Do your research

This semester, I'm taking a class where we have to produce a weekly newscast. Two of the stories in the rundown are always same-day reports, where a reporter and photographer team must go out and shoot a quick standup and usually get a soundbite or two. I was assigned to be a photographer to cover a story on the e-memo controversary surrounding the recent UCSU elections.

Because we only have about an hour and a half to set up and conduct interviews (then lug the awful combination of a J-school camera and tripod across campus), we often have to go with the first person who will answer their phone at 9 in the morning. Today, the secretary at the UCSU office set up an interview for us with one of the newly appointed tri-execs of UCSU. Unfortunately for us, the student was a member of the Drive ticket, and the subject of debate in the elections.

Neither the reporter or I quite realized who we were interviewing, which was our biggest mistake in covering the story. When we figured out who our interviewee was after the fact, the reporter said she would have asked much different questions. We're lucky that we didn't get completely biased (or at least in favor of Drive) answers that would have skewed our entire story.

There's no excuse for a journalist to be unprepared going into an interview. A journalist must thoroughly know both sides of a debate...otherwise, they won't exactly be able to convey an accurate and unbiased story.