Finding news stories in or around campus is difficult. In a place like Durham, New Hampshire, it is hard to find something that is newsworthy, interesting, and hasn't already been covered.
I know that there are plenty of stories out there, and although I stumble upon many of them, I find myself questioning how important they are.
Since I am inexperienced, I am constantly searching for news stories that center around an event as opposed to an idea. If I am writing about an on-campus organization, for example, I feel that writing about what that organization does doesn't qualify as news, as opposed to what that organization is doing right now.
So I am left with the question, how relevant does news have to be? Does a story need to be centered around a specific current event, or can it be centered around a specific current idea, using sources and local opinions to add to the relevancy of it?
Writing the article about President Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention proved to be more challenging for me for these reasons. I found that it was hard to write the article creatively, or from a fresh perspective given the fact that the speech had been covered so many times by so many sources. It was hard to find sources that offered an interesting point of view as well, since they all seemed to fit the generic democrat/republican mold.
What I am most interested in learning how to do, is find fascinating stories that I am the first person to break. How does a journalist do this? How do you become investigative enough to break important stories?
I think the most interesting journalism is the kind that not only breaks a big story first, but stories that wouldn't be made known to the public if it weren't for the reporters who investigated them.
I know that this takes a lot of time, research, and talking to people, but I think the hardest part is figuring out where to start. Especially in a place as boring as Durham, where do you begin searching for the groundbreaking news story?
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