Meeting as a News team

One thing that came out of our News team meeting during the Writers’ Workshop was interest in meeting twice a month. I’ve sent out a WhentoMeet to everyone who has taken stories for the News section twice this year. If you plan to start writing for us more and want to join these meetings, let me know. We’ve also got a News Slack channel for quicker collaboration. The purposes of these meetings and the Slack channel are to:

• Share and brainstorm story ideas, angles and developments
• Evaluate our coverage and make plans for bigger projects
• Have someone at every Residence Hall Association and UNITY Roundtable meeting every week
• Share reporting tips and feedback for one another

Looking for another reporter to help cover “The Ones”

Following my article in the TD last week, we’ve begun work on a series of follow-ups that will provide concrete details about the six main initiatives of the “The Ones” campaign. Currently, myself and two other writers are working on this, but we have a need for one or two more writers to help out. Each initiative is at least half of a long story by itself. We’re also going to have several new stories on the budget this week, including a couple that I had previously missed. It’s going to be all hands on deck.

Finding stories everywhere

Drake isn’t a huge place. A story idea might pop up anywhere:

• A professor mentioning a grant they’ve received
• An event, initiative or partnership started by your college or academic program
• One of your friends talking about what they’re doing in a student organization
• Something on campus that makes you ask, ‘Why is that?’
• When a journalism course that gives you an assignment to write an article that could also be a good story for The Times-Delphic

By keeping an eyes and ear out, we can learn about potential stories before they become well-known—or forgotten. Feel free to send your ideas to me or one of the other editors! The more people on the lookout for story ideas in their corners of Drake, the better our coverage can get.

As always, you can reach me at andrew.kennard@drake.edu or write a comment on this post. Let me know what you think of our coverage and what else we should be reporting on.

Writer shoutout

Thanks to Madeleine Leigh for both writing an article about the city council election results and helping cover two initiatives of “The Ones” campaign.