Author/Actor article and the beginnings of the blues artist

Yesterday, I wrote an article about a guy who goes into schools and reads a children's book he wrote about a purple "grape" ape from outer space. He also gives the presentation dressed up like the ape. This guy was very interesting to talk to: I like hearing from people who are kind of different, and he definitely was. I mean, it takes a special kind of person to walk into an elementary school in a homemade purple space monkey costume and claim to be an alien from the planet grape. The books are actually cute, though, and they definitely seem like they'd be very interesting for kids to read. Besides being an author, this guy is also an actor, and has done a TON of theater work. I think its cute that instead of pursuing a strictly acting career, he chose to also teach at preschools around the area--he must really like kids!
Today, I started what will be a longer piece about a blues musician who will be performing in Gloucester next week. This is giving me great real world experience, because I can't communicate directly with the musician--he is on tour in Europe and won't be back until Monday. Moreover, there is virtually no contact information available on the Internet--the only source I have is his publicist's website. I sent them an email, and have been communicating with a woman from that organization who directly represents the musician. I will probably talk to her a little bit, then work on getting an actual interview with the performer when he returns from Europe.

Look out for my story on the children's book writer either tomorrow or Monday!

UPDATE: HERE is the link to my article!

Rockport Beaches and Notes on Confidentiality

Yesterday, I had a pretty easy day. I was assigned to help out the people who are working on the Cape Ann Summer Guide, which compiles information about things to do on Cape Ann during the summer for local residents. I called up someone at the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce and got all the information on the numerous beaches in Rockport. After that, I took a look at the beach rules for Rockport: turns out, some of them are pretty hilarious. Here are some of the highlights of that particular venture:

• No person is permitted to carry a spear and/or a spear gun between the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 15 through September 1.
• In accordance with local laws, no person shall be in possession of a lobster one half hour after sunset to one half hour before sunrise at any time.

On another note, I got to have a talk with my editor about the confidentiality rules of journalism. In my experience, most kids under 18 seems to be under the impression that if they get in trouble, the newspaper is not allowed to publish their names. That is actually incorrect. In reality, newspapers can publish whatever TRUE information they find out (freedom of speech also covers freedom of press, DUH!) and it is the police departments that aren't supposed to release information. Schools, on the other hand, are not bound by the same confidentiality laws and although they can't officially attest to whether or not a student has been arrested, they can say if students have been suspended or expelled from the school. In addition, any information that reaches the newspapers by accident--like an error where the police forget to take the name of a minor off of the police report, or someone comes in as a source to spill the information, newspapers can still publish it regardless if the information was obtained legally. If it was illegally obtained, unless an individual from the paper was directly involved in the actual illegal activity to GET the information, the newspapers are not at fault for publishing the information, the source is.

JROTC

Yesterday, I was assigned an article about the JROTC at Gloucester High School. Apparently, the team made it to the nationals. Because the team was actually practicing that day, I drove over to the high school with a photographer to interview some of the kids. While I was there, I talked to the instructor. JROTC is a very interesting program--the kids all really like it, but at the same time, they get upset when the instructors yell at them. After I talked to the instructor, a couple of kids came up to me almost immediately when they figured out I was with the press. One sophomore in particular REALLY wanted to be in the paper--he came right up to me and asked if I could say something, and then went over to the photographer I was with and asked if he could do some tricks with his rifle. I also talked to two different girls, one of which was the Commanding Officer (which I guess is kind of like being a captain) of the whole team, as well as a Physical Training (PT) champion. PT is basically a competition where people perform military drills and exercises (like push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, sprints, etc) FOR FUN. It sounded like torture to me, but this girl--who is about five feet tall and ninety pounds--absolutely loves it. She and the rest of the PT division are going to San Fransisco this summer in order to compete in the National PT Championships. The other girl I met was a really great example of how JROTC could potentially increase women's leadership opportunities. In the ROTC, there are two different divisions--armed and unarmed. The armed division obviously competes with drill rifles (and sometimes swords!), and the unarmed division competes with nothing or with flags during color guard. Generally, girls participate in the unarmed division and boys compete in the armed division. But this girl I met--who, I should mention, is only a sophomore--is not only competing in the armed division, she is the commander of the team! She started doing drill last year, and ended up loving the sport! She was obviously very good at it too, and so she progressed through the ranks very quickly.
After I got back to the office, I wrote the article and it was published in the next day's paper on 4/27. I got a taste of what it is like for reporters who have to get an idea, conduct interviews, and generate a story--all in one day! Some reporters here even have to do two, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It really gives me respect for journalists--they do a LOT of work that I think most people don't appreciate enough.
Here is the link to my article which was on the front page on 4/27!!!

Police Notes

Yesterday, I went to the police station to get the police notes. In order for the press to get access to the arrest records, we have to wait in this tiny little room in the police station for up to 40 minutes. When I first got there, the reporter I was with picked up this phone attached to the wall and said "This is the reporter from the Gloucester Daily Times, I'm here for the (insert names of specific documents that I have no idea what they are called or what they meant)." We can't actually take any of the forms out of the police station--I guess for confidentiality reasons, since they have names, phone numbers, addresses, and social security numbers on them--so we had to sit there and copy all of the interesting things down into a notebook. The first thing we looked through was the arrests for today. The whole thing basically consisted of one guy who got pulled over, then picked up by the police for an unnamed outstanding warrant and one other guy who was arrested for what the reporters here call the "trifecta"--namely, operating on a suspended license, operating a motor vehicle without insurance, and operating a motor vehicle with an expired registration. We also noted that the man had a HUGE amount of money on him, which was suspicious. The next thing we looked at were all the 911 calls over the last 24 hours. To be honest, a LOT of them were to report "suspicious vehicles" or people who were driving erratically. Some highlights:

• A man who would identify himself only as "Glen" called in to report a suspicious vehicle. He provided a license plate number, which the officer ran: it came up with nothing.
• A woman called in to report her dogs, Rocco and Bruno, as missing. She left the house at 11 a.m. and when she returned at 11 p.m., the dogs were gone. Nothing else was reported missing.
• A man crashed his mother's car. He was heavily intoxicated.
• A woman called the police to request house checks during the day. She had received a call from someone claiming to be with ADT security a few days before, and the person had reportedly asked several questions about the home. A few days later, she called ADT and found that no one from the company had contacted her.
  

Update: the Docksiders Article

Today I actually went over to Gloucester High School with a photographer to get pictures of and talk to members of the concert jazz band The Docksiders. They are leaving for Hawaii at 3 a.m. on Friday and the editor wanted to get a picture of them packing up for the trip and getting ready to leave. Obviously, nobody is going to want to go to Gloucester High at 2:30 in the morning to get pictures of them leaving, so we went over today because they were receiving their new performance shirts. When we went over there, I heard them play a couple of songs--they are really good!--and then I talked to a couple of the kids to get their perspective. They all seem really excited. I couldn't believe it--they had been planning and fundraising for this trip for two years.. Through all the performances they have been doing, they managed to raise $65,000! They are doing three performances around the island of Oahu and then touring around to absorb the local culture.

Tomorrow, look out for my article on the front page!

UPDATE: My article was on the front page 4/15. HERE is the link!

Northeast Healthcare Systems and the Docksiders

Yesterday, I started working on a story I started to write a story about the Docksiders. The Docksiders are a jazz band from Gloucester High School who are going on a trip to Hawaii on Friday. I am going over there around 2:30 with a photographer to talk to some of the kids and get some quotes for the article, which will be published in tomorrow's paper. Yesterday, I also got to sit in on a press meeting with the editor-in-chief, a reporter, and the CEO of Northeast Healthcare Systems. I thought this was especially interesting because in light of the pregnancy scandal of 2008, this company has been part of an issue that very much pertains to teenagers. I don't really think I am supposed to say a lot about what was actually said in the meeting, but the meat of it was concerning primary care physicians in Gloucester and Addison Gilbert Hospital. It was really interesting for me to see this kind of meeting between the groups: the CEO brought three people with him, two of which said absolutely nothing during the meeting. I liked observing this kind of thing.
After I got out of the meeting, I started to write my article for the Docksiders. I called the musical director at the high school, David Adams, and interviewed him for a while. Then, I started working to type it out in InCopy. I really like this program--it makes it so much easier to see how long the article is in inches, not word count like in Microsoft Word. I think the school actually has the program, so I would like to see if we could eventually transfer from using QUARK to using the Adobe Suite.

Week 1

Last Thursday, I went in after school from 2:30 and stayed until 5. I was introduced to all of the staff. The floor of the newsroom is situated by sections: the editors all sit together in one part of the room, the reporters all sit together, and the photography staff all sit together. The marketing staff also sits together as a group on the other side of the room. I got situated at a desk and started learning how to use the Adobe suite that the paper uses. The main components of their operating system include a program called NewsEdit which allows the staff to quickly forward information to their editors, as well as see the stories in a layout form (the program also shows how many inches long the article will be once in print), InDesign (used to actually lay out the pages), Bridge (with synthesizes all of the information from NewsEdit and Photoshop so they are compatible) and Photoshop (to edit and prepare photographs so they are able to be inserted into InDesign). They do not use any form of the Microsoft Office Suite: instead, every article is written in NewsEdit and thereby eliminates the need for a word-processing system.

This week, I started working on an article for the Times about the changes to the Cape Ann Farmer's Market. It took me two days to write it and do the research for the article. The actual article was published in today's newspaper (April 13, in the Business News section). I will try to scan in a copy of the article as an image posting.

UPDATE: While I was working on the Farmer's Market article, I also did a brief article on an upcoming anti-drug presentation at Addison Gilbert Hospital. Click HERE to read it.