Past The 'Keeper

Find your niche.

A big part of Grant Paulsen’s speech in class today was to find a niche for what you love to do. If you love the Washington Redskins for example — like he does — you should find a specific aspect of the team that you enjoy following. That way you will be “a little bit different than everyone else.”

The things that Grant say should stick in any young journalists mind. Why? Just check out who he really is.

As a reporter, you must be credible. That is the real difference between a reporter and an opinionated talk show host. They could talk all day long, but it is only their personal opinion.  It is not anything that is 100% factual.

The bottom line — you cannot be wrong as a reporter. You must accurately report every single story you break to the world — and there should be a lot in order to be credible.

“I’d rather get it best than get it first.” <<< That is a great quote to live by as a reporter.

You don’t just want to be the first to break a story. You want to be right, even if it is later than the other reporter who made something of the same story before you.

• DON’T BE WRONG.

Another good point: Be versatile with how you break stories. The quickest way to reach out to an audience is to go straight to the internet. Putting the story in the newspaper, a magazine, etc. is great — but it won’t give you the credibility you deserve for getting the story out quickest and accurate.

Maureen Nasser, the GMU athletic department’s Director of Communication and Public Relations since 2003, visited our Comm371 class Thursday, February 3rd. She really, really interested me with what she said. As a die-hard Washington Wizards fan, it was great to hear first-hand from someone who worked within the organization and played a huge role with the team.

Some things I learned from her:

• When she first began with the then-Bullets, Maureen’s job was way less muti-dimensional than it is today. (Clearly, with the way the internet and the writing has boomed over the recent years!)
• She explained how when she was with the Bullets/Wizards, the press needed to call her for information regarding the visiting team because there was no internet back then in 1988. Nowadays, these same people can just make a few clicks on their computer and bam. Everything (and more) that they need to know is right there for them.

Oh yeah, she also made reference to the fact that the Bullets/Wizards only made the playoffs once in her 13 years with the team. Well, nothing’s changed from back then to now!

Maureen got into how her job has changed with the new up-to-the-second style of news:

• You have to be real quick with getting information out to the press and/or the public. No more relaxation period! In the past you could take your time to get things finished about a game but not anymore.

I was on-hand at the Patriot Center writing about the men’s basketball game vs. the Towson Tigers for Connect2Mason.com. Towson was unable to get to the game on time, thus forcing the game to be postponed until the next day. I certainly was a bit bothered by their inability to show up and wondered how the fans would find out about it. Here’s how:

• Maureen and her staff used Twitter and Facebook to reach out to the Mason basketball fans to inform them that the game would be delayed, canceled, then postponed until the next day. It was a difficult time for her with all the news swirling around and what would happen with the game. Luckily, it got resolved pretty quickly.

Also, when asked about how The Washington Post looks for articles and why there isn’t many stories written about sports teams doing well besides basketball, I was very interested with what she said:

• The main thing is finding a story to write about. While lesser-known sports teams may be playing well and doing good, if there isn’t anything extremely interesting with a member of the team or something that will catch the attention of readers, there most likely won’t be anything written about them.

The example she used was that The Washington Post is coming out with a story on Mason’s forward on the basketball team, Ryan Pearson because he’s been doing well, the team’s been doing well, and this has all happened despite being hit by a car when he was 11 years old. That’s interesting, right? That’s why there will be a story on him.

Thank you to Maureen for stopping by our class! Everything we learned was very valuable information.