I love listening to NPR and All Things Considered in particular. I was listening to a story by David Greene called "The Real World: 'We're Not Looking Forward To It.'" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100651923 Greene goes to a cafe in Atlanta and talks to workers and customers in their 20s and early 30s. Each person had a story to tell, but all had one particular concern, jobs. As these young people begin to face reality of the recession they are all concerned about their future.
While I found the story interesting , hence I myself am concerned about my future after college, I wanted to look beyond me and focus on the delivery of the story.
The reason why these stories compel listeners have to do with all the natural sound. You could hear the clicking of plates, the conversations in the background and it reminded me of sitting in a cafe.
Greene used himself in the story quite a bit. Meaning, "I" , "Me" , "We". "As I made my way down I75." "When I came to breakfast." Some may argue he interjects himself too much into the story, but I like it. I think it serves the purpose of making the listener feel like they are on the trip. I understand removing oneself as a journalist from the story, but sometimes putting oneself in there makes it a little more human. Now, for radio I think this works wonderfully. For TV, if it was a documentary, or if explaining something in a live shot or stand up ,sure. Otherwise pictures and video can highlight and explain the situation. Also, Greene gave off a young spirit persona traveling across the country feel. Yes, he is traveling across the country documenting peoples feelings during the first 100 days of President Obama, but this kind of technique I feel reaches out to that younger audience. Hence, he talks to and about young adults , so I find it appropriate that he used this edgy more conversational approach.
We have been taught to compile different versions of our stories when it comes to the Internet component and the actual story. Greene changed a few things here and there on the website, but otherwise the sound-bites were the same. He removed his personal narrations ( the I's and Me's) but otherwise you could follow along with the audio and the text. Despite the similarities, the written version still paints a picture even without the sound. He uses descriptive words and it brings the story alive.
Since I'm on the topic of aliveness, Journalism life is going pretty good. I feel stressed but I think I know how to handle to some degree. I am really enjoying learning! I know the grades can scare people but I have decided to look past those letters and numbers. My issue this week is writing.
My new task in life, getting rid of being verbs. I remember in middle school and high school teachers always took points off or scolded us for using being verbs. Well, same thing in college. Not using being verbs consist of a lot of thinking. As I re-read this blog I accidentally skiped over being verbs because I am (BV) accustomed to using them daily. As I write this sentence my conscious mind tries to reconstruct sentences to avoid being verbs. The challenge requires a lot of patience, because after a while you want to tell everyone to forget it and just want to scream , " is , am , are , was , were , being , been , have , has , do , does , did!" I get it, the English language consist of stronger verbs, but we use being verbs so frequently it becomes a hard habit to stop.
So , here. " I Sophia Beausoleil will ( being verb) try my hardest to quit the use of being verbs in my writing and daily vocabulary. I understand in the long run this challenge can and will enhance my writing, but there is no guarantee that I will stop the use completely."
Hope everyone has a great week!
Cheers,
Sophia Beausoleil
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