Day 2: Quick pitches and long interviews

I sent five pitches to John for news/opinion pieces. He liked two of them and gave me feedback on why another might not work (too similar to a recent cover story). Not bad going for a rookie.

Three separate people have today reminded me of the importance of the Hook – the newsworthy peg on which the whole story hangs and on which the reader’s attention depends. As an academic, so used to giving lengthy contextualisation of topics, it feels weird to cut straight to the chase, giving the background only if absolutely necessary. The piece I submitted yesterday came back to me with recommendations for brutal editing: the final paragraph was apparently the most interesting so the whole piece had to be reversed and rejigged.

New ideas for today are an opinion piece on attitudes to mixed-level teaching in the UK and the US. The idea came from a friend of mine, so I’ll set up an interview with her, if that’s not too weird. Paul also liked my idea for a piece on blogging academics, so I’ll be spending a lot (more) time in the blogosphere.

I was also sent a paper from a Higher Education journal on the experience of female postgraduates –an issue close to my heart. The paper didn’t really say anything new to me, so I’m creating a piece around the issues common to studying mothers and part-time students in general. Spoke to a very helpful academic in Derby this afternoon who’d researched the part-time student experience, and thank the god of technology, I could actually get some direct quotes this time thanks to a recording device which I’ve now attached to my phone. Transcribing will take a little longer than shorthand, but in the absence of the latter, it’s my only option. Crucially, it will let me actually listen to what I’m being told rather than burning holes in the notepad with illegible scrawl.

Speaking of weirdness of interviewing friends and colleagues, I spoke to an anthropologist today who I got in touch with via personal connections. She gave me lots and lots of detail about her research experiences in Africa. Fascinating stuff, if a little off-topic at times (the scope of relevance becomes much narrower when you only have 350 words to play with). As I was on my bestest most politest behaviour, I felt I couldn’t cut her off, so the interview was about 15 minutes longer than it might have been, but I got plenty of useful stuff, and the Dictaphone together with my timing notes will let me cut straight to the chase when it comes to writing the story.

The pressure barometer in the office noticeably rose as Friday drew to a close and deadlines approached. Most of the pieces are filed to the editor today, meaning that many of the permanent staff had long evenings ahead. The perk of being the new girl..