Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. 48 Journalism: Publishing Across Media Dead Beat or Lively Beat? It’s What You Make It Beats will be as interesting or as dull as you make them. Here is an example of what an enterprising reporter can do with a new beat, in this case the school’s physical plant. 1. The new reporter talks to the person who had the beat before her. He says it is a boring beat, but he does tell her which assistant principal is in charge of the physical facilities, the name of the head of the physical plant and the location of his office and the name of the lead custodian. 2. She introduces herself to each contact, but more importantly, she spends time with the contacts. In the first two months of the beat, she writes these notes in her reporter’s notebook. While her predecessor thought this was “a really boring beat,” this journalist found a great beat with multiple strong story ideas. • The dance studio in the PE building is being turned into a science room. Do we still have a dance class? If not, when did it go away and why? Check counseling offi ce and old yearbooks? Does this connect to larger issues such as physical fi tness and obesity? • The Asian custodian, a soft-spoken man about fi ve feet tall, was a colonel in the Vietnamese army. He probably didn’t pick up trash in Vietnam. What’s his story? Who else around campus has a military background? Veterans Day is in November. Personality feature? • Is anyone recycling the cans and bottles in the trash? Why/why not? Who gets the money? • When does the custodian’s day start? Use audio recorder. Sound of custodian opening the gate at 5:25, grating sounds, quiet campus, rain, ducks in the quad, cafeteria ladies laughing as they cook and the fi rst students arriving. Why do they come so early? • Toured and videotaped the crawlspace above the stage as the custodian changes the lights. Visited the “crouch space” under the stage, the furnace room, pool fi ltration room, loading docks, roofs, places students rarely go. Halloween story? • Taped early Monday morning graffi ti cleanup and vandalism repair. Rival high school’s colors were spray painted on walls. Assistant principals came out and photographed the graffi ti. What for? • If we run the story, are we giving the vandals what they want? • Will there be police action? How can I fi nd out about it? • What is the difference between pranks and acts of vandalism? • Many trucks come through the campus entrance by the weight room: Pepsi, Coke, Frito- Lay, a restaurant supplier, Sysco (what’s that?). It would make a cool video to shoot 5 seconds of the side of each truck coming past the weight room. Or shoot all the stuff being off-loaded at the cafeteria and student store and then drop out every other frame and speed up the tape like an old-fashioned movie. • How many bags of chips and bottles of Gatorade do we consume each week? How do I fi nd out?