What I learned as a JMC major at UNC

My time as a journalism major at the University of Northern Colorado has been good experience overall and has helped me in my internship, which later became my freelancing job. I have learned a lot about editing; especially editing other people’s work as well as learning a lot about feature writing. Learning about feature writing has definitely helped me in my freelancing job at the Windsor Beacon because I often write feature stories. This class has allowed me to advance my writing skills, which have allowed me to become a better reporter. I very much enjoyed the classes involving writing such as the news writing class and the advanced news and feature writing class (this class). I also enjoyed the mass communications law class because I learned a lot about the laws behind the journalism. Some of the classes were really tough, but the professors helped me succeed in the classes.

I think the UNC journalism program does well with making their students well-rounded by having them take a variety of JMC classes. I think it would have been nice to take a few more of the elective JMC courses because a lot of them sounded interesting but I couldn’t take them because I was limited on the number of credits I could have.

I think I am prepared to work in the JMC field because I feel that I have been taught all of the essential things to get me started that I can build upon to be a great journalist.

What's happening in Windsor Business?

In February, the Windsor Beacon newspaper hosted their yearly poll of the businesses in Windsor for “The Best of Windsor.” The basis of the poll is to allow the residents of Windsor vote on their favorite restaurants, doctors, fast food and others. This is a big event that many residents look forward to because it allows them to give their opinions about the businesses in town. This year, The Border Mexican restaurant got four awards from the competition including: best dinner, best lunch, best restaurant and best Mexican. The best caterer was Caffe Victoria, which serves all of northern Colorado. Austin’s Homestead took home best happy hour, best hamburger and best steak. Best printer went to Mail ‘N Copy, best auto care went to Pike’s Goodyear, best electric company when to John Brunner & Co., best plumbing company went to Tom Ladd Plumbing & Heating and best dry cleaner went to Burke Cleaners. Residents voted online and at various locations around town, which brought in thousands of votes.

So far in the class...

So far in our class we have had two major assignments, which were a day-in-the-life story, which is a story about a day in the life of a person or place and a profile story, which basically is story about a person and their experiences.

Since my beat is business, for the day-in-the-life story I decided to sit in a coffee shop for a day and just observe what went on there. I chose to sit in The House of Windsor in Windsor, Colo. I learned a lot while sitting there about the coffee shop and its customers. I liked this story because I like observing other people. I disliked the fact that the story had to be so short because I had so many good anecdotes that I wanted to include but couldn’t because they would have made the story too long. I think I did well describing what I saw in the story because I made sure to include as many details that I could. I think I could have improved my story by adding more quotes, but the length also made that difficult to do. I wish I had known how much information I would get at the coffee shop before I wrote the story so that I only looked for important events.

For my profile story I wrote about Ed Starck who is a former mayor of Windsor and owns several buildings downtown. I learned a lot about Windsor as well as Starck when I reported on this story. I liked learning about the buildings Starck owns including the Windsor Chamber of Commerce building. I disliked all of the planning it took to set up doing the interview and making the video. I think I did well including a lot of information about Starck. I think I could have improved the questions that I asked to give the story more focus. I wished I had known how much time the planning and reporting was going to take before I wrote the story.

So far the class has been challenging but very informative. I have learned so much about Windsor that I don’t think I would have learned otherwise.

What this blog is all about...

The main purpose of this blog is to practice blogging. As journalists, we need to know how to communicate with our audience and blogging is the best way to accomplish that. This blog will also serve as a way for me to look back on my growth in writing during this class.

During my junior year at the University of Northern Colorado I interned for the Windsor Beacon and after my internship was over they offered me a freelancing job. I have been a freelancer there for about seven months now. I write a variety of stories from business to school to town board.

For class, I will be covering Windsor business. Through working in this beat I hope to learn more about the businesses in Windsor as well as the business owners. So far, I have learned that there are many more aspects of businesses then just there day to day operations. I have not covered a beat in the past but I have written quite a few stories about businesses in Windsor.

A few of my strengths as a journalist are being able to write quickly under pressure and being able to ask good questions of my interviewees. My biggest weakness would be writing leads for my stories; however, I have been working on it by writing my leads after I write the story.

I don't have a lot of blogging experience except the occasional post on my personal blog but I think being in this class will encourage me to write blogs on a regular basis.

I have always wanted to blog on a regular basis but I find that I don't have the time to do it. I am scared about keeping up with my blog because of my lack of free time. I am confident that I can keep my posts interesting because I have learned how to keep news stories interesting so I should be able keep my blog interesting. I think I will learn how to be a good blogger and will learn how to communicate well with my readers.