KubanKlass: Looking Back to Fourth of July Coverage

An assignment for Multimedia Reporting class with Adam J. Kuban, Ball State University
by Marsha Imaniara | Friday, 5 July 2013



MUNCIE, Indiana - SUSI BSU 2013 students from Malaysia and Indonesia joined the residents of Muncie in Minnetrista Cultural Park this Fourth of July as they celebrated the Independence of USA. Not only did they get to experience this grandiose event of the Americans, but also they got to be real journalists on this event.

On the event, SUSI BSU 2013 students were tasked to interview a few people and get a unique story of the Fourth of July celebration. I went with the direction of focusing on Fourth of July from the perspective of kids, working with the theme of "Eyes of Wonder".

It was a lot to handle, to say the least. I had to record interviews not only with my recording equipment but also notes, as well as capturing the event in pictures and videos. It was even more complicated with the very limited amount of time that we had due to the bad weather. We literally raced with time to get everything done before it was too dark and the fireworks display started.

I managed to interview four different families. However, only three went well: the Brown family, Aidan's family, and the Jenkins.

The first one, the Browns, consisted of the dad, Jason Brown; the mom; and their two kids, Josephine (4) and Alexandra (2). During the interview, the parents were both very friendly and expressive. It contributed a lot to the story I was covering. However, both of the kids were very shy and I could not get them to talk more than an unintelligible word. It complicated the situation as I was supposed to cover the story mainly from the perspective of the kids. However, I managed to get good natural sounds and sense of story here.

The second group consisted of Aidan (7) and his mom. In this case, they were both easy to work with. In the beginning, I thought I scared the kid away with my "intimidating" equipments. However, I managed to reposition them to make them less intimidating and the interview went smoothly afterwards.

The last one I interviewed was Makenzie Jenkins (9). She was very bubbly and bright. She gave all the answers that I could potentially use in my story. However, my equipment betrayed me at this point. Turned out, it was not working the first time. Therefore, I needed to re-record everything. And this time, she was not as excited to answer my questions. I tried to work my way around this by giving new questions aside from my old ones.

In the end, I felt grateful for everything that went well: for the cooperative interviewees, for being able to react to the unexpected, for managing to juggle the tasks, for being prepared thoroughly before the D-Day. However, I felt that it could have been better on the part of time management and re-checking equipment. What killed me the most was the fact that I lost my "decisive moment" with Makenzie, the bright girl whose original answers would have been so valuable to my story.

Nonetheless, I learned a lot from this experience. I learned that I can still manage to do quite well under pressure, but need to work on "smoothing" the process. I am positive that this will be valuable for whatever I work on in my future endeavor.

KubanKlass: Preparing for Big Story

An assignment for Multimedia Reporting class with Adam J. Kuban, Ball State University
by Marsha Imaniara | Friday, 28 June 2013


Picture source: http://www.kensingtonacademy.com/english-courses/exam-preperation-courses/

MUNCIE, Indiana - Americans will celebrate their Independence Day in just a couple of days. As the Fourth of July approaches, so does our final assignment to cover the big story.

When preparing for such a big story project, there are a number of things that I would prepare to get ready.

First, is to do "the homework". I personally think that it is very important to be knowledgeable about the event we are about to cover. Therefore, a preliminary research is required. Yesterday, I started to try and find more details about the Fourth of July and its history. I also did an additional research about sample stories on Fourth of July celebration. This preliminary research gave me a pretty clear picture of what to write and what angle I should take to make my story fresh and not cliché. I acquired information that would help me structure good questions later. The "good questions" should not revolve around trivial or widely known facts, because I would have known about them already.

Then, it is time to structure my questions. I will first list all the questions that I want and need to know the answer to through the interviews. After that, I will arrange the questions into sequence that I deem suitable to build the story. The sequence will not be a fixed one though, it will still give me room to re-organize and add follow-up questions when needed.

Third of all, I will practice to master my interviewing skill! As awkward as it will be, in-front-of-the-mirror practice is one of the items that are on my checklist. When possible, I will also have joint practice with my other SUSI friends. This will at least prepare me to interact with people comfortably and to react naturally to whatever may come.

And finally, a technical preparation will be in order. Since the audio equipment is pretty new to me, I will practice to get used to the equipment in the field. I will also do last-minute check-ups to make sure that it is up and ready to go.

And that's it! That is what I will do to prepare to cover big stories such as the Fourth of July celebration. Just remember, preparation matters.

As Benjamin Franklin put it, "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."