The struggle is real. Having a strong accent as a journalism student is not easy. Before calling or interviewing someone, I always need to take a deep breath in preparation to speak slowly and in a certain way I know I won´t commit errors. I learn at least one new thing a day while studying abroad and having the opportunity to chase a story on something that is affecting the educators is really important to me.
To be honest I had a very hard time finding a story this week. The fact that I´m taking an investigative reporting and a multimedia reporting class at the same time can result in a mix of story ideas in my head and sometimes I get confused by them. But both classes work well together. I´m being able to gather information and use it in my outside reporting and assignments. Both professor Lowe and Ethan had talked to me last week about how I´m doing this semester, and I got a story idea from Ethan about the cost of health insurance for teachers in Alachua County on Tuesday, Sept. 11. However, I could not pitch the idea at Slack until today, Friday, Sept. 14, because I had to make sure I could find enough information about it to see if it is news worthy. While researching, I have spoken to a friend who is a part-time teacher at P.K. Younge Developmental Research school about the case, and I also had had help of one of my colleagues on how to find contact information for the area´s teachers union. I´ve decided to pitch the story as soon as I realized the idea had turned into a possible story. I am motivated to attend my first School´s Board meeting next week to report and take notes, as well as to interview some educators in Alachua County for my story. I can´t wait to share it on my next post.
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I had the opportunity to read the finalists’ stories in this year’s Online Journalism Awards. I was amazed by the hard work journalists put down to write the best pieces I’ve ever read and although all deserved a prize for the spectacular writing, I took some things into consideration to choose my winner in a few categories.
The General Excellence in Online Journalism have four news sources as their Medium Newsroom Finalists: Austin American-Statesman Sites, ProPublica, Quartz and Reveal. My favorite pieces were written by Quartz and Reveal. The first one wrote about La Croix Sparkling Water and how numbers affect the brand in terms of layout and design. The writing is fun to read, colorful and plays around with the reader by making us participate in trivia questions. On the other hand, Reveal’s piece have a more serious approach as it discuss the bad conditions of a rehab camp for prisoners. Reveal abuse from good investigative journalism in this piece by bringing provocative images and humanity to the story. Although Quartz did a good job, my vote goes to Reveal. The piece is so well-written that produced a mix of feelings inside my head for its characters. The Knight Award for Public Service have four finalists this year and once again, my favorite “All Work. No Pay” piece, by Reveal, is among them. “Hacking Democracy” piece by the Washington Post highlight names from CIA documents linked to the U.S and Russia government in an apparently sabotage in the 2016 U.S. elections. The governmental investigative report is one of the best ones I’ve read this year. It truly focus on the real problem, providing links to previous graphics and investigations by the Post on the issue. Another well-written investigative Piece is “Lost Mothers,” by ProPublica with a NPR contribution. This piece calls for humanity. It tells the story of some of the women who have died from pregnancy-related in the U.S. and have been forgotten. I had to hold my breath while reading it, because I kept thinking how hard it must’ve been to all those women. Last, but not least, the Better Government Association with contributions from WBEZ wrote “Taking Cover” to highlight the accountability of shootings from the police in Chicago. Both news organizations collected good quotes from locals in the community about the recurrent issue. With all being said, I´m going to root for the Post piece. I found an outstanding journalism piece. For the Excellence in Immersive Storytelling Award I´m analyzing a piece from the New York Times and one from a partnership between Al Jazeera and Contrast VR. The Times “Augmented Reality: David Bowie in Three Dimensions” piece not only tells the story of how amazing the performer David Bowie´s costumers were but shows them to the reader in a 3-D interaction within the screen. In contrast, “Yemen´s Skies of Terror” focus on the importance of humanitarian assistance in the civic wars happening in Yemen. It´s impossible to read this piece and not get emotional as reader, so imagine if you are one reporting it. It was hard for me to grade both stories, and although the 3-D interaction on Bowie´s story were great for a better understanding of the journalists’ point of view, I´m choosing Al Jazeera and Contrast VR piece as my favorite. As I´m pursuing a minor in international development and humanitarian assistance I could not close my eyes to such a beautiful and sad story. They truly captured the moment people in Yemen are living. For the University of Florida Award for Investigative Data Journalism there are three small/medium newsroom finalists this year and all of them it´s either from or include a collaboration with ProPublica. “The Taking,” a story from the Texas Tribune showcase an investigative reporting in domain lawsuits filled by the government against property owners in the state of Texas. The great investigation brought comics instead of pictures and it fit perfectly. The same happened in “The Brooke for Bankruptcy” and “Walking While Black.” In the first one, ProPublica identified Memphis as the bankruptcy capital of the U.S. and did an entire investigation on attorneys under Chapter 13 of bankruptcy procedures. The Florida-Times Union together with ProPublica investigated racial discrimination on the law enforcement for pedestrians in Jacksonville, FL. Although the tree pieces are great, I´m staying with “The Taking” as my final decision because I could identify with the story written as one colleague have told me about the problem a few weeks ago. For the Online Commentary Award two opinion pieces are being analyzed. Nicholas Kristoff and his colleagues from the New York Times discussed the poverty and critic situation of the wars in Yemen and Saudi Arabian, and how these events are affecting the population of these countries and its surroundings. On “Seven Steps. 27,000 Lives,” the editorial board of the Boston Globe provided an opinion piece on guns, violence and suicides in the U.S. By analyzing state by state, they gave the reader the choice to explore how laws were being enforced in each part of the country. Although both pieces were about hard topic discussions, the Globe made it easy to follow since its piece does not include hard images, only graphics and data. I had a hard time reading the New York Times opinion because I could not stand the beauty and sadness on the children pictures, so my root for this award goes to the Boston Globe. The 2018 Online Journalism Awards have the best journalism pieces of the year, and even though I´m rooting for some of the finalists, every single story deserves to get an award. I get inspired every time I read a good journalism piece, and after analyzing some categories of this year´s award I´m going to work even harder to one day be able to write as good as the people involved on them. “It takes action to move things.”
The executive director of the non-profit organization Gainesville Black Professionals (GBP) Virginia Grant started to develop a magazine to support business owners after a local racial inequity study showed the black community do not fare well as other races in Alachua County. The study was conducted by the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) in the beginning of 2017 and was released in January this year. The data collected stated the differences of employment opportunities for Blacks and Hispanics were contributing to the income disparities in the county. After seeing the results, Grant and her peers knew they had to do something about it. “Synergy: A Collaborative Guide to Economic and Discovery” was born to serve as a professional directory for Gainesville local business owners and to help them to interact with their customers and create professional partnerships in the community. “Synergy is not just for the black community. We want to support diversity,” Grant said. In 2015, BEBR reported that 35.7 percent of African-Americans and 31.2 percent of Hispanics were living under the poverty line in Alachua County, and black children were 3.3 times more likely to be in poverty than a non-Hispanic White children. John Bacon, 32, is a member of the board of directors of PACE Center for Girls in Alachua County and says that Synergy can help his organization to receive more support from people living in the area. He says he is excited to see the impact of the magazine in the community and how much local businesses and entrepreneurs can benefit from it. Further collected data from BEBR improved the idea that discrimination was still a problem in the county, and Synergy is being developed to highlight local minorities and their business to decrease the stereotypes among professionals. Bacon is also a GBP ambassador and says that he expects Synergy to be able to bring “different people; different professionals together in one publication.” The first edition of the print magazine will be launched on Dec. 8, during the GBP annual gala. The event recognizes the men and the women of vision and purpose in the black community and other distinguished professionals of the year. “Professionals wants to connect with other professionals, and they need a place to do that,” Grant said. Although Synergy is projected to be released once a year, an online platform is being created to maintain updated publications and news in the professional world in Gainesville. The new website is expected to launch in the end of spring next year. giovannakubota.weebly.com/virginia-grant.html --- The story went well at first. I could meet my source during Labor Day for a cup of coffee and she was able to redirect me to a second source. However, she invited me for a meeting she was having with some local business on Thursday afternoon and I realized late enough to lose the meeting that she had given me the wrong time and location. I was very concerned, especially because I was unable to contact her and I still needed a picture for the story. Around 5 p.m. she returned my voicemail and agreed to meet with me at DoubleTree hotel, where she had the meeting in the first place. Even though the story did not go as I’ve planned, I was able to learn a very important lesson: to always double check with your source dates, times and locations for important meetings. I definitely will pay more attention next time. Have you ever heard the phrase “Once online, there´s no coming back?”
Journalists had to learn about this not so long ago, when social media started to grow in the news business. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs and other online platforms can help writers to save time by reaching a large amount of readers faster, but it can also lead to miscommunication and conflict of interests. I looked up into three news organizations, one local, regional and global, to see how they manage their social media content. I grew up in Brazil watching my parents read Folha de S. Paulo, a local newspaper who also provided some regional coverages. Although this news organization is directed to people living in the city of São Paulo, they share important content about local business owners, crimes, education and health, as well as a weekly column about restaurants and entertainment in their Twitter feed. They make sure to include a picture in every tweet and try to be unbiased when sharing political content. Although Folha does a good job covering the city area, Estadão reports in the entire state. São Paulo is often compared to New York with its tall buildings and lots of job opportunities. Thinking of that I saw that Estadão focus more on the state´s economy, sports and politics than average regional news organizations in the area. Pictures, headlines and sometimes videos can be found in their Twitter feed. They also manage to have different accounts divided by sections to reach different public according to their interests. A global news organization that I follow closely is the BBC, who shares national and international content to reach different audiences. Sharing the same idea as Estadão, their multiple Twitter handles help readers to connect with stories they may find interesting. In my case, BBC News (World) is my favorite, because It´s an easy way to read important stories from around the world in just one Twitter account. The three organizations do a good job sharing their content on social media, Twitter, more specifically. By looking at their number of followers I could see why spreading stories online can attract people´s interests, since it´s an easy and fast way to get to the news. A hashtag sometimes can be more valuable and impactful than a full story, and a good newspaper should adapt and follow up with what is trending in today´s society and be in constant change to adjust for the upcoming generation of readers. What´s the difference between a big news organization and a local news one?
Public of interest. Many times both will share some of the same content, but a local newspaper will swim inside ordinary people´s lives and common interests in the community. It is going to tell you about Toto, the dog who helps children to cross the street. It is going to tell you about how this girl fought cancer. It is going to tell you why people´s lives matter and why should we pay attention to local enterprises and opportunities. The Gainesville Sun is a local news organization that focus on the community and its surroundings. It covers crimes, education, health, politics, etc. Recently they have been covering the elections in Alachua County, and even though I thought they did a great job writing stories and trying to cover every point of view of it, I did not find more valuable information other than the elections in the city area. “What makes local local?” Asked journalist Don Fry in a story for the Poynter. Local news sometimes means more than just the community, as WUFT News proved by combining audio and sometimes videos in its stories. This particularly news organization has its focus on the North Central Florida area, and by covering at a regional level, its content diverges from hard to soft news all the time. Something that I find very valuable are their special reports. The Energy Burden project published by UF students on December last year is a great example of good storytelling mixed with audio and video content created to explore the high GRU prices in the city of Gainesville after Hurricane Irma and its affect in poor areas. There´s always a hyper local news organization that focus on the neighborhoods and people who lives in your community. The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service can be a good example of a hyper news organization, because it brings interesting content about daily life events. The three organizations are transparent with its readers in all publications, raising my trust on their reporters. My name is Giovanna Kubota and I´m a fourth-year journalism major with a minor in international development and humanitarian assistance at the University of Florida. I was born and raised in a small town in São Paulo, Brazil, and since I was a child I have been volunteering to help people in need in small communities. Most of the time I was working with people who had no access to the internet and barely knew about what was going on in the world. I wanted to help them to have access to the news. I wanted them to have a voice.
As I grew up I realized that my passion for writing was getting stronger, as well as my motivation to provide information for those individuals. Before moving to Florida, I have noticed that journalism could give me the power of changing not only someone´s life, but entire communities through reporting and storytelling. Before UF, I was a student in Valencia College, Orlando, where I served as a contributor writer for the Valencia Voice, the college online newspaper. As an international student, I had the opportunity to cover soft news stories on international students´ services in the college, popular courses, and events around the campus. Moving to another country never meant losing contact with Brazil and a year ago I was offered, by the UF Center for Latin American Studies, a role as a English-Portuguese translator for the Brazilian newspaper Achei USA. Though I still have much to learn, I see myself working as a foreign correspondent for my country after graduating. Through multimedia reporting I´m very excited to improve my research skills. I´m new to the Gainesville area and will try hard to do the best journalism I´ve ever done by going out and interviewing the community. I want to learn as much as I can to be able to communicate across international news organizations. News media is extremely important nowadays and everyone deserves to have a decent access to it. I would like to get a sense of the community around me this semester and learn new ways of gathering people´s attention to those who doesn´t have a voice around the world. |
AuthorGiovanna Kubota is a 22-year-old Brazilian pursuing a master's degree in Communication at the University of Central Florida. |