Monday, February 23, 2009

Week Two-Crunch Time

Words cannot describe how stressful this past week has been. Attempting to get five people together who have nightmare schedules, is incredibly frustrating and well beyond difficult. At any given interview, only two of us could make it.
Honestly, the people I'm working with are great. Everyone wants to help out, but the time constraints that we are dealing with, are road-blocking smooth completion of our project. We have dealt with more problems as a group this week than I think I've ever encountered with a group project in my entire Columbia College career.
Kristina, our on-camera journalist for this package had to go in for emergency dental surgery and has missed a few interviews. Jessi, one of the print students wrapped her car around a tree this weekend and totaled it. Thank God she was okay. Jon one had food poisoning and John two has the flu...and as for me, the ol' roommate is getting evicted. Needless to say, our problems have been a definite issue with putting together our story this week.
Somehow, everything is falling into place. We are still waiting on a few interviews, but the information about Columbia sports we have gotten thus far, has been interesting and even eye-opening for us. We have encountered the same frustration from every Columbia soccer player we have spoken to; The school does not care about athletics and funding is an issue for any sports team.
Taylor Cowan, one of the students who tried to start up the men's soccer team said it best: "It's a very polarizing thing. It's either you're an athlete or you're not."

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Week One-We Don't Hate Eachother, Yet...

When I signed up for Beyond the Game, I really had no idea what to expect. On the first day, it was a bit of a shock, when I found out that the print and the broadcast classes would be working together, for the first time in the show's history.

Panicked, I thought to myself, "How are we really going to do this? Broadcast and print? Together? This is not going to be good." Surprisingly, it is working out quite well.

At the end of our first class, we had our groups formed with two broadcast and three print students. We picked a topic and began brainstorming for our first story. I had known everyone in my group from previous journalism classes, so my doubts started to fade.

Since that initial meeting the first week of school, our group has worked considerably well, diving up tasks and working as a team to get our stories accomplished.

In the weeks that follow, I think the biggest problem we will face, is the stylistic difference in writing. We have already come to realize that, as a team, we need to be aware of each type of writing. If we don't, the stories will not be as strong as they could be.

I'm excited to see how our team grows and how our writing improves over time. We've handled adversity in the last two weeks, and I know if we can get through a story change, we can get through anything.