At the beginning of the semester I was assigned to regularly report news stories on a particular topic for my Advanced News class at UNC. I chose to write my stories about a quaint little town west of Greeley called Johnstown. To describe Johnstown in a few simple words I would have said that it is, “just a small farm town.” But once I got to know the community, I learned that it was so much more.
The first assignment I received was a day-in-the-life story. I learned that the best way to write this piece was to follow someone for a day. I choose to follow the owner of the local coffee house. Although I had to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at an early hour, the assignment quickly became my favorite.
The owner of the coffee shop knew every person by name, knew what they drank and who their family members were. He quickly made me feel right at home. I learned his mission was to give kids in the community a place to hang out that was drug free where they could jam their favorite music and instruments.
This story alone captures the essence of Johnstown. With that being said, I haven’t been more pleased to do homework and assignments in my entire career as a student.
This class opened my eyes to a wonderful community. It also gave me a longing to improve my news writing and reporting skills. One thing that I could have improved on was generating more ideas. Since I have become so clearly biased about Johnstown, most of my stories profiled community members and organizations. It would be better from a journalist’s perspective if I had more newsworthy stories.
