Where'd you get that idea?

I'm teaching two writing courses this semester. Tomorrow, everyone has to pitch me their story ideas that they'll be working on during the semester.  This is the hardest thing for some people. I get the question a lot: "How do I come up with story ideas?"

The gut reaction of any journalist over the age of 40 when he hears that comment is: "Well, if you have to ask, you're in the wrong business." Harsh. But maybe true. If you want to be a writer, you have to have a pocketful of ideas at all times. Where do you start?

Read, read, read. And make it the good stuff. See what others are writing about. Start with The New York Times (which is a daily miracle), every day. The. Whole. Thing.  The news pages fill you in on what's happening. The op-ed pages fill you in on what people think about it. The arts pages fill you in on everything from who's wearing what to the awards shows to what movies stink. I even read the Times sports pages, not because I'm interested in sports, but because I often find pieces like this pricelessly funny story. 

The Times' blogs cover everything from the Hollywood Awards Season to the environment.  College students get a huge discount, all-you-can-eat subscription rate. It's a news and features buffet! So do it. And next time you're researching anything, try TimesTopics instead of Wikipedia.

I also subscribe to The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Fortune, Wired, and I pick up More, Real Simple and Oprah at the library. What's on your reading list? If you wanna write for magazines, you need to know what they're publishing. 

Check in on other sites like the Pew Research Center, which measures trends in different areas like the economy, demographics and how  people use technology. 

See what publications are looking for. If you want to write for magazines, mediabistro.com is invaluable. I pay $50 a year for premium membership, which is totally worth it for their  How To Pitch section. Here's a link to a three-part series on which markets are buying personal essays. Wow. Got any ideas yet? 

Listen, listen, listen. If you're not listening to NPR, you're missing out on one of life's great pleasures and also a way to hear some great journalists working at the top of their game. It's another golden age of radio. Listen to This American Life with Ira Glass. Fresh Air with Terry Gross.  On Point with Tom Ashbrook. What are they talking about? Anything in your universe that fits?

Get super smart in a few areas. I'm encouraging students in my magazine writing class to follow their interests and build their  expertise in those areas. So one person is pursuing food writing--I'm encouraging her to read MFK Fisher, Alice Waters and other food writers, and get up to the library archives, where there are lots of resources on local cookbooks. The student who's interested in climbing and outdoors will dig into the publications who cover those activities and think about stories that will work for those audiences. Often when you start your reporting in one focused area, you come across other stories besides the one you're working on. All of a sudden, you've got a beat for yourself.  

Listen in on other people's conversations, especially when they're complaining. I was walking by two women who were out for a jog on Saturday morning up in Marblehead. They were about my age, and one was complaining to the other about the Facebook Timeline feature. This is about the fifth time I've heard these complains for women in my age cohort, so I'm definitely doing something on this for my fiftyshift blog at boston.com. What's a complaint that you've heard a lot of lately? Oversubscribed Spanish classes? Maybe there's a story there.

Think headline. Sometimes you can sell a story with a good headline. In the course of developing the above idea, I came up with a headline: Does this tech make me look old? Now I have to write the piece, about how and why older people need to freshen up their tech skills regularly, starting with getting rid of that hotmail e-mail account. A good headline needs some action, a noun and a verb. What have you got?

Three makes a trend. See above. Three of anything, from being dumped on Facebook to removing a tattoo might be a trend story. Look around.

Localize a national story. This is easy if you've been reading the news. What's the local impact of changes to student loan regulations? Has President Obama's administration been good for young people or not and how?  Are students engaging with the Republican primary race, and if so, how? If not, why not? 


Explain the unusual. Make sense for the reader of something they don't get.


Explain the usual. The Pulitzer was awarded one year to the journalist who explained how the Hubble Telescope worked.

The current events explainer. I've always thought the Collegian could use a column that explains, in, say 400 words, a current news event or topic using the expertise of any of the great faculty at UMass. Can you explain the current Iran situation for the busy college student? It might be hard, but what a service you'd be providing. And you could syndicate it to other papers.

The private side of a public person.  What does the new president of UMass do in his off hours? Enquiring minds want to know.

The public side of a private person. Who exactly is that dining commons lady who has a smile for everyone every day? How'd she get here? What does she know?

Interview the expert. UMass has a lot of them. Check out the UMass News Office website. Or check the Five College Calendar. Who's going to be speaking? Who's selling a book? Any of these people would probably do an interview with you to get publicity for their appearances.

Think timely and seasonal:  Holidays, seasons, sporting events,  birthdays, bicentennials, anniversaries, all offer story opportunities. You'll need to plan ahead for this one. Are you keeping a calendar?

Use mindmapping techniques to flesh in your idea.  We do a lot of "no-stakes" writing in my magazine writing class, just to get the juices flowing.  There are lots of techniques out there for tapping into the other side of your brain to get yourself going. Here's a link to Writing the Natural Way, which I use in class. Mindmapping is another technique that lets you brainstorm an idea without any structure, judgment or editing, until it works. Here's a fun site to try this. 

Have you got ideas about how to generate ideas? What works for you?

And.....we're off!

The Launchpad class met for its first session this week, and we're off on another five-week session to get 25 students up and running for jobs and internships. If you didn't have time to take this class, here's a post I wrote for boston.com for moms and dads of college seniors. (Although plenty of juniors are taking this class as well!) It offers some of the tips and material we'll be covering in this class.

What time do you get up?

Last semester, Prof. Fox and I were trying to figure out what was going on with enrollments in morning classes when we realized: few students want to take a class that starts before 10 a.m. on Monday.

Or Tuesday, or...well, you know.

It used to be that 8 a.m. classes were no-students-land. But 9 a.m. is the new 8 a.m.

I was stunned to hear people tell me they couldn't make my resume/LinkedIn workshop on a Friday morning at 10 a.m., but they would consider attending if I moved it to 1 p.m.

Oh, wait. Why don't I just come to your apartment and write your resume for you? I'll bring some pizza from Antonio's. What kind do you want? Oh, you don't like Antonio's? Sibie's it is, then!

This semester, I'm overloading my Monday morning class with students, with the knowledge that half of them will drop after the first class.

This doesn't look so good. What happens when you graduate? Most successful people in the real world are up waaaaaaay before 9 a.m.

Looking forward, looking back, at the year in journalism

The Nieman Journalism Lab asks: what's going to happen in journalism in 2012. Many people answer.

Via Dave Beard, here's a link to the Washington Post's collection of the most innovative journalism projects of the year.

I'm putting together the resources for the upcoming fantabulous Journalism Launchpad class--the course that builds internships, jobs and careers. Came across this list of the 2011 Forbes Top 30 entrepreneurs under 30 in the media category. It includes Conor White-Sullivan, who started his own site as a UMass undergrad, and now works for Huffingtonpost.com.  Sometimes the best way to a job is creating your own.

See you next semester. Be ready to rock.

Winter Break Program: Road Trips to the Real World

CT   Thirty organizations are opening their doors to college students in January through a new program offered by Career Services.  Go on employer site visits, where you can LEARN ABOUT CAREERS, make contacts for INTERNSHIPS and JOBS, improve your NETWORKING skills, and meet other college students from across the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic!  Sponsored by EACE, of which UMass Amherst is a member.

Student Registration begins Monday, Nov. 21^st at 9am. FIRST-COME FIRST-SERVE! Limited spots are available, so we recommend students register as soon as possible to the Nov. 21^st date at:http://www.eace.org/committees/roadtrips.html.

ALL MAJORS & CLASS YEARS WELCOME to explore careers in: 
Publishing, Non-Profits, Broadcast Media, Retail, Pharmacy and Healthcare, Insurance, Finance, Accounting, and much more! Site visits last from 2 to 4 hours depending upon the organization. 

THIS YEAR'S SITES INCLUDE: Association of American Publishers 
Kohl's 
Amica Mutual Insurance, Lincoln, RI 
Meditech, Canton, MA 
Aramark, Philadelphia, PA 
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYC 
AXA Advisors, LLC in Columbia, MD 
MOD Worldwide, Philadelphia, PA 
CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, Owings Mills, MD 
National Security Agency, Washington, DC 
Children's Hospital of Boston, MA 
NBC Universal, New York, NY 
City Year Headquarters, Boston, MA 
Philadelphia Zoo, Philadelphia, PA 
City Year Rhode Island, Providence, RI 
PNC Financial Services, Pittsburgh, PA 
City Year New York, NY 
Elko & Associates (Accounting), Media, PA 
City Year New Hampshire 
Prime Rehabilitation Services, Toms River, NJ 
City Year Philadelphia, PA 
Prudential Financial, Dewitt, NY 
City Year Washington, DC 
Smith Micro Software, Pittsburgh, PA 
CVS Caremark, Woonsocket, RI 
State Street Corporation, Boston, MA 
Deloitte, Parsippany, NJ Target, Springfield, PA 
Elko & Associates (Accounting), Media, PA 
Federal Reserve Bank, Baltimore, MD 

COST: 10.00 per site - Students are responsible for their own transportation and for any incidental expenses that are incurred. Site visit times/dates are decided by the organizations.

Contact the UMass Amherst Career Services if you have any questions at 413-545-2224 or www.umass.edu/careers.www.eace.org/committees/roadtrips.html

Adventures in media entrepreneurship

Yikes.

Data journalism: what is is and how you get started

Chris Corso and Nick Canelas have recently taken on the jobs of cqing stats for the Collegian sports section. We've been talking a little bit about how journalists are mapping data and statistics and how the

Poynter resources you should check out

I'm just about to start another section of the First Year Student Seminar, and this year I'm using several online workshops from the Poynter Institute's News University.

If you're a journalism student who wants to learn more about the nuts and bolts of the field, these self-directed workshops, most of which are free and can be completed online in an hour or two, can be very useful.

Here are a few: Five Steps to Multimedia Storytelling,  Build and Engage Local Audiences Online, Telling Stories with Sound.

Or you can browse the entire list here. 

Fashion writers, please read: The tale of the million-dollar blogger

A lot of people want to write about fashion, but I try to steer them away from that, first because: a LOT of people want to write about fashion. Not that it's impossible, but it's a very rough road to travel.

If I can't steer them away, I try to direct them to some of the successful writers out there, like Cathy Horyn of the New York Times. (I'm hoping that while they're reading about Paris Fashion Week, they'll also read the front page and Nick Kristof)  and, of course, Bill Cunningham, the subject of one of the most-fun-to-watch documentaries I've seen in awhile, which you can check out below. Though Cunningham covers all the top shows and parties in New York, he never takes so much as a cup of coffee from the glitterati he covers. Best quote: "If you don't take their money, they can't tell you want to do."

Bill gets a well-earned paycheck from the New York Times. But Scott Schuman may become the first million-dollar blogger, with his fashion blog, The Sartorialist. In this very interesting piece, we learn about the economics of blogging, and what it takes to build a successful career in this competitive field.