I haven’t been on here in awhile, and I haven’t added any new content, though I plan to do so in the next couple of weeks as time permits.
It’s been hard to do with the number of stories I’m in the middle of, and the number of other things that come up during the course of a day.
I do have to say I work with two great reporters at The News Virginian. I learn a lot from their tenacity and experience, and I hope I’m giving something back to them in return.
It’s something I wish I had more of that the two other reporters I work with possess in spades. I don’t have the same focus they do, or maybe I’m just perceiving it that way because I work differently than they do.
I still like to think I get the story, and get good ones, too. I also think that my lack of efficiency at times stems from being tired, especialy with a night-day doubleheader of meetings (Thursday evening, early Friday morning) and then hitting the road to interview someone for my Sunday story, which once again, I have to write on my lone day off of the week.
I know I can improve my efficiency, knowing what I need and where I need to go to get it, and knowing it quicker. I guess that’s efficiency.
I do miss the more narrative writing I’ve done in the past. I feel like not doing it is causes me to more often miss details I feel I should have.
Then again, I’ve got this internal clock that says I need to get faster – do more with fewer resources. Be efficient with time. But I’ve got to strike the right balance of fast and efficient with details. And, in all cases, be right.
Keep checking back, as I’m trying to update as often as possible here on the blog, and in the various sections here. I’ve updated my resume and clips. I plan to add more clips as time permits.
I’ve heard a lot in recent months that if you’re not preparing for the next job, you should be. Poynter had an article recently about what to do before you get the ax.
I’ve had a weird career path. I knew I wanted to write when I would put together handwritten game stories from Redskins football games when I was in elementary and middle school and compare them to the wire stories in the afternoon paper we received the following day. I worked on my high school paper for two years, skipped three years when my community college didn’t have a paper, worked as a sports editor at my small college, bi-weekly paper.
After I left college, I used a couple of freelancing gigs for a local daily to get a weekly job, which lasted three months. Frankly, I wasn’t ready at the time, and left journalism for a few years more until 1997, when I started to write again for a newsletter and, during that time, created a soccer Web site and with that, wrote several times on a freelance basis for metro dailies.
The newsletter gig lasted nine years until I learned I was being laid off, so I looked in several areas and landed at The Shenandoah Valley-Herald, a weekly in Woodstock, Va. I worked there for a year before reaching Waynesboro and The News Virginian, where I am the city reporter, though I cover a hodgepodge of other issues too – with agriculture and the environment being specialities of mine.
It’s hard to say how things will shake out, but not so hard to realize that I have to be prepared. It means learning more skills – in particular, the new media skills.
It means preparing for the next destination, even when I don’t know where that will be (In particular, anything that happens to me will have an impact on my wife and her career, and vice versa).
But it also means doing the best job that I can do now, writing and reporting meaningful stories while continuing to better myself.
The photo up top is one I took on Assateague Island while on vacation last summer. It was the week before the annual pony swim, and on the last day of vacation, when my wife and I took a boat ride around the island.
Soon this will be the complete home to my journalistic work. At that time, I will give a more formal introduction.
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