Slipped my Mind

I was so drained after last week’s GA shift that I completely forgot to blog about it. Which is a huge shame on my part because it was definitely a blog-able experience.

I was assigned a life story on my shift. Some people really don’t like life stories because they care some stigma about being beginner’s journalist busy work. But I think they’re admirable. It’s the last words about someone most likely ever printed. But while admirable, they’re also incredibly intimidating. It is very hard to walk into a story knowing how much rides on you getting it right.

I told the story of Paul Heine on Wednesday. I wish I had the honor of meeting such an amazing man. The story his wife told me was so beautiful that I actually started crying with her. Not a bad thing for a journalist to have emotions however it makes your job quite hard when you can’t speak to your source. 

But the real challenge came when I sat down to write the story. How do you really capture the essence of a person’s life in a story. I had 3 pages of notes and zero idea where I even wanted to start. I got help from my ACE which helped me to produce a decent story. But I’m left with this feeling that I could have done better. I really wanted to honor Paul more fully but I’m still happy with what was written.