Now that I am out here in “God’s country,” as a woman I met while reporting calls it, I want to be more out of “it.” I can’t really explain why, nor do I really want to rid myself of that feeling. I kind of like it. It gets at my curiosity and forces me to never be satisfied. Some may look at that as a bad thing, but I see it as motivation. Here’s to pushing the inner and outer limits.

Comments welcome,

Andrew

July 4th Pics:

Supposed to be

Today was supposed to be my first day as a co-op at the Patriot Ledger. My how things change. It's crazy to think about everything I have been through during what was originally going to be my last summer vacation. I've certainly missed out on a lot, and who knows what I am missing by not working at the Ledger, but I've also certainly gained a lot by moving out here.

Here are some links from this week:

Concert

Golf

Hard news (just in case you thought it was all fluff and fun out here)