Last week I covered UB’s Environmental Network’s presentation on Diversity and Divestment. Overall I would say my experience covering the event was very positive. I had a good view of the entire presentation, as well as the opportunity to ask questions to the speaker throughout. Also, contributing to my coverage, there were other members of the audience who were very much involved in the presentation, such as the presidents of both the Environmental Network club, and the Fossil Free UB club.
I will say one of the crucial mistakes I made was neglecting to take down as many specific names as I could during the presentation. While writing my article there were a few cases where I had a fact or statement made by an individual, that I feel would have been far more validated to the reader if I had attached a name to it rather than simply say “top officials on Wall Street claim…”. Apart from that I didn’t have many other issues with my information gathering and writing. Although I was not able to sit down with the speaker one on one after the event, I did get the opportunity to interview the president of the club which put on the event, which was very helpful.
It was certainly a relief to be able to write firsthand about an event I was interested in myself. I know this is mostly not the case for a journalist, but being invested in the subject I was writing about and being able to give my account on what I experienced made the writing process far more enjoyable. I would certainly have to classify this as my favorite school assignment so far, although I will say based on my other classes this semester, the bar has been set pretty low.
Diary of a Fourth Year Junior 