Torture at the Projects.
I remember almost tearing up to find out I’ve been selected to take part in NAHJ’s Student Projects. After seeing what student members did last year at Unity, I felt inspired. But that quickly change.
We were told to write story ideas for Puerto Rico’s El Reportero Latino Digital. I came up with a few, one was the Pasofino horses. I pictured myself doing a video package on these breed of fine horses. I pictured myself doing so much. Working happily from 9 until 10p.m…But that wasn’t the case. I got a story about Puerto Rico’s government going bankrupt. It was a print and audio feature…I was dissapointed at first, but I knew that this would be easy and I could then move forward to do a video or photo story. I struggled to understand puerto rico’s government because it was all in spanish. I sent links to my mentor to help me read the budgets, but I received no response or help. Instead I used google translate to do my best. I was having a hard time trying to find a teacher who lost their job in puerto rico. I talked to almost everyone I knew who had family and none of them knew no one. I though my mentor would know but no. She didn’t even bother to find someone for me, I knew I had to do it myself. But a little help would have been nice. Everyday I made calls, sent out emails. Until the brilliant idea of facebook came to my head. although I did find a couple of teachers, I didn’t find one that had lost their job although they did lose their priviledges from the government cuts. I finished my story at 1:30 a.m. I spent 3 hours with my mentor on the phone and walaa we were done.
I knew the audio portion of this story was going to be difficult, but not as stressful as it was going to be. The first day in the newsroom at Puerto Rico, I made calls using the only phone in teh newsroom trying to find a teacher who was affected. I still couldn’t, all the orgs I reached to like FMPR were liars…Especially Rafael Feliciano. He told me he was goine for the week I was going to be in Puerto Rico and when I visited the Department of Education, I saw him there at a press conference. He looked at me and I at him, I stared him down as he was passing along info. He then turned to someone who I was talking to about what was the press conference about and said. “Do they need more info?” I said no, so we left….
That made me angry, but what made me more angry was that I booked three interviews on Tuesday that all had to be canceled for Wednesday because of a change of story ideas. I wasted an entire day booking interviews for nothing……But here’s what happen before hand….
We were about to change story ideas, which I was so happy because I wanted to do more than just sit all day in the newsroom with the phone reaching out ot people who wouldn’t talk. But my mentor forced me to keep at it. We met up at the bar at the Caribe to see what we were going to do withi my story. I saw everyone else working on videos, photos, and blogging and twitter. While I got stuck on a story that wasn’t going anywhere….I was then sad to hear that my pasofino story pitch was given to someone else who did a wonderful story package on it. I was so sad to find this out…But glad that at least my pitch was worthy enough…So I waited and called my mentor to talk…I haven’t eaten anything that day and a couple of my friend were going out to eat. I wa sabout to go in the taxi until she appeared…and then we left to the bar…I had a drink with her to discuss the story and then she told me to reach out to a teacher who I talked to. We actually made her come by the hotel. She came and we talked for 2 hours…I was weary and hungry, and sometime couldn’t pay much attention tot what was happening. The teacher talked about how her school is detoriating even though it’s 3 years old and then the story started to change.
The next day I booked 3 interviews for the story about layoffs, and cancled all of them. We were focusing on corruption inthe government and looking at the department of education budgets and things that I wasn’t too familiar about…I struggled because this story was getting more difficult to do in a time spam of 2 days. These type of stories take a month do complete and I only had two days with an agressive mentor who criticized me all the way. I remember at one point, i said to myself. “I’m horrible, why can’t I understand this.” My mentor turned to me and attacked me saying “then why are you here?” “You should have given this opportunity to someone else who wanted it.”
My heart broke, who the hell is she to tell me this. I wanted to be there. I wanted to work and report, but I just couldn’t understand where this new story was going. i was confused which made me frustrated, I was angry to be left out on so many stories I could have done if I didn’t have the hardest story out of all student projects. I missed out on doing everything just to keep at this audio story that wasn’t going anywhere because it was difficult to book interviews in a day.
That day at the bar with the teacher, we booked an interview with her at her school. I was excited that I would be done and could do an audio slide show…but that day my mentor went out with the other mentee. She told me she’ll be back before 12. And she never came…we missed out on two interviews with this teacher because o f her. I was then stuck again trying to find more interviews…I didn’t even know what what happening anymore with my story. I wanted to change it. I wanted to cover something else so badly. My mentor then criticized me. She thought I didn’t do any broadcast writing or written any stories before. She made me feel uselss that why was I even going to be a reporter. My self esteem went down, I couldn’t find another way to fire back at her to show her all my stories I have done…I was just not used to doing an investigative piece in two days. I was stressed out trying to book interviews for a topic I was unaware of the focus. My eye started to swell up, I had to hold back tears because I saw everyone else hard at work doing what they loved. I wanted to be stressed out on a story I understood. I would give a 16 hour day on it, but not ona stoyr that kept changing focus and I had to take in so much information at a time that I lost my head. I wanted to tell her I had dyslexia, Auditory Processing Disorder. It was hard for me take in so much new info in spanish. My mentor instead criticized me again thinking I had never done reporting….She told me if my school was doing the right things to prepare me. Columbia has prepared me, but her mentorship was just a waste on me. She was supppose to inspire me not let me down. It was her fault I had to cancel all my interivews for the first story focus. I could have been done a while ago, but she took the story to a different focus trying to relate it back to my original idea which lost me.
I saw everyone else working on their awesome stories w hile I again in the newsroom trying to read government documents that I couldn’t understand all that well. I told a student to help me and she made me understand the budgets. Something my mentor didn’t even bother to do. Although she did help me and stood by me with this crazy story, she didn’t offer me support. I knew some days you would come across people that are tough, but not this tough..I’m here to learn, to take on stories,but not stories that change focus everyday..booking new interviews, canceling them, booking new ones again.
I prayed to god to understand what the new story focus was about. I prayed to go back to the original story idea, but nooo….My mentor came back from a shoot with the other student. That day we left to do two interviews. She had me in the newsroom until 11. I couldn’t go on writing a script because we didn’t have the interviews we needed. Only two government officials who werent even that great…I like to take my time to write a script and at 10:30p.m my head was already drifting. I didn’t knwo what I was writing. A reporter should know, I’m barely learning about the government and budget proposals, and to learn this in a day was tough. I tried writing a script with her and I was struggling, i told her I don’t fully understand the story that well. There is just so much going on. She kept on crticizing me. I only listened to her disturbing voice. She told me she could be doing something productive then wasting her time with me her ein the newsroom and we stopped.
that night, I cried my eyes off…I prayed to go to let me understand the focus in the story to guid me about the government I barely was learning about. I needed more time on a story like this then just one night. I transcribe the other day an interview we did for nothing. We dind’t even use that interview. I could have been taking photos or writing a new story or doing another story abotu Puerto Rico. But noo….I just had to be stuck with the most difficult story that should have been given to someone native to the land tha tunderstood their government.
I broke down in stress, just thinking about the horrible day ahead again. Another day of silent scorn. I wanted to run away….I consulted with other students who supported me all the way.I relaxed with them in the lobby around 1.am. and i saw my mentor. I knew if she would have seen me she would have yelled at me because I couldn’t go on in concnetrating on writing the script of a story I couldn’t understand still. So I ran away. My friend took me by the hand and I ran into my room.
The next day I talked to Doug and told him, i can’t do another long day witha story that might not even go anywhere because the teacher who we focused on didn’t return our calls…we were suppose to visit a school an hour away to see who we can talk to, but I knew if we went I would have lost so many hours of writing s cript and getting this story done. It was already the last night, everyone else was done with their awesome stories except me.
We didn’t end up going to the school after we agreed to work with what we had. It cut donw on stress but we had it done.
I’m not proud in my piece at all. I knew I could have done so many better things than this story. I lost out in valuable learning experiences and gained 300 dollars worth of phone bills.
I don’t want to be an agressive mean reporter, I want to be me. My mentor molded me into someone I wasn’t. If I did things my way and sticked to my original story idea, everything would have been fine.
I just hated my experience, I lost inspiration in journalism. I realized that reporters are just people who want their voices to be heard and self to be seen…I thought a reporter was someone who reached out to people and their stories. That helped them instead of being angry at them. I learned a lot in my experience with a story that just wouldn’t work out, I learned to text, call and be agressive to people. I know people hate me now, I know my mentor thinks I’m stupid, but she hasn’t seen anything of me yet. I’ve worked on more videos than she has. I know my broadcast. I just didn’t understand my story focus…and we didn’t have the sources to make the story alive because she missed out on my interviews…..
When I’m a mentor, I will guide my student and encourage them. I will teach them waht they don’t know. I will tell them if this story doesn’t work out, go get another one instead of wasting your time on a story that is meant to be left for someone who has a month to work and investigate it. I will be a kickass mentor instead of a mentor or litterlaly kicked my ass and made me feel stupid and uninspired.
I didn’t get to do what I wanted at all at the student projects program. Although I did meet a lot of amazing people.
Government is not my strength, which is why they have politcal reporters out there to deal with this problem….
I just seriously wish I did more than be stuck on a story that still didn’t work out in the end…
