fandomhigh | Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 10

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Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 10

"Okay, we've mucked around for a few weeks. Now it's time to get back to real journalistic issues," Jonah said. "Investigative journalism! You come up with a story, investigate it, and write about it. I don't know how to make this any simpler for you people."

"Investigative reports are often some of your splashier stuff since you're theoretically uncovering something with your investigation, otherwise it would just be regular journalism. It could be exposing corruption in local government - which I won't talk about more in class, but if you want to hear more about my thoughts on the local government, listen to me on WTFH radio, Saturday nights - or proving that people in business are criminals, which tends to be more surprising than you'd think, or that doctors are covering up malpractice... Basically, anything that people don't know, can't prove, or want to cover up, that's what an investigative reporter goes after."

"An investigative report often starts with one of two things: Sheer dumb luck or a tip, which is sometimes the same thing. One way, you just happen to be in the right place at the right time, overhear something that you need more information on, catch an interesting bit of information while researching something else, or just decide to start looking at something that's interested you for a while and it turns out there's more to it than you thought, something like that. The other way, somebody comes to you - you're their friend, you're somebody they know from your reporting, maybe you're just the first person they seen when they're trying to spread the word, who knows? Somebody comes to you, gives you some information, and you need to know more and bring it out to the world as a news report."

"Once you start down the road of investigative reporting, you usually find yourself staying in that area. It's fun, it's professionally rewarding, it's flashier and gets your name out there more often, and you find yourself with sources who are willing to give you more tips. It can also be dangerous, depending on what you're investigating, so it does require you to have some common sense. Several of the people in this room have enough common sense to make that work. Congratulations to them."

"This is going to be the first of two weeks spent on investigative journalism. This week, you're going to figure out what kind of subject you want to investigate. There should be no shortage of them here in Fandom, so have fun with that. Over the course of the next week, do your investigations. Spend time in the library, interview people, come up with the story that you're going to write next week when we'll talk about how to organize that information into an article."

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Doing research.

Turn in, handwave, or specifically don't turn in your sports articles suggesting that people in monster fights have unfair advantages.

Note that Jonah apparently counts that class on photography as "mucking around."

Talk to your classmates, team up if you'd like, figure out what kind of story you want to investigate. Ask questions about how to get started if you need to.

Ask him questions about things other than the assignment.

The bringer of coffee.

So, if you decide to run with this, don't expose people's secrets without OOC permission, don't discover things about the secret history of the island without checking with the admins, and be prepared for detention if you decide to investigate Jonah's hair, Buffy. Otherwise, have fun and/or handwave.

Amber Atkins

Blair Waldorf

Blair turned in an article about how people with super powers had vastly unfair advantages in monster fights. This article may have been influenced by her jealousy.

Blair thought about her article and wondered if there was a huge difference between investigative journalism and gossip - at least in terms of how the stories got started.

Cal Stephanides

Toby

Toby turned in an article detailing how he'd be so much better at running and hiding if he had his very own superpowers.

Somehow, Cal's article had digressed into an empassioned editorial about how genetic mutations are not all they're cracked up to be and, sure, sometimes you get a superpower out of it, but, more often than not, you'll probably just wind up a big freak with an even bigger secret.

Lois Lane

Cal's nose wrinkled a little, lip curling. Investigative reports, very logically, made him just a little uncomfortable.

Warren Peace

Claire Fisher

"No beard?" Claire asked in a low voice. She'd get to taking about the assignment eventually.

Anemone

Anemone's article was more about how genetic experimentation to give people special abilities for monster fighting really didn't tend to turn out very well, and sometimes just produced bigger monsters, so medical 'ethics' really weren't very ethical at all.

There might have been a disparaging frown there for a second, before Cal shook his head. "No beard," he confirmed, barely keeping himself from sighing.

Robin

Robin's article somehow turned into defending Monsters that didn't do anyone any harm and were in fact, very nice.

Buffy Summers

Buffy's paper- well over the limit, thank you- was all about how people in monster fights with powers had advantages. And how it was awesome.

...Well now Buffy HAS to investigate Jonah's hair.

*wonders if she can get a note for SC*

FORGE JONAH'S SIGNATURE.

Teddy Altman

"...what was that last night?" Claire asked. She had a couple theories, but none she was confident enough about to mention.

[NP, just got back online myself.]

"I," said Cal, shaking his head, "have no idea. But I haven't seen Merlin since."

Which, really, wasn't that much of a surprise.

Rikku

Rikku's article was way, way too chirpy, and talked about how monster-killing was seriously awesome even if most monsters weren't badass enough to be any fun.

She had extra coffee today. "I can't seem to wake up," she sighed. "I don't have my zing."

Clearly, lots of caffeine would help. And would in no way be a recipe for massive, epic disaster.

"You think he's hiding?" Claire asked carefully. "Or did he run off to some love nest, or ... oh, shit, was this one of those things where the island randomly makes you lose your mind?"

Cal couldn't help snorting a little at the idea of Merlin in some hidden love nest, and then he shook his head. "It might have been," he said. "That would explain the Irish." But not the beard. "I mean, if it was random insanity, we got off pretty light. I don't think it would be too far off the mark of sanity to assume that Merlin might be a little...y'know."

Claire shrugged. "Isn't he dating Francine?" And David had been engaged before he came out, so that didn't prove a point either way; she was mostly just talking.

"Seriously minor, though, for random insanity. Your accent was cute." The beard had mostly been scraggly and unfortunate, but she wouldn't mention that.

Which was a good thing; Cal had missed that beard, scraggly as it was, in the painful irony of how, now that he wished he could grow one, he couldn't, while his pre-discovery years were filled with talks of waxing the supposedly inevitable genetic hairiness.

"Oh, wot?" he asked, trying to call up the accent again, with only minute success. "Ye like an Irish boy naow?"

Claire laughed, mostly at how bad his attempt at an accent was. "I thought the accents-are-hot thing was kind of universal," she claimed.

"You know I do a pretty mean French one for the play, right?"

Claire shook her head a little. "I don't think you practiced that part that time I came to rehearsal, or I wasn't paying attention if you did," she said. "Let me hear?"

Cal took a moment, to pick out one of his favorite little section, cleared his throat, and then drew himself up importantly as he assumed his character.

"Mount them," he said, in his carefully cultivated French accent, wondering just how deliberately he chose the line he still struggled to say without making it seem somewhat dirty, "and make incision in their hides, that their hot blood may spin in English eyes, and dout them with superfluous courage. Ha!"

The laugh, in particular, got a very nice little lilt of French contempt.

".... okay, so he's saying to kill somebody to make a point?" Claire said uncertainly. "Good accent, though."

"Thanks," Cal grinned. "I've been working on it. And he says that before the big battle with the English. My character's a jealous little French dauphin who hates the English king and thinks he's not worthy to be a rule. 'Cause he's jealous."

That was how he was interpreting it, anyway, and it was working pretty well so far.

Sam Witwicky

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Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 10

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