If you regularly follow my blog (so, if you are my mom or my professor), you may remember how excited I was after an interview for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service a few weeks ago. The interviewee was Torre Johnson, who was featured in our story about Wisconsin Community Services, an organization that helps individuals who have been incarcerated or are at risk of incarceration to set their lives on positive paths.
My partner for this project, Olivia Morrissey and I worked together to collect interviews, information and photos for this project. The assignment was to profile our assigned non-profit organization and create a news story, along with an audio slideshow that captured the spirit and essence of the organization.
Olivia and I started this project off to a rocky start. The organization we were originally assigned to profile proved itself to be nearly non existent. All our efforts to contact people involved with it sent us in circles. We did receive a useful bit of advice from Sharon McGowan, MNNS editor-in-chief. She asked us if we had visited the site of the organization. Neither of us had thought of such a simple solution to our problem. However, had we not been re-assigned to WCS, we would not have had the amazing reporting experience we ultimately gained.
Because of several extenuating circumstances, the first time each of us hopped on a bus to visit WCS' main office, we did so solo. I spoke with people involved with WCS, including Torre, and Olivia had the opportunity to witness the Green Trades Training Program.
After we compiled the audio and photos we'd gathered and presented it to our JOUR 1550 class, it was clear we needed to do some more reporting. Everyone in class had been enthralled with Torre and identified him as the most memorable character in our story, so we set up a time to meet with him at the Holton Youth + Family Center, where he is the site manager.
That was the day I returned home and wrote this blog post. I was excited to see that McGowan had commented on my post, saying experiences like mine are what inspired her to start MNNS. This was especially exciting to me because, when I first met her and learned about MNNS, my immediate reaction was, "That's amazing. I want to do something like that with my life!" It was more than encouraging to see that, perhaps I'm on the right path.
My partner for this project, Olivia Morrissey and I worked together to collect interviews, information and photos for this project. The assignment was to profile our assigned non-profit organization and create a news story, along with an audio slideshow that captured the spirit and essence of the organization.
Olivia and I started this project off to a rocky start. The organization we were originally assigned to profile proved itself to be nearly non existent. All our efforts to contact people involved with it sent us in circles. We did receive a useful bit of advice from Sharon McGowan, MNNS editor-in-chief. She asked us if we had visited the site of the organization. Neither of us had thought of such a simple solution to our problem. However, had we not been re-assigned to WCS, we would not have had the amazing reporting experience we ultimately gained.
Because of several extenuating circumstances, the first time each of us hopped on a bus to visit WCS' main office, we did so solo. I spoke with people involved with WCS, including Torre, and Olivia had the opportunity to witness the Green Trades Training Program.
After we compiled the audio and photos we'd gathered and presented it to our JOUR 1550 class, it was clear we needed to do some more reporting. Everyone in class had been enthralled with Torre and identified him as the most memorable character in our story, so we set up a time to meet with him at the Holton Youth + Family Center, where he is the site manager.
That was the day I returned home and wrote this blog post. I was excited to see that McGowan had commented on my post, saying experiences like mine are what inspired her to start MNNS. This was especially exciting to me because, when I first met her and learned about MNNS, my immediate reaction was, "That's amazing. I want to do something like that with my life!" It was more than encouraging to see that, perhaps I'm on the right path.