Wowzer! Lots of goodies to share, but I will control myself and post only two. Both are profile pieces. Read them separately or together, regardless these are great pieces we can learn a lot from.
1. This piece focuses on an immigrant family in New York. The family is struggling because the mother and father and daughter are still not legal residents. The son, born in the US is. But, he wants to return home to Ecuador. The piece delves into the sacrifices and sufferings of the family.
2. This piece focuses on a 100 year old Red Sox fan and his return to the position he held back in the early 20s: bat boy. A great special interest profile piece.
How could we incorporate more in-depth pieces into The Voice? And how could we do more single person/single interest profile pieces?
Share your brilliance -- by the end of the month (that means THURSDAY).
18 comments:
The piece about the Red Sox bat boy was quite sweet, particularly that someone thought to allow him to come back and celebrate with the team that he clearly loves so much.
More generally, I think that more pieces like this would be great to incorporate into the Voice as they are enjoyable to read even if you don't know much a about the subject/person being discussed.
Maybe we could use this idea and tell stories of some specific teams/players on campus? Or maybe some people who do some intensive activity off campus that others might not know about? If we didn't want to focus a whole article on one person, we could choose a theme and a few people.
Legal and Illegal:
What a story. I really enjoyed reading the article for it was both emotional and intellectual. I learned ALOT, and formulated a few cool ideas.
Mary asked, how can we include more in-depth articles such as this one in the Voice. What if one issue out of the year was a theme paper? We choose a theme, such as illegal immigrant families, and then write various articles covering all the different aspects, such as personal stories, statistics, opinions, and news.
We could chose themes that the whole community could connect with. (We sort of did this with the birth control issue.)
Thoughts??
Legal and Illegal:
The story was very personal and put you in the shoes of the family without exploiting them. I learned a lot about illegal emigration and some of the families. I was astounded to hear that so many of the immigrants are well-rounded, college graduates and want to pursue careers in America.
While I understand that it can be difficult to get the correct papers (especially when there is a language barrier) to become a citizen, I am a strong believer that anyone who really wants to, can. Although the language is the same, my dad moved from the UK to here and worked through the usual process to become a citizen. If someone wants the benefits of being a US citizen, one must earn those privileges. I do think that something needs to be done to help people from different countries get a better life for themselves and there children.
This was a touching story of what I would consider an especially hardworking and well educated family. I would be happy to see families like this getting citizenship, but I don't think that this is the majority of emigrant families. I know that many come seeking a better life for their children, but I just wish we could put an end to illegal families living in fear and help them become legal citizens.
REDSOX:
Another very well written, all-American story. I love that this man has kept his passion of baseball through out his life and is being honored by his favorite team. Even not being a baseball fan, I was touched by this story. It's the kind of story that you genuinely enjoy reading. Another reminder that you can always stick with childhood dreams even when you become successful in another profession.
About Legal and Illegal:
I think this is an awesome piece because of the way it uses a single example to illustrate a greater social pattern. As a huge, international paper, The New York Times does a great job of pulling together very specific stories of everyday people to help readers understand overwhelming issues. In our community, it makes it a bit more difficult to do profile pieces because it means singling out people who are known by the whole community. In order to do that, the story usually needs to be more of a timely feature based on the person's recent accomplishments than a slice of life kind of thing like this piece is. I think Matt's interview of the issue is a good place to start with profiles, but consistency is really key.
Immigrant FamilyThis article attacks a sensitive topic delicately and without attacking anybody (except for perhaps the son of the family). This kind of article might be a little more difficult to implement in the Voice given our target audience. The NYT seems to have an argument hidden somewhere in the article, yet doesn’t want to flaunt it for risk of being too “controversial” (which is understandable). Yes, it is an awesome, touching article, but it’s hard for me to imagine that this story is applicable to a substantially large group of people.
For something like this, I can see the Voice doing an article, Point-Counterpoint style, and trying to convey both sides of the issue, rather that just trying to tell a story about a specific case. Something as lengthy and descriptive as this article would probably not read well, and something more specific that gets the point across quicker would probably be more effective.
-Tiras Lin
The Legal and Illegal piece adeptly covered the major issue of immigration through a human-interest based family profile. This form certainly is easier to read than a more factual article on immigration, and allowed the New York Times to cover the issue and subtly publish an opinion on the topic without writing what could have been quite the controversial piece (Tiras mentioned this element too).
Like Anjuli said, this type of piece is more difficult to emulate in The Voice because there is no way to achieve anonymity. We also get into the issue of who to single out, and if the community feels like we are picking subjects of profiles fairly. I agree with Anjuli in choosing to cover people who have just accomplished something, or have something substantial and unique going on in their life. We had talked about covering one of the kitchen workers who was going to move back to his home country (I feel awful for not remembering if that was Mexico or a smaller South American country) but the timing was off as he was leaving a few weeks before the print date. However, I think this is exactly the type of piece that we could write that would be fascinating, emotional, and relevant to the whole community while honoring the piece's subject.
-Sarah Strand
I read the piece about the illegal immigration profile piece. As the son of two immigrants, I can really appreciate this story. It is really interesting to read about the dynamic that exists when immigrant parents raise their children in the US. The overarching idea of "bettering" yourself is always present. Parents always emanate this ideal because as great as their life may have been, they want their children to lead an even better lifestyle.
As for our paper, I definitely think that we could incorporate some sort of profile or personal stories. We already have the center spreads for each issue, but it would be cool if we focused a lot more of our journalistic prowess on a personal theme. I think that the My MA pieces are great, but if we could follow around some students both on and off campus it would be really interesting. For example, when we had Devon on American Idol, we did a relatively generic piece about her on American Idol. We could have done something more personal documenting her trying to both balance her school life and auditions on the show. Coming up, we could also do something with senior projects. We could have a staff writer follow around an interesting project. We could do a profile on their daily routine and their project, as a whole.
I think there are many viable options to do more "in-depth" pieces, we just need to have the initiative to go out and find them. And then, ensure that we do a quality job of reporting them.
"A Family Divided by 2 Words"
I agree with the point made by a number of other people who commented on this article; this story does an excellent job of informing the reader without seeming like it is exploiting the family.
Overall I found their story extremely tragic. I cannot even imagine how frustrating it would be to be in the daughter's position and be so overqualified and so underpaid.
The theme paper Amanda suggests is an interesting idea I think. And even if we did not want to take that much time out of our traditional cycle -schedule to do this, we could still apply this idea (of taking a theme and exploring multiple sides of it) to more of our center spreads.
Red Sox:
Pieces like these are what I fall back on when people make claims that try to categorize professional sports as merely being a division of sport. I think that it is so awesome that we have traditions like these that can be linked back to sports, but that speak to a truly larger, common experience. In this case, the idea of being transported back to childhood in a nostalgic, symbolic last stand as a bat boy is both a compelling and well-told story.
I wonder, when reading something like this, if we have a place for this kind of story at MA. Reading about history is something that I find very fascination, and we certainly have some people on campus who, along with being around for a very long time, are eager to share their stories and experiences. I would love to see something along the lines of the Teacher-Athlete pieces that Austin did last year in relation to other parts of the school, or articles that, in general, helped to garner a historic perspective on current issues. It seems like a great way to gain perspective and help interest the audience.
I was actually watching the Red Sox game where Giddon was the honorary bat boy. Although some people who are Red Sox fans are clearly bandwaggon fans (just because I was born into a time where the Red Sox are good doesn't mean I am one), Giddon is the perfect example of the Fenway Faithful. The fact that, despite his seeing problems, he still follows the teams progress, is evidence of this. This article also made me think about comparing the eras of different baseball players. Giddon was able to meet the greatest slugger of all time, Babe Ruth, and another great slugger of today, David Ortiz. Another thing that reminded me of the difference in eras was when Giddon said, "Maybe [the bat boy] will live to be 100, too."
I think that there is a lot of room for special interest pieces in the Voice, especially since the paper seems to be growing in size and reputation. I know that there are a lot of amazing stories that faculty and teachers have to offer, and that most people at MA do not know about these stories. Also, since most people in the student body look for themselves or people they know in the paper, then this might be a good way to grab their attention.
"Red Sox Give Tip of the Cap to No.100":
I really liked this article. Apart from being very well written and a very sweet story, it provided for a story that stretched beyond baseball. This article was able to conjure a feeling of hope. It showed human comradeship in that someone allowed him to come back as a bat boy and the commonality of a love of a poastime such as baseball. It also showed a mesh between the old and the new and proved that things such as a common love for baseball can endure through so much time and so many things. In the course of this man's life WWI, WWII, and the Great Depression among other tribulations ocurred. It proves to those that read the article that it is possible for us to survive through the crisises that happening now and to come out on the other side with much of our current lifestyles still intact.
I think that articles such as this are very important fro newspapers to print. The obligation of a newspaper is not only to provide the public with information, but also to provide them with a way in which to view that information. This article captured a samml and seemingly insignificant event and turned it into an optomistic outlook on life.
This is something that I think the Voice can emulate in some way. It would be great if we were able to do a close examination of either a person or event off campus that few people knoe about, as Julia suggested. It could not only be an interesting piece, but also a way to provide the MA community with information that they might not otherwise get.
Olivia Powers
I really enjoyed the story about the 100-year-old bat boy. As I have mentioned in other posts, my favorite sports stories are the ones that focus on the human aspects of sports. Game scores and play by play analyses alienate some readers. However, a story of a man being able to take part in something he loved when he was younger is one that most can relate to. This might be a cool format to do MA coach interviews. What was it about their sports experience when they were younger that drew them back to that sport when they were older?
Red Sox Article
I thought the piece about the Red Sox bat boy was very sweet and an inspiring story. It just shows that you should never give up on your dreams because you never know what opportunities you will recieve in the future.
I think something like this would be nice to incorprate into "The Voice." I think I have mentioned this before, but i think it would be nice if we moved beyond profiles of student athletes. It would be interesting if we had a profile about teachers, some of whom are interested in a variety of sports. In addition, we could also have an article about people interested in other activities besides sports. I think by doing this it will be a very interesting read for the MA community.
Legal and Illegal:
I thought this was a very interesting piece. It can be a sensative topic at times, but i feel the author wrote it well.
The issue of legal and illegal immigranrs is a topic that has come up a lot. However, i never realized how big an impact it was creating for those who are illegal immigrants. For example, the girl who has a college education cannot get a job or travel to foreign countries due to the fact that she is an illegal immigrant.Therefore, this holds her back in many ways.
I think writing an article like this would be difficult. The reason is bacause it would most likely need to be anynomious. Since MA is a small community, it would be hard to keep the person interviewed confidental.Therefore, I think we should take another route.
Red SoxAfter reading the title of this NYT article, I was surprised to learn that there was not actually that much baseball involved in the article itself. However touching this story is, I’m not sure if the there is really that much space in the Voice for this kind of article.
The Voice uses the “Wildcats of the Issue” to profile athletes, and I think that we can also profile artists, community service giants, junior scientists, aspiring musicians etc. This kind of special interest piece could be used to attract readers and showcase those that have special talents outside of athletics. If something like the “_____ of the Issue” was implemented, it should be something that is used in the Voice regularly. Instead of the lengthy description that was used in the NYT article, the “questionnaire” style that the Voice has been using to profile athletes would be more effective.
-Tiras Lin
Both pieces are great, but in terms of incorporating this into the Voice, I think that we just need to devote some serious time to research. In my mind, the key to a successful story is lots and lots of research. Especially in a profile piece, the quality and quantity of research determines how interesting the article is. I don't think that its necessarily about finding a particularly interesting person, but more so its about finding the interesting details about anyone.
The piece on the Red Sox bat boy is touching and very well written. The author gives a really good sense of the man he is profiling both in the quotes he uses and the language he uses in describing him. In addition, it is really cool how he weaves in baseball history along with this mans story. I love baseball but i can imagine enjoying this even if i had no connection to the sport.
I think this kind of article would be really cool to do on someone who has been at MA for a long time or was there at the begining. We could profile them and also get some interesting stories and history on MA's history.
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